It is to these evil spirits that Scripture refers when it speaks of beasts of the field, birds of the air and things that creep on the ground (cf. Hos. 2:18).

 

Monastery of Bethlehem

123. These demons were once celestial intelligences; but, having fallen from their original state of immateriality and refinement, each of them has acquired a certain material grossness, assuming a bodily form corresponding to the kind of action allotted to it. For like human beings they have lost the delights of the angels and have been deprived of divine bliss, and so they too, like us, now find pleasure in earthly things, becoming to a certain extent material because of the disposition to material passions which they have acquired. We should not be surprised at this, for our own soul, created intellectual and spiritual in the image of God, has become bestial, insensate and virtually mindless through losing the knowledge of God and finding pleasure in material things. Inner disposition changes outward nature, and acts of moral choice alter the way that nature functions. Some evil spirits are material, gross, uncontrollable, passionate and vindictive. They hunger for material pleasure and indulgence as carnivores for flesh. Like savage dogs and like those possessed they devour and relish rotten food; and their delight and habitation are coarse, fleshy bodies. Others are licentious and slimy. They creep about in the pool of desire like leeches, frogs and snakes. Sometimes they assume the form of fish, delighting in their brackish lubricity. Slippery and flaccid, they swim in the sea of drunkenness, rejoicing in the humectation of mindless pleasures. In this manner they constantly stir up waves of impure thoughts, and storms and tempests in the soul. Others are light and subtle, since they are aerial spirits, and agitate the soul's contemplative power, provoking strong winds and fantasies. They deceive the soul by appearing sometimes in the form of birds or angels. They fill one's memory with the forms of people one knows. They pervert and deform the contemplative vision of those pursuing the path of hohness who have not yet attained the state of purity and inner discrimination; for there is nothing spiritual but that they can secretly transform themselves into it in the imagination. They too arm themselves according to our spiritual state and degree of progress, and substituting illusion for truth and fantasy for contemplation they take up their abode within us. It is to these evil spirits that Scripture refers when it speaks of beasts of the field, birds of the air and things that creep on the ground (cf. Hos. 2:18).

St. Gregory of Sinai.

About humility

+Very Rev. Nikodimus Pavlopoulos

Saint Gregory of Sinai on humility - Chapter 115 of the Philokalia.

Those who say or do anything without humility are like people who build in winter or without bricks and mortar. Very few acquire humility and know it through experience; and those who try to talk about it are like people measuring a bottomless pit. And I who in my blindness have formed a faint image of this great light am rash enough to say this about it: tme humility does not consist in speaking humbly, or in looking humble. The humble person does not have to force himself to think humbly, nor does he keep finding fault with himself. Such conduct may provide us with an occasion for humility or constitute its outward form, but humility itself is a grace and a divine gift. The holy fathers teach that there are two kinds of humility: to regard oneself as lower than everyone else, and to ascribe all one's achievement to God. The first is the beginning, the second the consummation.

Those who seek humility should bear in mind the three following things: that they are the worst of sinners, that they are the most despicable of all creatures since their state is an unnatural one, and that they are even more pitiable than the demons, since they are slaves to the demons. You will also profit if you say this to yourself: how do I know what or how many other people's sins are, or whether they are greater than or equal to my own? In our ignorance you and I, my soul, are worse than all men, we are dust and ashes under their feet. How can I not regard myself as more despicable than all other creatures, for they act in accordance with the nature they have been given, while I, owing to my innumerable sins, am in a state contrary to nature. Truly animals are more pure than I, sinner that I am; on account of this I am the lowest of all, since even before my death I have made my bed in hell. Who is not fully aware that the person who sins is worse than the demons, since he is their thrall and their slave, even in this life sharing their murk-mantled prison? If I am mastered by the demons I must be inferior to them. Therefore my lot will be with them in the abyss of hell, pitiful that I am. You on earth who even before your death dwell in that abyss, how do you dare delude yourself, calling yourself righteous, when through the evil you have done you have defiled yourself and made yourself a sinner and a demon? Woe to your self-deception and your delusion, squalid cur that you are, consigned to fire and darkness for these offences.

This sheep dog is covered in his own blood after fighting off wolves protecting his flock, while the sheep gently comforts him.

 

This sheep dog is covered in his own blood after fighting off wolves protecting his flock, while the sheep gently comforts him.

Regardless of how physically strong or emotionally tough someone is, showing them how much you appreciate their efforts goes a long way.

The dog is willing to die for his sheep, and the gesture of the sheep comforting him is all he needs.

Never take someone for granted who is willing to fight for you or stand by you in your time of need. Appreciate their efforts, and show them that you are grateful.

 

We are an Orthodox Christian group in WhatsApp in order to communicate with each other.

Those of you who wish to join this effort please click on the link to join.

Every Orthodox or people who wish to convert to Orthodoxy are welcome.

Posts made will be solely about Orthodox Christianity because that is the identity of the group.

It is very nice to gradually become one big family from all corners of the earth and we can do this with your love!

Nicodemus the Hagiorite

Nicodemus the Hagiorite or Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain (Greek: Ὅσιος Νικόδημος ὁ Ἁγιορείτης; 1749 – July 14, 1809) is a saint of the Eastern Orthodox Church. He was an ascetic monk, mystic, theologian, and true philosopher. His life's work was a revival of traditional Christian practices and patristic literature.

 

This Blessed Saint wrote ascetic prayer literature and influenced the rediscovery of hesychasm, a method of contemplative prayer from the Byzantine period. 

