Great Lent 2021

How to fast from our own selfishness: Bishop Ioan Casian

The Romanian Orthodox Bishop of Canada explains, at the beginning of Great Lent, how we can drive away personal selfishness through the act of fasting. Bishop Ioan Casian says that the main remedy lies in love for God and other people. “Through the love of God and of the neighbour one fasts of his own…

Mar 16, 2021Aurelian Iftimiu

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew: Great Lent is also a quarantine

‘Some of you may wonder why the Church, in the midst of the current pandemic, would add to the already existing health restrictions yet another “quarantine,” namely Great Lent.’ “Indeed, Great Lent is also a quarantine, a period that lasts forty days,” wrote Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew in his catechetical message at the beginning of Great…

Mar 16, 2021Aurelian Iftimiu

We begin the Great Lent with hope and courage: #FearNot

#FearNot is the meditation-exhortation we propose to you for the Lenten season. Why? Because these are the first words that resounded after the Resurrection: the angel said these words to the myrrh-bearing women at the tomb, and the Saviour addressed them directly to His disciples. The encouragement Christ gave centuries ago is timelier than ever,…

Mar 15, 2021Aurelian Iftimiu

Warsaw Metropolitan at beginning of Lent: Union with Christ through repentance is the path of the modern Orthodox in the fight against evil

“For Orthodox Christians in our complex, difficult times, full of spiritual disappointments, temptations and limitations of all kinds, Lent is of great spiritual importance,” His Beatitude Metropolitan Sawa of Poland begins his Lenten epistle. Lent is a time for increased prayer and the struggle for purification, which give us renewed strength to struggle with the temptations…

Mar 11, 2021Aurelian Iftimiu

Patriarch Daniel: People will be judged for inhumanity

“People will be judged for inhumanity,” Patriarch Daniel stressed during his homily on the Meatfare Sunday of the Last Judgement. The Patriarch quoted a homily by St. John Chrysostom, where the great hierarch imagines a continuation of the dialogue in the Gospel passage about the Last Judgment: “For I was hungry and you gave me…

Mar 10, 2021Aurelian Iftimiu

The ladder that is difficult to climb: Triodion calls us to humility, Bp Timotei says

His Grace Assistant Bishop Timotei of Prahova celebrated the Divine Liturgy on Saturday at Radu Vodă Monastery in Bucharest. In his homily, he spoke about the spiritual significance of the Triodion. It calls us “to humility, which can exalt man to God,” he said. This path is like a ladder that is difficult to climb.…

Feb 22, 2021Aurelian Iftimiu