St Elisabeth Convent. Orthodox Life And Chants

WHY ARE THERE SO MANY “BAD” PEOPLE IN CHURCH?
by Denis Akhalashvili
I often have to hear how people say about our Church, “You know, I don’t go to your church and won’t go, because it’s like a train station there—who don’t you see there? It would be alright if they were good people, but they’re not! I met one of them. Do you know what sort of man he is? And that girl is not any better. I won’t even mention the rest. And they go to services, cross themselves and don’t even blush…”
Why are there so many unfortunate, wretched, broken lives, strange and simply bad people in the Church, while the saints and righteous ones are hardly to be found? This scandalizes and turns away many.
But this is in fact the most remarkable thing, that there are only sick people all around! It means that you have come to the right place. It means that everything you have read in the Gospels and heard about Christ is true.
Who did the Lord take to heaven first? The repentant thief. Publicans, harlots, lepers, and the demonically possessed came to Him from all around. Not the righteous. The sick. All the rest had no time for Him. There were just fine without Him.
Just fine, without God. The Gospel calls this state death. Because the soul without God is a dead soul.
People are always confusing the Heavenly Church with the earthly Church. From this comes the misunderstanding, doubts, and confusion. All the saints and righteous ones are there, in the Kingdom of Heaven. But here on earth, the Church is a hospital for sins, spiritual illnesses and death. In our Church there is only one who is absolutely healthy, pure, perfect, and sinless. He is our Lord and God Jesus Christ. And it is by His power that the Church is delivered, treated, and cured.
Why is it that when we see sick, lame, and coughing people in an ordinary hospital no one gets the desire to point to his temples, turn heel and run? That is why it is a hospital, so that the sick would come and be healed. This is even more true for the Church, where it is not the body being healed, but the eternal soul. That sick people come with terrible wounds and diseases testifies to the power of the doctor they are seeking. Sinners who have resolved to be delivered from their sins and death testify to Christ.
And when I look at people in church, my heart is filled with joy, because the Lord is here, with us, and He is healing. Sometimes people themselves don’t know why they go to church. The pain itself, the wounds that won’t stop gnawing at their hearts lead them here. Then suddenly, it all goes away. Without understanding the services, in general vaguely understanding what is going on, the person suddenly feels that he is now better. He—that is he, the heart—his heart, though just recently bleeding it is now peaceful and well. People can lie, books can deceive, but your own heart tells the truth. And this is the most remarkable thing that you can feel in the Church.

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St Elisabeth Convent. Orthodox Life And Chants

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St Elisabeth Convent. Orthodox Life And Chants

SUNDAY OF THE LAST JUDGMENT
by Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Today, on our preparation journey towards Lent, we have come to the ultimate stage: we are confronted with judgment. If we pay attention to it, next week our spiritual destiny will be in our own hands, because next week is the Sunday of Forgiveness.
The link between these two days is too obvious. If we only could become aware that each and everyone of us stand before the judgment of God and the judgment of men, if we could remember and realize profoundly, wholeheartedly, and earnestly that we are, all of us, indebted to each other, that we are all responsible to each other for some of the pain and the heaviness of life, then when we are asked to forgive we would find it easy not only to forgive, but in response to this request, to ask for forgiveness ourselves.
It is not only by what we do, not only by what we leave undone, but by this extraordinary lack of awareness of our responsibility, of what we could be to others and do for others, that we do not fulfill our human vocation. We could, and we should, on all levels and for all men, and beyond men for the whole world that is ours, be a blessing and a revelation of things so great, so deep that people, first of all we ourselves, could realize that we are on the scales of God Himself; that our vocation is not only to be morally good, but to be as great as God. A mystic of Germany said in one of his poems “I am as great as God, God is as small as I.”
If we only could remember this. This is why the judgment is not only a moment when we are confronted with the danger of condemnation; there is in the very notion of judgment something great and inspiring. We are not going to be judged according to human standards of behavior and decency. We are going to be judged according to standards that are beyond ordinary human life. We are going to be judged on the scales of God, and the scales of God are love: not love felt, not an emotional love, but love lived and accomplished. The fact that we are going to be judged, that indeed we are being judged all the time, above our means, beyond all our smallness, should reveal to us our potential greatness. And the parable that we have read today can be seen in those very terms: in His parable, Christ judges men on their humanity. Have these men been human or not? Have they known how to love—first in their hearts, but also in action, in their very deeds; because as Saint John the Theologian puts it, one who says that he loves God and does not love his neighbor actively and creatively is a liar. There is no love of God if it is not expressed in every detail of our relationship with men, with people and with each person.
And so, let us this week prepare ourselves for the final stage of our journey by asking ourselves in the face of this divine judgment, “Am I human? Am I human within myself, in my behavior—not my general attitude, but my ways: are they human? Is my life an expression of a fine, a thoughtful, perceptive, creative, and at times generous and a sacrificial love?” As the object of love is the test of this love, it must be my neighbor, for it is too easy to love God Who asks for nothing.
And if in the course of this week we find where we belong, we find both our shortcomings and the greatness of our vocation; if we make our peace with those to whom we are indebted, then when the time comes to forgive, when someone else will have made the same discovery, we will be able with joy to give peace and forgiveness out of a sense of responsibility, and the creative joy of repentance. Amen.

