Raiati

If you wanted a Christian education and if you wanted spiritual meanings to be renewed in you, you have to persevere in services other than the Divine Liturgy. The Liturgy is a place for understanding the word and for participation and sanctification. However, keeping up with remembrances of Saints and especially meditating in the Lord’s Resurrection requires your presence in the Matins service every Sunday morning and also on Saturday and feast evenings’ Vespers.

Particularly, Sundays’ and Feasts’ Matins get you into the core of the Paschal meaning, as the Matins’ Gospel, which is the center of this service, is a narrative of the Lord’s manifestations. Chanting (Evlogetaria and other chants) is also very Paschal. And Sunday is a remembrance of the Resurrection through teaching it. This teaching is intensified and varies partially from a Sunday to another. And if you understood, you will not get bored. Boredom results from you not knowing the structure of the Matins service and from not being aware of its meanings so you find yourself displaced and distracted.

If you were filled with the meaning of Resurrection you enter the Divine Liturgy which gives you the remembrance of the Savior’s death and emission from death. The Liturgy is an activation and participation in the holies, but the Matins, being very Paschal, qualifies you to enter the Liturgy.

Also, Saturday evening’s Vespers take us directly to the meanings of Resurrection and this service opens the liturgical day. You notice if you wanted to celebrate feasts, that the Vespers service launches the feast. The liturgical cycle must organize its services in a way that most people would be able to attend if they were feast lovers. So the Vespers is postponed to 5 or 6 p.m. and the Matins begin in a time that makes the believer able to come relatively early so that the Liturgy ends in a reasonable time.

Our main education occurs in worships especially that our people rarely read the Holy Book and religious books in general. The Liturgy alone cannot educate you especially that from what I see, when I arrive to a Church on a Sunday I see two or three people and then minutes pass and you see after a while that they have become ten and then twenty and not all believers are present before the Gospel reading. How could you have communion without hearing the Lord’s Word to repent through it. And sometimes you notice people coming to communion from outside the Church as if it is an automatic process.

Our Liturgy is not long for the person that knows and understands it. Boredom comes from not knowing the faith and not knowing books. Of course, the priest must not prolong the rhythm and especially the chanter must not chant with long intonation as it is better to read the Epistle with intonation than to chant it because this gives a chance to understand. Words disappear in the tune especially for a person that doesn’t know the words. The step that I find successful today is that some people carry “Raiiati” and read the Epistle and Gospel.

If God’s Word was “A spirit and life” then we must reach it through methods that we mentioned some of or else we die from starvation or drought.

The thing that we said is the origin of everything. There is no reformation in our Church without understanding its meanings, all of these meanings. “Feast lovers” and those who revive through prayer must gather and ask their priest to celebrate all services at their times. The priest is there for this reason. Rituals, for us, carry the word of life and perseverance in these rituals is contacting life. “With you is the fountain of life O Lord”.

If we were five or ten daily in the Vespers, and more than that at the beginning of the Matins, and if we opened our ears to understand the books and we felt the spread of the Word in our various prayers and chants, we would have put a solid basis for our contact with the Lord. We shouldn’t dig for ourselves “broken cisterns that cannot hold water” but solid basins in which springs fall into so that every one of us becomes “a spring of water welling up to eternal life” that we live from today.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “التربية بالصلاة” –Raiati 22 – 22.05.2005

I was alarmed in the blizzard that struck the country as I was having a big meeting and many were absent. I excused the sick and those who couldn’t take the road because of the snow. However, I didn’t excuse those who were afraid of the severe cold. We love God in cold and warmth and we reflect this through a required presence.

After that, and in the midst of the storm, I celebrated the Divine Liturgy in one of the villages which wasn’t in the high mountains and its roads were passable with some soft rain. I excused the elders but I didn’t excuse young people.

