St Athanasius - On the Incarnation   We may have heard the phrase ‘God became man so that man could become God’, and wondered how such an event could be possible? For how could God, in his omnipotence and perfection, become human like us? And more so, how could we humans, fallen and prone to sin, ever contemplate becoming like God? St Athanasius, a fourth century bishop of Alexandria, penned his treatise ‘On the Incarnation’ to consider this very paradox. According to Athanasius, our fall from paradise left God with a ‘Divine Dilemma’. We were created in the image and [...]

St Nectarios - On the Immortality of the Soul It is a fundamental tenet of our Orthodox Christian worldview that we are created as both body and soul. In fact, this is the great factor that separates man from the rest of creation. Whereas creation was brought into existence by the phrase “Let there be”, it was Man that was formed by the hands of his Divine Creator, and brought to life by God’s divine breath. We received a living body and a living soul by God through this creative act. More than this, we were created “In the image [...]

St John of Kronstadt - A Preparation for Confession St John of Kronstadt was a married Russian Orthodox Christian priest living in the 19th century. Below are some excerpts from a prayer he wrote titled 'A Preparation for Confession'. The complete prayer may be found at http://www.orthodox.net/confess/confmed.html “I, a sinful soul, confess to our Lord God and Savour Jesus Christ, all of my evil acts which I have done, said or thought from baptism even unto this present day. I have sinned before the Lord by ungratefulness for all of God's great and unceasing gifts; His long-suffering and His providence [...]

On the Acquisition of the Holy Spirit In his conversation with Nicholas Motovilov, St Seraphim of Sarov instructs that the aim of the Christian life is to acquire the Holy Spirit. Practising the virtues should not be the goal of our spiritual life; rather the virtues should be the means by which the goal is achieved. He explained this through the parable of the ten virgins, showing that the five foolish virgins had practised the supreme virtue of purity, that is virginity, yet they had no oil in their lamps. In their spiritual ignorance they assumed that Christian duty was [...]

Saint Gregory Palamas on the Resurrection Though man’s salvation was possible for God to accomplish by any means, the Son of God became flesh and was crucified for us because by this method, He was best able to communicate His divine message to our fallen nature. His message was and is that eternal life has been restored by the defeat of death. In his sermon delivered on Holy and Great Saturday, St Gregory Palamas traces the history of man's relationship with God in order to establish the significance of the Resurrection as the event that perfected and restored man's communion [...]