Saint Ephraim of Nea Makri and the Dying Woman

Abbess Makaria holding an Icon of St. Ephraim

According to the story told by Abbess Makaria, there was a lady, Mrs. V., who offered to do free work at the Monastery, sewing clothes for the children of the institution. One day when Mrs. V. was kneeling and praying to Saint Ephraim, she felt his touch and was filled with fragrance as he passed by her. For quite some time they lost her. She did not come to the Monastery until an acquaintance informed them that she was seriously ill. Abbess Makaria immediately left to visit her, taking with her the Relics of the Saint. The image of the dying woman that she saw left her speechless. She immediately began to pray to the Saint. The dying woman opened her eyes, saw her and said:

"Mother, you have come to me!"

Abbess Makaria placed the Holy Relics on her and continued praying. The lady suddenly came to life, the color returned to her face and asked for food. Talking with the abbess afterwards, she asked her to also bless a grandmother next to her who was blind. With the grace of the Relics of the Saint, the grandmother also had her sight restored.

The Grave of Saint Neilos of Thesprotia

January 2, 2021

By Fr. Elias Makos

The grave of Saint Neilos Erichiotis (1228-1334), whose memory the Church commemorates on January 2, and was the founder and first benefactor of the Monastery of the Dormition of the Theotokos in Giromeri of Thesprotia, and who closed his eyes peacefully and full of days at the age of 106, after first writing his will and appointing his successor, is located a short distance from the Monastery, in a rugged and steep place.

In fact, he had prepared it himself and chose for it to be in a secluded and inaccessible spot, by a stream, as a confession of his complete self-offering to Christ.

And it reminds us that faith in Christ is a continuous sacrifice, an uninterrupted journey towards Golgotha, with the cross on borne of one's shoulder. But the cross is that of Christ and not of course of our own convictions.

Research and excavations are underway, which were delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic, with the aim of finding his remains, 687 years after his repose.

It is expected that after the work is completed, they will come to the surface.*

January: Day 3: Holy Martyr Gordius

January: Day 3:
Holy Martyr Gordius
 
(The Necessity of Confessing the Faith)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. The Holy Martyr Gordius, whose memory is celebrated today, lived in the 3rd century, came from the Cappadocian city of Caesarea and was a centurion in the Roman army. Having resigned from his position as centurion, he labored in the desert. When the Emperor Licinius raised a persecution of Christians, Gordius came to the city at a time when the pagans were celebrating a festival in honor of the god of war, Mars. Appearing at the celebration, he proclaimed that he believed in Christ and despised idols. The governor ordered that the Saint be cruelly tortured. “The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man will do to me!” he said during the torture. Seeing the inflexibility of Saint Gordius, the governor changed his severity to kindness, and with the promise of various rewards he thought to persuade him to renounce Christ. But the Martyr answered: “You cannot give me anything better and dearer than the Kingdom of Heaven.” Then the governor ordered the execution of the Holy Martyr. When they led Saint Gordius to execution, some advised him to renounce Christ, if only in words, "but to remain a believer in his soul." "And what did the Lord say in the Gospel?" the Holy Martyr said in reply: "Whoever denies Me before men, I will also denounce him before My Father in heaven." Having crossed himself, he calmly bowed his head under the executioner's sword.

2025 Pastoral Encyclical for the New Year (Metr. Hierotheos of Nafpaktos)

Pastoral Encyclical

Sacred Metropolis of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou

New Year's Day 2025

Beloved children in the Lord,

A new year of the Lord's goodness has dawned, which is offered to us by the love of God so that we may better live the Christian life, repent and come to know Christ within the space of the Church.

The new year 2025 has a special feature, because it will celebrate the 1,700th anniversary of the convening of the First Ecumenical Synod in Nicaea, Bithynia, in 325 AD, which confronted the heresy of Arius and his followers who maintained that Christ is not God, but the first formed of creation. Thus, the 318 God-bearing Fathers compiled the first articles of faith, the so-called “Symbol of Faith”, well-known as the "Creed" or the “I Believe”, which was supplemented and completed by the Second Ecumenical Synod of the year 381 in Constantinople.

