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Please pray for me! I am searching for a Phd that is very difficult and in the same time I am facing some health problems… I pray they are not too serious! Please pray that everything will be okay!

Blessed Feast of the Ascension of the Lord!

A quick reminder, starting from today we stop saying the paschal greeting “Christ is Risen”! However, there is also a traditional greeting for Ascension and the 10 days following. 

“Christ Has Ascended! From Earth to Heaven!”

Sin is a blazing fire. The less fuel you give it, the faster it dies down; the more you feed it, the more it burns.

- St. Mark the Ascetic

It is said that we soon grow weary of praying. Wherefore? Because we do not vividly represent to ourselves the Lord, Who is at our right hand. Look at Him unceasingly with the eyes of your heart, and then, even if you stand praying all night you will not grow weary. What do I say – all night? You will be able to stand thus praying two or three nights without growing weary. Remember the Stylites. They stood for many years in a prayerful disposition on pillars or columns and mastered their flesh, which was the same as yours and which was also inclined to slothfulness. And you feel oppressed by a few hours of prayer, even by one hour of prayer.

- St John of Kronstadt

God is perfect, He is faultless. And so, when Divine love becomes manifest in us in the fullness of Grace, we radiate this love — not only on the earth, but throughout the entire universe as well. So God is in us, and He is present everywhere. It is God’s all-encompassing love that manifests itself in us. When this happens, we see no difference between people: everyone is good, everyone is our brother, and we consider ourselves to be the worst of men — servants of every created thing.

- Elder Thaddeus 

O Most Holy Theotokos, full of grace and Most Blessed among women, the Lord is indeed with you, and may He be also with us through you, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen. 

Photo taken by SimplyOrthodox

Why is Saint John the Baptist shown in many icons with wings?

“The life John led in the desert was angelic for two reasons. On the one hand he proclaimed the coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, becoming a herald of God like the angels. On the other, he lived a life of chastity, abstinence, and prayer, not being mindful of material needs, but with his attention fixed firmly to heaven. This is the life of the angels, and why the monastic way of life is sometimes called “angelic”, as well as why St John is the patron of monastics, hermits, and ascetics. For both reasons, it is appropriate to show St John with the spiritual wings of a dove.”

Differences between Greek and Russian Orthodox icons:

1. Russian religious icons are labeled in Church Slavonic, while Greek Orthodox icons employ Greek.

2. Russian icons generally show members of the Holy Family and Saints as narrow-shouldered and long-limbed persons with big eyes, while Greek religious icons usually depict individuals with normal proportions of the body.

3. The Greek style of painting religious icons is more naturalistic.

4. Russian iconographers are draftsmen, while Greeks are color mixers. 

5. Greeks use radiant and bright colors that often contrast sharply, and Russian iconographers usually use pastel colors.

(Source: russianicon.com)

Do not rejoice when others show you kindness and love—consider yourself unworthy of it; but rejoice when an occasion presents itself for you to show love. 

- St. John of Kronstadt

An angel fell from Heaven without any other passion except pride, and so we may ask whether it is possible to ascend to Heaven by humility alone, without any other of the virtues.

- St. John Climacus, Ladder of Divine Ascent, Step 23.12

Orthodox Greece <3

..Okay, but if you loved Him, would you really be in such panic? You love God and you’re panicking? Look, if I take your hand and squeeze it, you’ll feel warmth and say, “Ah, I feel confidence and calmness—someone is holding my hand!” It means people touch you, and you calm down, but God touches you, and where is your peace? Where? Therefore, come on, first let’s calm down.

- Fr. Andrew Konanos on starting a family

(Source: orthognosia.blogspot.com)

Despite that I’m a sinner, I kept asking persistently based on “Ask, and it shall be given you, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you” (Matt. 7:7). This is what I understood in my life: What is impossible with men, is possible with God (Luke 18:27).

- Papa Dimitri Gagastathis

Yesterday I was crucified with Him; today I am glorified with Him. Yesterday I died with Him; today I am made alive with Him. Yesterday I was buried with Him; today I am raised up with Him. Let us offer to Him Who suffered and rose again for us … ourselves, the possession most precious to God and most proper.

Let us become like Christ, since Christ became like us.

-Saint Gregory the Theologian

Having seen the Resurrection of Christ, let us worship the Holy Lord Jesus, the only sinless one. We worship your Cross, O Christ, and we hymn and glorify your holy Resurrection. For you are our God, we know no other but you, we name you by name. Come all the faithful, let us worship the holy Resurrection of Christ; for behold through the Cross, joy has come in all the world. Ever blessing the Lord, we hymn his Resurrection. For having endured the Cross for us, he has destroyed death by death. 

- Anonymous, 5th-6th Century