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St Elisabeth Convent. Orthodox Life And Chants

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St Elisabeth Convent. Orthodox Life And Chants

THE SPIRITUAL MEANING OF THE FEAST OF THE MEETING OF THE LORD
by Hieromonk Job (Gumerov)
The event that initiated this one of the twelve great feasts is, in the spiritual sense, multi-dimensional. The word “meeting” does not convey the main significance of the Church Slavonic understanding of sretenie. Ordinarily those who meet are equals. “But here,” as Metropolitan Benjamin (Fedchenkov) notes, “the Slavonic word, sretenie, is more fitting, for it speaks of the coming out of the lesser to meet the greater; of people coming to meet God” (Letters on the Twelve Great Feasts [Moscow, 2004], 170-1 [Russian]). The event in the Jerusalem temple has particular significance. The Divine Law-Giver Himself, as the firstborn of every creature (Col. 1:15) and as the firstborn of the Virgin (Mt. 1:25) is brought as a gift to God. This symbolic act is as if the beginning of that service, which would end on earth with a great event: the incarnate Son of God would offer His whole self to God for the redemption of mankind, with whom he had earlier met in the person of righteous Simeon. For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel (Lk. 2:30-32). This song of thanksgiving goes back in thought and expression to certain passages in the book of the Prophet Isaiah: And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, and he that shall arise to rule over the Gentiles; in him shall the Gentiles trust, and his rest shall be glorious (Is. 11:10). Jesse was the father of King David. Therefore, the Root of Jesse—the people’s awaited Messiah Christ, the Son of David (cf. Mt. 1:1), Who, as two centuries of history shows, will become a a sign which shall be spoken against. This sign will divide people into the believing and the unbelieving, into those who love the light and those who choose darkness. “What is this sign which shall be spoken against? It is the Sign of the Cross, which the Church will confess as salvific for the whole world” (St. John Chrysostom).
The meeting of God and man, which first took place in the Jerusalem temple, must become for each of us a personal event. Our path of salvation must begin by a meeting with Jesus Christ as our personal Savior. Until this meeting takes place, we remain sitting in darkness… and in the shadow of death (Mt. 4:16).
On the fortieth day after the Birth of the Infant God, yet another meeting took place—the Old Testament Church and the New Testament Church. The entire Gospel passage is penetrated with the motif of exact fulfillment of the law of Moses: the forty-day period of purification prescribed in the book of Leviticus (cf. 12:2-4), the dedication of the firstborn son to God (cf. Num. 3:13), and that firstborn son’s symbolic redemption (Ex. 13:13). Nevertheless, it is easy to see that the spiritual center of the event described is completely transferred into New Testament history. Now (Lk. 2:29) means that the time awaited by many generations of the coming of the Messiah has arrived. Holy righteous Simeon speaks of the departure from this world (the verb depart in the Greek and Slavonic texts is in the present tense). The elder Simeon’s inspired speech is filled with praise and thanksgiving to God that the time of promise is now fulfilled. According to patristic tradition, the holy Prophet Zacharias, father of St. John the Baptist, placed the Holy Virgin who came according to the law to fulfill the rite not in the place designated for women there for purification, but in the place designated for virgins (women who had husbands were not allowed to stand there). And when the scribes and Pharisees expressed their indignation, Zacharias proclaimed that this Mother remains and will remain a Virgin and pure: “Therefore I have not forbidden this Mother to stand in the place appointed for virgins, because She is higher than all virgins.”
The third meeting is of an extremely personal character. For the elder Simeon, the day has come for which he had waited an unusually long time. He was promised to see the Savior of the world, born of the Most Pure Virgin Mary. Righteous Simeon, distinguished by his brilliant learnedness, as a wise man who knew the Divine Scripture very well, labored together with seventy-two translators on the island of Pharos in Alexandria in the 380’s B.C. over the translation of the books of the Old Testament from Hebrew into Greek. While translating the book of the Prophet Isaiah, he came to the words, Behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb, and shall bring forth a son (Is. 7:14). When he read this, he doubted, thinking that it was impossible for a woman to give birth without a husband. Simeon took a knife and wanted to erase these words from the scroll and replace “virgin” with “woman”. But then an angel of the Lord appeared to him stayed his hand, saying, “Have faith in the words written, and you yourself will behold their fulfillment, for you shall not see death until you have seen the Lord Christ born of a virgin.” Believing the angels words, the elder Simeon waited impatiently for Christ’s coming into the world, and led a righteous and blameless life. According to tradition, elder Simeon was vouchsafed a blessed end in the 360th year of his life. His holy relics were translated during the reign of Emperor Justinian the Younger (565-578) to Constantinople and placed in the chapel of the Apostle Jacob of the Chalkoprateia church.
The prayer of St. Simeon the God-Receiver (now lettest Thou Thy servant depart, O Master) is sung (on feast days) or read (during simple services) every evening, so that the passing day would remind every believer of the sunset of his life, which ends with his departure from this temporary life. We must live our lives in peace with God and fulfillment of the Gospel commandments, so that like the holy elder Simeon, we might joyfully greet the endless and bright day in the Kingdom of Heaven.