For this anniversary of the 1,700 years since the First Ecumenical Synod, Theological Conferences have been and will be held, and speeches will be given to present its entire theological work.

When Father Lefteris Kapsomenos Met Saint Seraphim of Sarov

Father Lefteris Kapsomenos (1923-1981) of Crete had a spiritual experience with Saint Seraphim of Sarov, without having previously heard anything about him.

One night, the Elder saw in his sleep that he was in a wild and inhospitable landscape, where he was wandering in fear. Suddenly, an immeasurably deep cliff opened up before him, where black, ugly and horrible-looking goats were climbing up and down, watching him mockingly, ready to push him into the abyss. Desperate, he turned around, looking for help.

Saint Telemachus as a Model for our Lives

St. Telemachus (Feast Day - January 1)

By Protopresbyter Fr. George Papavarnavas

Saint Telemachus came from Asia, lived in the late 4th and early 5th centuries AD and was a man completely dedicated to God. He had a brave spirit, spiritual leventia and great love for God and people. He had perfect love, which is expressed as a sacrifice for everyone, even for his enemies, and for this reason he sacrificed himself in order to protect people from being killed unjustly in gladiator combat. Gladiator combat were a barbaric pagan custom that began before the incarnation of the Son and Word of God and continued until the days of the Saint. This, then, his great love for people, and especially for the weak and despised, motivated him to travel to Rome, in order to stop the gladiator combats, which were held in the amphitheaters, and especially in the Colosseum, and many people were unjustly killed, especially young people.

January: Day 2: Teaching 2: Saint Juliana of Lazarevo

 

January: Day 2: Teaching 2:
Saint Juliana of Lazarevo
 
(We Must Visit the Temples of God)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. Saint Juliana, now being commemorated by the Church, came from a wealthy noble family, the Nedyurevs; her father served at the court of Ivan the Terrible (16th century). Left an orphan at the age of six, Juliana lived with her aunt, Natalia Arapova. In her aunt's house, she had to endure many insults. Juliana loved to pray, look after the sick, give alms and do needlework; her cousins ridiculed her pious life, but her aunt did not stop them. No matter how bitter it was for Juliana to live in such a family, she tried to patiently endure insults and honored her aunt as her own mother. When Juliana was 16, she was married to Yuri Osoryin, a wealthy landowner from the village of Lazarevo near Murom. With her hard work and complete obedience, Juliana earned the love of her father-in-law and mother-in-law. She treated her servants meekly and indulgently, did most of the work herself and was even burdened by their services. When her husband had to leave home on business, Juliania secretly spent days and nights working, and gave the money she earned from selling things to the poor or to decorate the temple. During the famine that came to the Murom region, Juliania distributed food to the starving, and when a severe pestilence appeared, she herself looked after the sick, washed the dead and often buried them at her own expense.

January: Day 2: Teaching 1: Saint Sylvester, Pope of Rome

January: Day 2: Teaching 1:
Saint Sylvester, Pope of Rome
 
(The Virtue of Hospitality)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. Saint Sylvester, Pope of Rome, whose memory is celebrated today, lived at the end of the third and the first half of the fourth century A.D. His favorite occupation was to care for weak and tired "wanderers." When the Holy Bishop Timothy arrived in Rome to preach the gospel, Sylvester received him into his home, and when he was tortured and beheaded for his preaching, Saint Sylvester brought the body of the martyr into his house at night and buried it. Here the relics of Saint Timothy remained until they could be transferred to a church, which was later built in their honor by a pious Christian woman.

Saint Sylvester ruled the Roman Church for more than twenty years and died in the year 335 A.D.

