THE ROLE OF THE CHURCH - THE HEALING OF THE HUMAN SOUL

DARKENING OF THE IMAGE OF GOD IN MAN

By the Grace of God, let us say a few words about the Church, Orthodoxy, and about what the role of the
Church is.

It is wisely said that the role of the Church is to heal us, to make us spiritually healthy. Our Holy (Orthodox)
Fathers say that the first disobedience of man (Adam), ever practiced against God, resulted in the loss of
communion with Him. What happened that particular moment is what we call "darkening of the image of God
in man".

As we all know, the image of Christ is imprinted in our soul. However, this image of Christ is darkened, has
been blackened, "smudged", due to the ancestral sin. And here’s what followed this darkening: the image of
God, we all carry inside of us, is no longer being manifested in our acts in life.

So, now, after the fall (of Adam & Eve) man as a whole is sick, ill, and, unfortunately, "smudged"... from tip to
toe! Every aspect of ours, every element, every deed, every mental or physical energy (thoughts, feelings and
desires), are all sick.

At this point, I will have to call upon your special attention to what I am about to say. What I will say next might
be heard for the very first time, at least for some of you. However, you will see that it is simple, very simple,
indeed.

ESSENCE AND ENERGIES OF GOD AND OF THE HUMAN SOUL

We must clarify, right from the start of this homily, that God has essence (substance) and energies too.
Energies and essence (different from those found in God) are elements of the human soul as well, "the one
created in the image of God" (according to His image).

In more detail:

a. God has Essence, which man cannot know of (neither can he ever know, because God is uncreated, and
man is created), and

b. God has Energies. The energies of God can be shared with us; we are able to partake of them, to
experience them.

The energies of God can be felt by us, but only up to a certain extent. As already mentioned, we can "get
inside" them, partake of them. For example, we can surely experience God's love and justice; we can
experience that God is inexpressible sweetness; His is the Light, the Life, the Resurrection etc.

So, whenever we experience those things, we can understand them a little; not logically (intellectually) but
existentially, provided we love God. Then, due to our love towards God (the divine eros), we partake of them,
we experience them.

One might ask, " And, when do we love God?"

The answer is: "When we adhere to His commandments."

We can find this in the New Testament [John 14:21]:"The one having my commandments, and giving heed to
them, that one is the one loving me."
Our soul has:

a. Essence; which we do not have exact knowledge of, and

b. Energies.

Nevertheless, due to the sickness of our essence (because of our committed sins), the energies produced by
our soul are sick, too!

THE PURPOSE OF THE CHURCH IS THE HEALING OF OUR NOETIC ENERGY

So, what is the purpose of the Church?

The purpose of the Church is to heal our soul and from sickness make it healthy again.

I think, up to this point things are quite simple.

The energy of our soul is called noetic energy. This is the term our Holy Fathers use. When this noetic energy
is (operates) inside our heart, they call it nous (hence, no-etic). When it is (and operates) in our brain, they
called it logic (λογική, reason) or intellect (διάνοια).

Both our nous and our intellect are two different manifestations of the energy of our soul, an energy
expressed each time in a different way, depending on the region it happens to be located. Logic
(reason), which is manifested in the region of the brain, is used by us humans to produce thoughts and
formulate orally and in writing various things conceived and experienced by our nous, who is located, as
already mentioned, in our heart.

I repeat and remind you of the following very important fact: In our fallen state, all these (energies of the soul)
are sick. As long as man is not willing to repent (by the Grace of God) and get healed, as long as we have not
been yet purified, all these are malfunctioning. His image, which is imprinted in our soul, is still blackened,
smudged.

This is what the Church does, She heals our soul (both our nous and our intellect), and, generally, cures our
whole existence.

When our nous is healthy, it operates properly, and, when the noetic energy operates properly in our heart,
our logic (reason) operates properly, too!

WHEN DOES OUR NOUS OPERATE PROPERLY?

Proper functioning of our nous is when we are in communion with God, praying, “staring” at Him. Functioning
this way, our nous has Light, receives the Light of God...

The Light we lost when we (Adam & Eve) disobeyed, we can regain, by the grace of God, by living a proper
spiritual life within the Orthodox Church, in repentance, in ceaseless prayer, ascetically and participating in
Her Mysteries (Sacraments).

Our Holy Fathers say: "Before their disobedience, Adam and Eve were in a state of constant communion with
God. The Holy Spirit, Who was with them, illumined them. (Read more about the human nous, our noetic
energy and our heart in the Appendix at the end of this book).

THE BREATH OF LIFE: THE HOLY SPIRIT

The First-Created acquired the Holy Spirit from the moment they received the "breath" of God. I am sure you
remember from the Old Testament, where it says that God breathed into their faces "breath of Life". This
breath of Life is not the soul, as some people think, but it is the Holy Spirit, which was given to man by God
after giving them their body and soul. It was the Holy Spirit, which connected and kept them in constant
communion with God.

THE DISOBEDIENCE OF THE FIRST-CREATED AND THE INCARNATION OF OUR LORD JESUS
CHRIST

The first Church is the Holy Trinity; it is God Himself, Who is One, but, at the same time, also three separate
Persons, discernible from one another.

Exactly there, right into this very first Church had God put Adam and Eve. This is how much He loved us!
However, from the very moment we disobeyed against God, the Holy Spirit went away; we lost It. From that
moment on we lost our communion with God, our communion with the Holy Trinity, and we got out of this First
Church.

Nevertheless, God did not abandon us in our solitude. He did send His Son, in order to connect us with
Himself again. This is the reason why God became man: in order to restore the Holy Spirit inside of us, to
bring us again in communion with Him, and make us members of the First Church again, members of the
Church of the Holy Trinity.

So, the Son and Word of God, one of the Three Persons, comes and takes on our nature (essence) and again
(He in Himself) connects the created with the uncreated, connects man, who is a creature (this is what created
means), with God, Who is the only uncreated One (since nobody created God). So, from now on, when
somebody connects with Him, he/she becomes a member of the first Church, of this very Church Adam and
Eve fell off.

THE NOUS OF ADAM WAS DARKENED

So, after the fall of the First-Created, man is in a state of sickness. When we say sick, we mean our soul is
sick, and, when we say our soul is sick, we mean that our nous and our reason (logic, intellect) are sick; they
are darkened, according to our Holy Fathers. This is why they talk to us about the fall of man and emphasize
that during this fall, their nous got darkened.

"Adam's nous got darkened", this is the disease of the human nature, and all of us humans got it with no
exception.

“ALL OF US NEED TO BE HEALED” - PURIFICATION FROM OUR SINFUL PASSIONS AND

ILLUMINATION.

All humans need to be cured. Our nous needs to be "purified" and "illumined" by the Holy Spirit. These are the
first two stages of spiritual life, which our Holy Fathers spoke of: κάθαρσις (purification) and φωτισμός
(illumination).

Now, what should our nous be purified from?

According to our Fathers, our nous must be purified from our sinful passions.

SINFUL PASSIONS

What are the sinful passions, after all?

They are sins, e.g. acts of disobedience against God, many times repeated! This is how we gradually let
something become a bad habitude, a bad habit, and then we commit any particular sin very easily. We then
acquire, as we say, the passion that is connected with this sin (hence the expression: sinful passion).

For example, if we do not control the way we eat, both in terms of quantity and quality, in other words, if we
have no self-discipline and do not abstain either from eating more or from eating a necessarily tasty food, we
gradually either acquire the passion of gluttony and become gluttonous (a belly-worshiper) or we acquire the
passion of lickerishness and become worshipers of the palate, or even both. Consequently, these two sinful
passions have been grown inside us, because we did not control this particular sin right from the start. In other
words, we did not give in only once, but twice, thrice etc. and, finally, we became a belly-worshiper,
gluttonous, lickerish. In this case, we talk about an established (sinful) passion or habit. This passion did not
always exist. It started out with individual acts of giving in to sin. We ate without needing to eat; in fact, we ate
more than we should, etc. etc. and finally became lickerish and gluttonous.

These are the sinful passions we should be purified from, according to our Holy Fathers.

But, one might ask “Is eating really a sin?

No, it is not a sin. It becomes a sin though, as soon as we over-satisfy this need (the need for food to survive),
as soon as we satisfy it more than necessary.

Hunger, a blameless (innocent) passion, can indeed become blamable (guilty), when we over-satisfy it, when
we satisfy it more than our physical needs suggest.

OUR MENTAL ILLNESS

Man has a sick soul and various sinful passions. So, based on this fact, we could say that man is literally a
"psychopath" (psycho- is a prefix meaning of the soul, and -path comes from the Greek word pathos =
passion).

So, man is a psychopath, not in terms of psychiatry, but in terms of our Patristic Tradition. We do not need to
be, let's say, a schizophrenic, in order to be a psychopath. However, in terms of Orthodox Patristics,
psychopathy (mental-psychic illness) exists in a person whose soul does not function properly. This person's
soul-energy, the noetic energy, according to our Holy Fathers, does not function properly!

So, when our noetic energy does not function properly (and this counts for all of us, as long as we have not
been healed yet inside this very hospital, called Church), we are a psychopath. Then, our nous is full of
logismoí (thoughts combined with images), and this actually justifies our "filth". Concluding, according to our
Holy Fathers, the nous of a psychopath or a sinfully impassioned person is filthy.

What determines our psychic illness is the following condition: our nous is full of logismoí, thoughts, not only
bad, but also good ones! Do you remember what we said our nous is in the beginning?

It is the noetic energy inside of every human heart.

Normally, inside the region of our heart there is no other thought, there is no other logismós allowed, than
Christ. Our noetic energy should communicate with God, and this communion is to be established by the
ceaseless prayer (εὑχή, efkhí).

So, when we have other thoughts inside our heart, our noetic energy is malfunctioning, is "confused". There is
kind of a closed circuit between our nous and our intellect (diánoia). Thoughts, which should be confined in
our intellect, take the wrong way and descent into our heart, and take the place that belongs exclusively to
God. All of us have this "confusion" as long as we remain uncured.

This is actually the reason why we (most of us) cannot make a proper, a "pure", a heartfelt prayer. There are
"things" that should have never had any place in our heart! Various thoughts came down from the brain into
our heart, and these logismoí are connected to various desires, and became impassioned. Normally, all of
them logismoí should have just stayed in our intellect, in our brain. Unfortunately, because of our
carelessness, they came down and contaminated our heart..., and I repeat: be them bad or good ones!

So, anybody having good or bad logismoí in his heart, from a Patristic point of view, this person is a
psychopath... I repeat: from a Patristic perspective; do not get confused with the psychiatric terminology.
"Be them ethical, even extremely ethical, or unethical or anything else... they are foreign body, so to say,
inside our heart" (excerpt from the book by Fr. Ioannis Romanides Patristic Theology, Parakatathiki Editions,
Thessaloniki, 2004, p. 23 of the Greek publication).

Conclusion: According to the Holy Fathers of our Orthodox Church, a psychopath is considered anyone who
has not cleansed his soul from the sinful passions and has not reached the state of illumination yet (always by
the Grace of the Holy Spirit).

For a psychiatrist, though, a psychopath is something else; it is the person who suffers from psychosis, a
schizophrenic. For Orthodoxy, on the contrary, those of us who have not purified our soul from its sinful
passions (have not started at least the process of kátharsis through repentance) and have not reached
illumination yet, are, in fact, simply not "normal".

Who is spiritually healthy?

So, who's "normal" from an Orthodox perspective?

"If you want to see this clearly, read the divine service of the Holy Baptism, and the divine service of Holy
Chrism held in the Patriarchate of Constantinople on Holy Thursday, or read the service for the consecration
of Church sanctuaries. There we will see what it means to be a 'Temple of the Holy Spirit'. There we will see
who is illumined." We actually say something like that sometimes in common language usage: "This is a bright
young man", for example.

The question is: Who is really bright, illumined, after all?

Only our Liturgical Tradition can lead us to the answer of this question and make us really understand. The
Church (the Orthodox is always considered as such) has no ideas, but possesses a therapeutic method,
offers a medical treatment. And, when someone becomes healthy, his/her healthy state is observable by a
number of specific things and points. The same is obvious on a sick person, too.

The spiritually healthy person is the one who is illumined, the one who has become a Temple of the Holy
Spirit. A cured and spiritual person has the ability to discern who is healthy and who is ill, by just looking at the
other people.

Our way to Purification (kátharsis), Illumination (photismós), and Deification (théosis)

What does it mean to be a Temple of the Holy Spirit?

Let us take a look at this state right now. When a person is a Temple of the Holy Spirit, the following takes
place: The Holy Spirit is in this person's heart, and prays to God, communes with God! This is the restoration
of the old Adam (before the ancestral sin) in this person. Because this is how Adam was before his fall; he
had the Holy Spirit and was in constant communion with God.

Now, this takes place again in our Church, in all those who want and proceed with their purification and
illumination, by the Grace of God.

