The Olympics of Virtue (On Our Lenten Asceticism)

The Olympics of Virtue  
(On Our Lenten Asceticism)[1]

By Yuri Ruban, 
PhD in History, PhD in Theology  

Time is relentless and swift-flowing. The lazy “Russian frosts” of recent years suddenly awoke by the New Year. The festal days passed in a flash. February snowstorms and the Feast of the Reception of the Lord, which concludes the cycle of Nativity celebrations and commemorations, suddenly marked the always unexpected turn toward spring.

The sequence of preparatory weeks — with their Maslenitsa merriment, yet also the first Lenten hymns that compel one in confusion to fall silent and bow the head — closed with Forgiveness Sunday. Having asked forgiveness from one another, Orthodox Christians become “ascetics.” But can everyone be an ascetic? What is the meaning of asceticism?

In the most general sense, asceticism is a certain system of psycho-physical and spiritual exercises that practically expresses the essence of the religion within which it is formed. Clearly, in countries with a state religion the ascetic tradition exerts enormous influence on the system of personal and social values.

All the Venerables Who Shone in Asceticism: The Hymnography of Cheesfare Saturday

By Fr. George Dorbarakis

“On the same day we commemorate all the venerables, men and women, who shone forth in ascetic struggle.”

Gently and gradually, through the previous feasts, the God-bearing Fathers — after instructing us and preparing us to be ready for the spiritual arena — and after removing us from luxury and excess and setting us on the path of fear of the coming judgment, and likewise through the week of Cheesefare properly pre-cleansing us, wisely placed between them the two fasts, in order little by little to encourage us toward it.

And now they add in the midst all those who lived in holiness with many labors and struggles, men and women, so that through their memory and their contests they may make us stronger for the arena of Great Lent, having their lives as a kind of outline and guide. Thus, with the alliance and assistance of these venerable saints, let us enter into the spiritual contests, reflecting that they too possessed the same human nature as we do.

Just as generals — once the armies are drawn up and standing face to face — exhort their troops with words and examples and with remembrance of men of history who excelled in war and showed courage, so that their own army may advance into battle wholeheartedly strengthened by hope of victory; in the same way now the God-bearing Fathers act with similar wisdom: they encourage men and women toward spiritual struggles by the examples of those who lived holy lives and guide them likewise to enter the arena of fasting.

Venerable Timothy of Symboloi in the Hymnography of the Orthodox Church

By Fr. George Dorbarakis

This blessed one embraced the monastic life from a young age and extinguished the stirrings of the passions through great self-control and fervent prayer. He attained to the heights of dispassion and was shown to be a vessel of the Holy Spirit, remaining a virgin until the end of his life, both in soul and in body. He never wished to look upon the face of a woman. Living in the mountains and wandering in the deserts, he watered his soul with the coolness of tears. For this reason he also received gifts of healings: he cast out demons from people and cured every other disease. Having lived in such a manner, he reached a deep old age and departed to the Lord.

Entirely paradoxical is the life of Saint Timothy according to human reasoning: he lived in the mountains, wandered in the deserts, did not wish to see the face of a woman, and yet he proved to be, as his hymnographer Saint Theophanes notes, “father of orphans, protector of widows, clothing of the naked, food of the hungry.” To pursue God unceasingly by withdrawing from people and yet to become the greatest social benefactor is indeed, at the very least, a paradoxical condition. But Saint Timothy lived what most ascetic saints also lived: the more you turn toward God, the more God turns you toward people. Why? Because “God is love.” And we find Him precisely where He is chiefly manifested: in His creatures made in His image and likeness. As the Lord Himself said in the Parable of the Judgment: “Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.” Therefore the measure of our love for God is revealed by the measure of our love for our fellow human being. And did not the same happen with Saint Anthony? He withdrew from the world for God’s sake, and in the end God led him back to the world. And Saint Seraphim of Sarov: he sought isolation and seclusion, yet the Most Holy Theotokos appeared to him to tell him to go out and help the world. It is also the complaint of Elder Paisios the Athonite: “I came to the Mountain to find quietude, and I entered into the program of people.” But as we have said: the criterion of our faith and of the saints is love. Where there is love, there is God. Can one depart from love, even for reasons of “faith”? He loses God. “God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.”

