GOD HONORS YOUTH God created man to live in this world forever using his or her complete energy, as if he or she is a youth. I do not believe that it was in the divine plan for man to grow old and die. We can say that He honors youthfulness. The Psalmist offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving to God, saying, "Who satisfies your mouth with good things, so that your youth is renewed like – …

I congratulate you all brothers and sons on Christmas and the new year, may God bring in happy days for all of you, for our beloved country Egypt and for the whole world, praying that the Lord may save the world from the dangers of earthquakes, floods and wars and that He might restore peace and structure to all those devastated regions and lighten the pain of its people those who survived, to expand His – …

St Severus of Antioch is one of the great Fathers of the Oriental Orthodox Churches. In the decades after the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD it was he, more than any other theologian, who expressed most forcefully and clearly the Orthodox Christology of the Oriental Orthodox Churches. He grew up in the confused environment of the Church produced by Chalcedon and intermittently exacerbated by imperial persecution of those who rejected the decisions of that – …

Chapter Ten: The Triumph of the Disciple of an Old Man in the Desert Now there was a certain man whose name was Moses, who was by race an Indian (i.e., an Ethiopian), and his flesh was black, and he was the slave of a man in high authority, and because of his evil deeds and thefts his master drove him out of his house; now it is said that he even went so far – …

“He must increase, but I must decrease.” What is this? He must be exalted, but I must be humbled. How is Jesus to increase? How is God to increase? The perfect does not increase. God neither increases nor decreases. For if He increases, He is not perfect; if He decreases, he is not God. And how can Jesus increase, being God? If to man’s estate, since He deigned to be man and was a child; – …

"Why The Cross?" But if any honest Christian wants to know why He suffered death on the cross and not in some other way, we answer thus: in no other way was it expedient for us, indeed the Lord offered for our sakes the one death that was supremely good. He had come to bear the curse that lay on us; and how could He "become a curse," [Gal. 3:13] otherwise than by accepting the – …

I. BACKGROUND A. The Empire Theodosius the Great died in 395. His two sons replaced him: Arcadius in the East and Honorius in the West. In the West, the Germanic tribes invaded the Western Empire and established a new kingdom. They applied their primitive, barbarian customs instead of the Roman law and most of them were Arians. Emperor Honorius lost his control of the Empire and lived in North Italy. The Visigoths defeated the Roman – …

The Holy Church teaches us that Jesus Christ our Lord, Who gave Himself "for the life of the world" (Jn. 6:51), is the One, Who saved us from eternal death by His crucifixion, trampling death by death. Through His Resurrection, we are given a new life in Him, where sin and death are forever conquered. By the mercy of God, we are brought back to have life in His everlasting Kingdom. But like any form – …

As we celebrate the Feast of Pentecost, we remember the power which the apostles received when the Holy Spirit descended upon them, fulfilling our Lord’s promise to them that, “you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1:8) This power, which the disciples received on the Day of – …

The power of the three Holy Youth is the power, which the Resurrection of our Lord provides to all the Christians. Daniel and the Three Holy Youth were of royal origin. About 600 B.C., Jerusalem was seized by the Babylonian Empire led by Nebuchadnezzar. This king captured Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, and ordered that some of king descendants and the nobles of the kingdom be brought back. He captured the “best”. He was selective – …

He took what was ours to be His very own so that we might have all that was His. “He was rich but he became poor for our sake, so that we might be enriched by His poverty.” (2 Cor. 8:9). When they say that the Logos of God did not become flesh, or rather did not undergo birth from a woman according to the flesh, they bankrupt the economy of salvation. For if He – …

At the end of his life, St. Antony gave two sheepskin coats to his two closest disciples—‎both were bishops and became ‎saints: St. Serapion, the bishop of Thmuis; and St. ‎Athanasius, the Archbishop of ‎Alexandria. This letter is addressed to ‎the disciples of St. Antony and was ‎written immediately after St. Antony’s departure in 356 AD.‎ St. Serapion wrote also four or five other letters to St. Athanasius. ‎1. After the departure of the blessed – …