Prologue in Sermons: March 19

Against Grudges

March 19

(A Discourse of Anastasios, Abbot of Sinai, "On Not Having Anger")

By Archpriest Victor Guryev

Many people, harboring resentment against their neighbor, pay little attention to the fact that resentment greatly harms the salvation of their soul. While bearing ill will against their brothers, they at the same time pray to God, go to church, receive the Holy Mysteries, give alms, and do other good works — and they think that this is as it should be: that resentment is one thing and good works another, and that one does not interfere with the other. But they are mistaken.

The Lord does not accept even the prayers of those who hold evil in their hearts; He rejects their almsgiving and does not forgive them, until they uproot the evil from their heart and are reconciled with their neighbor. Let us hear how Saint Anastasios, Abbot of Sinai, teaches about this in his discourse "On Not Having Anger."

Homily One for the Sunday of the Veneration of the Cross (St. Sergius Mechev)

Homily One for the Sunday of the Veneration of the Cross 

By Holy Hieromartyr Sergius Mechev

"We venerate Your Cross, O Master, and we glorify Your holy Resurrection."

The Holy Church did not establish the feast of the Honorable and Life-giving Cross in order simply to remind us once again of Christ’s sufferings on the Cross, but, my dear ones, so that on this feast we might have the opportunity to enter more deeply into that greatest sacrifice which the Savior offered for our sins. And if, constantly remembering the Lord’s death on the Cross, today we glorify His Honorable and Life-giving Cross, then perhaps — at least in these holy moments, after we have with such love sung, according to the order of the Church, the Vespers and Matins of this great feast — perhaps, I say, these holy moments will help us, who do not wish to walk His holy path, to penetrate at least somewhat into the mystery of the suffering of Him Who offered the greatest sacrifice, Who was crucified for the sins of people, for their salvation.

Saint Cyril of Jerusalem: Life, Works and Thought (Fr. George Florovsky)

Saint Cyril of Jerusalem

 

By Fr. George Florovsky

 

I. Life.

There is much about Cyril's life which still remains unclear, and even during his lifetime he was regarded with doubt and suspicion. He was born about 315 in Jerusalem or its environs, and it not precisely known when he entered the clergy. By 348 he a deacon and in that year during Lent and on Holy Saturday delivered his famous Catechetical Lectures (divided into the introductory Procatechesis; eighteen Catecheses; and five Mystagogical Catecheses). Sometime between 348 and 351 he be me bishop of Jerusalem. Cyril's elevation was questioned by Jerome and Rufinus, and it has long been the subject of controversy because he was probably consecrated by Acacius of Caesarea and Patrophilus of Scythopolis; that is, by prelates whose orthodoxy was doubtful. In a letter addressed to Pope Damasus Cyril had to prove to the fathers at the council of Constantinople in 382 that his installation was legal and according to canon law (Theodoret, Historia ecclesiastica 5.9).

About 355 Cyril and Acacius quarreled over the precedence and jurisdiction of their respective metropolitanates. They probably disagreed on dogmatic matters as well. Cyril was deposed, and under pressure he withdrew first to Antioch and then to Tarsus. There he became a supporter of the homoiousians and sat with them at the council of Seleucia in 359. The council reinstated him as bishop of Jerusalem, but in the next year he was exiled again and returned only during the reign of Julian in 362. In 367 under Valens he was again forced to leave Jerusalem until 378, and nothing is known of his life during this period. In 381 Cyril participated at the Second Ecumenical Council. He died in 387. These few facts are all that is definitely known about his life.

The difference of opinion regarding Cyril is understandable in of the religious controversies which raged during his life . Cyril supported the anti-Nicene movement, first as a "Eusebian" and then as a "homoiousian," and this would be enough make his orthodoxy questionable. He sided with Meletius in Antioch, which explains why Jerome regarded him with such extreme suspicion. However, the testimony of the fathers at the Council of 382 dispels all doubt: "At various times he greatly struggled against Arianism." Theodoret later refers to him as a "defender of the apostolic faith."

 

Saint Cyril of Jerusalem in the Hymnography of the Orthodox Church

By Fr. George Dorbarakis

Saint Cyril was born of pious parents who professed the right faith, with which he himself was also brought up during the reign of Constantine, (the son of Constantine the Great).

When the Bishop of Jerusalem departed from this life, this blessed man was deemed worthy of the episcopal grace of the city, zealously contending for the apostolic dogmas.

At that time, Akakios, the Bishop of Caesarea in Palestine — who had been condemned by the Synod of Sardica because he would not tolerate confessing that the Son of God is consubstantial with the Father, and who had not accepted his deposition by it but still remained like a tyrant upon his throne — deposed the blessed Cyril from his own throne of Jerusalem and expelled him from it, because he was known to the Arian-minded emperor Constantius and from there derived his authority.

Cyril then went to Tarsus and was with the admirable Silouan. And when indeed a Synod was convened at Seleucia precisely for this reason, Akakios rose up, departed, and hastened to Constantinople. By what he said to the emperor, he provoked him against Cyril, whom he even condemned to exile.

When, therefore, Constantius died and Julian succeeded him in the empire, he, wishing to gain the favor of all the bishops who had been exiled by Constantius, ordered that they return to their Churches. Thus, together with all the others, Saint Cyril also regained his throne. And after he had shepherded well and in a God-pleasing manner the flock entrusted to him by the Church, and left to it as a memorial the Catecheses that bears his name, a little time after his return he reposed in blessedness.

