On Holy and Great Wednesday the divine Fathers ordained a commemoration to be kept of the woman who was a harlot and who anointed the Lord with myrrh, inasmuch as this took place a short time before the saving Passion.
As Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, when He was in the house of Simon the leper, a woman came and poured most precious myrrh on the head of Christ and wiped His feet with her hair, rendering Him service at a very great cost to herself. This event is set forth here that, according to the Savior's word, her act of great fervor may be proclaimed to everyone everywhere, and because it occurred a short time before the Passion. What moved her to act thus? She had seen how merciful Christ was and how accessible to all; now, in particular, she saw Him enter the house of a leper, whom the Law deemed unclean and unfit for society. She thought to herself that He would heal the man's leprosy and likewise the illness of her own soul. Thus, while He was seated, she poured on the top of His head a quantity of myrrh, which was worth about "three hundred thirteen denarii in silver coin," that is, sixty assaria, and she wiped His feet with her hair. She placed her head at His feet, showing her zeal for repentance, but the disciples rebuked her, particularly Judas Iscariot. Christ, however, welcomed her, not allowing them to frustrate her good intention. He further mentioned His burial, dissuaded Judas from becoming a traitor, and honored the woman by saying that her good deed would be related everywhere, throughout the whole world.
01.05.2024Read more
Sermon 36. A Sequel: That There Should Be No Wantonness during the Time of the Fast{1}.
1. Last Sunday we said that this was the first work of our faith – to fast most devoutly during the course of these 40 days – and that it was the cause of our salvation if at this time we would devote our attention to abstinence. Therefore, beloved brethren, we ought to consider what kind of fasting this is so as to be aware of how useful it is. For sometimes there exists a useless and empty fast which, although it empties the stomach and all the inner organs of their fulness, is nonetheless unacceptable to God because it does not empty the mind and the inmost senses of the fetters of wickedness. For what use is it to fast in the stomach while acting wantonly at the hunt, to abstain from food while wandering in sin, to subdue the body by not eating while exercising the mind in wickedness, to refrain from strong wine while getting drunk with thoughts of evil, except that it is easier to excuse someone who is full or drunk than someone who is both wicked and fasting? The former occasionally ceases from sinning since, being drunk, he sometimes falls asleep, but the latter does not cease from his error since, practiced in evil deeds and hungry, he is ever watchful. Hence such a fast is empty and useless: this abstention from food weakens the body and does not free the soul from perdition. About this fast the holy prophet, speaking in the person of the Lord, says: Why do you fast for me? I have not chosen such a fast, says the Lord (Isa. 58.5-6).
24.03.2024Read more
Today, brethren, we celebrate the beloved feast day of the Triumph of Orthodoxy. Every year, cathedral churches are over-filled with pious throngs of worshipers, and the most fervent of them, especially in the God-beloved city of Moscow, gather long before Liturgy begins in order to occupy a choice spot, in order to see and hear everything; those who come later can barely enter the church.
This year the Triumph of Orthodoxy is being celebrated in our capital city under two exceptional circumstances. The first one is that this year the Sunday of Orthodoxy is celebrated not where it has been over the course of four and a half centuries, not in the ancient Uspensky Cathedral, but in our new Cathedral of the Nativity of Christ. Of course, this church is four times larger than Uspensky, where the multitude of clergymen are provided with a much grander venue then in the old smaller cathedral. But this is not the reason why the celebration of the Sunday of Orthodoxy was moved to the new cathedral. It was not external accommodation that forced the Church of Moscow to change its ancient tradition, to celebrate Orthodox Christianity before the miraculous relics of great Saints and the miracle-working image of the Mother of God.
24.03.2024Read more
Sermon 35. On the Fast at the Beginning of Quadragesima{1}.
1. The holy Apostle presents testimony from the prophets when he says: At an acceptable time I heard you, and on the day of salvation I helped you (Cor. 6.2; Isa. 49.8). And this follows: Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation (Cor. 6.2). Hence I also testify to you that these are the days of redemption, that this is the time, as it were, of heavenly medicine, when we shall be able to heal every stain of our vices and all the wounds of our sins if we faithfully implore the physician of our souls and do not, as people scarcely worthy of the undertaking, despise His precepts. For a person wearied of his illness has found healing when he very carefully observes his doctor’s orders; but if he does one thing when another is ordered, then the transgressor and not the physician is guilty if the sickness is aggravated. But the physician is the Lord Jesus Christ, who says: I will kill and I will give life (Deut. 32.39){2}. For the Lord kills – in a certain manner – before He gives life. First, by baptism He kills in us murders, adulteries, crimes, and robberies, and with that, by the immortality of eternity, He gives life to us who are like new persons. For we die to our sins through the bath, but we are reborn to life through the Spirit, as the holy Apostle says: For you have died to your sins, and your life is hidden with Christ (Col. 3.3). For in baptism you have been buried with Him in death (Rom. 6.4). Now we have been killed in a certain manner when we cease to be what we have been. By a new kind of piety both death and life are at work in one and the same person, for the lust of sins dies and the order of virtues comes to life. In one and the same person the impious and the adulterer are slain so that one who is merciful and chaste might be reborn; idolatry is destroyed so that religion might be generated; the fornicator and the drunkard are annihilated so that the continent and the sober might come to birth. Thus, therefore, the Lord kills in order to make alive, thus He slays in order to make good, thus He strikes in order to correct. This is, then, the extent of His severity toward His servants – that in them sins be punished, the soul preserved, detestable vices abstained from, and the best virtues nourished. Thus far we notice that, by the Lord’s kind slaying, many have been converted inasmuch as they have made progress to what is better, going from very bad to very good, so that when you see them you would think that they were changed persons, although you would not see that they were changed in appearance. For, to the extent that what we were previously is destroyed, removed, and annihilated in us, let us believe that what we are since then has been born anew. Hence this second birth signifies that the former life has come to an end.