Prologue in Sermons: February 21

 

Temperance Works Miracles

February 21

(Our Venerable Father Timothy of Symboloi)

By Archpriest Victor Guryev

Temperance works miracles. Thus, in the life of our Venerable Father Timothy of Symboloi it is written that through temperance he subdued the waves of the passions, became dispassionate, and became a dwelling place of the Holy Spirit; preserving virginity both in soul and in body. He received the gift of wonderworking, drove demons from people, and healed every disease. Such miracles temperance accomplished for Timothy and such great benefit it brought him. But here a question naturally arises: what then? Did temperance bring great benefit only to Timothy? And to others? What should we answer to this?

In the book Incorruptible Food it is written, among other things, the following: "Temperance propitiates God and blots out sin. Come now, men of Nineveh, tell what delivered you from the destruction that threatened you — was it not temperance? Come forward, men of Judah with your king Jehoshaphat, tell what freed you from your enemies and appeased the angered God — truly, temperance. Thus Esther, in order to save her people from the death decreed by Haman, practiced abstinence for three days, as it is written: 'Queen Esther fled to the Lord, seized by the struggle of death, and removing her garments of glory she clothed herself in garments of distress and mourning, and instead of costly perfumes and fragrances she covered her head with ashes and filth, and greatly humbled her body, and every place of her adornment and joy she filled with her torn hair' (Esther 4:17).

The Infants of Babylon and the Rock

In Holy Scripture there are many passages difficult to understand, which ill-intentioned people misinterpret and use to criticize the Bible. Yet Scripture was written precisely in this way — to reveal the inclinations of our hearts, to expose a bad disposition, or to reward with its wisdom those who, with a good disposition, seek the true meaning and search within it for the real depth that God hid there for all of us.

A Strange Passage

A strange (at first glance) passage of Holy Scripture is found in Psalm 136 (137):7-9:

“Remember, O Lord, the sons of Edom in the day of Jerusalem, who said: ‘Lay it bare, lay it bare, down to its foundations!’ O daughter of Babylon, wretched one — blessed shall he be who repays you the recompense you have paid us. Blessed shall he be who takes and dashes your infants against the rock.”

The reasonable question arising from this passage is the following:

How is it possible that God praises the one who will smash the infants of Babylon upon the rock? What did the poor infants do?

Various enemies of the truth — neo-pagans and atheists — hastened to use this passage to claim that Holy Scripture supposedly encourages barbarity. In doing so, however, they clearly revealed their bad disposition and received from Scripture the message fitting to their own personality.

As we have said, Scripture is “Jacob’s well,” from which each person draws according to his disposition — good or evil. Let us therefore leave the ill-intentioned to their satisfaction that they supposedly found something evil in the Bible, and let us, as Christians, see what we will draw from this well of truth.

We will present three levels of interpretation of the passage: a historical one, a prophetic one, and a spiritual one. Let each Christian draw according to his needs.

Saint Leo of Catania the Wonderworker in the Hymnography of the Orthodox Church

By Fr. George Dorbarakis

Saint Leo was from Ravenna and was the son of noble parents. Because of the purity of his life and the careful guarding of his thoughts, he passed through all the ranks of the priesthood according to the laws of the Church, and by divine election he was revealed as the head (bishop) of the Metropolis of Catania, which is located in renowned Sicily, where even now fire bursts forth and lava flows from Mount Etna.

Thus he — as his very name suggests — like a lion in faith and like the sun in brilliance, enlightened all, caring for souls, becoming the protector of widows and providing for the poor. For this reason, by his prayer alone he cast down to the ground a statue-idol and saw to the building of a large and beautiful church for the victorious martyr Lucy, while he burned up the magician Heliodoros together with his magical devices.