In physical form he was of moderate stature, pale, with abundant hair, with a small nose, with a square face, with straight and even eyebrows, with a beard white, thick, and divided into two, resembling in his whole demeanor a rustic and country man.

Prologue in Sermons: March 18

On Not Judging Monks

March 18

(A Word about Daniel the Monk, who was slandered with adultery.)

By Archpriest Victor Guryev

If the malice of the devil is especially poured out upon anyone, it is upon monks. To be convinced of this, it is enough only to listen to what is said about them. Indeed, in what are they not reproached? What filth is not poured out upon them? What immoral deeds are not attributed to them? Yes, when you listen nowadays to speeches about monks, in most cases you become convinced that here the matter is not of evil men alone, but chiefly of the devil. One man, without the devil, would not invent such blasphemies, such slanders against monks.

What is to be done here?

One of the fathers told about the monk Daniel the Egyptian:

“Once Daniel went out to the marketplace to sell his handiwork. Then a certain young man came up to him and, imploring Daniel, said to him: 'For God’s sake, good monk, come into my house and pray for my wife, that God may loose her barrenness.'

Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus (St. Patrick of Ireland)

The Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus is a forceful denunciation by Saint Patrick of a violent raid carried out by a group of British soldiers led by Coroticus, who killed and enslaved newly baptized Irish Christians. Patrick is deeply grieved that fellow Christians committed such acts, especially against recent converts. He declares the perpetrators excommunicated and no longer part of the Christian community unless they sincerely repent.

Patrick defends the Irish believers, insisting that their baptism makes them fully equal in Christ, despite how others may view them. He condemns the greed and cruelty of selling captives into slavery among pagan peoples (likely the Picts and Scots). Throughout the letter, he urges the soldiers to repent, release the captives, and seek forgiveness. He concludes with a warning that failure to do so will bring divine judgment.

Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus 

By St. Patrick of Ireland

1. I declare that I, Patrick, – an unlearned sinner indeed – have been established a bishop in Ireland. I hold quite certainly that what I am, I have accepted from God. I live as an alien among non-Roman peoples, an exile on account of the love of God – he is my witness that this is so. It is not that I would choose to let anything so blunt and harsh come from my mouth, but I am driven by the zeal for God. And the truth of Christ stimulates me, for love of neighbors and children: for these, I have given up my homeland and my parents, and my very life to death, if I am worthy of that. I live for my God, to teach these peoples, even if I am despised by some.

Saint Alexios the Man of God in the Hymnography of the Orthodox Church

 By Fr. George Dorbarakis

It is not by chance that, while all the saints are saints precisely because they were people of God, the only one who remained in history with this specific appellation is Saint Alexios, the Man of God. The remark of the Holy Hymnographer Joseph is clear: “You alone on earth were called the Man of God” (verse of the Synaxarion). The explanation he gives is convincing: First, because “we have known you to be a man of God not only from your calling but also from your deeds” (sticheron of Vespers). The life of Saint Alexios, according to the Hymnographer, was a continual confirmation of his obedience to the will of God, an embracing of immeasurable poverty, of the narrow and sorrowful way to which the Lord called every believer. For this reason he was filled with virtues, while he was given by God the gift of wonderworking. “You passed along a most narrow way, because from your youth you followed a blameless and holy life” (Ode 1).

March: Day 17: Teaching 2: Venerable Alexios the Man of God

March: Day 17: Teaching 2:
Venerable Alexios the Man of God
 
(Lessons From His Life: 
a. Contempt for Earthly Goods, and 
b. Love For Reading the Gospel)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. You, without doubt, listeners, know how the Venerable Alexios the Man of God lived and was saved. Being the son of rich and noble parents, in the flower of his youth he renounced all worldly joys and pleasures, even the most innocent and sinless; he voluntarily made himself poor, drank, ate, clothed himself as a beggar, lived and associated with beggars, and thus lived for more than 30 years, enduring from all people every kind of insult and offense, mockery and derision, and finding consolation only in the reading of the Holy Gospel.

II. To few people is granted by God the grace of such a life as his; and such people as he, one may say, appear only once in centuries, for our instruction. What can we learn from Alexios the Man of God?

Prologue in Sermons: March 17

 

True Friendship

March 17

(From a Discourse of the Elders)

By Archpriest Victor Guryev

Toward certain people we sometimes feel a special love and enter into a bond of friendship with them. Friendship does not violate the commandment of love toward all without exception. The Lord Jesus Himself loved John, Peter, James, and Lazarus with a special love; and Saint Peter likewise especially loved Saint Mark; while the Apostle Paul loved Saints Timothy and Thekla. Gregory of Nazianzus was a friend of Saint Basil the Great. We need only to be careful in choosing friends and to know how to distinguish true friendship from harmful friendship. The bond of true friendship must consist in mutual encouragement toward progress in faith, piety, love for God, and for one’s neighbor. Christian friends in this case should be like travelers who, walking together along a difficult and slippery road, usually hold on to one another for mutual help and greater safety. A true friend in such a case is an irreplaceable treasure, which all the treasures of the world are not worth.