Through purification, when we get rid of all our logismoí (as mentioned earlier), we create the proper
conditions to host the Parakletos (Comforter), the Holy Spirit, in our very being. The Holy Spirit comes and
dwells inside us. What actually happens is what Christ said to us [John 14:23]: "...and we (Him and His
Father) will come unto him (us) and make our abode with him us)", and that's when man becomes a temple of
the Holy Spirit. When we go through this process, and get purified, make our heart free from thoughts (both
bad and good), then we allow for the Holy Spirit (who wants to be united and longs for this sacred union) to be
reactivated inside us and do the praying.

Hence, what we call a prayer, noetic prayer, is not what WE do, but what the Holy Spirit does, when it is being
activated. Until then, what WE do is just incomplete; it is simply an effort of ours preparing our union with God.
However, in order for this bridging, in order for this union of man with God to take place, it is God Himself Who
must come and make it happen.

Our ceaseless prayer begins with our mouth: "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me". Then our intellect takes
this prayer and brings it down to our heart. Slowly but steady, when this monológistos (consisting of one
logismós) prayer, Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, grows old inside our heart, when we repeatedly call
upon his Devine Name, we drive away all our logismoí. This is the way to achieve this.

How do we get purified and illumined?

You might ask: "Very well, Father! How do we achieve this purification? How do we drive all these logismoí
away, now that they have entered our heart?"

By doing exactly that: ceaselessly calling upon the Divine Name inside our heart.

Of course, not only by that, but also along with the whole ascetic and therapeutic treatment "prescribed" by
our Church, which includes: repentance (metanoia), fasting, wakefulness during the night (vigil), liturgical life
(attending the Church services and, above all, the Divine Liturgy, partaking of the Holy Communion), and by
maintaining the right dogmatic conscience (having the right belief and phronema, being orthodox).

For example, we cannot be a heretic (frequently called heterodox) and deliver a proper and fruitful noetic
prayer. If we do not keep the right beliefs about God, about the Holy Trinity, about Christ, we do nothing. An
unbaptized or uninitiated, who deviated from the Orthodox Christian faith, may pray noetically as much as
he/she wants; they will achieve nothing.

All these (the ascetic-therapeutic treatment of our Holy Church, combined with the right faith and our
participation in the Holy Mysteries (sacraments)) lead to our purification from our sinful passions and the
logismoí we have.

So, when our prayer descents into our heart, drives away all our logismoí, our heart is left pure, and hence the
Holy Spirit enters. Then we experience the illumination, the second stage of our spiritual life, and this is when
man becomes "a temple of the Holy Spirit".

The prayers of our Church talk about purification and illumination

All Church services, as well as Her ascetic-hesychastic tradition, usually refer to three spiritual states we can
find ourselves in (two of them are already mentioned earlier):

 1st spiritual state: purification from the sinful passions of our soul and our body
 2nd spiritual state: illumination of our nous by the Grace of the Holy Spirit
 3rd spiritual state: deification (théosis) of our soul and body, again by the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Fathers of our Church mainly talk about purification and illumination.

The Church services are expressions of the logic worship, meaning the act of worshiping God using our
reason (diánoia, brains, intellect) and not our heart. What we do with our heart cannot be heard; the prayer of
the heart is mystical (secret). During our church services, we utter, read, and chant; we actually use our
reason to deliver our prayers and speak them out loud, so anybody else can hear them. This prayer is called
logic prayer. This is the logikí latreía (logic worship), prayers written down by our Holy Fathers, which talk
mainly about these two stages: purification and illumination.

Illumination

The stages of purification and illumination are being offered by God free of charge to all of those who want.
He does not discriminate against anybody. If we really want, we can pass through the first and reach the
second stage. All what's needed is our honest repentance and our will to start trying to purify our soul, our
nous, our heart, cooperating with the Grace of the Holy Spirit. As soon as we do that, we are definitely going
to get to the state of illumination.

Illumination is nothing else but what we call "pre-tasting of Paradise"; a person in this state feels he/she is
already in Paradise, right now, because the Church is actually "the Paradise on earth". Once illumined, we
can feel already being in Paradise, because the Church is truly the "Paradise on earth". A real member of the
Church is the one who lives already in Paradise now, at the present; it is the person who has reached the
state of illumination and hence became a temple of the Holy Spirit!

Concluding, who is after all to be considered a "normal" Orthodox believer?

Is it necessarily anyone who is baptized, but has not yet been purified? Obviously not.

Is it maybe the one who is already purified and illumined? Yes, indeed!

Why is it necessary for an already baptized person to be purified again?

Well, it is not enough to be baptized; we have to undergo what we call kátharsis (purification).

Why? might somebody ask. Is not the Mystery of Baptism enough by itself to enable someone to be purified?

Yes, indeed! However, right after this sacrament, we voluntarily repeat Adam's act of disobedience, and not
once, but many times, again and again.

Someone could easily wonder "How does sin enter our very being? We were only infants when we were
baptized."

Look, in the beginning, the ones that inflate the sinful passions in us are our very parents and our closest
relatives! They are initially the ones who inspire in us vanity, sensuality, greediness, and pride. From then on,
we cooperate, and thus we allow for the debris of the sins and the sinful passions to get into us. A wrong
education leads to the production of sick human beings. The ignorance of the parents regarding the
upbringing of their children bears painful results, indeed, to all of us, to their children, to the parents
themselves and our society.

With all of these repeated "bravo" (to the children), the instant satisfaction of all of our weird desires, the many
mollycoddlings and the beautifications from our "good" parents, they actually vaccine us with and nurture the
two biggest giants of sinful passions: vanity and egoism (pride, egotism).

This is how our nous gets gradually contaminated, because of all the passions that grow in us, and, as a result
of that, we lose or, better said, we "deactivate" the Holy Spirit we had received with our Baptism (by the Holy
Mysteries of Holy Baptism and Holy Chrismation). So, it is necessary for us to repeat this cleansing... but this
time through our sincere repentance, our tears, and our confession.

The "normal" Orthodox and the rest of the Orthodox faithful?

Well, what is now the difference between the "normal" Orthodox (the purified ones) and the rest of the
Orthodox faithful? Do they differ in the dogma (doctrine)? Of course not, because all of us Orthodox generally
believe in the same dogmas; we all know that be believe in the right way. We have our creed, and we truly
recite it correctly (with no alterations, additions or subtractions). Needless to say, it counts only for those who
know it.

Suppose now, we are in a church, 300 Orthodox people, and we participate in the Divine Liturgy. Out of these
300, let us suppose only five are in a state of illumination. They have gone through the purification process,
cooperating with the Divine Grace, and have been illumined by the Holy Spirit; just five of them! The rest, in
our hypothesis, are not illumined. They actually have no idea about what purification is, as is usually the
case...
So, the question is: Among these 300 Orthodox, how many are the "normal" ones?

Unfortunately, “normal” are only those five mentioned above. It is tough to admit, but it is the bitter truth! And,
if we consider how many of all Greek Orthodox go to church every Sunday, we will figure out it is a mere 3%.
Out of this 3%, how many know what it means to be purified from the passions, so they can get into this
process? And how many of them have been successfully purified, in order to be "normal" after all.

Do you see?... Going to church or acting orthodox (rituals) is not the only important thing. For example, many
of us think it is enough and we are OK, when we light up a candle and regularly call a priest for the Unction or
the Holy Water Service. We may probably attend spiritual homilies (sermons) and even let our children
regularly attend Sunday school. All these are religious activities, but, if we do not purify ourselves from our
sinful passions and reach the state of illumination, we are actually not "normal", we cannot be considered true
members of the Church.

Purification and illumination are in fact specific conditions we can find ourselves in and can be easily
recognized by experienced and illumined spiritual Fathers. There are truly certain criteria, according to which
we can verify a person's mental health and its degree of restoration. Orthodoxy is a medical science. The
Church is the only medical praxis of the human soul and has doctors: the spiritual Fathers and a head-
Physician, Himself our Lord Jesus Christ!

In the Church we talk about realities, not about ideas and philosophical theories. Since the nous is a natural
organ of a human being, of every human being here on earth, not only of the Greeks or the Orthodox, but also
of the Muslims and the Buddhists and all people around the Globe, it is most evident that all of us have the
same need for purification and illumination. And this, because all people's nous is darkened.

Orthodoxy accepts (for treatment) all people who want to be healed, without forcing them to do so.

Orthodoxy embraces all people, because it is not a religion. The Orthodox faith is a therapy, is a therapeutic
method, she is a "doctor's office". When we go to the doctor, he doesn't ask if we are Greeks, so he can take
us in for treatment, and if we are not, to send us away. If doctors were as they are supposed to be, the would
heal us all with no exception.

So is the Church; She does not belong to a state or a nation. This is why we do not say "The Church of the
Greeks", but "The Church of Greece". And who does the Church of Greece include? Who does She care for?
Only for the Greeks? Definitely not, but cares for all of them living in Greece right now. Be them Albanians,
Taiwanese, be them from New Delhi or elsewhere, the Church embraces them all. If all those aforementioned
people go to this "doctor's office" (the Church), She will heal them, She will receive them, because their nous
is sick, and the Church is here to heal the whole world.

We also say: "The Archbishop of Athens" and not "The Archbishop of the Athenians", because we refer to all
those living in Athens right now, and all of them are under the Archbishop's love and care, they are in his
pastoral interest. The Church embraces them all.

As we see, the Church is the unity of all, and the Church (according to our late reposed Saint Porphyrios)
includes all of us (orthodox faithful). We are all "potentially" (δυνάμει) Church-members; I wish all of us
become active (ἐνεργείᾳ) members too, which means we should all (the whole world), in our own free will, get
into the Church.

Christ does not force anybody to be healed. He is very "democratic", in a sense, more "democratic" than we
can ever conceive. He receives anybody willing to come closer to Him, but, for a therapy, He leads nobody by
force.

Only the Orthodox Church cures the human soul

The therapeutic treatment is one and only. There are not many therapies for the human nous out there; only
one: the very therapy offered by the Orthodox Church! There are 120 so-called therapies that get around in
this world and are being offered by those so-called psychiatrists and psychologists (excuse me; this is an
expression by St. Porphyrios), at least here in Greece.

Yes, you heard right: 120 different "psychotherapies" circulate today here in Greece! This fact is just enough
for somebody to figure out that there is no therapy at all to be found in those systems and "psychiatric stores",
because, if there had been one, there would not have been necessarily 120 methods offered out there! It
would have been only one and sufficient. Wherever we see many drugs and many methods, allegedly curing
the same disease, it means we have no effective therapy in our hands, it means we actually do not know the
right treatment.

The so-called psychiatrists and psychotherapists-psychologists do not even know what our soul is.

I would have to admit that their ignorance on how to cure the human soul is absolutely justifiable, because
they absolutely have no idea about the human soul. Only our Church knows. Only our Holy Fathers know
what our soul is, and this only as much as our All-wise God allows them to.

Our so-called worldly psychiatrists never talk and do not know anything about the purification of our nous. We
can find this out very easily, if we study the "psychotherapies" of today. Not to mention, even the term
"psychotherapy", the way it is used by most of the people today, is in fact wrong; it is a ridiculous term for the
meaning of the real healing of the soul. The same counts for psychiatry and psychology; they are both
ridiculing terms of the scientific specialty they claim to represent, because all of the persons serving those
specialties do not even know what the human soul is. How can they possibly cure something they do not
know anything about?

If we study all the relevant dictionaries or the psychology books, we will nowhere find anything written about
what our soul is. There is no given definition about our soul in those books or just a very general descriptive
definition. What they actually refer to is our behavior, and all the so-called psychotherapeutic methods are
actually systems that aim to control and correct our behavior. What they can offer to the patient is just a
superficial relief; they are not methods for the therapy of the soul and none of them actually even touches on
our very soul!

The therapy of the human soul - An exclusive assignment of our Orthodox Church

Only the Orthodox Church can cure the soul; She can cure the noetic energy; She can cure the human nous
and She has the one and only therapeutic method that exists globally today. It is the method of going through
the stages of purification (κάθαρσις), illumination (φωτισμός), and deification (θέωσις). So, this unique
therapeutic treatment of our soul is only to be found in the Church, and we have to understand that the
therapy of our soul is an assignment executed exclusively by the Church and by nobody else.

For example, when somebody comes to us for confession (I say this for us, the spiritual fathers), it is totally
unacceptable to send this person for psychological treatment (to a psychiatrist)! Nevertheless, if this person
needs a medical treatment, because of a problem with his/her nerves, we will have to send them there,
indeed, but, not for the therapy of his soul..., because there's no so-called psychotherapist who could ever
cure their soul!

It is possible, though, that this person, due to his/her sinful life, has damaged their nervous system, too. You
know, our soul has a direct impact on our nervous system. If we do big mistakes, if we sin heavily on our soul,
we affect both our body and our central nervous system. In this case, it is necessary to take on medicine. The
interference of a psychiatrist is crucial. However, what a psychiatrist practices in this case is not psychiatry per
se, but neurology, he cures the nerves of the patient. Instead of this, he is sort of not allowed to say he is a
psychiatrist, but a neurologist, a neuro-therapist. He cures the neurotransmitters, the neurons etc.
So, apparently the term psychiatrist (therapist of the soul, of the psyche) is deceiving, without ignoring the
good intentions of these people. I know that most of them are trying to help their fellow beings and, based on
their scientific expertise, they operate on the nervous system.

