Desert Wisdom

“Our trust in God is a ceaseless prayer that brings positive results. Despair comes from the Devil. Don’t say, ‘Oh, what has happened to me?’ but give yourself to God totally and hope in Him.”

allaboutmary:

Portaitissa

Monks on Mount Athos carry an icon of Mary known as the Portaitissa, or ‘Gate-keeper’.

The icon is particularly venerated by Orthodox believers in Greece and Russia, where it is known as the Mother of God of Iveron.

Source

When I had once raised my concerns with Father Maximos, he reassured me by saying, ‘The only thing we can be totally certain about is that God will judge us with absolute love and absolute compassion.’

Father Maximos’ solutions, however, did not quench my interest in thinking about such issues.  That evening as I began reading about the work of Saint Gregory of Nyssa, one of the Cappadocian fathers who, along with his brother Saint Basil the Great, played a key role in the formulation of early Christian theology, I came across some material which, to my surprise, related directly to the issues which had preoccupied us that very afternoon…

‘The purpose of human life,’ wrote the author, referring to Saint Gregory’s theology, ‘is the attainment of the absolute good, the attainment of perfection. This is achieved through a long, painful and arduous march which has as a starting point the cultivation of virtue and as an end point the attainment of Theosis… This is the struggle of all human beings, particularly that of ascetics, the true philosophers.’

With great fascination I continued to read further on Saint Gregory’s beliefs concerning Hell, which was perceived by him as a state for the therapy of the soul. I read on: ‘St. Gregory’s thought is based on the conviction of the absolute goodness and love of God…He believes that the torments of hell have as their sole purpose the healing of the soul which means that they are not eternal.’ Here is the answer that I was looking for, I murmured to myself and read further. ‘Therapy is accomplished through fire which is not the fire of the senses but one which is of a mortal nature…After their catharsis the souls then enter into eternity. Some of theme manage to attain their purification during their earthly life while others achieve it during the life to come. Resurrection for Gregory implies our restoration  into our primordial nature state. Human beings, after catharsis and resurrection, will return to God. The endpoint will be like the beginning.’

(…)’At the end even the inventor of evil will be healed in a similar manner. And when everything is restored to its primordial condition, a hymn will be lifted up to God chanted by the entire Creation.’

Saint Gregory’s unconventional notions about Hell and the restoration of the entire Creation did not prevent him from being recognized as a theological leader of the Eastern Church. During the Fifth Ecumenical Council he was declared: Father of Fathers. Yet, the part of Saint Gregory’s theology that referred specifically to the issue of Hell and restoration was put aside and did not become part of the official teachings of the Church, East or West. Instead the vision of the Apocalypse and that of Dante came to dominate the culture of Christendom.

-excerpts from ‘The Mountain of Silence’

[Side note: source of quotations used: Panayiotes Christou, Ellenike Patrologia (Greek Patrology) Vol 4 (Thessaloniki: Kyromanos Publishers. 1989)]

missfolly:

Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem, by American Colony Jerusalem Photo Department, ca. 1936

(via crypte-deactivated20111104)

“…One afternoon something extraordinary happened to him. While praying, he saw Christ in front of him right there in the forest.”

“Was it a mystical vision of the Christ?” I asked.

“No. Elder Paisios insisted that it was Christ Himself who literally appeared in front of him. He had a material body and was seen by the elder with his ordinary vision. It was a living experience, just like the experiences he later had with dead saints. In this manifestation Christ held an opened Gospel and what He said to him was spoken verbatim in the way it was written in the Gospel. Addressing him by his first name Christ told him:

“I am the Resurrection and the Life. Whoever believes in Me will not taste death.”

“This direct experience of the Christ,” Father Maximos continued, “was as far as I know the first entrance of young Paisios into the realm of supernatural revelations and was a turning point on his path toward monasticism.”

- from ‘The Mountain of Silence,’ p.90

(via threegallants-deactivated201106)

“When Constantine the Great, Equal-to-the-Apostles (306-337) ascended the throne (being the first of the Roman Emperors to recognize Christianity), he, together with his pious mother, Queen Helen, decided to restore the city of Jerusalem, and in the place of the suffering and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ to erect a new church, to cleanse all of the places connected with the memory of Jesus from the pagan cult, and again to consecrate all of them. The Orthodox Queen Helen left for Jerusalem with a great quantity of gold, and the Emperor sent a letter to Patriarch Macarius 1 (313-323) in which he asked every kind of aid in the holy task of restoring the Christian holy places.

Having arrived in Jerusalem, the pious Queen destroyed all the idols and cleansed the city of pagan cult objects, consecrating the defiled places. She burned with the desire to raise up the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ; and so she commanded that digging proceed at the place where the Temple of Venus had stood. There the covered Grave of the Lord was discovered, as well as the place of the execution, not far from which were found three crosses and four nails, as well as the sign board which had been nailed over His head.”

-excerpt from ‘The Truths We Hold’