17.03.2024Read more
The Great Fast is preceeded by the Sunday of Forgiveness – the day when we,mutually and sincerely from our hearts, forgive one another's offenses.
To forgive offenses... What can be harder? Yet, at the same time, what can be sweet as this? The root of offences sits deeply in each man's heart.
With pain and over time, we are able to throw off and expel grudges.
But, when you'just master yourself, when you just collect enough strength to tear out and cast aside those things that are so sickly and which deeply sit in one's soul, bright joy at once relieves us of the state of darkness and agitation with the forgiveness of offences and injuries and brings us to the daring possibility to pray to our Father: "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."
Often, in our time, men would talk of paradise and hell with a skeptical smile. Man does not understand that he carries both paradise and hell in his soul, already being on earth.
17.03.2024Read more
Sermon 95. On Zacchaeus{1}.
1. It has been my frequent wish, beloved brethren, to preach on the parable from this section of the Gospel and to speak of the grace of the wealthy Zacchaeus in words of great eloquence and to be abundant in praise of him, since he was free-giving for his own salvation. For who would not praise a person who was able to give his own wealth to himself and to acquire everlasting dominion for himself by owning temporal property?{2} He gave his wealth, I say, to himself, because what we possess is another’s if we do not use it properly for salvation{3}; for whatever seems to be mine will not be mine when I depart from the world if it is kept from being useful to me in the world.
It has been my wish, then, to preach on Zacchaeus’ wealth and grace – that of a rich person, clearly, and of one for ever rich, because he merited to be richer to Christ than to the world, and he was wealthier in the possession of faith than in temporal goods. Zacchaeus must be praised, then, because although the rich are excluded from the glory of the heavenly kingdom (as the Lord says: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 19.24)), he hastened to enter into the kingdom of heaven by means of those very riches and to pass through that strait and narrow needle’s eye with the twisted mass of his body. What is a ruinous hindrance to others was profitable to his salvation.
17.02.2024Read more
1. Before Christ we all shared the same ancestral curse and condemnation poured out on all of us from our single forefather, as if it had sprung from the root of the human race and was the common lot of our nature. Each person’s individual action attracted either reproof or praise from God, but no one could do anything about the shared curse and condemnation, or the evil inheritance that had been passed down to him and through him would pass to his descendants.
2. But Christ came, setting human nature free and changing the common curse into a shared blessing. He took upon Himself our guilty nature from the most pure Virgin and united it, new and unmixed with the old seed, to His divine person. He rendered it guiltless and righteous, so that all His spiritual descendants would remain outside the ancestral curse and condemnation. How so? He shares His grace with each one of us as a person, and each receives forgiveness of his sins from Him. For He did not receive from us a human person, but assumed our human nature and renewed it by uniting it with His own person. His wish was to save us all completely and for our sake He bowed the heavens and came down. When by His deeds, words and sufferings He had pointed out all the ways of salvation, He went up to heaven again, drawing after Him those who trusted in Him. His aim was to grant perfect redemption not just to the nature which He had assumed from us in inseparable union, but to each one of those who believed in Him. This He has done and continues to do, reconciling each of us through Himself to the Father, bringing each one back to obedience and thoroughly healing our disobedience.
15.02.2024Read more
Sermon 65. Given after Epiphany{1}.
1. I believe that my preaching on the holy day of Epiphany reached all of you, brethren, especially you catechumens. In it we spoke to those who assert that water was changed into wine then{2} and also to the many who testily that the Lord was baptized in the Jordan on that day{3}. Although it is believed by different people that only one of these took place, nonetheless I hold that both took place and that one is a sign of the other, for both took place. For when the Lord was baptized He instituted the mystery of washing and also, by contact with the Divinity{4}, changed the human race – brackish water, as it were – into an eternal substance. Likewise, when He turned the jars full of spring water into wine He did both things: He presented something far better to the wedding feast and also showed that, by the washing, the bodies of human beings are to be filled with the substance of the Holy Spirit. The Lord declared this in clearer fashion elsewhere when He said that new wine was to be stored in new skins{5}, for in the newness of the skins the purity of the washing is signified, and in the wine the grace of the Holy Spirit.