Only Orthodoxy can truly and effectively cure the human soul, by the Holy Grace, in the Church.

The heretics (often called heterodox) lost the orthodox therapeutic treatment. Our Lord Jesus Christ is
called a Physician.

All those who are not Orthodox -even if they insist calling themselves Christians- have lost the therapeutic
treatment. No reference on human therapy can ever be found among those who are heretics (Latins, Papists,
Protestants, Mormons etc., although calling themselves Christians), and heretics means they have left the
Orthodox Church. They have simply lost it; they have distanced themselves far away from this tradition, and
they do not think in an orthodox way anymore (as far as the healing of the human nous is concerned).

Here lies the difference of Orthodoxy from all other religions-dogmas. No other religion talks about a therapy,
like the one to be truly found in the Orthodox Church. In all our liturgical greetings our Christ is referred as "the
Physician (doctor) of our souls and bodies". He is our doctor, He is our Healer (Therapist). If we look up in the
papist and protestant tradition, nowhere is our Christ mentioned as “Physician of souls and bodies”. This is to
be found only in the Orthodox tradition, because only there can any soul be healed!

The Greatness of our Saint Constantine and all Byzantine Emperors

Let us allow for a historical parenthesis, in order to track down the greatness of the so-called Byzantine
emperors. And we say the so-called Byzantine, because they were actually never called Byzantine; they were
called Romioi, Roman Emperors. But this is another story, and, for the moment, we will not touch on it (on
how we ended up be called Byzantine).

However, these emperors (Great Constantine, Great Theodosius and many others) are Great indeed,
because they figured out what Orthodoxy means. They realized that Orthodoxy is something else; She is not a
religion, but THE therapy of man! This is why Orthodoxy produces righteous citizens and socially decent
people. So, the emperors (Great Constantine and the rest) thought: "This is the type of citizen we wish to have
in our state", and they embraced Orthodoxy and introduced Her as the official Religion of the whole empire.

Why did the West lose the therapeutic tradition?

Why has this tradition been totally erased from the papist (so-called Catholics or Roman-Catholic) and the
protestant religion? Why are they being surprised, every time we talk to them about a therapeutic "medical"
treatment? The answer is "Because they lost the need for purification and illumination, the need for an internal
change, from the moment they lost Orthodoxy (orthí dóxa = Greek ὀρθή δόξα =right faith/opinion about God),
and left the Church. They changed the Dogmas, the theology, and this is the reason why, right after this, they
also lost the therapeutic recipe for their entire existence and life.

The Dogmas are safeguarding the Truth, but also Life! When we spoil or alter the Dogmas, we do not
have a protective "fence" anymore, to safeguard our right way of living. Hence, since there is no
proper barrier, no proper fortress, it is very easy for lies and delusions to invade our life.

Moreover, we can observe this phenomenon also the other way around. When life is being spoiled and
altered, then, in order to shelter this altered and corrupted life, estranged (corrupted, demoralized) dogmas
are produced. The altered dogmas are like the adulterated drugs, which not only do not cure, but also leave
us worse off, as regards to our sickness! Orthodox Dogmas cure our soul; corrupt Dogmas make our
soul sick!

That's what happened in our once orthodox Europe, when she was raided by the Francs. So, in the West,
which was conquered by the heretics (actually idolaters) Francs, what happened first was the corruption of
life. Later on, the Francs corrupted the dogmas too. As a result of that, what was unfortunately lost was the
proper medicine, the orthodox therapeutic prescription and the right guidance of the human soul, which gives
us the ability to fulfill our purpose in life, our likeness with Christ (τὸ καθ' ὁμοίωσιν).

Now, for the heretics (Papists, Protestants etc.), and please listen carefully, the one who changes is not we
humans, but God Himself!

We must change - Become people of God.

I would like to remind you that in Orthodoxy man should change, we have to change, we have to repent, to be
healed in Christ. Our nous has to be changed, our heart has to be purified, to be emptied completely and be
filled with our Lord Jesus Christ. We have to change.

Do not bother when people say to you "You have changed."

"Yes, I have changed, indeed, but to what direction? That is the question."

Some will say: "Oh, you have changed because you got in Church and got influenced by those priests... bla,
bla, bla"

You see? Yes. As a matter of fact, we do have to change. Do not get upset when they say to us "you have
changed". Respond and do not be afraid to say “Yes, I have changed, indeed!” You know, they are trying to
intimidate us, when they talk to us this way. But we have to be happy we have changed, because this is what
we actually ought to do! We have to undergo a certain change and, from the state of being sick, become
healthy again. Let us not maintain our state of sickness, only to give the impression of having a strong
personality, neither is it embarrassing, if we admit we were doing the wrong things so far.

The heretics (papists, protestants etc.) believe that God is changing!

The heretics (who are full of demonic pride and egotism) oppose the Orthodox theology by claiming that we
humans are not supposed to change.

You probably know that heresy originates in pride and egotism. All heretic leaders were extremely proud
people. According to them, it is God Who must change, not man! They have based their whole theology on
this perverted thesis, although the opposite is true. God is unalterable, He never changes. Moreover,
according to Orthodox theology, God is ever-same (ἀίδιος, aídios), meaning He is always the same (was
before all times, is and will be for ever). God is perfect, All-perfect, above all perfection. That's why He does
not need to progress, to become better or to change.

Alas! If God was ever to change, it would mean He has passions! But, of course not... God is dispassionate
(ἀπαθής). He is unalterable. However, according to heretic (papist, protestant etc.) theology, God changes,
indeed!

Now, please, notice how this theology unfortunately pervaded our orthodox theology. Fr. John Romanides
says: "For them, in the West, Papists and Protestants, man does not change. For them, the only thing man
does is that he becomes a 'good' boy", meaning we only change our outward behavior. Our inner part, our
essence, our soul (essentially) does not change. We only become externally a 'good' boy. And when we, from
'bad' boys and girls, become 'good' boys and girls, God loves us or, else, He turns away from us. What a
strange theology! Totally wrong!

This means that, according to them, God can hate and abhor! If we continue being 'bad' boys and girls, God
does not love us. Can you please tell me, have you realized that this kind of perception of God has also
pervaded our orthodox way of thinking?
This is a result of the influence of western standards on orthodox catechism. The same teachings are often to
be observed in contemporary orthodox Sunday-Schools: "If we become 'good' boys and girls, God changes
and becomes also 'good'!" Do you realize where we end up being with all this absurd theology?

And, from a past situation, when God supposedly did not love us, He now ends up loving us. "When we
become 'bad' boys and girls, God is angry, and when we become 'good', God is happy"!

Unfortunately, these are the opinions prevailing in Europe. This is the theology of the West. In fact, this
teaching is a total disproof of God Himself, because God is not like this at all. This is the reason why the West
has ended up actually refusing God and getting into a state of pure atheism (a good Greek source on the
theology of the death of God can be found here).

How did western “theology” influence orthodox theology?

God does not change; He is not good or bad every now and then; He does not change His disposition
according to what we are and how we behave. This evil and twisted teaching in not being preached only in
Europe… This “theology” can be found in Greece, too! This is the spirit prevailing in many people’s souls, who
are thought to be members of our vey Orthodox Church.

For some people, Orthodoxy has ended up, among other things, being literally a tool for “using” God to enjoy
our lives, “have a nice time”; Orthodoxy has ended up being a religion like all the rest of them, a religion where
God has a changing mood. And, we (as good Christians) have to go to church in order to pacify His mood,
calm Him down and appease His wrath!!!

Sadly, many times, we think of our orthodox priest (sorry for saying this) being “the wizard of the tribe”,
somebody we will meet and order him (in a way) to offer us his services and, for instance, read us a prayer for
forgiveness, do the Holy Water service, offer the Mystery of Holy Unction, often demanding for an absurd and
superstitious repetition of the ritual (sometimes 7 times), to read us the prayers for our Fanouropita (St.
Fanourios pie) etc. All this, in order to come to terms with God, to restore our relationship with Him, because
we believe God is angry with us. This is what many orthodox Christians believe in. This mind-set is an
absolute idolatry and paganism, pure superstition. We have significantly altered the truth about what God
actually is, we have a false opinion about Him and, consequently, do not live properly and we do not get
cured.

Our utilitarian (transactional) relationship with god

Many times, our relationship with God, talking about us orthodox Christians, is not at all a loving one; it is kind
of a transactional, a utilitarian relationship. In this relationship we actually use God, in order for us to have a
good time here on earth, and it has become similar to the relationship believers of other religions have with
their so-called gods (e.g. the demons).

These other believers say to themselves: “I’ll go to my Hindu priest, my yogi etc., I will give him some money,
fruits etc., I will offer my sacrifice and he will read a special “prayer” in return, so things will finally go well for
me in life, so I suppose, and I will not get any diseases, my harvest will go well, my car will stay in perfect
condition, my investments in the stock-exchange market will eventually grow, and I will even find a good
groom for my daughter! etc.

This is not a joke! It is very sad, but this is how we, orthodox Christians, behave many times towards our God
and Lord, Jesus Christ. An example that shows our high degree of ignorance and alienation to God is the
following: We go to our priest and say:

“Fr. So and So, please come to my place and offer the Mystery of Holy Unction (or the Mystery of Holy Water)
for me.”

“Why should I do them for you, my child?” asks the priest.

“Well…for the good of it.”

Which “good”? Do we know what “good” is?

The question is and should always be “Why do we conduct the Mystery of Holy Unction?”

Holy Unction is a special Mystery of our Church that is offered for the healing of the soul and body of ill
persons. It is indispensably connected with Confession and Repentance. How do we expect from God to
come and heal us, when we do not want to have a true, healthy relationship with Him, when we don’t love
Him, when we do not repent, when we do not change the way we live? What do we want the Holy Unction for?
Many say they want it just for the good, for a blessing… to come to terms with God, and, this way, they
degrade the Mystery of Holy Unction by turning it into an act of magic!

How can you reconcile with God, if you don’t repent, if you don’t ask for forgiveness for all the bad things you
have done? How will you restore your communion with God? Do you think that God is an angry and revenge-
seeking Being with a policeman-attitude, and needs to be appeased this way? No. This is an absolute
misconception about God. Why? Because God does not need to be appeased; He always loves us… whether
we are sinners, righteous, or even when we are in Hell, even then, He loves us! Even when we become
demonized (due to our severe sins), even then He loves us all the same. He even loves those very demons…
He loves everyone!

Just keep in mind, God never changes. WE are the ones who ought to change, to repent and return to
God, so He can come and do His work inside us.

When we sin, we build a “wall” around us, so God’s love, Energy and Grace cannot pass through (can, but He
respects our free will), they cannot reach our soul and heal us, make us healthy again! This is when we
become really sad. If we do not break down this wall with our repentance, and we may use as many “magic
tricks” as we wish, we cannot be in communion with God; nothing really happens!

Conclusion: according to the Western theology, and unfortunately according to our twisted orthodox one as
well, when we are “good boys and girls” God loves us!

Concerning the holy blessing of all creation by the Church

Question from the audience: “Father, we noticed that the blessing of the harvest, the fruits, the seeds, the
farms, the grapes and the first produce, is a common practice in the Orthodox Church, isn’t it?”

Answer (by Fr. Savvas): Well, we have to be careful. We should know WHY we do this. Yes, we (the Church,
here meaning the clergy) bless them all, indeed, but WHY do we do that? Please, go ahead and read the
words of the prayers of these blessings, and you will understand.

For example, on Holy Easter, when we read the prayer to bless (we actually beg God to bless) “the cheese
and eggs”, we do it because on this special day it is the first time we eat cheese and eggs after 50 days of
fasting, and the priest blesses them. (This counts only for those who fasted; the ones who didn’t were eating
cheese and eggs all the time through anyway). So, why does the priest bless them? He does not bless them
in a magical way (somehow ordering God to obey, God forbid!), but actually offers them to God as a
thanksgiving and a glory to Him for all His blessings to us. God blesses them all, and we get blessed and
sanctified by consuming them.

In everything we do in Church there’s always a theology behind. And this theology is the purification, the
illumination and the deification of man. Of course, we do not aim at appeasing God or acting religious, to have
a good crop, for example etc., but every act within the Church is an act of communion with God. Everything
done within the Church is a manifestation of Christ.
However, when we act as aforementioned, and we go to the priest to order him, in a way, to read (bless) our
Fanouropita, and the priest asks, “Why do you do this, my child?” and we reply to him that we do it for the
good of it… can you please tell me where Christ is in all these cases? Sadly, nowhere!