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St Elisabeth Convent. Orthodox Life And Chants

UNIVERSAL ANCESTRAL SATURDAY (MEATFARE SATURDAY).
This is a special day when the Church prays for all departed Orthodox Christians, especially our parents, ancestors, and loved ones. Submit the names of your departed for commemoration at the Divine Liturgy and Memorial Service online here

👉 obitel-minsk.org/prayer-request-youtube

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St Elisabeth Convent. Orthodox Life And Chants

Homily on the Meeting of the Lord
What a tender scene the Meeting of the Lord shows us! The venerable elder Simeon, holding the infant God in his hands, on either side of him are the righteous Joseph and the Most Holy Mother of God. Not far away is the Prophetess Anna, an eighty-year-old faster and woman of prayer. Their eyes are all directed toward the Savior. Their attention is absorbed by Him and they drink in spiritual sweetness from Him, which feeds their souls. You can judge for yourself how blessed was the state of these souls!
However, brethren, we are called not only to think about this blessedness, but also to taste it in reality, for all are called to have and carry the Lord in themselves, and to disappear in Him with all the powers of their spirit. When we have reached that state, then our blessedness will be no lower than that of those who participated in the Meeting of the Lord. They were blessed who saw it; we shall be blessed who have not seen, but believed. Pay attention. I will show you briefly how to achieve this. Here is what you should do.
1. First of all, repent. Remember that nothing must be done in spiritual life without repentance. No matter what anyone endeavors to seek, let the beginning of it be repentance. Just as a house cannot be built without a foundation, nor a field be sown or planted without first being cleared, so also without repentance we cannot begin our spiritual search; anything begun without repentance was begun in vain. Thus, first of all, repent—that is, weep over everything bad that you have done, and resolve to do only what is pleasing to God. This will be like turning your gaze and your whole body towards the path of meeting the Lord, and taking the initial step upon that path.
2. Next, keep this state of repentance constant; establish for yourself a manner of life and conduct that would make every step or movement something directing your attention to our Lord and Savior. Such an order of life will establish itself naturally, if: a) you do everything that you do for the Glory of the Lord and Savior, for Christ's sake. Here we mean not only great deeds, but all deeds. For, seeing and hearing, silence and speaking, food and drink, sitting and walking, work and rest can all be dedicated to the Lord and sanctified by His All-Holy Name. There isn't a minute when we are not doing something; so, by thus dedicating your activity, you will be meeting the Lord minute by minute, directing all of your activities to His glory. You can even more conveniently do this and reap fruits from it if you also: b) insert into the order of your daily activities the practice of prayer—both in church and at home; and in general make it your rule to be a strict fulfiller of all the rules and order of the Holy Church to the last iota, without vain elaboration and distorted commentary, and with simplicity of heart. As the content of all prayer is the Lord and our turning to Him, by doing it and participating in it you will be meeting the Lord through your heart's sympathy and delight. If after this: c) you fill all your interim time with reading the Scriptures about the Lord, listening to talks about Him, or with your own contemplation of Him and the great work of salvation that He wrought on earth, then you will see for yourself that nothing will remain within us or outside of us that does not bring remembrance of the Lord, bring Him to your attention, or carry your spirit to meet Him.