I wonder today: Why do people endure the discomforts of the climate to visit a friend or a lover and cannot tolerate any trouble to visit Christ in his word that they hear in their Churches? How do they deprive themselves from receiving his precious body and blood? Isn’t he the beloved one that misses us and we must exchange with him the same yearning? As if the absent person is saying: I postpone my visit to Christ because he invisible, while my lover is visible.

One of the priests of the archdiocese told me that a doctor asked an old woman not to go to Church on Sunday in order not to be exposed to bad climate or stumble while walking, so she replied: I prefer dying on my way to Church or in Church over dying in my bed.

I do not wish for anyone to catch the flu but this life has choices. If the care over our health became a huge obsession or a severe fear, then there is a defect in us. Here I would like to talk to you about the spiritual father that used to guide me in Paris when I was studying theology there in the mid-twentieth century. This priest-monk used to love me and welcome me every afternoon for a cup of tea. I entered once and his forehead was covered with a wipe. I asked him about his health. He said that his temperature was 39 degrees Celsius. I sat in my place and after several minutes, the phone that was in the hallway that leads to the room where I was, rang. He left me and went to take the call and I saw him coming back to me as he took the wipe off his head. So I said: “What happened to throw the wipe?” He replied: “There is a sick student in the tubercular hospital and he asked me to go and give him the Lord’s body”. So I asked him about the distance between the institute of theology (where we were) and the hospital. He replied: “sixty kilometers”. I told him: “so you have to pass 120 kilometers in addition to the distance of the Metro while being in your condition. Isn’t it better to rest tonight perhaps your temperature would decrease and you go next morning to our friend?” He replied: “Our friend might not live until tomorrow, he must have communion tonight”. My spiritual father went and came back feeling indifferent towards his health and he was cured from his sickness.

Some excuses for not going to Church are: “I am tired this week and I don’t have any other time to rest except on Sunday morning; I want to take my family to the mountain; or I want to take them to the beach…etc.”

A person told me that the mother of a young man died, so she was buried on Saturday and this young man didn’t accept condolences on the morning of the next day because he couldn’t breathe without the Divine Liturgy. I imagine that this person carried his mother in his prayer and didn’t drown in his grief. I know that some Africans drive their cars for four hours to reach the nearest Church. Their bodies get tired as all bodies. However, they are aware that this is the bread that descends from heaven and that without it their bodies would be fed with only bread and vegetables.

My soul was sorrow to death when I celebrated the Divine Liturgy that I told you about and I was looking at the void in the Church, i.e. I was looking at nothing and people are afraid of the cold. The absence made me in a more severe and painful coldness from theirs.

When will we understand that our love for God, which we claim, should be reflected?

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “الكنيسة والطقس الرديء” –Raiati 08- 20.02.2005

In our Ecclesiastic rituals the New Year is on September first, while the first of January is the new civil year that goes back to the Roman Emperor Julius Caesar. In this day, we do not have any feast called “New Year”. However, we do have the feast of the circumcision of Lord Jesus and the feast of Saint Basil the Great. Nevertheless, people consider it a particular day as they shoot in the air at midnight to celebrate the new things that they are expecting. But what is this new thing? Twelve months that will probably be like previous years carrying intense poverty, a lot of violence, and low expectations from the local and international political life. However, we still think that this gives a space of hope because man during tribulations usually hopes for goodness. We, the faithful, believe that blessings come from God who penetrates time and has the ability to send us his grace. A miracle could happen and change the political and economical conditions and this way poverty would decrease and world peace would be spread. Our hope is the phrase that the angels said: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men”; by “men”, it is meant the people that God was pleased with their righteousness.

As if the chant of the angels doesn’t wish peace to all humanity but only to those that loved and were love by the Lord. The angels spoke about the peace of the hearts through purity and didn’t talk about peace in the political world. The latter doesn’t have any promise. Therefore, you can make the year new in yourself if you renewed your soul through grace. This internal peace could be experienced even if you were suffering and even if wars continued like in Iraq and Palestine and their influence on Lebanon. You shall not hope for a new year but for a soul renewal and purification for this shall make a lot of other hearts become renewed too.