It is, for instance, like when somebody goes to his Buddhist “priest”, handing him out their produce (fruits etc.)
and asks him to read them words of blessing (so they think), in order to get a successful harvest. They do not
approach the whole matter out of love towards God, but towards themselves. In their pursuit of happiness and
joy, they do not hesitate to “use” even God. This is not right. In all our deeds Christ must be manifested and
our love for God has to be our number one priority.

Concerning Devine Justice

Question from the audience, which is not recorded adequately, and refers to the Justice of God.

Answer (by Fr. Savvas): Yes. The Justice of God is again Love. God has no passions at all. Whenever you
read expressions, like “God is angry, outraged etc.”, they are not referring to God’s passions. These
expressions are written this way (using human behavior), only to help us humans logically understand those
situations and hopefully repent.

What we as human beings feel like “anger” or “wrath” of God towards us, has two dimensions:

1. It is nothing but the feeling of the absence of His Divine Grace from our very existence, and
2. Our suffering, due to our sinful passions, and because of the war we face from the demons.

God is dispassionate. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or
persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? [Romans 8:35]. Nothing can separate us from the
love of God. Nothing can make God stop loving us… not even our sins! Why? Let us have a look at that…
What did Christ die for? He died for our sins; that’s why He shed His blood.

So, what do we mean by saying “God accumulates wrath”?

“God accumulates wrath”. What does this mean?

To explain and understand it better, we will depict this with an example from our created reality.

Suppose you act unjustly towards a person, you repeatedly and continuously do him wrong all the time, and
he, in response to your unfair behavior, repays you constantly with kindness, and you insist on wronging him
all the way through… and he insists on doing you good… So, let’s say you come across this person some day
in your life... just think of it… How would you feel about having so many times rejected his benevolence and
lost those millions of chances he gave to you, so you can be friends at last, and love each other genuinely?
Wouldn’t you feel embarrassed? Wouldn’t you feel millions of nails piercing the top your head? You will
suddenly most probably come to realize “What have I done to him, and what HE gave me in return!”

This is how we are going to feel like in front of Him, our Lord Jesus Christ...because this is what Christ did and
always does in response to our deeds toward Him. We constantly do Him wrong, we ignore Him, and we
literally delete Him: “LEAVE US ALONE, we DON’T want You in our lives”. Maybe we do not say this to Him
out loud, but we say it with the life we lead. This is exactly what we do, when we constantly satisfy our will and
do not honestly look up for the will of God for us in every moment. We actually say to Him “Step aside. Now, I
am going to do MY thing, I will say whatever I want, and do not care at all about what YOU say.” For example,
we say “Now, I will have an abortion (e.g. murder). I cannot afford having a child right now, I have serious
financial problems”.

We cancel Him out. We give priority to OUR reason, to OUR will, ahead of and over His will! Although His will
is our best choice in every situation, we, instead, prefer ours. For instance, we say “I won’t have a child, right
now. I will be the one who will say how to plan my pregnancy.” We delete God; we set Him aside! And this is
what sin is. Do you understand? I chose to speak about something apparent and blatant enough, to make us
realize how we ignore God…

Despite all that, God never cancels us out! He goes on doing us good, again and again… He goes on giving
us His air, His light, our food, our spiritual food…and, above all, He never stops giving us Himself, with His
Body and Blood, during every Devine Liturgy. And what do WE do in return? We go on keeping Him away
from our lives, because we do not want to deny our egoistic will and desires. Imagine this happening again
and again, repeatedly, for 70, 80, 100 years! And we, all the way through, stubbornly stick in our
impenitence…

Just think of how we are going to feel about it, when we will come face to Face with our Lord Jesus Christ in
His Second Coming, when all these things will be revealed!!!… Well, this is the accumulated “wrath” we are
talking about. We will not be able to stand in front of Him, because of our great embarrassment. We are and
will be “burning” (always talking about the impenitent), not because God wants it. (Remember, God is always
good, dispassionate and wants everyone to be saved). We are actually “burning” all by ourselves, meaning
we stay blind, for as long as we do not repent and do not progress in becoming pure. We are not able see the
Light, to see God, we stay uncured.

Who will see God in the second coming of Christ? As light or as fire!

One thing is for sure: In His Second Coming, all of us will see (experience) God, both the saved and those
condemned to hell. The difference will be in how we are going to see Him. In case we have our eyes opened
(a purified nous), we will see God as ultra-sweet Light. However, if we have our spiritual eyes closed, meaning
we still have a darkened nous, due to our sinful passions (because we did not manage to open our spiritual
eyes through repentance, while we were living here on earth), we will see Him, but as “devouring fire”, a
burning fire that eats up everything!

At this point, we would have to stress a very important fact:

The opening of the eyes of our soul is a task that should be completed during this temporary life on
earth. Only in this life can it be achieved, not in the other, the eternal … and it has to be done by us,
always in cooperation with the Devine Grace.

Icon depicting His Second Coming and the role of the Church

Have you noticed how the Second Coming of Christ is depicted on the icons of our Church?

If you take a good look at them, you will see two rivers coming out of the throne of God, both out of the same
throne! One is ultra-white, where the souls of the saved are to be found, and the other is ultra-red, which is the
“burning river”. In this burning river we can see the souls of the condemned. According to the teaching of our
Church, this icon reveals the fact that all of us are going to see God, but the difference will be in how we are
going to see Him, in which way…

So, the role of the Church is the following: to prepare us properly, in order for us to be able to see God
as ultra-sweet and unsetting Light, and not as “devouring fire”. Think of a blind person, and us walking
him out in the sun, at noon. Can he see? No, he can’t, but he feels the burning light and suffers…

Suppose the opposite, we have our eyes open, we enjoy the light and all of God’s beauty. This is the
difference, and this is the work of the Church: to give us what? Spiritual eyes… to give us spiritual sensors, in
order to be able, from this life here on earth, to enjoy God as ultra-sweet Light!

Western “theology” & “spirit” influence our orthodox theology and education

So, Europe has all the aforementioned demonic theology, which is more or less unfortunately established
among us orthodox Christians, too. They introduce a punishing and rewarding God. This means, the essence
of Orthodoxy in Greece is a set of moral values, an ethicology, concludes Fr. John Romanides.
Fr. John Romanides was a great man and a very bright professor, and his remark was absolutely well-aimed.
Unfortunately, all these false theories were (and maybe still are being) taught, because most of the Greek
novices in theology were (and obviously more today) influenced by the western “theology”. The Theology
Schools and academic faculties of orthodox Greece have been unfortunately founded on protestant standards
and values. And, on top of that, many of our candidates and graduates in the faculty of theology (already
carrying the burden of theological darkness from their studies in our universities) leave Greece and go to the
West, so they can eventually receive even more of this darkness. When they come back, they usually get an
academic position and by rule they reproduce what they’ve been taught.

I challenge you: go to our Schools of Theology and see what is being taught in their auditoriums. For sure, not
Orthodox Theology! There are, of course, laudable exceptions… However, what students usually receive is of
protestant spirit, and this, because the appointed professors have got their post-graduate diplomas and PhDs
usually from Western universities; in Tübingen (Germany), for instance.

Tübingen is the birthplace of Protestantism, the birthplace of heresy! And, imagine, we go there to be
supposedly illumined!... darkened, I would dare to say… and then, proudly parroting what we have learned
there, we transfer it to the students, who come to the Schools of Theology with the aspiration to supposedly
receive the Orthodox teachings… and, this way, the theological darkness is passed on from one generation to
the next.

Do you know when all this evil started here in Greece?

Just read Adamantios Koraïs, and you will figure it out for sure. You will find his pejorative words against
monasticism, hesychastic life and Orthodox tradition. This is where it all started with the anti-Orthodox and
anti-monastic policy in Greece.

Persecution of traditional monasticism and hesychastic life

Before we go on with our main issue, I believe it would make us better understand, if I say a few words about
Hesychasm, a spiritual tradition endorsed by St. Gregory the Palamas (15 th century), and collected by
Demetrios Tselengidis, Professor of Dogmatics at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

Hesychastic life is the highest form of ascetic life, through which man can achieve the highest spiritual
experience, théosis or theoria (deification).

According to St. Gregory Palamas, hesychia (stillness, “quietness”), par excellence an ascetic term, is of
existential and experiential content. Hesychia implies the state of peace settling inside the inner man, when
we (permitted by God) see, detest and get rid of our ugly mask, which was established due to the wandering
activity of our nous. Hesychia is indispensably connected with the nepsis (watchfulness) of our nous, with the
spiritual wakefulness and the experience of all the conditions being realized during nepsis in a spiritual and
inexpressible manner.

Consequently, the work of an hesychast (person practicing hesychia) is the guarding of the heart by lovingly
keeping God’s commandments, maintaining his (or her) spiritual purity and by partaking of the Mysteries of
our Church (leading an active liturgical life). By observing God’s commandments, an hesychast expels the low
of sin and replaces it with the supervision of his nous. His senses are being controlled by self-restraint
(abstinence), while the pathetikon (emotional) part of the soul is ruled by love, and the logistikon (logical) by
watchfulness (nepsis). Hesychastic life allows for the Devine Grace to operate in our inner existence and
“repair” us, mold us into our original version, and give us our “flourished” ancient and indescribable beauty.

A hesychast lives without worries, as much as possible free from any relation with distraction. By ceaseless
praying, he or she unites their nous with God, and, by totally concentrating to themselves, they find a new and
secret uplifting to the heavens. There, with their concentrated nous, they taste an inexpressible pleasure, a
perfect and sweetest serenity, a true quietness and silence. And, this way, being totally surrendered to God,
one beholds the Glory of God and observes the Devine Light.
The ultimate purpose of hesychastic life is to make man one with Triune God, in accordance with Christ's
archpriest prayer “let them all become one” and with our cooperation, which means, the way He came into
communion and unity with the human nature without departing from His own Triune Unity.

It is after 1821 (the Greek Revolution against the Ottoman Occupation) when a vicious persecution of the
Orthodox Tradition started; by whom? By the Neo-Greeks, followers of the Enlightenment movement, who
joined forces with the protestant Bavarians planted in Greece to govern our newly established State. Those
people (Farmakidis and Koraïs and others) were very much eroded by the protestant spirit, by the European
Enlightenment movement (which, due to atheism, was a total darkness) and by the theology of the West.
That’s why they started a war against Hesychasm, the roots of our Orthodox Tradition.

Right after we gained our freedom from the Turkish occupation, those people passed a legislation (three laws
of the Greek State, of an orthodox State, if you please!) and closed down 400 monasteries!!! It is unbelievable,
but, yes, WE did it, the supposedly orthodox Greeks!... Surprisingly, not the Turks… During the Turkish
Occupation there were 600 monasteries, and, as soon as WE (the so-called Orthodox Christians) arrived and
claimed to be the legitimate rulers of this nation, we closed down 400 of them! The reason for this absurd
move was the spirit of Koraïs and Maurer, established in the souls of all those who came to rule and were
raised up in and fed by the West.

Who was behind this hatred against orthodox tradition and monasticism?

We all should know that these actions were pre-designed and concerted by our implacable friends; concerted
by those who hate Orthodoxy. The reason for their hatred is, because Orthodoxy produces personalities and
not easily manageable humanoids.

We would say, the therapeutic method of Orthodoxy is its advantage; cannot be found anywhere else. This is
Her power, the power of the Church. When we get cured applying the Orthodox healing method, we attract
God’s Grace, and, by His Grace, we become what HE is! This Devine Grace is the ineffable beauty of
Orthodoxy, which is being manifested wherever Her therapeutic tradition operates. The power of Orthodoxy is
not to be found in our good-looking holy vestments, in our wonderful Church services (Vespers, Devine
Liturgy etc.); these are only the external part.

What Orthodoxy actually does (and only She can do it) is the healing of our soul, the healing of the human
nous! This is something nobody else can do, but Her. The therapeutic method was already totally revealed in
the times of Christ and the Holy Apostles. It is the apostolic life, e.g. the way all first Christians were living
during the first two centuries of Christianity. This healing method, the therapeutic tradition of our Church, was
preserved (and, thank God, is still being preserved today) in the monasteries, and is called Hesychasm.

This is the reason why our European “friends”, successors of the Francs, together with their submissive Neo-
Hellenes (Neo-Greeks), attacked monasticism and the hesychastic, the Orthodox therapeutic tradition. They
still fight against them today!... especially against the monasteries, because, thank God, especially there, in
these very monasteries is this prescribed orthodox therapeutic (hesychastic) method being still preserved.

The persecution of the orthodox tradition today

So, they hit the monasteries, because they did not want Orthodoxy to be strong. The same counts for today;
they still don’t want Orthodoxy to be strong and free, because Orthodoxy produces righteous people, She
produces true persons and not easily manipulated masses… and because they, on the other hand, want to
have a mass that can be conveniently manipulated!

Remember what Henry Kissinger said about us; Reportedly Henry Kissinger, while addressing a group of
Washington, D.C. businessmen in Sept.1974, among other comments, said: “The Greek people are anarchic
and difficult to tame….”. He said that we cannot be governed easily. Why?

