O God and Lord of the Powers, and Maker of all creation, Who, because of Thy clemency and incomparable mercy, didst send Thine Only-Begotten Son and our Lord Jesus Christ for the salvation of mankind, and with His venerable Cross didst tear asunder the record of our sins, and thereby didst conquer the rulers and powers of darkness; Receive from us sinful people, O merciful Master, these prayers of gratitude and supplication, and deliver us – …

1. I am very grateful to you for the eagerness with which you welcomed my words on prayer, because you have made me happy. Happy is he that speaketh in the ears of those who hearken (Ecclesiasticus 25:9). I am convinced of this, not only by the applause and praise that I received, but also by what I saw you doing. For, as I was exhorting you not to pray against your enemies and telling – …

Excerpt from On the Spirit, Chapter 15 Through the Holy Spirit comes our restoration to paradise, our ascension into the kingdom of heaven, our return to the adoption of sons, our liberty to call God our Father, our being made partakers of the grace of Christ, our being called children of light, our sharing in eternal glory, and, in a word, our being brought into a state of all “fullness of blessing,” (Rom. 15:29) both in this – …

Brethren, how fine a thing it is to move from festival to festival, from prayer to prayer, from holy day to holy day. The time is now at hand when we enter on a new beginning: the proclamation of the blessed Passover, in which the Lord was sacrificed. We feed as on the food of life, we constantly refresh our souls with his precious blood, as from a fountain. Yet we are always thirsting, burning – …

1. We ought to pray, not according to any bodily habit nor with a habit of loud noise nor out of a custom of silence or on bended knees. But we ought soberly to have an attentive mind, waiting expectantly on God until He comes and visits the soul by means of all of its openings and its paths and senses. And so we should be silent when we ought, and to pray with a – …

I. It is the Day of the Resurrection, and my Beginning has good auspices. Let us then keep the Festival with splendor,  and let us embrace one another. Let us say Brethren, even to those who hate us; much more to those who have done or suffered anything out of love for us. Let us forgive all offenses for the Resurrection’s sake: let us give one another pardon, I for the noble tyranny which I – …

If any man be devout and love God, let him enjoy this fair and radiant triumphal feast. If any man be a wise servant, let him rejoicing enter into the joy of his Lord. If any have labored long in fasting, let him now receive his recompense. If any have wrought from the first hour, let him today receive his just reward. If any have come at the third hour, let him with thankfulness keep – …

Come, my beloved, the season calls us to keep the feast. Again, ‘the Sun of Righteousness, causing His divine beams to rise upon us, proclaims beforehand the time of the feast, in which, obeying Him, we ought to celebrate it, lest when the time has passed by, gladness likewise may pass us by. For discerning the time is one of the duties most urgent on us, for the practice of virtue; so that the blessed – …

Let revelry keep away from our rational entertainments, and foolish vigils, too, that revel in intemperance. For revelry is an inebriating pipe, the chain. The passage is obscure. of an amatory bridge, that is, of sorrow. And let love, and intoxication, and senseless passions, be removed from our choir. Burlesque singing is the boon companion of drunkenness. A night spent over drink invites drunkenness, rouses lust, and is audacious in deeds of shame. For if – …

"It is well, my beloved, to proceed from feast to feast; again festal meetings, again holy vigils arouse our minds, and compel our intellect to keep vigil unto contemplation of good things. Let us not fulfill these days like those that mourn, but, by enjoying spiritual food, let us seek to silence our fleshly lusts." These were the words of our great father, St. Athanasius the Apostolic, in his fourth festal message to the Christian – …

The blessed prophet David shows that those who put their trust in God were most courageous when he says, “Act like men and let your hearts be strong, all you who hope in the Lord” (Ps. 31:24, LXX). For those plants which are in pleasure gardens both increase, bloom, and are raised to a great height by abundant streams of waters. And a man’s soul, by the comforts and encouragements of the Holy Spirit, becomes – …

Since, again, some who are reckoned among the orthodox go beyond ‎the pre-arranged plan for the exaltation of the just, and are ignorant of the ‎methods by which they are disciplined beforehand for incorruption, they thus ‎entertain heretical opinions. For the heretics, despising the handiwork of God, ‎and not admitting the salvation of their flesh, while they also treat the promise ‎of God contemptuously, and pass beyond God altogether in the sentiments they ‎form, affirm – …