Wars could end by one decision, and the level of living might increase through a number of decisions taken inside and outside the country, but some people may stay evil and start wars without weapons. The wound of hearts might be much deeper than that of wars.

Think from now about the way to repent and how you could be crowned with the people that repented and become the small faithful flock that doesn’t feel afraid because it was rewarded the Kingdom. “The Kingdom is within you” as the Lord said. But, if we stay on the level of social life, you are allowed to work with others in order to improve the situation through all possible political means at least in your small country. This way you can see that many things were renewed and you can feel comforted through this and get rid of the pressure of despair and sadness.

There are two accompanying efforts: A deep and serious spiritual effort, and another effort in the civil community through national struggle that God asks from you in order for people to live in slight affluence and comfort and seek the happiness of their families and the country that they live in. Repentance that descended on you makes you a good and intrepid citizen because bad people cannot make together a country that serves its citizens. When sin increases and love abates, the nation will neither have anything new nor become a noble country.

Nothing around you or in the society will be new if hearts were fallen and had no flame and if words were meaningless.

You can imagine a conciliation of hearts, happiness of peace, and civilized nobility in which all neighboring countries would reach agglutination and insist on not having wars and on common economical growth. This is what happened in western Europe between Germany and France that had three wars together until they understood that peace is beneficial for them. This might have happened too in the large European community. Why can’t Arabs do the same?

Rich countries should understand that it is beneficial for them to help weak nations that are driven through the suppression that they live into signs of violence and into what might be called terrorism. Rich countries must also understand that their interest is achieved in the nobility of all nations. God has nothing against world’s organization of its affairs through knowing that everyone’s need is to share the blessings and the intellectual and artistic productions. This means that the people responsible for the nations must believe that good competition serves everyone’s interest. We hope that a day would come when no person needs to prove himself through weapon, but proves himself and others through love.

When this happens, every New Year would become greater than the previous one. Our role as believers is to prepare, through piety, people’s mind for this conviction. When you feel the importance of God in your life, you wish that others will get to experience this too.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “السنة الجديدة” – 02.01.2005

If we said that there is a worthless glory, this means that there is also a “real glory” too. The Lord has said to the Pharisees: “How can you believe, who receive honor from one another, and do not seek the honor that comesfrom the only God?” (John 5: 44). There is a glory that descends to you from above if you believed, and there is another glory that comes to you from your money, political position or car. We say that it is a worthless glory because it is empty in the eyes of those that know God.

There are great things such as education that might become of this worthless glory if we bragged about it. You shouldn’t feel proud about any virtue you have, the credit is not given to you, for if you recognized this virtue you should thank God. If a person felt some emptiness, he tries to fill it through shallow social life in order not to feel that he is cancelled from existence.

For women, this worthless glory could be strengthened through fancy food that they prepare and serve in parties. Wearing expensive clothes could also be a reason for pride although they were designed and sewed by someone else.

In front of this fact, how could a person differentiate between loving the worthless glory or divine glory? This is how this differentiation happens: If you live in order for people to see you or your car or castle, or if you wanted to please them, then you have fallen in the worthless glory. While, if you insisted to been seen from God, and to please him, then you are in the real glory.

The difference between people isn’t that someone sells vegetables while the other is a giant factory owner, because the small seller could be arrogant and the owner could be humble.  The question here is the following: Are you requesting God? Or your power, status and glorification from people? If you think that your value increases when you meet a great employee or a minister, then you don not believe in your dependent existence. This existence’s value doesn’t increase unless it was in a relation with the pure. He who gave you a noble creation, strengthened your faith and condoled you through spiritual comfort, has given you a treasure that surpasses all the treasures of the world. What descends to your from God is the only thing that has any value.

What changes in you if your resources decreased or you health weakened or you lost a social position? If you believed that nothing decreases from you if all of these things disappear, then you are on the right track asking God’s satisfaction. However, if you become real sad when you lose something, this means that your request is this world.