Because we are Orthodox; that’s why.

Our Orthodoxy, our Orthodox Church, teaches us how to become persons, how to respect our God-given
freedom and free will, and avoid becoming slaves to other people. She teaches us to have an opinion about
things… that’s why (Henry Kissinger reportedly said) we have to strike deep…

Yes, Henry Kissinger himself, lifetime Chairman of the Bilderberg Club, said that “…we must strike deep into
their (the Greek) cultural roots: Perhaps then we can force them (the Greeks) to conform. I mean, of course, to
strike at their language, their religion, their cultural and historical reserves…”. It’s all true; it has all been
published openly.

This is exactly the spirit of the West: They do not believe it is of any profit to them and the society to have
Orthodoxy at all. From the moment on Francs conquered the orthodox West and our Patriarchate in Rome,
they constantly try to eliminate Orthodoxy. They appeared as Pseudo-Orthodox, but were pagans, multi-
idolaters, according to St. Justin Popovich, as they are actually today.

In place of the orthodox popes in Rome they forcibly put popes under their influence and forced the orthodox
people of Western Europe to become papists. Now, as true, genuine Orthodoxy existed primarily in the
monasteries, it’s them they hit with special “care”. They drove orthodox monasticism out of the formerly
orthodox Europe, either directly or by introducing fake dogmas and false teachings. They knew exactly what to
do. This was their tactics when they came to Greece escorted by West-stricken Greek “enlighteners”, just after
we gained our freedom from the Ottoman tyranny.

That’s when the persecution of traditional Hesychasm began in Greece; mainly by this man, Adamantios
Koraïs. Unfortunately, it was him and a few others of his kind (Farmakidis etc.), who founded the schools and
the educational system in contemporary Greece. That’s why Greek education is in a terrible state today, and
children are so confused, uncured and disoriented when they finish school.

Atheistic education in contemporary Greece

Education in contemporary Greece is actually atheistic. Just a while ago, I was told by a mother that she
received a document from the school to let her child visit an orthodox, a so-called Roman Catholic, and later
on a protestant church. In those churches there would be things explained by a guide not only regarding the
place, but, I suppose, probably also regarding the dogmas, the faith etc. Beware! Our orthodox children!... our
elementary school children are the ones invited to visit those churches. How sad… this invitation and
prompting is being addressed to our children by this very Greek state. Unbelievable!

Do you know what’s behind all this?

The mission is to convert our class of orthodox religion into a class teaching about religions. Huge difference!

They suggest that Orthodoxy is one of a kind with the other heretic denominations or pagan religions. They
claim that Orthodox are all the same in spirit and rituals with the Buddhists, Hindu, Protestants, and Roman
Catholics etc.! They say, “It is the same thing; chose as you please…we will show you everything (to facilitate
your decision).”

And, we should keep in mind: there are Holy Canons of our Church which do not allow for Christians to deal
with heretic dogmas in any case! It is forbidden!

Someone could stress that the children will not necessarily deal with the dogmas; they will simply visit a place
of worship. Yes, but whose worship?

A demonic worship is the worship inside the “sacred” places of heretic dogmas. We know they are heretics.
Why should we ever go there? Why should we ever send our orthodox children there, especially the little
ones, and get “contaminated” by those activities? If they were university students and wanted to see these
places from a scientific point of view, they could go, but not the little ones.

The educational system claims “They have to learn…”

What is it they will finally learn? One is for sure: They will become spiritually blind. And this, because they
have not learnt all they need about their faith and have not built a solid orthodox foundation, yet. That’s why
they shouldn’t. At the end, if they do visit these altars of Satan, they will, unfortunately, become even more
confused inside their soul! Parents, beware!

Do you see what’s going on? The ruling systems are trying to disable Orthodoxy and induce severe damage
to Hesychasm, by introducing Ecumenism and New Age (with claims of unity “love” and “peace”).

The anti-monastic and anti-hesychastic spirit today

This New Age spirit, the secularized and syncretistic spirit (a blend of dogmas from various religions) has
been submissively adopted by many people. We can observe that when somebody decides to become a
monk or a priest… negative reaction by their very parents and relatives and close friends is a common
practice. “What are you up to? Are you sure? Do you really mean to become a monk?” are some of the
phrases they use.

This mind-set was not present among the Greek peoples before the Revolution (1821 A.D.). They loved both
the monks and the nuns, which were considered exemplary models for the laity. Just read about Byzantium
and its history.

Do you know how Constantinople was called? It was called “The Great Monastery”! This was the name of this
great city, because it was full of monasteries; all of them inside its surrounding walls, not outside! I point that
out, because nowadays people want monasteries to be placed away from them and from their lives as far as
possible. They are afraid of being “contaminated” by the monks (their monastic habits), who walk and talk
among us! This sick attitude, this mind-set was passed over to the orthodox by the heretic Protestants of the
West, and, in a sense, deeply destroyed our subconscious, the very deep parts of the Greek soul…

The results of the persecution of orthodox therapeutics and its vehicle, orthodox monasticism

To conclude, Koraïs and his mob attacked the traditional orthodox monasticism and our hesychastic tradition,
the only true therapy of man’s soul.

What have they accomplished?

The results are very easy to figure out by observing all of us orthodox people, today. We are all uncured!
Normally, we shouldn’t be in any kind of stress, phobic feelings or have any of those so-called psychological
problems. We Christians should have NO problem at all! Yes, indeed, because the Church cures all of
them, and the person who is organically (fully and actively) integrated in the Body of the Church (the
Orthodox) enjoys total (mental, spiritual and physical) health. We do not need to struggle and try to balance
our soul and reach mental health with drugs. Is it ever possible for the human soul, which has unlimited
spiritual depth, to be really cured using pills? Of course, not!

So, they deliberately damaged what preserved our therapy, e.g. the monasteries. That’s why we as a nation
have ended up losing our Orthodox healing method, and, consequently, our mental and physical health.

Election of the bishops

Exemplifying the loss of the orthodox healing tradition is the way we elect our bishops in contemporary
Orthodoxy.

Our Church has insistently kept this blessed tradition to elect bishops from the monasteries. Why?

Because the monasteries are the university medical schools that produce true physicians for the human soul,
real bishops and real spiritual fathers and confessors!
We have destroyed this blessed habit today, and we elect bishops out of those who have got a degree from a
theology school, actually from those who, in a big degree, have studied heresy, the absolute darkness.

In the old days, indeed, the bishops were chosen from the monasteries. Why so? Because they were the ones
who knew very well how to apply the healing method of the Church. And the Church preferred especially
them, because She was very confident about their successful therapeutic activity, when they were placed
inside a city, a metropolis, and the parishes. She was sure they would be successful in healing the people by
being a true physician of their souls.

This is how a real bishop should be. He is the head-physician, who leads the other physicians, meaning the
spiritual leaders (Pnevmatikoi, in Greek), the priests within his Episcopal district. At the same time, he is also
responsible for the whole Church. However, if a bishop himself has no idea about the therapy, the medical
treatment and prescription (e.g. if he has not experienced his personal purification, illumination and théosis),
how will he ever be able to offer any cure to his flock? What is he going to heal anyway? He ends up being
only a manager, an administration officer, and, so, his flock is usually left off uncured. Consequently, this
bishop thinks the Church is a public charity (foundation) or a common wealth organization, serving some of
the needs of the state.

The church – a “funeral home”

Unfortunately, this is the current state of our Church: a divorce office, a marriage and baptizing office! So,
people come and say:

“I want to get married. Let us set a date, Father.”

“Alright, I am happy for you, but are you spiritually ready for that?...

If a couple comes across a pastorally responsible and spiritually healthy priest, who would ask if they confess
regularly, they will ignorantly reply “But, Father, we just want to get married.”

Do they actually know what they are up to? If they never go to confession, how successful do they think their
marriage would be? How are they going to enter into the mystery of this sacrament, if they have not yet
entered the mystery of repentance (Metanoia) and purification from their sinful passions? They will get nothing
at all. They will come and stand before the priest as Hollywood actors, having absolutely no clue about what
they are supposed to do, and so will also their “best man” do. No clue, either! He thinks he will just have to
change the position of the wedding wreaths over the heads of the newlyweds, smile at the photographer, and
that’s all.

This way, they sadly fail to “enter” into the true theology of this Holy Sacrament (Mysterion).

How pitiful, our Holy Sacraments have ended up being just a means to show off our wealth and nothing
more… Instead of being THE significant and spiritually shocking event of partaking of the Devine Grace, it is
usually a cheap “fiesta”!!!

Sadly, nobody pays attention at what’s happening during the ceremony, this Holy Sacrament! An absolute
disrespect… The priest and the attendants are just actors, who are needed to give life to this theatrical
performance! What a disgrace…

It is often written in the wedding invitations: “You are kindly invited to the show etc. … that will take place in
the church of … etc.…. with leading actors (mentioning the names of those to be married) and so forth…”

The reason for turning the Sacraments of Baptism and Marriage into a stage performance is because we lost
the real meaning of them and not consider them therapeutic anymore (healing methods of our Orthodox
Church). We no longer live the therapy given by the Holy Sacraments (the orthodox Christian Baptism, the
orthodox Christian Marriage, the Mysterion of Repentance). We no longer experience all of what happens to
our very existence during these Holy Sacraments, when we participate under proper conditions.
A very common practice among modern couples is what they usually do when they meet a traditional priest,
who objects to the way they want to get married. They immediately go and find another more convenient
priest “next door”, at the adjacent parish! Why? Because the “convenient” priest does not tell them to go to
confession before the marriage, and other such allegedly (by secularists) weird things!

A very sad situation, indeed, in our very Orthodox Church… all our institutional persons are suffering from the
same spiritual illness…

So, if anyone wants to figure out how all this started and how we ended up facing these problems, they should
read Adamantios Koraïs.

Orthodoxy is a medical science curing man and societies

Let us suppose, says Fr. John Romanides, that a researcher, a scientist, which has no relation to any religion,
an atheist, if you may, conducts a research on religious traditions. Coming across the Orthodox tradition he
digs, discovers and starts describing the things we are talking about in this homily. Suddenly, he says: “Look
at this! This tradition talks about the soul, about the noetic energy of the soul, and offers a certain healing
(therapeutic) treatment.” After that, continuing his research, he realizes that, if this healing treatment were to
be applied in human societies, it would have an amazingly beneficial impact on individuals and public health.

A healthy man is an asset for our society. And if this one person becomes two, three, ten, hundred? There you
are: a healthy society! This is how societies become healthy; not by adopting various systems, like
communism, socialism or liberalism. This is not the proper way to change individuals, either one by one or
something even bigger: a whole society!

For a society to change, WE (the people) have to change! This is exactly what Orthodoxy does, and SHE is
the only one who can! Only SHE can cure the nous and the whole psycho-physical existence of each person
and member of any society (through Her therapeutic treatment: Hesychasm).

Alteration of the orthodox tradition – persecution of its acting body (the monastics)

Back to our story again.

Well, our imaginary researcher has started to realize when this tradition began in time, what its roots are, for
how many centuries and where it was applied successfully. In his quest for the truth, he discovers why this
tradition no longer exists among the majority of orthodox believers today, and why Orthodoxy went through
such an alteration.

It was because Hesychasm and its best legitimate ambassador, the traditional monastics, were both brutally
persecuted and expelled from our society!

Hesychasm

When someone hears the word Hesychasm, their mind goes automatically to the monks and nuns of
Orthodoxy, to the hermits who live in silence and peace. However, it is not only that.

Hesychasm, as we mentioned earlier and, unfortunately, many people have a wrong impression about it, is
the healing method of Orthodoxy. We are all supposed to apply Hesychasm. It’s a whole “package”, we could
say, of therapeutic actions. In a few words, Hesychasm is a bundle of all the means and methods suggested
by our Orthodox Church for the healing of our body and soul: ascetic life (actually orthodox athletics),
ceaseless prayer, repentance (Metany), and liturgical life.

Urban Hesychasm

Someone could say: What do you imply, Father? Should we all become monks and nuns?
Yes, my brothers and sisters, we should all become monks and nuns, but not necessarily dressed the same
way, e.g. wearing black rasso (robe) and being tonsured (κείρομαι).

What I actually mean is that you (I am already) should become monks inside your family, in your own home, in
your own city. Because this life, living according to and imitating the monastic life, can lead to a total
restoration of our human existence, we can regain our spiritual and physical health.

By taking the healing method preserved and applied in the monasteries and introducing it in our own
homes and souls and apply it in our very lives, we get completely cured, both spiritually and
physically.

True psychotherapy, today, is unfortunately preserved and observed (almost exclusively and) only in orthodox
monasteries. It may seem hard for many to believe this, but in the Byzantine times, this therapy was
implemented also by the laity! Yes, indeed! Many lay people out there were practitioners of Hesychasm, they
lived by and acted according to this “medical” treatment. They were, in fact, “hesychasts in the world”. If you
read, for example, St. Ephraim the Syrian (4 th century A.D.), you will find him saying that people in the cities
were more ascetic than the ones living in the monasteries. So, much to our surprise, lay people were more
monastic than monastics!