January: Day 1: Teaching 5: Saint Basil the Great

January: Day 1: Teaching 5:
Saint Basil the Great
 
(The Imitation of His Life)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. The true follower of Jesus Christ is Saint Basil, Archbishop of Caesarea, whose memory is celebrated on this day. The Holy Church has honored this Saint with the title "the Great" for his holy life, work and teaching. Saint Basil was born in 329 to a noble and pious family, known for their good life and Christian direction in the upbringing of their children. Having loved God, His holy law and the teaching of Christ from early childhood, Saint Basil decided to devote his life to serving the Church. But to fight the pagans and heretics who were then attacking the Church, careful scientific preparation was needed, and so Saint Basil leaves his parents' home and goes to study in distant lands, visits cities famous for their schools and teachers, and diligently studies science, and is extremely careful in choosing friends and becomes friendly only with the later great father of the Church, Saint Gregory the Theologian, whom he loved so much that it seemed that their soul and heart were one. Then he travels through Syria, Palestine and Egypt to get acquainted with the lives of great Christian ascetics. Upon returning to his homeland, Saint Basil himself withdrew into the desert; here, in freedom, he practiced prayer, reading the word of God, contemplation of God and exploits, until the evil attacks of the impious Arians called him to the defense of the Church of Christ, first in the rank of Presbyter, and then Archbishop of Caesarea. When the impious Emperor Valens wanted to forcibly introduce Arianism, which humiliated the dignity of the Son of God and considered Him only one of the most perfect creations of God, Saint Basil, a strict zealot for the purity of Orthodox teaching, was summoned to trial before the proud prefect of the emperor, Modestus. The latter, pointing out to the holy man the agreement of many bishops of the East with the will of the emperor, demanded the same consent from him. "My emperor does not want, and I cannot worship a creature: I myself am God's creation," said Basil. When Modestus, irritated by the intransigence and bold answers of the Saint, asked him: "Are you not afraid of my power?" Basil objected: "What should I be afraid of?" - "I will order your property to be turned over to the treasury, you yourself to be sent into exile, given over to torture, put to death." - "Threaten with something else, if you can: he who has no property cannot even turn anything over - I have only a hair shirt and a few books. I do not consider exile as exile: the whole earth is God's, and I am a stranger and a pilgrim. Death is a blessing for me: it will sooner bring me to God, for Whom I live, serve and for the most part I have already died." The fearlessness of Saint Basil amazed Modestus and Valens, and they left him alone. In the struggle with heretics and pagans, in the oral and written edification of his flock, in works of mercy, in persecutions for the truth, the greater part of the life of the great Saint passed, ending his difficult and fruitful earthly career on the first day of January 379. Saint Basil the Great wrote many famous works and sermons defending and clarifying the truth of the Christian faith, and composed the rite of the Divine Liturgy, which, by the way, is celebrated on the present day of his memory.

January: Day 1: Teaching 3: New Year's Day

January: Day 1: Teaching 3:
New Year's Day
 
(You Need to Value Your Time)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. It is customary to talk about time on New Year's Day. Following the general custom, we will also talk about it. Listen to what the Apostle Paul says about time: "Walk carefully..., redeeming the time, because the days are evil" (Eph. 5:15-16). Strange thing! Is it really necessary to remind man, created in the image and likeness of God (Gen. 1:26), created in Christ Jesus for good works (Eph. 2:10), a little lower than the angels, crowned with glory and honor (Ps. 8:6) - do we still need to remind him, to teach him to redeem time? Although strange, but in fact it is so.

January: Day 1: Teaching 1: Circumcision of the Lord

January: Day 1: Teaching 1:
Circumcision of the Lord
 
(Edifying Lessons From the Feast of the Circumcision of the Lord:
a. The Meaning of the Name Jesus;
b. We Must Perform Spiritual Circumcision on Ourselves)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. Circumcision, this sacred rite of the Old Testament Church, which was a prototype of the Christian Mystery of Holy Baptism (Col. 2:11-12), was performed among the Jews on eight-day-old male infants and served as a sign of entering into the Old Covenant with God from the time of Abraham, the father of the faithful, whom the Lord with all his numerous descendants chose to preserve and spread the Old Covenant (Gen. 17:14; Lev. 12:2-3). The seal of this sign was the name given to the infant at circumcision. Jesus Christ, who came from the tribe of Abraham in the flesh, was also circumcised on this day, the eighth after His birth, and was named Jesus - the name that was foretold to the Most Holy Virgin Mary by the Archangel Gabriel, when he announced to Her the mystery of the incarnation and birth from Her of the Son of God (Luke 1:31; 2:21).