An example of the worldly things that has become in control of some “high class” environments is killing time through long evenings. This reminds me of a dinner I was invited to in the United States. We started at half past six and finished one hour later; everyone said goodbye and went to his evening program. In Lebanon they say that dinner starts at nine; you come at the specified time but you have to wait for others an hour or more. The dinner might not start before half past ten or even later and doesn’t end until midnight or later. This way, you lose a minimum of three hours, and you won’t be able to read a book after this time or even sleep comfortably. All of this is worthless glory.

The opposite of this is living simply in virtue. In this living you don’t claim that you know everything and don’t search in what you don’t understand and especially you don’t repeat what you read in the newspaper. For if you didn’t know something, silence is better; and if you did know a lot, your listeners might not be able to understand so do not spread your knowledge because this would also be worthless glory. In all cases, silence saves you from being mistaken.

However, you can’t achieve this calm behavior unless you were humble in a way that makes you feel that you are nothing. If you recognized your gifts, give the credit to God. Then, God’s glory will descend on you and you’ll become a divine creature without knowing it.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “المجد الباطل” – 14.11.06

Christianity is not just a book. Early Christians lived at least for forty years before writing the first Gospel, and sixty years before the Gospel of John appeared. The apostles, with no doubt, memorized a lot of Jesus’ words and used to say them to the faithful orally. However, they also read the epistles of Paul who was martyred around 65 A.C.  They took Jesus’ spirit from Paul and the core of his teaching. They became attached to the living person of Jesus who resurrected from the dead. The apostles based our faith on the love for Jesus. Therefore, Paul said in today’s epistle: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2: 20).

Christianity is based on this particularity that the life of Jesus the resurrected from the dead is poured on his followers if they depended and believed in him. As he was crucified, sin was deadened, and death was abolished, this way I shall stay away from sin. This is my cross. I don’t abolish sin, but he does in me. “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ”. I was in his depths when he was crucified; therefore, I have been crucified.

After that he says: “The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me”. Paul took the expression “he gave himself for me” from the Gospel of John even before it was written, i.e. he took it through recurrence. For John has said: “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends”. Here, the author of the epistle to the Galatians, which we are talking about, confirms that the Law of Moses doesn’t give life. It is commands that you can’t implement, and violating them exposed your misery. Now, and without the justification of the Law, Christ justifies you and when he does he glorifies you. Therefore, Paul combined all these meanings as he says: “The life I now live (i.e. the life in the Holy Spirit) in the body (i.e. in my entire entity)”, have come from God and I live it. But how do I live it? I shall live it if I believed in the Son of God (“You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” as Peter confessed).

The Son of God loved me, and he didn’t use the word “loved us” in plural. Every one of us should believe that he has become God’s beloved one in Jesus Christ. As Christ is God’s beloved one in essence and eternity, I shall become God’s beloved one in the grace that Jesus revealed to me through his death and resurrection.

What kind of treatment there is between me and the Son of God? He loved me, and I should know that. My faith in him is my faith in his love for me that he showed and personated through death.

What’s the common thing between us, Christians? It is our faith in Jesus. What does this faith mean? It means that I believe that he died for me and then resurrected. Christianity is the attachment to the person of Christ considering him the Savior. Yes, he is the savior of the world. However, he is my personal savior too. I join him in baptism in which I die and revive with him and become risen from spiritual death from now and risen from physical death when the resurrection comes. Nevertheless, the Lord wants you to activate your baptism and stay always deadening the sin in you; and when you become liberated from it, you shall feel that you are risen, alive and victorious with him.

But this continuous resurrection requires from you, in addition to faith, a joint effort to escape from sin first and then live through righteousness, the Word, and through continuous prayer in your home, on the road and in divine services. You shall not only walk towards Christ through these, but also walk in him as if he is a sea you swim in. This is the living faith that martyrs died for. This is the faith that makes you transfer it to others by giving them the Word and by good deeds.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “مع المسيح صلبتُ” –Raiati n^o43- 24.10.2004

Jesus promised that miracles will happen after his time on earth: “And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues;they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well” (Mark 16: 17–18). Also, the Book of Acts narrated several miracles done by the apostles. The power of Christ is transferred to us through the Holy Spirit. This process isn’t limited in saints but also living people have made miracles. God interferes in the existing order of the universe, however He doesn’t restrict it.

