Venerable Martyr Eudokia the Samaritan in the Hymnography of the Orthodox Church

By Fr. George Dorbarakis

Saint Eudokia was from Heliopolis of the province of Lebanon in Phoenicia, during the reign of Trajan. At first she lived a dissolute life, attracting many lovers by her beauty and amassing great wealth. Later, however, she came to Christ when she heard a certain monk named Germanos, who preached words of piety and repentance.

She was then baptized by Bishop Theodotos, having been persuaded through divine revelations. For it seemed to her that she had ascended into heaven, as though she had gone out of herself and was being guided by an angel, and that the angels rejoiced over her return; while at the same time a certain dark and terrifying figure roared and cried out that he was being wronged if she were taken away from him.

Eudokia therefore distributed her wealth, gave it to the poor, and entered a monastery. There she lived the ascetic life in a manner pleasing to God, until her former lovers denounced her and brought her before Aurelian, who had then ascended the imperial throne. But when she worked a miracle and raised to life the emperor’s son who had died, she also led the emperor himself to faith in Christ.

After several years she was tried by Diogenes, governor of Heliopolis; yet, having again performed miracles, she was released. Finally, Vincent, who succeeded Diogenes, issued an order, and she was beheaded.

Prologue in Sermons: March 1

Admonition of the Lover of Money

March 1

(Account concerning John, Bishop of Jerusalem, how Epiphanios by wisdom took silver from him and distributed it as alms to the poor and needy.)

By Archpriest Victor Guryev

A lover of money is the same as an idolater, for in both his mind and his heart there is nothing but money, and money becomes his idol. Therefore the Apostle also calls love of money idolatry, saying that covetousness is idolatry (Col. 3:5). This sin is one of the grave sins, and for it the Lord strictly punishes and brings lovers of money to their senses.

Once a certain deacon from Jerusalem came to Saint Epiphanios, Archbishop of Cyprus, and told him about John, Bishop of Jerusalem — that, out of love of money, he stored up wealth and gave no alms to the poor. Hearing this, Epiphanios sent John a letter exhorting him to show mercy to the poor; but John paid no attention to the message.

Discourse on the Miracle of the Holy Great Martyr Theodore on the First Saturday of the Holy Fast (Archbishop Nektarios of Constantinople)

Introduction from Migne in P.G. 39, 1821-1840

Nektarios, by origin a Cilician and by birthplace a native of Tarsus, was by profession a layman and held the rank of senator and praetor of Constantinople (a).

When, in the year 381, the see of Constantinople became vacant through the resignation of Gregory of Nazianzus, Nektarios, being about to return to his homeland, went to Diodorus of Tarsus — who at that time was among the one hundred and fifty Fathers assembled at Constantinople for the appointment of a bishop — in order that, if Diodorus wished to send any letters to his own people, he might entrust them to him for delivery.

Diodorus, whether moved by divine inspiration upon observing the man’s venerable gray hair and outstanding character, or — as Socrates relates — prompted by the circumstances, received him, once he had been brought forward by the people and demanded for the highest priesthood, and successfully labored for his appointment to the see of Constantinople.

At that time Nektarios had not yet even been baptized. He was therefore immediately washed in the divine font, duly initiated into the sacred mysteries, and appointed bishop. This distinguished man held that dignity until about the year 398 (b).

Venerable Basil the Confessor in the Hymnography of the Orthodox Church

By Fr. George Dorbarakis

Venerable Basil lived during the reign of Leo the Iconoclast. He left the world and the things of the world and became a monk. And after first practicing asceticism in a manner pleasing to God, later, when the struggle against the holy icons began, he strongly resisted the iconoclasts. As a result, he was arrested and underwent many punishments, yet he did not yield. On the contrary, he preached the truth unto death, having as his fellow-combatant also the divine Prokopios the Decapolite.

For this reason they tore his entire body and his neck with iron claws and cast him into prison. But it happened that the tyrant died, and thus the Venerable one was set free. And coming out of prison, he continued the same manner of life. He prepared and guided many on the path of virtue and brought back those who had gone astray to the Orthodox faith, until he departed with joy and thanksgiving to God, Whom he had longed for since infancy.

