A Variety of Topics: Saints, Seasons, Society, the Moral Life, plus Travels mostly to Greece, and more, by Father Bill Olnhausen
The Holy Transfiguration, August 6, is one of the Great Feasts of the Church – but I’ll bet if you asked Americans “What is the Transfiguration?”, ninety nine out of a hundred would say “Eh?” Or maybe some might think it was the latest super-hero movie. This is our second forgotten Feast. The first is […]
Read More »Old Testament Saints? Yes! God created saints, holy men and women, long before the coming of Christ, and “martyrs before the Martyrs” as our hymn says. We Orthodox commemorate them. Probably you know the Prophet Elias/Elijah from July 20, since many Orthodox men are named after him. But there are many more, whose wonderful stories […]
Read More »“What a gnawing worm of the soul it is – to envy someone for his virtue or for his happiness; to make others’ good into our own evil; to be tortured by the prosperity of the famous. To the envious, no food brings joy, no drink is cheerful. They are always sighing, groaning, and weeping. […]
Read More »Saint Basil the Great said it well: “There is no other passion engendered in human souls more pernicious than envy. It does less harm to strangers, but is the chief homegrown evil for whomever possesses it. As rust eats away at iron, so envy eats away at the soul in which it lives. Envy is […]
Read More »People had known for years that Paisios was a saint. Here is how the Orthodox system works: Veneration of a holy man or woman grows and grows and sometimes there are miracles, till finally somebody at the top says OK, it’s obvious we’ve got a saint here. So finally on January 13, 2015, Elder Paisios of […]
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