3. Just the same, you should not forget that all of these labors and occupations are only preparation. You should not stop at them, but rather strive onward. Just as food taken in rough form later imbues refined elements needed for life, so must these occupations performed visibly and tangibly turn into a spirit of a very refined inclination or striving toward the Lord. Namely, the labor of consecrating all our activities to the Lord should have the quality of reaching with our whole soul's desire only for the Lord; when we do all our prayers or attend the Divine services, a feeling should form in our hearts of accord only with the Lord and what is His. Underlying our reading and hearing the Holy Scripture about the Lord should only be the eager directing of our mind's attention toward the Lord alone. These labors are that very working of the field, and these strivings are the growth of what has been sown. The first are the stem and branches, the latter are the flower and fruit. When these inclinations come up in us, it will mean that our spirit has gone out with all its consciousness and disposition to meet the Lord. Since the Lord is everywhere, and He Himself seeks to meet with our spirit, their mutual meeting will then come about by itself. From that moment on, our spirit will begin to taste the blessedness of Righteous Simeon; that is, it will begin to bear in the embrace of its powers a striving for the Lord, Who is its complete satiety and satisfaction. This is what is called tasting the Lord, rest in Him, mentally standing before the Lord, walking in the presence of the Lord, and ceaseless prayer—the object of all God's saints' labor, desire, and seeking.
I wish that all of you who celebrate the Meeting of the Lord be vouchsafed this blessing. If anyone complains that he would like the fruit but the labor it takes to get it is too hard, the answer is: Good. There is an easier method, a method simpler than the one laid out. Here it is! Repent; then, with zeal for keeping all of God's commandments, walk unfailingly in the Lord's presence, striving for Him with all your mind's attention, all your heart's feelings, and all your will's desires. If you thus dispose yourself, you will soon meet the Lord. He will come down to you and abide in you, as in the embrace of Righteous Simeon. There is no other way to lighten the labor needed to seek a meeting with the Lord. The Jesus Prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, is powerful and strong to help in this work. Again, however, not by itself; but under the condition that all the strength of our spirit be directed toward the Lord! Be sober, be vigilant (1 Pet. 5:8). Seek those things which are above … and your life is hid with Christ in God (Col. 3:1, 3). Then, having become one in spirit with the Lord (cf. 1 Cor. 6:17), you will behold and embrace the Lord, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you (Jn 16:22), neither in this age, nor in the age to come. Amen.

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St Elisabeth Convent. Orthodox Life And Chants

KEEP THE CONNECTION ALIVE ACROSS TIME AND SPACE
As we prepare for two significant moments—the joyous feast of the Meeting of Our Lord and the solemn remembrance of Meatfare Saturday (Universal Ancestral Saturday)—we invite you to join your prayers with the Church.
🧡 The Meeting of Our Lord (February 15)
Celebrate the Light of the World! This feast commemorates the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, where the righteous Simeon and Anna recognized the promised Savior. Submit names of your living loved ones so we may pray for their health, guidance, and blessings in the New Testament light revealed to all.
🕯️ Meatfare / Universal Ancestral Saturday (February 14)
Before we begin the journey of Great Lent, the Church sets aside a special day to pray for all the faithful departed—especially our parents and ancestors who have fallen asleep in the hope of resurrection. It is a powerful and merciful tradition to offer prayers for the souls of those who have gone, that the Lord may grant them rest where the light of His face shines.

You can easily submit your prayer requests for both the living and the departed through our online service. Your names will be included in the Divine Liturgy and memorial services celebrated at our monastery.

👉 Submit your prayer notes online here: obitel-minsk.org/prayer-request-youtube

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St Elisabeth Convent. Orthodox Life And Chants