Today, we have lost all of that, and many of the worldly people claim “Ιt is one thing to be a lay person and
another to be a monk. Lay people are excused (so they say) to live a spiritually “light” version of our faith and
are supposed to do less than a monastic.” Totally wrong attitude! That’s why we are all sick, both lay and
secularized people and, unfortunately, many of the monks and nuns of our times.

When we do not adopt the therapeutic system of Hesychasm, even as monks or nuns in a monastery, we
cannot be cured. It’s not the place, but the way (method) that cures!

Concluding, whenever we hear about Hesychasm, we should immediately think of the healing method
explained above.

Westernization of the orthodox East

Why was Hesychasm and its practitioners persecuted? Because the places it flourished (Russia, Greece, and
Romanity in general) started to gradually undergo a cultural westernization. It all started in Russia after the
reformation by the so-called Great Peter (in fact, he was no great at all!).

Well, this “Great” Peter, as you may already be aware of, committed a big crime: he westernized Russia! He
opened all doors and windows (figure of speech) of our Holy Russia and allowed for the entire heresy of
Papism along with its relative, the distorting culture of the West, to come in and alter everything (more or less,
the same happened here in Greece).

Consequently, in place of the traditional orthodox Byzantine Chanting, a tetra-phonic music was adopted and
is, unfortunately, to be found in all Russian churches. This is the reason for the emerging of western
iconography and pompous architecture in church constructions. It all came from Russia, from this so-called
Great Peter, who opened the doors to Western “civilization”.

This westernization came to Greece after the Greek Revolution (1821). We wanted to get rid of the Turkish
capture and got enslaved by the West, instead. What could be worse than that?!

The take-over of the orthodox civilization

Arnold Toynbee, a British historian (14 April 1889 – 22 October 1975), said that the Orthodox Civilization is
being gradually absorbed by the Western Civilization. I wished it would not come true, and it won’t, because
Orthodoxy will be forever. We, as a Greek nation, may lose Orthodoxy (and probably have lost Her already,
more or less), but She will continue existing somewhere else on Earth for sure.
For example, in America, there is a great interest in and quest for Orthodoxy. Orthodoxy is the “religion”
(people there call Her a religion, because they do not know how else they could) with the highest conversion
numbers in America; many protestant faithful convert to Orthodoxy every year, according to the statistics. It
will be no surprise if we end up going to the converted Protestants for lectures on Orthodoxy… a tragic
phenomenon for us the Orthodox.

So, this historian, Toynbee, said that we, the Orthodox, are getting progressively absorbed. It’s just an opinion
of him, but we see it, more or less, coming gradually true these days.

Where are our children, for example? They are in these clubs, brought from America with the entire attitude,
fashion in clothes and the music… American style and origin…

Toynbee has written a thick book, where he distinguishes only 5 civilizations today, all remnants out of 20-25,
which existed in the past: the Indian, the Far Eastern (China & Japan), the European, the Orthodox, and the
primitive civilization.

Westernization of the civilizations by the western “holy” missionaries and the technology

Toynbee claims (in his theory) that all civilizations are being westernized today, and, much to our regret, he is
right! If you notice carefully, the whole world is becoming Americanized; Fast-food restaurants (McDonald’s in
every corner of the Earth), music and clothes made in USA everywhere. In the older days, the attempt to
establish this life-style was made by the missionaries of the West.

Caution! The Westerners who went to Latin America, to West Africa etc. had no intention to preach about
Christ. This was only the façade. They actually went there with the sole intent to westernize those countries.

In the past, and unfortunately even today, the Europeans had sent whole troops of “Christian” missionaries,
not to initiate foreigners in Christianity, but to impose the Western life-style and philosophy.

Therefore, we had (and still have today) so many heretic missionaries acting all over Greece. Toynbee said
this “Christian” mission actually failed in the idolatry nations of Africa, and everywhere else they went,
because they broke up families and societies. They separated people, because the heresy they preached was
something very bad, not a good thing at all, not blessed by God, and what’s bad or evil, sooner or later,
deteriorates by itself.

The West has not one, but 500-1000 heresies in its family. All of them went to Africa pretending a missionary
profile, with a secret will to westernize this continent. The results: In the same family, for example, one
member became a Methodist, the other an Adventist of the Seventh Day, another a Papist or Pentecostal, and
this way the families got divided. That’s how the westernization, the attempt to rule over others, and the
exploitation through missionary work failed altogether.

And what does Toynbee suggest upon this failure? (Don’t forget, he is Westerner too!) He suggests a new
approach: Westernization through technology! And we actually see it happening today through the PCs and
globalization. We are all being Americanized by the means of New Age. In fact, all these movements have the
same mentality (selfish and submissive) to all unlawful interests of the globalizers, who want to dehumanize,
“mash” and manipulate humanity.

Living orthodox therapeutics – help our fellow human beings

This is when orthodox therapeutics has its role and say. This is when we, orthodox Christians, living in a
globally established terrorism and brutalization and despair, must have our eyes open and learn
properly how to live Orthodoxy and apply its therapeutic method. We must be spiritually healthy
internally, in order to be able to offer a helping spiritual hand to our fellow human beings, who live in
this inhumane world and constantly reach out for our help.
Our contemporary Saint Paisios of the Holy Mountain said: “People will be coming to you and draw you by the
sleeve of your shirt and ask you to talk to them about Christ!”

And I ask you, my brethren, what will we say to them about Christ? How about that: “ Take a look at our
beautiful cassocks, holy garments and the beautiful churches and icons?”…!!!

No. Those things mean absolutely nothing to them. These will not attract them, but the healing of the soul,
which will be offered from within Orthodoxy! They do have their own such externally beautiful objects and
artwork already, which they venerate as idols, by the way. So, Orthodoxy cannot win them to Christ by offering
them new idols, as any ordinary religion would do.

The advantage of Orthodoxy, with which She can conquer the whole world, is its therapeutics, its
unique healing method, the only method by which our human soul can be effectively cured.

The purpose of Orthodoxy is not to offer some kind of a new fetish. Until recently, black people, for example,
in Africa, who were idolaters, had many fetishes of their own.

So, what is our mission as Orthodox Christians? Is it maybe to substitute the artwork-fetish of the Africans with
new ones of “Orthodox” origin? Is this the reason for sending out Orthodox missionaries to the heathens? Is it
to change their religion and their fetish?

For God’s sake, NO! We (they) used to have the bone of a monkey as a fetish. What should we do now?
Should we end up using the Cross as a fetish substitute?

God forbid, NO! Woe to us, should our Orthodoxy be offered this way… It will result in superstition again. For
the infidel it will be again just another new religion and not the true psychotherapy. So, if we do not offer them
the healing treatment of our Church, and if we do not heal them by the Grace of God, we have accomplished
nothing.

However, in order to offer it to our neighbor, we should first have applied it to ourselves!

Anyone in orthodoxy, who becomes heathy again, can heal his neighbor

And, here is a wonderful thing to be found in Orthodoxy: when we go through the process of kátharsis
(purification) and, by the Grace of God, become healthy again, we can be doctors also for our fellow human
beings! It may sound strange to you, but we can indeed become the spiritual father or mother to others,
without necessarily having to wear a rásso (monastic garment). We can “adopt” spiritual children… show them
the true Light and help others.

From the moment on we get into the process of purification and illumination, we start practicing and offering a
healing method to others around us. This is the beauty of Orthodoxy! Why? Because we actually become
bearers of the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is the One Who, in fact, acts (because of us, and for those
around us, who are ready and willing to accept Him) offering the cure. It is not WE who do this to others, not
even to ourselves; God does it… the Holy Spirit.

This is the true holy mission (missionary work), the Orthodox Mission!

The Orthodox Church does not act like the Western “missionaries”, sending “troops” of appointed agents to
subjugate and master the “infidel” …

On the contrary, the Orthodox Church practices her missionary work by offering a healing treatment. She
sends an already cured person, who might not speak at all… who might just walk around and among other
people, and, by just looking at him, people get the message, they acknowledge the healthy situation he
carries along, and realize “here is the Light, this is the presence of the Holy Spirit!” And this person is a real
missionary, because he has the Light of God inside of him. It comes out of his body, out of his eyes, his voice
or even out of his silence, and spreads all around him. This is the Orthodox Holy Mission to the world.
QUESTIONS by the audience & ANSWERS by Fr. Savvas

Quantity and quality in prayer

Question from the audience:

Fr. Savva, “evlogeite” (your blessing). People say “We cannot have quality in our prayers, because the Holy
Spirit would/should be the only One granting the quality and enabling us for a pure prayer. What we can offer
is just quantity, meaning praying as much as we can…

And reading in spiritual books, I found our Holy Church Fathers saying, that we, lay people, which have many
activities and mundane worries, can initially start by filling up the gap in-between, by trying, as much as and in
any way we can, to say the Jesus-prayer. When eating something or driving somewhere in our car, for
example, to say the Jesus-prayer. This is how we can utilize this spare time. But, Father, is this enough, at
least in terms of quantity?

Answer by Fr. Savvas:

No, it is not! Because we have so many things to do, and, at the end, there are not even 5 minutes left for
prayer! Aren’t they? Am I right?

We have soooo much work to do, and the word “work” is called in Greek douliés, paraphrased δουλεῖες and
pronounced douleíes (meaning enslaving labor), so (after all this work, we undertake during the whole day)
we leave no more than 5 minutes left for us to do the most important work in our lives, THE work, the Jesus-
prayer with no distractions, the pure prayer. Because this particular work, the noetic prayer, needs time.

In order to be able to deliver a pure prayer, i.e. in order for our heart to be purified and be able to offer a pure
prayer, we need to spend hours, not just minutes! It is not my personal opinion here, but it is said by St. John
the Chryssostomos. Even since the 4 th century A.D., he instructed the lay people to devote 4 - 4,5 hours in
prayer!... and that’s for the quantity.

Daily concerns and worries and the abundance of material goods pose an obstacle to prayer

Well, you might say “I have so many things to do and to care about; I do not have time (to pray).” So, I
suggest you stop them all, and start praying. This is our main job, after all!

Why did our Lord Jesus Christ say [Matthew 6:25] “Take no thought for your life (do not worry about), what ye
shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on” ? Why did He say [Matthew 13:22]
“He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word; and the care of this world, and the
deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful.”?

The thorns are, in fact, those worries and care-abouts!

And we often say, “Let’s buy us a machine/device to help us out with our job, so we can have more spare
time.” We buy the machine and then say, “Now that I have this machine, it is a great opportunity to take care
of some more things!” … and we do this, we do that and so on…and we fall into another great trap: the trap of
doing MORE things, now that we’ve got the machine, with an ultimate goal to feed our (usually sinful)
passions and foremost our selfishness. At the end of the day, instead of having more time available (for
prayer), we have even less, and, unfortunately, what we have more of is pure stress! … Because, you know,
the machine will get defected after a while and we will have to fix it etc.…. and, in the beginning, we need to
learn how to handle it, and, when a new version of it comes to the market, we will have to drop the old one
and “update” with the new, … the brand-new worries-maker!... this is the trap we fall into.

This is the reason why our Church Fathers talked about indigence and self-sufficiency, so they can lead a life
as simple as possible; … to possess less and be less busy. Do you see how we can easily return to observing
the healing treatment of our Church (Orthodoxy)?
The need for guidance by an experienced spiritual father

Whatever we do, we must never do it based on ourselves. We have to ask, we must have a spiritual leader.
He is the one who will show us how to make progress in prayer. Not to mention, this spiritual father is the first
one to be cured in advance. Beware! He cannot be just anyone.

We must find a spiritual leader, who is (spiritually) cured, one who knows the healing method of the Church by
experience and not only by the books. Generally, those who have lived in the monasteries and practiced
honest obedience to an Elder know this particular healing method. And I say this not because I lived in a
monastery (and still do), but because this healing method is especially and almost exclusively preserved in
the monasteries and not out there in the world!

Married or unmarried spiritual father?

It is totally wrong to think “I am a married person, and I should and will go for guidance to a married spiritual
father, who lives in the world, because he should know better.”

What is it that he should have known better? Do you imply that the unmarried ones have not been raised in a
family, and do not know what’s going on there?

But the point is not to know what’s going on and what’s not. The point is to know how to heal the other person,
to know how to purify one’s soul, one’s noetic energy! Being a spiritual father, you should be able to inspire
and help the person under your guidance to be purified, cooperating with the Devine Grace, because, if you
have not done this already to yourself (by the Grace of God), you cannot show this to another person.
Moreover, if people do not want to be cured in the first place, and just come to you for an opinion, despite your
help and all your useful words, they will, unfortunately, simply not do what’s needed, they will not be purified.

