22/08/2014

Love (The only treasure)

How can I stop my tear
when about wars I hear
how can I, how can I
How can I live in a lie
when around me people die
how can I, how can I

Love, love ,love love
stop the war
love, love ,love, love
I can’t any more
love, love, love, love
the only treasure
love, love, love, love
don’t kill this pleasure

How can I feel my dreams
I’m just flying without wings
how can I, how can I
How can I walk away
like there is no other way

how can I, how can I

19/05/2014

The Conqueror of death - documentary with subtitles


THE CONQUEROR OF DEATH - documentary with subtitles 

             The Conqueror of Death is a documentary film that describes the days of 
the so-called Passion Week (the suffering Week, the week in which Christ suffered to death) and Sunday, the day that Christ has resurrected.
The film is designed so as to explain to a wider audience the implications of these events and the significance of the Resurrection of Christ, and therefore the meaning of Theanthropic feats of salvation.

The Divine Services and the Monastery life in the days of Passion Week and the Resurrection were recorded by Cinnamon production from Belgrade in Dečani Monastery (Kosovo and Metohia) between 2009-2012.

The significance of each of these days, in particular, is explained by quotations from the Gospel, from the liturgical texts of the Lenten Triodion of the Holy and Great Week, from the sermons of St. John the Chrysostom, St. Bishop Nikolai of Zhicha and St. Father Justin of Chelije.

Metropolitan of Montenegro and the Littoral, Amfilohie who at the time of working on one phase of the film in 2010 was the administrator of the Diocese of Raska and Prizren, in the film explains the meaning of all major events in the last week of Christ's life on earth, his suffering for us and the very significance of the Resurrection of Christ.

03/05/2014

55 Maxims for the Spiritual Life.

 1. Be always with Christ.
2. Pray as you can, not as you want.
3. Have a keep able rule of prayer that you do by discipline.
4. Say the Lord’s Prayer several times a day.
5. Have a short prayer that you constantly repeat when your mind is not occupied with other things.
6. Make some prostrations when you pray.
7. Eat good foods in moderation.
8. Keep the Church’s fasting rules.
9. Spend some time in silence every day.
10. Do acts of mercy in secret.
11. Go to liturgical services regularly.
12. Go to confession and communion regularly.
13. Do not engage intrusive thoughts and feelings. Cut them off at the start.
14. Reveal all your thoughts and feelings regularly to a trusted person.
15. Read the scriptures regularly.
16. Read good books a little at a time.
17. Cultivate communion with the saints.
18. Be an ordinary person.
19. Be polite with everyone.
20. Maintain cleanliness and order in your home.
21. Have a healthy, wholesome hobby.
22. Exercise regularly.
23. Live a day, and a part of a day, at a time.
24. Be totally honest, first of all, with yourself.
25. Be faithful in little things.
26. Do your work, and then forget it.
27. Do the most difficult and painful things first.
28. Face reality.
29. Be grateful in all things.
30. Be cheerful.
31. Be simple, hidden, quiet and small.
32. Never bring attention to yourself.
33. Listen when people talk to you.
34. Be awake and be attentive.
35. Think and talk about things no more than necessary.
36. Speak simply, clearly, firmly and directly.
37. Flee imagination, analysis, figuring things out.
38. Flee carnal, sexual things at their first appearance.
39. Don’t complain, mumble, murmur or whine.
40. Don’t compare yourself with anyone.
41. Don’t seek or expect praise or pity from anyone.
42. We don’t judge anyone for anything.
43. Don’t try to convince anyone of anything.
44. Don’t defend or justify yourself.
45. Be defined and bound by God alone.
46. Accept criticism gratefully but test it critically.
47. Give advice to others only when asked or obligated to do so.
48. Do nothing for anyone that they can and should do for themselves.
49. Have a daily schedule of activities, avoiding whim and caprice.
50. Be merciful with yourself and with others.
51. Have no expectations except to be fiercely tempted to your last breath.
52. Focus exclusively on God and light, not on sin and darkness.
53. Endure the trial of yourself and your own faults and sins peacefully, serenely, because you know that God’s mercy is greater than your wretchedness.
54. When you fall, get up immediately and start over.
55. Get help when you need it, without fear and without shame.


 Fr. Thomas Hopko

19/04/2014

Christ is Risen!

Wishing everyone a very Happy and Joyous Pascha!

Christ is Risen!


Wellington, New Zealand  1 /4/2014

To our devout Priests and Monks and to our beloved Christians of our Holy Metropolis of New Zealand (Fiji, Tonga, Samoa).

My beloved children in Christ,

Our Holy God has made us worthy to celebrate this year also the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. This unique event in the history of mankind. The Resurrection of  Christ  is the foundation of our Christian faith and the essence of the Apostles’ preaching. If the Resurrection of Christ had not taken place, the Apostle Paul says, then in vain would be our faith, and in vain would be our preaching.
However CHRIST  IS RISEN – TRULY  IS RISEN.

Let us celebrate this worldsaving event with pure souls and pure bodies, faith and love, with repentance and confession, with forgiveness and charity, with church attendance and Holy Communion.  

This way we will feel the true joy of this great feast, chanting the words of our Churches’ great composer:
“It is the day of the Resurrection, let us be radiant, O people! Pascha, the Lord’s Pascha”.

With fatherely love,
 Metropolitan

of New Zealand Amfilohios

06/05/2013

St. GEORGE THE GREAT MARTYR






By
His Eminence
Metropolitan Panteleimon of Antinoes

In the year 296 A.D., during the reign of Diocletian, a man named George was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Roman army in Asia Μinor. This man was later to suffer martyrdom and to become known as St. George the Great Martyr.
In the same year that St. George d his command, Diacletian began his persecution against the Christians. He launched a two-pronged attack against them. Those who agreed to foreswear their faith in Christ were promised high positions in the Empire, whereas those who refused to betray their Lord and Saviour were to be put to death.
At the time the decree suppressing Christianity was promulgated, St. George was travelling alone in Lydia (Asia Minor). Now in that part of the world there was a city, the citizens of which worshipped a large snake, which lived near the lake close by. Every year they would offer a young girl as a sacrifice to the snake, which was known as Dragon, the god of the lake. The annual sacrifice was about to take place and the young victim was already bound and left waiting at the entrance to the cave where Dragon lived. At that moment St. George happened to pass by. He immediately stopped and asked what had be fallen her. She replied that she was a οffering to the god of the lake. St. George reforted that that was iniquitous and that there was One True God, the Creafor of heaven and earth, and that He did not require human sacrifice. Bidding her to be brave and to hold fast, he promised to save her from the monster.
It was not long before Dragon appeared at the mouth of the cave and began attack­ing his prey. The moment he did this, St. George charged at him, and making the sign of the Holy Cross, ran him through with his lance and kilied him.