A STORY ABOUT JUDGING
by Schemamonk Panaret of Philotheou
My blessed spiritual guide from Kafsokalyvia, Fr. Nikodemos, told me the following story, borrowed from Athonite patristic manuscripts:
A certain Christian believer went to his spiritual guide for confession over the space of 15 years, and confided his human infirmities to him. One day, as was his custom, he went to visit his spiritual guide in order to make his confession. When he came to the house, this man opened the door and saw his confessor sinning with a woman. He quickly went out of the house, and as he was leaving, he said to himself, “Oh, woe is me! I have gone to confession to him for all these years! What should I do now? What will happen to me now — will I perish? How can all those sins that he absolved me of be forgiven, when he himself is such a sinful person?” So this man reasoned, reeling under the weight of such a blow, and not knowing what he should do next.
As he was going back along the way, he became thirsty. Proceeding a little further, he stumbled upon a small, swiftly-flowing little brook with the purest, clearest water. He bent down and began to drink. He drank and drank, and even after he had satisfied his thirst he still wanted to drink this cool water. And, standing up, he thought: “If here, downstream, the water is so pure, how pure it must be at the source!” And with this thought he set off to find the spring where the brook began. And when he had found the source, what did he see there? To his horror, he saw that the water was flowing out from the muzzle of a dead dog — right from its mouth. Then, sighing from the depth of his soul, the man exclaimed, “Woe is me who have gone astray, I have defiled myself and have drunk this contaminated water! Apparently I really am sinful and bad, that such misfortunes are happening to me!”
And then, when he was so upset, an Angel of the Lord appeared to him and said, “O man, why are you so upset and so sad because of what is happening to you? When you saw the brook and began to drink from it, weren’t you filled with joy that you had found such pure water? You drank and couldn’t drink your fill, but now, after you have seen that the water is flowing out of a dog’s dirty mouth, you say that you have been contaminated? Even though the dog is dead and unclean, don’t be upset, because the whole world drinks the water that you drank, even though it flows out of a dirty dog’s mouth, because the water itself doesn’t belong to the dog—it is a gift of God, this water comes from God.
“And likewise your confessor: the sins that you confessed to him are forgiven you; the forgiveness of sins is not his gift, it is a gift of God to man. The Most-Holy Spirit grants the remission of sins to a person who thoroughly and sincerely confesses his sins and weaknesses.”
The Lord God Jesus Christ Himself said to His Holy Apostles and disciples, Receive ye the Holy Spirit: Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained (John 20:22-23). God grants this power to people in the Sacrament of the Priesthood, but only to those who have been canonically ordained and have a blessing to hear confessions and forgive sins. The Holy Apostles passed this power down to the first bishops and their successors, those who, in turn, were lawfully ordained priests and confessors. Inasmuch as priests celebrate the Holy Sacraments, their rank is far higher even than the rank of Tsar. The priestly rank is higher than any worldly rank, because, no matter in what worldly rank a man is, nevertheless he has recourse to a priest for the remission of sins. This establishment is of Christ Himself and the tradition of the Holy Orthodox Church — there is no other way in the Church.
And the Angel said to him, “Go to your confessor, whom you saw sinning, and do a prostration to him and ask him forgiveness for judging him. As regards his personal sins, God Himself tries his conscience and He Himself will hold him responsible. Thus, you only saw how he sins, but you cannot see either his repentance or how ardently he repented. So with you, instead of repentance is added the sin of judgement, while he, if he repents, can bring to God worthy fruits of repentance. And so, remember, don’t judge anyone.”
After the Angel had said this, he became invisible. This Christian, went back to his confessor as the Angel had told him to do, did a prostration and told him what he had seen and heard from the Angel of the Lord. His confessor began to weep bitterly and groan as soon as he had heard what the Angel had said, regretting his sin, and asking forgiveness from the All-Merciful, Compassionate and All-Good God, having a firm intention to correct himself from this time on and to make amends for his deed, unto the glory of God and unto the salvation of his soul.
After my spiritual guide, Fr. Nikodemos, had told me about this instructive incident, he continued further, with love: “There it is, my brother Haralampos (this was in 1934, before my tonsure)—we don’t have any right to judge and scrutinize other people’s sins and actions. As the Apostle Paul says, Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth (Rom. 14:4). How much less do we have the right to judge priests and spiritual guides, those whom the Lord tries far more seriously, and whom the devil tempts with sophisticated slyness and mastery. The Lord, addressing absolutely everyone, says, Judge not that ye be not judged, for with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged (Mat. 7:1-2). We are commanded to forgive our close ones their mistakes and shortcomings, to repent of our own personal sins, and to judge and punish only ourselves. If we want to be saved, let us forgive our brother according to the Gospel commandment: For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you… (Mat. 6:14).
Yes, my brother, judging is a great sin, and we should not be occupied with others and we shouldn’t scrutinize the sins and transgressions of other people! We receive spiritual benefit only when, seeing or hearing something indecent, we forgive our brothers with love and try to help them, praying for them.

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St Elisabeth Convent. Orthodox Life And Chants

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