For when this man appeared publicly among the crowd, performing magic and creating false impressions, the blessed Leo quickly seized him with his hands and bound him with his sacred stole, then ordered that a great fire be lit in the middle of the city. And after exposing all his magical practices, holding him bound by the neck, he entered together with him into the furnace and did not come out until the coward was completely burned to ashes.

This astonished everyone. For not only did the great Leo remain unburned, but the flame did not even touch a single one of his sacred vestments.

When this miracle became known everywhere and even the emperors Leo and Constantine heard it with their own ears, they summoned the Saint to come near them; they touched his feet and begged him to pray for them.

He was not only a great wonderworker during his life, but after his burial he continued to perform miracles.

February: Day 20: Teaching 2: Venerable Bessarion of Egypt

February: Day 20: Teaching 2:
Venerable Bessarion of Egypt
 
(Why Do We Nowadays See So Few Miracles?)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. From his earliest youth, Venerable Bessarion, whose memory is celebrated today, dedicated himself entirely to the service of God. After visiting many great ascetics of the desert, he absorbed their spirit and himself renounced everything worldly; he wandered through mountains and deserts, not only without a permanent shelter, but rarely even staying under another’s roof. He spent days and nights in prayer and was granted by God the gift of great miracle-working.

Once, by prayer and the sign of the cross, he turned bitter sea water into drinkable water to quench the thirst of his disciple who was fainting from dehydration. By prayer the Venerable Bessarion brought down rain during drought, crossed rivers as if upon dry land, and healed the sick.

With extreme strictness toward himself, he was full of leniency toward others. Once, when a monk who had fallen into sin was punished by being forbidden to stand in church together with the brethren, Bessarion left the church along with the condemned monk, saying: “I too am a sinner.”

Prologue in Sermons: February 20

Against Those Who Deny the Snares of Demons

February 20

(From a discourse of the Lemonarion about the warfare of demons with monks.)

By Archpriest Victor Guryev

People of this age often deny the existence of temptations from the devil. They are convinced that the devil has not the slightest influence over them, that he never troubles them, and that one should not believe in the devil’s snares. Are such people right or not? In my opinion, in one sense they are right, but in another — completely wrong. That the devil does not plot against them may indeed be so; but that he no longer wars against anyone is untrue; for there is a particular reason why he does not wage war precisely against them.

Life of Patriarch Sylvester of Alexandria: The Proposal for Canonization

On October 8, 2025, the Holy Synod of the Patriarchate of Alexandria and All Africa resolved to canonize Patriarch Sylvester among the Saints. His memory is celebrated on February 19. Below is the proposal that was submitted for his canonization.

Life of Patriarch Sylvester of Alexandria: The Proposal for Canonization

By Archbishop Makarios of Kenya and Exarch of All East Africa 

Introduction: The Monastic Path to Holiness and the Formation of Future Leaders

When in the past I had the honor of presenting to the Synod the proposal for the canonization of the Patriarchs of Alexandria — Joachim, Meletios, Cyril Loukaris, and Gerasimos Palladas — I did not imagine that today I would stand again before you to propose yet another Saint and Patriarch: Sylvester of Alexandria.

What is remarkable is that, like the others, this Patriarch too was directly connected with the Sacred Monastery of Agarathos, as I describe below — that sacred place which nurtured and produced so many who later shone as bishops and patriarchs of the Church.

The life of the monk, especially in the Orthodox Church, is not merely a personal search for holiness, but a deeply communal and ecclesiastical journey toward it.

Monasteries, as sacred spaces of prayer, asceticism, and communal life, have historically been fertile ground for cultivating not only future bishops and patriarchs but also saints. They are places where the soul is nourished, deeper spiritual realities are revealed, and people are prepared to fulfill their God-given mission within the life of the Church.