Orthodox Teaching of the Elders

In this enlightening episode, Metropolitan Athanasios of Limassol takes us on a spiritual journey into the profound realm of "Spiritual Tears." Explore the significance and transformative power of tears shed in moments of deep repentance and spiritual awakening. Metropolitan Athanasios offers insights into the cleansing and healing nature of these tears, illuminating their role in the journey towards a more profound connection with God and the pursuit of inner peace. Gain a deeper understanding of how spiritual tears play a vital role in shaping the path of a devout Orthodox Christian, bringing solace and growth to the soul.

Read the full English transcript on our website otelders.org, like us on Facebook at facebook.com/otelders and subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/otelders

It is important to have a good relationship with the Virgin Mary. This relationship will come up at the time of the exit of our soul. The evil spirits will be kept away and the Virgin Mary will enlighten us to fight at that time, so that we might even earn a crown of a martyr.

This English translation of the Sermon of Metropolitan of Morphou Neophytos given during the 4th Salutations Service to the Theotokos on 16.03.2018 in the Holy Monastery of Panagia of Arakas, Cyprus, was recorded for otelders.org, by Peter Eliades.

Read the full English transcript on our website otelders.org, like us on Facebook at facebook.com/otelders and subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/otelders

St. Paisios told me: “Read it, little by little, it is so ‘vitamin-rich’ that you cannot read more than two pages and understand them. Then go back, go back and never say ‘I finished St. Isaac’. The end of the perfects is endless. And Saint Isaac the Syrian is one of the perfects, of the great Saints!”

This English translation of the sermon of Metropolitan Neophytos of Morphou (Astromeritis, Cyprus, September 27th, 2021) was recorded for otelders (Orthodox Teaching of the Elders) by Peter Eliades. 

Read the full English transcript on our website otelders.org, like us on Facebook at facebook.com/otelders and subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/otelders

On the Incarnation – A beautiful and profound sermon on the Nativity of the Lord

This is an English translation of the speech on the Incarnation of Elder Joeseph of Vatopedi, Mount Athos, Greece, narrated in English for otelders.org by Peter Eliades.

Read the full English transcript on our website otelders.org, like us on Facebook at facebook.com/otelders and subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/otelders

Today's Christian Martyrs – A most-beautiful and inspiring lecture about martyrdom in our age 

This is an English translation of the lecture of Archimandrite Aimilianos of Simonopetra (Mount Athos) held in the mid-80s, in Limassol, Cyprus, narrated in English for otelders.org by Peter Eliades.

Remember to visit our website otelders.org, like us on Facebook at facebook.com/otelders and subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/otelders

This English translation of the sermon of Metropolitan Athanasios of Limassol (Cyprus) was recorded for otelders (Orthodox Teaching of the Elders) by Peter Eliades.

Remember to visit our website otelders.org, like us on Facebook at facebook.com/otelders and subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/otelders

Metropolitan Athanasios:

Abba Isaac the Syrian, this great saint of our Church, the hesychast, says that “the key that opens the fountains of the holy mysteries is the grateful heart, the thankful heart". If you achieve in saying “thank you” to God, if you feel the need to thank God for the things He has given you, then know that the Grace will grow inside you. If you do not do this and you are content with what is given to you or somehow you ask for more but without this sense of gratitude then it will take a lot of time until you learn how to rightly assess things and pay thanks to God. [...]

Remember what the martyrs were saying? We thank you Lord that You made us worthy to die for You. They consider their martyrdom as a reason for gratitude. [...]

We cannot understand that we are the ones who are in need of God. God has no needs. Either we go to church or not, either we are saved or not, either we follow Him or not, we do not add something to God neither do we deprive Him of something. God is self-glorified; He has no need for us to glorify Him. It is us who have the need to pray, to study, to run to the church. [...]

As a result, let us all learn how to thank for everything. “Thank You God”, “Thank you God for everything that happens around us, because You are our God, our Father. Because You built this world, the Creation, You created us… for everything we have. When the heart moves in that way of thankfulness, then the struggles become lighter and our trials receive another meaning and our eyes are illuminated and we see our life differently inside the eternal dimension of the Kingdom of God.

This English translation of the sermon of Metropolitan Athanasios of Limassol (Cyprus) was recorded for otelders (Orthodox Teaching of the Elders) by Peter Eliades.

Remember to visit our website otelders.org, like us on Facebook at facebook.com/otelders and subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/otelders

Metropolitan Athanasios:

We are not called to believe in God. This is just the introductory step, we are called to love God. To love someone, I need to see him and not just see him, to talk to Him, to touch Him, to unify with him and become one. So, what Church invites us to do… to love God and unite with God, would be a deceit, a mockery unless we could see God. We can see God! [...]

Who is that naïve, to receive medicines or undergo an operation in order to be healed after death? The same would apply to Church, my brothers and sisters, if she provided us with all that ascetic treatment and instructed us to do everything the Gospel commands only to see that after you die, everything is real. Naivety at the greatest extent! [...]

This English translation of the sermon of Metropolitan Nikolaos of Mesogaia and Lavreotiki (Greece) was recorded for otelders (Orthodox Teaching of the Elders) by Peter Eliades.

Remember to visit our website otelders.org, like us on Facebook at facebook.com/otelders and subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/otelders

Metropolitan Nikolaos:

At some point, St. Paisios says “Guys, I am going to talk straight, spiritual life is easy, 'For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light', says Christ." Then my brother responds but “small is the gate and narrow the road”... “It’s the fats” he replies. “If the fats leave then you become thin and you fit through the narrow road…” And what did he mean by fats? “Egoism, our passions and importantly beware of the egoism of your brain”. This idea that someone has for himself “I can understand everything, I can do everything, I am powerful”, this is a trend of our times.

This English translation of the sermon of Metropolitan Nikolaos of Mesogaia and Lavreotiki (Greece) was recorded for otelders (Orthodox Teaching of the Elders) by Peter Eliades.

Remember to visit our website otelders.org, like us on Facebook at facebook.com/otelders and subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/otelders

This English translation of the sermon of Metropolitan Athanasios of Limassol (Cyprus), delivered on February 4, 2015, was recorded for otelders (Orthodox Teaching of the Elders) by Peter Eliades.

Remember to visit our website otelders.org, like us on Facebook at facebook.com/otelders and subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/otelders.

Metropolitan Athanasios:

We read, listen about God, accept him orthodoxically and we have no doubt in our mind that He, God is indeed the true God which we are taught. But this knowledge is clearly intellectual knowledge, comes from the brain. And, of course, it influences on our mental world when faith is powerful and we practice the works of God. But the true knowledge, the “second faith of theory”, containing the word “theory”—derived from the ancient Greek verb “theoro/θεωρώ” which means “to see”—is this kind of knowledge, this faith which is born not merely out of intellectual knowledge but from the experience of God. 

[…] 

As St. Silouan [the Athonite] said and it is written on his icon and it was the desire of his Soul and he said “Lord, if I could go to the tallest place of earth and shout so that all people can hear me and say how much You Love us, just this”… it was the desire of his heart and afterwards he said “I pray thee, O merciful Lord, for all the peoples of the earth, that they may come to know thee by thy Holy Spirit”. It was his fervent praise and desire that “everyone would come to know the Lord in the Holy Spirit”. You see, he was a hermit, an ascetic monk but the real feeling of the experience of God, turned him immediately “global”, to hug and fit the whole world, the whole Adam and to give birth to the desire so that “all the peoples of the earth would come to know the Lord in the Holy Spirit”.