The ascetic tradition of our Church always presents as a way of life something that provokes the reasoning of the worldly man, who does not live in God — even if he is superficially characterized as a Christian: namely, that temperance as a limitation of bodily pleasures constitutes the delight of the believer; poverty as a conscious choice constitutes his wealth; non-possession as the renunciation of owning any material things — especially of interior attachment to them — is his great property; humility is his praise.

And this is due to the fact that the Christian struggles against the central passion of man, self-love (philautia) with all its offshoots: love of pleasure (philedonia), love of money (philargyria), love of glory (philodoxia) — so as to transform it and make it love of God (philothea) and love of mankind (philanthropy). That is, he strikes his passions with the corresponding virtues, so that, by transforming through the grace of God self-love into love of God and love of man, he may find the point of harmony with the grace of God.

We must not forget that what is always sought is God Himself and His grace in the life of man, and the only place where man truly finds God is love. From this perspective we do not find it difficult to understand what we read, for example, in the Gerontikon concerning our saints, who said:

“I go where there is toil, and there I find rest.”

This same understanding we also observe in the ascetic life of Venerable Basil. Our Hymnographer guides us and says:

“Desiring the blessedness of God which is beyond human understanding, O inspired one, you regarded temperance as your delight, poverty as your wealth, non-possession as abundant property, and humility as your glory” (Vespers sticheron).

In other words, no one can truly encounter God, or feel the grace of the Spirit of God actively within him, while the passion of egoism with its consequences remains active within him. From this viewpoint one also understands the blessing of the period of Great Lent, which provides countless opportunities for examining our blameworthy passions and transforming them into divinely-inspired passions — that is, into love toward God and toward one’s fellow man.

The Holy Hymnographer Theophanes, apart of course from the ascetic conduct of Venerable Basil, also emphasizes in several hymns of his Canon the Venerable’s particular contest concerning the holy icons. The era of Venerable Basil chiefly confronted this reality: the Christological heresy of the iconoclasts with the immense warfare they had unleashed against the Orthodox — and there the Venerable one struggled: both through his teaching and through his martyrdom, from which he also received the title of Confessor.

The Hymnographer therefore, considering together Venerable Basil and his disciple Prokopios the Decapolite (27 February), notes something very beautiful regarding their struggle for the holy icons: the Venerables revered the icons because they preserved upright the image of God within their own soul. The honor they rendered to the icons of our Church was thus the continuation of the honor they gave to the image of God within their heart.

And this means: he who has the eyes of his soul open and beholds with reverence his grace-filled self — the one reborn by the grace of God in the Church through holy baptism and the other mysteries — he alone can also stand rightly before the icons, which make perceptible the living presence of Christ, the Theotokos, and the saints within our Church.

Consequently, in the opposite sense: the opponents of the icons, those who claim that they are “idolatrous” things, are precisely those who first of all have demolished within themselves the image of God and the true image of man.

“Having preserved with piety the image within the soul, O venerables, you struggled in martyrdom, reverencing the immaculate image of Christ” (Ode 3).

Saint Theophanes does not spare hymns in order to highlight, as we said, the joint struggle of Venerable Basil together with his disciple, Saint Prokopios. Not one or two, but six hymns within the Canon speak of the disciple — the fellow-athlete, co-struggler, like-minded companion, equal partner of Venerable Basil, Prokopios. For example:

“You obtained, Father, a fellow-athlete and prudent soldier, ever advancing in virtues, with whom, rejoicing, O all-blessed one, you contended in the martyrdom of steadfast struggle” (Ode 1);

“Bearing the name of the heavenly kingdom, you walked the road leading to it, having found Prokopios as one like-minded" - that is, of one soul and one faith (Ode 4).

Why this particular emphasis? Although Saint Theophanes says nothing explicitly about this, he clearly has in mind what the word of God always notes: “A brother helped by a brother is like a fortified city.” For if any stumbling should occur, the other immediately hastens to help. Therefore: “Woe to the one who is alone.”

Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.

 

Prologue in Sermons: February 28

To Avoid Sins, One Must Reflect on Their Consequences

February 28

(From the Lemonarion, the story of the monk Julian, whom an Angel saved from fornication.)

By Archpriest Victor Guryev

Why is it, brethren, that we are so inclined toward sin?

It is because we do not reflect on its consequences. We only wish to taste a little of sin’s sweetness, and about the rest we scarcely think at all.

“Oh well, nothing will happen; everything will pass; God will forgive everything,” we say — and like a foolish fish rushing onto the hook, so we hasten toward sin and fall into the claws of the devil. This is not good.

In order to avoid sin, we must reflect on what consequences will follow if we commit it, and flee from it as from fire.

Timeline: Hell as the Experience of God’s Love

 

 

Timeline: Hell as the Experience of God’s Love

 

Century	Figure	Key Teaching on Hell
2nd c.	Irenaeus of Lyons	Separation from God = death; punishment arises from refusal of Life, not divine cruelty.
2nd–3rd c.	Clement of Alexandria	Punishment is medicinal and corrective; God acts as teacher/physician, not avenger.
3rd c.	Origen of Alexandria	Divine fire is spiritual, exposing sin; souls punish themselves by resisting divine reality.
4th c.	Basil the Great	God remains good; suffering results from human opposition to divine goodness; fire = God revealed.
	Gregory the Theologian	Divine light illuminates saints, burns sinners; God’s presence is the measure of judgment.
	Gregory of Nyssa	The same divine light that glorifies saints torments the unrighteous; suffering comes from resistance to God.
7th c.	Isaac of Nineveh	Explicit: “The punishment of hell is the scourge of God’s love.” God never ceases loving; torment is inability to receive love.
7th–8th c.	Maximus the Confessor	Judgment reveals spiritual state; God’s energies save or burn depending on human disposition.
8th c.	John of Damascus	God’s love remains unchanged; heaven/hell = different reception of divine energies.
14th c.	Gregory Palamas	Theology of uncreated energies: the same divine light is bliss for the purified, fire for the unrepentant.
20th c. (Orthodox)	Vladimir Lossky	Fire of hell = divine love; God’s presence is experienced as bliss or torment depending on spiritual state.
	Georges Florovsky	Judgment reveals spiritual condition; salvation = participation in divine life; God’s love never ceases.
	John Romanides	Heaven and hell = encounter with God’s glory; spiritual illness determines experience.
	Kallistos Ware	Same as Lossky; divine love is joy or torment according to human openness.
20th c. (Catholic)	Hans Urs von Balthasar	God’s love offered to all; hell = self-exclusion from love; suffering arises from refusal of God.
	Karl Rahner	Hell = existential state of final rejection of God; judgment = ratification of human freedom.
	Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI)	Hell = interior isolation; self-imposed inability to receive God’s love; not a place of punitive vengeance.
	Henri de Lubac	Separation from God = tragedy; punishment = consequence of refusal to participate in divine communion.

 

Observations from the Timeline

 

1. Continuity: From Irenaeus → Cappadocians → Isaac → Palamas → modern Orthodox and Catholic theologians.       

 

2. Core Idea: Hell is the experience of divine love or presence, not divine vengeance.      

 

3. Development: Early hints in 2nd–3rd centuries → clearer articulation in 4th–8th centuries → precise synthesis in Palamas → 20th-century revival.     

 

4. Western Convergence: Modern Catholic theologians like Balthasar and Rahner independently rediscovered what the Greek Fathers taught centuries earlier. 

 

 

Loss of Greek Patristic Continuity in the West

 

Everything changes with Augustine of Hippo.

Because of:

• his intellectual brilliance,

• the collapse of the Western Roman Empire,

• and the decline of Greek learning in the Latin West,

Augustine became the primary theological authority for medieval Western Christianity.

His framework emphasized:

• inherited guilt,

• divine justice,

• legal judgment,

• punishment as penalty.

Over centuries, this became the default Christian imagination in Western Europe.