Many people regard the Mystery of the Holy Confession as a simple (psychoanalytic) discussion, and the
spiritual father as a person who just happens to possess human knowledge more than they do. Since they do
not believe that he is being illumined by the Holy Spirit at this very moment of the confession process, they do
not humble themselves to the “first will” of the spiritual father. Either because of ignorance or because of pride,
they miss out on the help they would receive from the energy of the Holy Spirit, Who is actually the One
conducting the Mystery. This way, those people degrade the Mystery down to the level of a simple
conversation or exchange of opinions, and, hence, in each occasion they seek for a conversationalist spiritual
father, whom THEY regard as more experienced (or obviously more convenient toward their sinful passions).

Another false distinction is between “strict” and “lenient” spiritual fathers. Like in medical practice, where there
is no such thing as a strict or lenient doctor, but either physicians-healers or charlatans, so it is in the case of
the spiritual fathers: There are those who offer an effective healing treatment and those, still uncured
themselves, who don’t!

Antimonastic spirit

Question from the audience:

Many people think that we laypeople should keep a distance from the monasteries [talking about the
antimonastic spirit and when it prevailed].

Answer by Fr. Savvas:

Yes, this is totally wrong!

This is what I have been already telling you, the antimonastic spirit in Greece has been established since
1800, just after the Greek liberation from the Ottoman occupation. Until that moment, people used to embrace
the monasteries and respect monastic life.
Wherever monastic life did not face hostility, for example in Romania, we can watch mothers leading their own
children to the monasteries. Mothers lead their daughters to the monasteries, to become nuns!

People might say “What is this?”

We miss out on ll, this is Orthodoxy.

Whenever a mother realized her child’s ability and will for monastic life, she led it herself there!

In Greece we experience a weird phenomenon, mothers or fathers cannot tolerate the idea of their son or
daughter having the will to go to a monastery…

This is exactly because of the western spirit, which, I repeat, came across by Korais and the Bavarians, and,
unfortunately, we are the ones who mold it. Initially they brought it over and imposed it and then we absorbed
it.

Illumination of our nous

Question from the audience:

Is illumination a permanent state or is the Holy Spirit coming back and forth?

Answer by Fr. Savvas:

When we progress to illumination, this state is permanent. It’s there and you live it 24 hours a day. This means
we live this state also during our sleep… The Holy spirit prays within us and we feel it also during our sleep!
This is a state described in the Song of Songs (or Song of Solomon) 5:2, “I sleep, but my heart waketh”. How
does my heart hold this wake? By praying ceaselessly. Our heart, at this state, never stops praying all day
through. This is the state of illumination. It is when a man becomes a temple of the Holy Spirit!

Catanyxis - Illumination - Tears

Question from the audience:

Does illumination have anything to do with catanyxis (a combination of the following for a limited period of
time: sense of reverence, contrition and inner rejoicing)? For example, when a faithful prays heartfelt inside
the church and is in catanyxis, can we assume he/she is also illumined?

Answer by Fr. Savvas:

It depends. Maybe yes, maybe no. Tears (and catanyxis) is an issue that needs an illumined spiritual father to
discern what is going on. There are many kinds of tears.

There are emotional tears, who are shed, because we remember something and got emotional.

There are egoistical tears: Somebody told us something, we could not stand it, we felt wronged (insulted) and
we started crying… because of our selfishness, it was our selfishness which was actually affected.

Many times, a husband says something to his wife, she can’t take it and feels wronged (and starts crying).
This is obviously not catanyxis. Just the opposite; by shedding these tears, instead of attracting God’s Grace,
we get demonized and darken our nous and soul!

There are also tears of repentance, the ones St. Peter shed… bitter tears; “And Peter went out, and wept
bitterly”, says Luke 22:62 in the New Testament.

There are also sweet tears, another kind of tears, shed when the Light of God, the Holy Spirit, comes to us.
So, then we cry and at the same time we are happy, we rejoice, and our soul is fed by the love of God. It is,
though, necessary to be under the guidance of a spiritual father (Pnevmatikos), to be guided on which kind of
tears to cultivate and whether we should or should not cultivate the tears that come to us.

But, let me tell you a secret:

We can make a big spiritual turn, instead! Let us suppose we feel tears coming to our eyes for a reason, any
reason… Let’s turn them into tears of repentance. If we want, we can really convert our tears into tears of
metany. We can say to our Lord: “My God, forgive me.” We can start confessing our sins before our Lord by
saying: “I have done this and that… I am a BIG sinner. Please, forgive me.” So, this way, even if the initial
tears were selfish tears, we can sort of break the backbone of the devil and turn them into tears of repentance.

How much can we endure praying

Question from the audience:

How much can we stand praying and attend the church services?

Answer by Fr. Savvas:

Frankly, if we start praying, it means we start breathing!

Hence, when we ask about how long we can stand praying, it is like asking how long we can stand breathing.
So, can we stand breathing? And if yes, for how long? Can you stand breathing only for 5 min. a day?
Obviously not, because within less than 2 minutes since we stopped breathing, we will have to take a new
breath again!

Do you realize what most of us do? It’s totally crazy, but this is exactly what we do: our soul breaths 5 min. in
the morning and 5 min. in the evening. What about the rest of the 23 hours and 50 min.? We actually do not
breath; we do not pray!

Well, it is totally justifiable that people have stress; absolutely. Not only stress, but something even worse:
suffocation! We feel everyone around us is to blame, everything that happens to us is a misfortune. Poor us…
If anybody was supposed to close our nose and mouth, we would easily understand that we cannot bear even
2 minutes without breathing air into our lungs.

You know what’s happening? When we start praying properly, when we start praying the noetic (Jesus)
prayer, we will not be wondering anymore whether we can stand it or not. On the contrary, we will not be able
to stand a minute without praying!

Illumination and how to reach it

When we are in the state of illumination, we pray constantly. In a state of complete illumination, the Jesus
Prayer is self-acting. This means it is being said by itself ceaselessly within our heart.

The question is how to get there.

In the beginning we sort of squeeze ourselves, so we get used to pray.

What does a baby do, when it comes out of its mother’s womb? It cries, because it comes out into a new
environment. If it doesn’t cry, it will not be able to take a breath. Right? It must cry, to take its first breath. After
that, it will be constantly taking new breaths of air. However, if it does not cry, it will suffocate. This is the point,
where it needs to be forced (usually a light slap on the buds by the leading physician).

So, this is how it works also with the noetic prayer. In the beginning we will need to force ourselves, but
afterwards, when we start breathing (praying), we do not need any force at all. In fact, we will need a force to
stop it! We will not be willing to stop our constant praying.
Now, we are in this sick condition, and you know what’s happened to us? We are like someone who’s used to
drink petrol!!!

Is it normal to consume petrol?

Of course, not. From the moment on we stop drinking petrol, we will realize what a foolish thing it was to do,
and then we will never want to drink it again. This is what it means for a human being to reach the state of
illumination. From this moment on, we do not fall, it is not impossible, but very difficult to fall and sin again.
And this, because not to sin, believe it or not, is in our human nature.

What’s missing? True repentance!

- Why do we, the faithful, go back and forth (in our spiritual lives)?

- Because we do not REALLY repent. You know what we do? We just regret?

We go to our spiritual father and say “You know, I am very sad, I have done such and such… I did it again”,
but we do not sincerely repent, we do not make a solid decision to allow for an explosion inside our souls and
say “That’s it; enough is enough. From now on, I will force my nous to pray.”

You might ask “Should this be done by force?” And the answer is “YES, by force!” We must cut deep down
within our soul, to start the procedure of katharsis, purification.

Force and fatigue during ceaseless praying

For the noetic prayer, as I have already mentioned, in the beginning (but also afterwards) we need to apply
force. At this point, we need faith. If you believe in it, you will do it. If you believe in God, you will do the Jesus
Prayer. And this, because God gave it as an order. God demands from us to pray ceaselessly. Do you know
where this is written? Ok, it is in St. Paul’s letters. But Christ said it also. Where?

St. Paul the Apostle said [Thess. 5:17] “pray without ceasing”. Ceaselessly means not only 5 minutes in the
morning and 5 minutes in the evening, but 24h a day! I ask again, where in the Bible does our Lord Jesus
Christ say that we have to pray ceaselessly? It is in Luke 18:1 about the Persistent Widow and the Unjust
Judge, where it says, “And he spake a parable unto them  to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not
to faint;”. As it is explained by the Evangelist, Christ told us this parable, so that we always pray and not give
up.

Question from the audience:

Fr. Savvas, what about the noetic prayer?

Answer by Fr. Savvas:

I told you already. When we start doing it right and ceaselessly, there will be a moment when the very Holy
Spirit will come into us and do it!

Noetic prayer and how to get used to its practice

Fr. Savvas replying to the question on noetic prayer again:

Just do it as you can… let me tell you a method for everybody.

I knew a soul who practiced the noetic prayer for 2 hours in the morning, 2 hours at noon and 2 hours in the
evening, either standing upright or on her knees. She learnt how to do it. She forced herself, but then she got
used to it… and then she ended up practicing the prayer 24h a day! It is the Holy Spirit that takes over
afterwards; it doesn’t need any force at all anymore.
Well, we need to set a program, like the athletes do. Do you know what the athletes do? (was anybody of you
here ever an athlete?). You’ll be amazed by their heavy training schedule. They wear, for example, iron chest-
vests and go up and down the stairs of the stadium stands, to grow their leg muscles! A kind of torture, we
could say. What for? To make the 100-meter race faster, for example, and receive an empty cup! So, what?
20 years later, no one will remember who you were… If we work so hard for such vain goals, wouldn’t it be
reasonable to put at least some effort for eternal life?

Is spiritual life tiresome?

Fr. Savvas replying to the question on spiritual life:

When we lead a spiritual life properly, there is no fatigue, no stress. And this, because we do nothing against
our nature, but, on the contrary, we go back to normal. We do the normal thing. We were actually walking on
our hands, and now we turn upside down and start walking normally again. Do we feel any strain by doing
this? Yes, but only in the beginning. When we do it, and get used to it a little, we never want to turn upside
down and walk with our hands again.

This is sin: walking upside down! This is being unrepentant. In other words, when our nous is scattered, and
our heart is filled with logismoi (image-thoughts), it is like walking on our hands! Is it possible to live this way? I
wonder how people do live this way, today?

Every moment living according to God’s will & ceaseless prayer

If we pay attention to live according to God’s will, we will also be in a true praying state. Let me tell you
something:

Praying is not only about saying some words. We might be saying words, but never paying attention to them.
So, this is not praying; it is something motoric. However, when we keep in mind to follow God’s will, we think
to ourselves “What is the will of God? What is said in the first commandment? [Luke 10:27] ‘Thou shalt love
the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind’.” There
it is! What does our Lord mean by saying “with all thy mind”? What else, but to think about Him constantly?
Well, this is prayer: to think of Christ all the time!

There was a soul, who used to come to me for confession, and he told me once “Father, I didn’t say anything,
I just had my mind in Jesus”. “So, what were you doing?” I asked him. “Nothing, father”, he said, “I simply kept
my mind in Christ. Very exhausting, though, father… very exhausting, indeed!” He was very much exhausted,
but, from then on, he had godly experiences, experiences of theosis (deification).

So, this is prayer: to never lose Christ from our mind.

Love towards God and the difficulty in praying ceaselessly

How is it when you are in love with a certain person? Just tell me, do you need any special effort to think
about this person? No, you don’t. Your mind constantly revolves around this person; constantly… And you
may be walking a heavily crowded sidewalk of a central avenue with a lot of noise and distraction, and you
don’t see anything, you don’t hear anything! Why? Because your mind is focused on the person you love. This
is how our relationship with Christ is, our love for Christ, Divine Love. This is what I mean when I say we
should love God.

Does it need any effort? Of course, not. As soon as we start this flaming love for God, no effort is necessary.
We pray spontaneously. You might say “How am I supposed to do this, now that I don’t love Him yet?” Well, in
the beginning, you need to force yourself a little. This is what our Lord Jesus Christ said [Matthew 11:12] “the
kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force”. At the start, we will have to think of Him
deliberately, to force ourselves.
It is like when we try to set up a fire. What happens then? In the beginning we get smoked; the fire does not
start immediately. The wood gives out smoke, our eyes are watering, they are full of tears, but later… when
the fire is burning alright, smoke is gone, humidity is evaporated out of the wood, and we are full of joy. We
are so happy to be there, in this comfortable heat. This is what happens with the Jesus Prayer, the ceaseless
prayer.

How to reach purification

I would like to remind you: the Jesus Prayer is not the only thing to be practiced. It is the entire therapeutic
system of our Orthodox Church we have to observe. This means we should live a liturgical life (attend Church
services frequently), we should live an ascetic life (fasting, keep vigils, love for hardship and toil), try practicing
obedience to everybody (except for sin), cut out our logismoi, develop a proper dogmatic conscience, which
means to get to know our Orthodox Faith better, and to constantly try to serve God’s will and not ours.

How to know the will of God

How are we supposed to know the will of God? This is possible only when we have a spiritual leader. We
cannot discover the will of God all by ourselves. You may read all the spiritual books of the world, but again,
you will never get to know His will this way, because it is not about intellectual knowledge. It’s all about
humility, obedience, Divine Grace, experience of God. This is the right way to know what God wants from us
and what decision we should make in every instance.