2. Therefore it behooved you catechumens to have listened to this quite closely. There is greater need that your understanding, which is now as chilly as water because of ignorance of the Trinity, should become as warm as wine with a knowledge of the mystery, and that the brackish and weak liquid of your souls may be decanted into a precious and strong grace. Thus, instead of wine we may taste what is good and be redolent of what is sweet, and hence we can say, in the words of the Apostle: For we are the good odor of Christ to God (2 Cor. 2.15). For a catechumen is like water, cold and pale, before he is baptized, but a believer is strong and red like wine. A catechumen, I say, is like water, having no taste or smell, valueless, useless, unpleasant to drink, and unable to keep{6}. For just as water spoils and smells when it is kept a long time and has deteriorated within itself, so also a catechumen becomes worthless and goes to ruin when he remains a catechumen a long time, for he deteriorates within himself{7}. As the Lord says: Unless one is born again from water and the Holy Spirit he will not enter into the kingdom of heaven (John 3.5). The one who does not enter into the kingdom, however, necessarily remains in hell. But rightly is the faithful compared to wine, for just as every part of the whole creation goes to ruin as it gets older and only wine improves with age, so, while all are perishing of old age from throughout the human race, only the Christian improves with age. And just as wine acquires a pleasant savor and a sweet odor as its bitterness diminishes from one day to the next, so also the Christian takes upon himself the wisdom{8} of the Divinity and the agreeable aroma of the Trinity as the bitterness of his sins diminishes with the passing of time.
21.01.2024Read more
Sermon 64: On Epiphany{1}.
1. There are very many who, on this holy day of Epiphany, commemorate the marvelous deeds enacted by the Lord at the time when, upon having been importuned at a wedding feast, He changed the substance of water into the appearance of wine and, by His blessing, turned spring water to a better use{2}. The servants who had drawn water from the wells discovered wine in the jugs and, by a profitable loss, what they had filled them with disappeared and they found what had not been there. With this marvelous sign the power of His divinity was made manifest for the first time.
Some, however, refer on this holy day to His having been baptized by John in the Jordan{3}. In the grace of His washing, God the Father was present in voice, and the Holy Spirit came down. Nor is it remarkable if the mystery of the Trinity was not absent at the Lord’s washing, since the sacrament of the Trinity{4} makes our washing complete. For the Lord had to demonstrate first in Himself what He would afterwards demand of the human race, since He accomplished everything not for His own sake but for our salvation. Or did He wish to be baptized on his own account even when He had no sin? As the prophet says: He did no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth (Isa. 53. 9). But [He was baptized]{5} for our sake – we who, subject to punishment because of our many crimes and sins, needed to be cleansed in Christ’s baptism. And therefore the Lord came to the washing not so that He Himself might be purified by the waters but so that the streams of waters might purify us, for He went down into the waters, thereby destroying the sins of all believers. But it was necessary that He who bore the sins of all should destroy the sins of all, as the Evangelist says: This is the lamb of God, this is the one who takes away the sins of the world (John 1.29). In a wonderful way, then, one man goes down into the waters and the salvation of all is restored.
19.01.2024Read more
Saint Amphilochius, Speech on the Eight-Day Circumcision of Our Lord Jesus Christ, with a panegyric, in a few words, for Basil the Great.
The Law is a Shadow
The great Paul declared that the written "Law possesses a shadow of future good things, not the very image itself" (Heb 10:1). For it is just so with painters who have set their sights on the original form and the living shape: first, using black pigment they carefully outline the form of their subject in shadows on the canvas. Then, artfully mixing up different colors, and casting them in shadow and light, they clearly display the original shape through imitation of its form.
So too the Law of the Spirit, just as in living forms and pure objects, envisions the good things prepared in heaven for those who are worthy: now the shadows and types of these things, through Moses and the Old [Testament], were faintly sketched out beforehand. But through Christ and the New [Testament], the teachings of piety and truth, indeed cast to such an extent in very florid and bright colors, have been set before the eyes of those who see the brighter form of celestial and unseen good things. Just as when the form has been arranged in colors, and has received its proper beauty, the shadow which was laid down is hidden and passes away: so now while good things have been hidden in heaven, when later they are revealed, the same image of the things, passing away, will cease to be.
As it is written, “Then the prophecies will pass away, then forms of knowledge will cease: for we know only partially, and we prophesy only partially. But when completion has come, then what is partial will pass away” (1 Cor 13:8-10). So therefore the old things have gone away, while all the new things have come to be; and the shadows and the types have passed away, while the images of things themselves have suddenly become visible through the grace of the Spirit and the apostolic wisdom of God, let us disregard the rest of the legal types, and the shadows: let us have regard instead for the finely etched form of the things itself.
14.01.2024Read more