 

After roughly the 6th century:

• fewer Western theologians could read Greek,

• Cappadocian and Eastern texts circulated less,

• theological development relied mainly on Latin sources.

So teachings associated with:

• Basil the Great

• Gregory the Theologian

• Gregory of Nyssa

became comparatively unfamiliar in Western theology.

 

- A "pseudomorphosis" (or "Western Captivity") began in the

17th century where western influences trickled into Orthodox theology.

In the 20th century, both Orthodox and Catholic theologians independently returned to:

• Scripture,

• early patristic sources,

• pre-scholastic theology.
   

Two Parallel renewals occurred:

Orthodox World	Catholic World
Neo-Patristic synthesis	Ressourcement movement
Florovsky, Lossky	de Lubac, Balthasar
Return to Cappadocians & Palamas	Return to early Fathers

 

Both rediscovered older Christian ways of understanding the Judgment.

  

Venerable Father Ephraim of Katounakia in the Hymnography of the Orthodox Church

By Fr. George Dorbarakis

Venerable Ephraim of Katounakia was born in 1912 in Ampelochori of Thebes. His father was named Ioannis Papanikitas and his mother Victoria. The Elder’s secular name was Evangelos. He completed secondary school, yet the grace of God closed before him every path toward worldly advancement.

In Thebes, where his family later moved, Evangelos met his future elders, Ephraim and Nikephoros. Even before becoming a monk his life was already monastic; while still living in the world he struggled spiritually, practicing the Jesus Prayer, prostrations, fasting, and above all obedience. His deeply devout mother was granted assurance from Saint Ephraim the Syrian that her son’s desire to become a monk was also the will of God and that Evangelos would honor the monastic life.

Indeed, on September 14, 1933, Evangelos left the world and came to the desert of Mount Athos, to Katounakia, at the hesychasterion dedicated to Saint Ephraim the Syrian, placing himself in obedience under the Elders Ephraim and Nikephoros. After his trial period he was tonsured a monk of the Small Schema with the name Longinos. Two years later he received the Great Schema from his Elder Nikephoros and was given the name Ephraim. The following year he was ordained a priest.

Confession on Friday of the First Week of Great Lent (St. Sergius Mechev)

Confession on Friday of the First Week of Great Lent 

By Holy Hieromartyr Sergius Mechev

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit!

I think our main misfortune is that we consider confession to be merely an obligation performed once a year. Then we fast, confess, feel relieved — and this divine lightness we wrongly reduce to simple emotional relief, an ordinary human feeling. We feel lighter — and that seems to be enough.

But is repentance given only so that we may feel better?

We must understand that confession is the means given by God for the ordering of our spiritual life — for the transformation of our entire existence. Otherwise repentance becomes fruitless. Repentance is a great mystery, yet we turn it into nothing more than a pleasant emotional experience.

The Holy Fathers teach that true repentance begins from the very moment you have confessed. The priest prays over the penitent that the Lord may grant him the image of repentance:

“Have mercy, O Lord, upon Your servant, and grant him the image of repentance.”

But why do we ask this, if the person has already confessed and repented?

Because from that moment — from confession, the forgiveness of sins, and union with the Holy Body and Blood — repentance in life truly begins. That is real repentance.

Homily on the Fall (Fr. Daniel Sysoev)

Homily on the Fall 

By Fr. Daniel Sysoev

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit!

After the Fall, Adam attempts to deceive God; he desires to become a god himself. When a man begins to sin, it becomes exceedingly difficult for him to stop. Therefore one must never say: “I will sin now and repent later.” For it is by no means certain that repentance will follow. Sin carries a man away, as it carried Adam away.

And do you know how far Adam was carried?

To the very depths of hades itself, where Christ found him after His saving death upon the Cross.

God said to Adam:

“Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree whereof I commanded you that you should not eat?” (Gen. 3:11).

Thus Adam already regards God as an enemy; he is ashamed before God and fears Him. Even now many people perceive God in the same way — as some distant and terrible force: something exists, yet it would be better if that Something remained far away. For men fear God because they do not wish to repent. This disposition comes from that very moment of the Fall.