That’s why we need a personal spiritual leader: he will show us the way and will give us the keys to gradually
be able to know God’s will and each time to act accordingly. There will be a time, when you will be able, by
God’s Grace, to discern things by yourself, but not from the beginning. First, you will have to go through
catharsis (purification) and reach illumination. Then it will be easy for you to guide not only yourself (not by
abandoning your spiritual leader, of course), but to help others, by showing them the way to get where you are
now.

Truly, this wonderful thing is taking place in our Orthodox Church. When you are done purifying yourself, you
may become a doctor for others!

Seek first the Kingdom of God

“But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”
[Matthew 6:33]. To ask for the Kingdom means to ask that God reins inside me, He shall be my Lord.

However, we must believe that; there lies the difficulty and stress. People say “Why should it start with it,
anyways? Why should I do it”. If you don’t believe, you have no motive, obviously. You have to be convinced
that your spiritual eyes must open, here and now, because if they do not open here (in this life), it will be
impossible afterwards … “there is no repentance in Hades”. This is a basic belief in Orthodoxy: “In Hades
there is no repentance”. If your spiritual eyes do not open in this life on earth, it will be impossible after our
physical death.

Our spiritual eyes won’t open by accident; we have to act, with God’s help, of course. By the Grace of God,
we achieve it, not by ourselves! But we have to want to achieve it in this life. Watch out!

The Church primarily ministers for the life here on earth

The Church is primarily serving for our life here on earth. However, many people -unfortunately also among
many orthodox- believe that the Church only prepares us for life after death.

Wrong! She does not prepare us for the other life. She gets us fixed during and not only for this life, but also
for the other (the eternal), in order to get our spiritual eyes open during this life, so we can enter the Kingdom
of God, God’s Paradise, here and now! And, if we do not find Paradise here and now, we will not find Him
after our physical death. Because in the other life we will not be able to repent.
“In Hades there is no repentance”. This is a commonly used expression by most Orthodox Church Fathers
taken from Psalm 6:5 “For in death there is  no remembrance of thee: in the grave who shall give thee
thanks?”

The Church is not supposed to satisfy our earthly plans

There are people who think the Church is here, to favor our earthly plans. This is wrong, too! This is not what
the Church is for. When we think of the Orthodox Church like that, we have superstitious view and consider
Her like any other religion on earth. Orthodoxy is not a religion; She is the revelation of God in man, with a
sole purpose to heal our whole human nature, our nous, our soul and our body!

When to pray

Normally, we are supposed to pray ceaselessly. To get used to it, we can set up a schedule to pray during
certain hours within the day. In the morning, it is a very good moment for someone to practice the noetic
prayer and say “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me” with our mouth for several times.

Teaching our children to pray ceaselessly

It would be a blessed practice for the parents (the mother, for example) to gather their children under (or in
front of) the ikonostasis (icon screen) and invite them to jointly practice the Jesus Prayer for 5 minutes.

“This is how we begin”, said gracefully Elder and contemporary Saint Paisios of the Holy Mountain, “to pull the
belts of the machine, to start the machine of our nous.” Especially a child, who’s soul is pure and, compared to
us, has not so many passions or thoughts (logismoi), rejoices and easily understands what the noetic prayer
is. After that, children like it and want to practice it constantly. Children are not as darkened as adults are, so
after the first attempts, very soon those 5 minutes become 10, 15 and so on…

When we (the mother) begin our day this way, and try to continue the Jesus Prayer also during breakfast, and
do it again for another 5 minutes before having lunch with our children, and again for another 5 minutes in the
evening, before going to bed, we gradually immerse into this state (and procedure) of ceaseless memory of
God, progressively…

However, we will have to advise our children to put an effort to remember Christ all through the rest of the day
as well. Because, if we build for 5 minutes and then demolish during the next 3-5 hours, we are obviously
doing nothing significant.

Raising our children – a general approach

What’s elementary for our children is to be under the guidance of a Pnevmatikos (Spiritual Father), to meet
with him regularly and submit to him with orthodox obedience (provided this Pnevmatikos is mastering the
orthodox therapeutic system and is already cured).

Of critical importance is the personal life of the parents, as struggling spiritual individuals. For example, if they
practice the Jesus Prayer, and they should, their children will imitate them, because children usually copy their
parents. So, it is not sufficient for the parents to just throw some religious advice on the table; they should
practice spiritual life together with their children. Moreover, prostrations, studying our Holy Scriptures and
Orthodox Patristic works is mandatory and should be done together with our children, but not taking up much
of their time, to avoid fatigue… Later, if the parents want, they can do more themselves without them.

THE END AND GLORY BE TO GOD!

APPENDIX
 NOUS, NOETIC ENERGY & HEART, ACCORDING TO OUR HOLY FATHERS

Our nous has to be in our heart.

The nous is the priest, and the heart is the inner altar of man, and it should be devoted to God.

The human nous, according to our Church Fathers, has to be inside us, in our heart, and should be praying
there ceaselessly (be officiating, conducting a ceaseless Divine Liturgy in the inner altar of the human heart).

The nous is not supposed to be scattered outwards through the senses, but ought to “come to oneself” (or to
one’s senses, like the prodigy son).

This means that the energy of the human nous, which is scattered through the senses into the environment,
has to return to the essence (ousia) of the nous, which is located inside the human heart.

We point out here the following facts about what we discern in the human soul:

a. essence, which is located in the heart (and is called “deep heart”) and
b. energy (which is called noetic energy).

The noetic energy is operating in the heart of the spiritually healthy as noetic ceaseless prayer (nous), and in
the brain as intellect (logic).

Then, when this returning of the nous to the heart is completed, the nous, through itself, “ascends to the
meaning of God”. Then, the noetic energy functions properly. Then, the nous, according to our Holy Fathers,
functions/operates naturally (by the laws of nature, κατά φύσιν).

In Patristic Theology, a book containing his main points from his university lectures, Fr. John Romanides
teaches: “The curing of the human soul is the main concern of the Orthodox Church. The Church was
always healing the human soul. She found out (by examining the Hebrew tradition and from Christ Himself
and the Apostles) that there is something operating within the space of our physical heart, which our Holy
Fathers called nous.

So, they took the traditional nous, which used to mean the intellect (doiania) and logos (word) and
differentiated: they named nous the noetic energy that operates inside the heart of a spiritually healthy person.
We do not know when this differentiation took place, because there are some Church Fathers, who use the
same term, nous, when they talk about logic (the intellect) and about the noetic energy as well, when it comes
down and operates in the space of the heart.

So, through this perspective, the noetic energy is the one and only energy of the human soul, which
operates as logic, when it is in the human brain, and simultaneously operates as nous in the human
heart. In other words, the same organ, the human nous, prays ceaselessly in the heart (only in people who
have acquired the ceaseless noetic prayer) and, at the same time, solves mathematical problems or anything
else, by operating in the human brain.”

The returning of the nous to the heart and the returning of the energy to the essence are many times
mentioned in the works of our Holy Fathers. St. Basil the Great says that the nous who is not scattered
outwards and is not diffused by the senses out into the world, returns to itself and, through itself, it ascends to
the meaning of God. And, after that, peripherically glown and from within by the beauty of God, by the Divine
Grace, by the uncreated Light of God, this nous has no earthly concern anymore and even forgets about the
physical needs for survival. In other words, such a person neither worries stressfully about their food
provisions; neither cares about what clothes to wear.

The returning of the human nous from its diffusion (scatter) to the heart, which is the returning of the noetic
energy back to its essence, is the cure of the nous, its restoration to its natural function.
Then, our heart gets purified by practicing the ceaseless noetic prayer in the heart, and inside this purified
heart comes the Blessed Dweller, the All-Holy Spirit, with His fruit: love, joy, peace, longsuffering etc. When
this happens, all previously present negative consequences of our sinfulness disappear: our selfishness, the
sorrow caused by the selfishness, and depression as well!
Let us all fight for our spiritual rekindling (in place of an epilogue)

SPIRITUAL REKINDLING

What does it mean?

It is the rekindling of the fire within us, a re-strengthening of our spiritual flame, which should be constantly
burning inside our heart. There are times when the intensity of this spiritual fire decreases. Our Lord said
[Luke 12:49]: “I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled?” The fire can warm
us up, can be pleasant, but can be burning too! The spiritual fire offers spiritual pleasure, inner joy, jubilant
disposition, heart-warmth. It renders the purification from the passions. It is the fire of the Holy Spirit, which is
called Divine Grace.

This fire is put on from the moment we are baptized. If we are cautious and preserve it or even make it
stronger, we gradually become blissful, a deified person.

Usually, a wrong child-rearing deactivates this divine fire which was put on inside us by the Holy Spirit.
Frequent praise (bravo) will spiritually destroy our children, because it cultivates their egotism. The
Divine Grace, like a little spark, gets buried under tons of sins and passions.

There comes a moment in our lives, if we have a good predisposition, we “listen” to the calling of the Divine
Grace, which never abandons us in this life on earth. If we respond to this calling, we get to taste the fruit of
the Holy Spirit for free, until further notice. Sometimes, for pedagogical reasons, Divine Grace retreats. We are
then called upon continuing our course of repentance without enjoying the same “treats” we used to receive
during the first period of our calling. And this is the time, when we are asked to rekindle our first love, the first
fire, which the Kind Parakletos had put on inside our hearts on the first place.

The rekindling happens when we discover the hidden treasure of God in our heart.

The way to do this is metany (metanoia), proper and complete repentance. By the Divine Grace, we begin to
put away all the garbage, the “debris” of our various sins. We cry; we correct whatever we can, we pray with
our nous, and, this way, we gradually reveal the hidden Pearl of Great Price, the almost burnt out Coal of the
Divine Grace.

All this effort needs patience, perseverance and solid determination. We are asked to be patient, when
experiencing the feeling that God has abandoned us. We are called for being perseverant, awaiting the Divine
Help, which will revoke the temptations.

During the first period, when the Divine Grace is given to us for free, everything is easy and perfect. “At no
cost at all, we enjoy the wealth of a stranger” (figure of speech).

During the second period, when the Divine Grace has retreated, we are asked to struggle, so as to acquire
the Divine Donation on our own free will. Patience is the key. To be patient, we need to be humble, by
following God’s Commandments, and by staying in our Holy Church. We need an ascetic life partaking of the
Mystreria (Sacraments) of our Church. We need tears, godly grief, catanyxis (a combination of the following:
sense of reverence, contrition and inner rejoicing), inclusive abstinence, hardship, obedience to a spiritual
father, humility.

Finally, the third period of regaining the Divine Grace follows, when we experience true repentance. The
Grace embraces our existence permanently and abandons us never again.

In our rekindling effort, we fanned the fire, we got tired, we worked hard, got smoked (like someone trying to
rekindle an almost dead fire), we got smudged with ashes, and finally discovered the still burning “Anthrax”
(coal). Fanning the fire, according to our Church Fathers, is the prayer of the heart, which gradually burns the
thorns and the rust of our sins and passions.
The ceaseless calling of the Divine Name “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me” ( Κύριε Ἴησοῦ Χριστέ,
ἐλέησόν με) breaks down the concrete-wall of our sinful passions, which we threw all around our heart.

Once we put away whatever covered the Holy Anthrax, the rekindling process follows. We collect small,
flammable dry wood (as tinder) and put them, using all our talent, all over the Holy Anthrax, and, at the same
time, we ceaselessly fan the fire. In other words, we do the works of repentance, exercise the virtues
(humbleness, love, forgiveness, abstinence, chastity etc.) and, at the same time, we pray with our heart, so as
to transfer the slowly burning “fire” of the Holy Anthrax over to the “tinder”.

Till the fire is lit well, we suffer again, because, till the tinder starts burning properly, it smokes and makes us
cry. This is the fighting-period.

When the fire burns well, the smoke disappears.

Our works brighten and get sanctified by the Holy Spirit. We start being holy-spiritual and our works, too!
When the struggle towards purification is completed, the Divine Grace starts filling the repentant faithful
gradually with sweet warmth, jubilant feelings, rejoicing, joy and peace. These are the same things we
effortless tasted also during the first period of the calling by the Divine Grace. Back then, we tasted them only
for a while, and lost them again. Now, they are all gifts received from God again, but they are here to stay.

A person who reached this state, has successfully rekindled the Divine Fire in their body and soul, manifesting
both internally and externally. The Holy Spirit changes the entire person, and when we undergo this “good
alloiosis” (pronounced alléosis: a radical change, alteration, often mentioned by our contemporary Saint Elder
Paisios of the Holy Mountain) is something experienced also by everyone around us.

Amen! For all of us, by the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, to Whom is due all glory, honor and worship,
together with His unoriginate Father, and His Most Holy and good and life-creating Spirit, now and ever, and
unto ages of ages.

THE END AND GLORY BE TO GOD!