 

He is very well known for his work with Macarius of Corinth on the anthology of monastic spiritual writings known as The Philokalia, as well as for his compilation of canons known as the Pedalion or The Rudder which he co-wrote with a hieromonk named Agapios Monachos. 

 

With Macarios of Corinth, Nicodemus was responsible for the compilation and publishing of The Evergetinos, thoroughly reviewing a vast collection of materials from a number of other collections of sayings of monastics and others, ranging from the well-known works of St. John Cassian and Palladius, to the anonymously produced Apophthegmata collections, but including materials also from hagiographies, menologia, and other, unspecified and now-lost sources. Assembling, collecting, and editing a number of manuscripts scattered among the libraries of Mount Athos, the Holy Mountain. Nicodemus was canonized by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople in 1955.

 

Nicodemus was born Nicholas Kallivroutsis (Νικόλαος Καλλιβρούτσης) in 1749 on the Greek island of Naxos, which was at the time part of the Ottoman Empire. According to his biographer, he was possessed of "great acuteness of mind, accurate perception, intellectual brightness, and vast memory", qualities which were readily apparent to those who furthered him along in his learning.

 

He passed from the tutelage of his parish priest to that of Archimandrite Chrysanthos, who was the brother of Cosmas. From there he made his way to Smyrna (now Izmir, Turkey), where he studied at the Evangelical School. Here he studied theology, as well as ancient Greek, Latin, French, and Italian.

 

Persecution from the Turks, who ruled most of the Greek world at the time, cut his schooling short, and he returned to Naxos in 1770.

 

He studied at Smyrna but was forced to abandon his studies during a time of Ottoman persecution. Instead he entered the Dionysiou monastery on Mount Athos in 1775.

 

Nicholas made the acquaintance of Macarius of Corinth a few years after returning home, beginning a lifelong friendship. It was shortly thereafter that he decided to embrace the monastic life, following the example of three monks he had encountered, Gregory, Niphon, and Arsenios. These men had come from Mount Athos, which had been an important center of monasticism for over seven hundred years, and persuaded Nicholas to go there as well. He arrived there in 1775, at age 26.

 

Upon being tonsured a monk, Nicholas' name was changed, as is the custom for those who had abandoned the world, to Nicodemus. He was initiated into the practice of hesychia, a method of prayer involving inner stillness, controlled breathing which cannot be man made but actually given in coooperation with true prayer… repetition of the "Jesus Prayer" (Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner). Nicodemus aligned himself with the monks known as Kollyvades, who sought a revival of traditional Orthodox practices and patristic literature, and he spent the remainder of his life at work translating and publishing those works. He also composed many original books of his own.

 

He died on July 14, 1809 on Mount Athos and was canonized by the Church of Greece on May 31, 1955. His feast day is 14 July.

 

In cooperation with Macarius of Corinth, Nicodemus compiled the Philokalia, which became an important work on monastic spirituality. It contains some of the teachings of many of the ancient Desert Fathers.

 

Nicodemus also published modern editions of other theological writings, such as those of Symeon the New Theologian and Gregory Palamas. In addition, he wrote original works, such as the Pedalion (also known as The Rudder), a treatise on Eastern Orthodox canon law, and the Exomologetarion, a guide for confessors.

 

Another of his famous works is the Enchiridion of Counsels (or "Handbook of Spiritual Counsel"), written by Nicodemus at the suggestion of his cousin Hierotheos, who had recently been made Bishop of Euripos. 

 

This handbook on the religious life, aimed at clergy and lay Christians alike, continues to be influential on Greek spirituality to this day to those who follow. 

 

The work has been described as a theological-ethical tract that displays both deep psychological insight and a keen scientific mind.

 

He was not ignorant of the Western spiritual writers, and even published reworked versions of the Spiritual Exercises (Πνευματικά γυμνάσματα) of Ignatius of Loyola and The Spiritual Combat (βιβλίον καλούμενον· Αόρατος Πόλεμος) of Lorenzo Scupoli.

 

The term Philokalia (φιλοκαλία) (love of the good), used for the texts, aims to enshrine the history of the Jesus Prayer (the Prayer of the heart), and the spiritual practice of this, called Hesychasm. 

 

It is this love of beauty that revives and gives faith to the hopeless. 

 

The history of the prayer begins with the earliest fathers including Anthony the Great, and the text ends with Gregory Palamas. 

 

The title conveys the contemplative tradition, in that it teaches understanding of the inner or mystical Kingdom of God within each person. 

 

The spirit of God is an ember and one must cultivate the ember into an open fire. 

 

This perpetual fire burns in the heart, in love for all things, which is to share in the energy of God, which is love. (Leviticus 9:24). 

 

It is within the Philokalia that one learns how to properly navigate the passions and depravity of existence called the World. 

 

The object of contemplation is "the love of beauty" or infinite beauty, which is God. 

 

For if existence were truly evil it could neither contain nor express beauty. 

 

This expression conveys the truth about the divine (ascetic) life and purpose which the heart learns through practice of the Prayer of the Heart, called Hesychasm. 

 

God in his energies is love. God is also the source of all that is truly beautiful, resplendent with divine glory. It is this beauty,  held from within one’s heart for and to our Lord Jesus Christ Son of God our Father. 

 

It is wise to go as far as back as you can to find a published copy that is closest to the original…unfortunately as recently as 2016 and many teachings, canons were removed which was and is a very grave error with our overall economia, economy within what is truly happening, spiritually on this earth.