As for the way this happens – i.e. the way a blind’s eye becomes a healthy one – the Lord didn’t give us knowledge about that. If something occurred, we notice it without knowing how it happened. Nevertheless, spiritual authorities do not declare, normally, whether that happened or not. Doctors might confess that something has happened and that they have no scientific explanation for it. They confess that especially in illnesses of organs such us the healing of previously closed veins or cancer. However, doctors do not usually give importance for neurotic diseases such as paralysis because they know that many of these are related to psychological reasons. The Church isn’t a faculty of medicine and rarely speaks about such things that happen.

In this sense, questions could be asked about “miraculous icons”. We are not talking about anything other than icons because in our Orthodox Church art we only have those. In all Orthodox countries they say about an icon that it is miraculous. However, theologians say something different. They say that every icon is miraculous because the Lord uses it to heal the person that prayed in front of it; this means that there is no specific icon that carries a power of healing.

Also, the Holy Book doesn’t want us to exaggerate in our interest in miracles. There are three decisive sayings that cool down our fever for miracles. The first one is: “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.  For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12: 39–40). Yes, Jesus didn’t limit his signs in his resurrection, but it is the sign of signs as it is the greatest among all his miracles and among all miracles that will occur in Church’s history. The second saying of Jesus is: “Believe because of the words I have said or else believe because of the miracles” (John 14). Here, Jesus assures that his words are more important than all miracles and that excessive busyness in miracles indicates weakness in faith. The third sentence is Apostle Paul’s saying: “Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles” (1Corinthians 1: 22–23). Christ himself is the one we should preach about and not spend times narrating stories about miracles.

If you saw a miracle and told a person who didn’t believe it, he is free and you cannot accuse him of having a weak faith. Your and his reference is what was written in God’s book and the Orthodox faith in general. If you told him that the virgin has appeared to someone, he is also free not to believe. After Christ, nothing bounds us other than what He said and what the Church said about Him.

People love supernatural things and the Church is cautious towards such things. However, if a miracle happened to you, then it is a message to you from God and it carries no meaning if it didn’t lead you to repentance. A miracle is a personal bond between you and the Lord and could be a bond between the Lord and other people too.

The Divine Word is the only fixed thing. You receive it, and if you understood it in a right way it would save you. Anything else needs a lot of preciseness.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “العجائب اليوم” –Raiati 40- 03.10.2004

Saint Basil the great teaches us that a person must use his voice in the volume required to be delivered for others; any higher volume would be considered screaming. The Lord used to reprove but he didn’t shout. This is why Matthew has said about him: “No one hears him shouting in the streets”. When you are sitting with a person, there is no need to shout. This person that’s sitting with you is waiting for some sense from you, and this won’t be delivered better through shouting.

The person that hears you shouting would consider you his enemy, even if your words were polite. He would always get harmed from the loud voice. Any angry action is a refusal of the other, and might make him feel humiliated and sense pride in you. Therefore, Paul asked his disciple Timothy not to rebuke an older man (1Timothy 5: 1). In this sense I say: Do not rebuke the poor; they would feel that you despise them. Yes, you should reprove people in some situations, but this shall happen through tenderness and clemency. If your brother was mistaken towards you, punish him for the sake of his reformation, because you are not against him. You are against his sin because God loves the sinner too.

Anger is aggression, therefore the Lord said: “You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment. But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sisterwill be subject to judgment” (Matthew 5: 21). Anger is a kind of harming. When you show the sinner his sin calmly, he shall feel that you are directing him. While if you spoke in a loud voice, he shall feel that you are releasing your anger into him and that you do not want to help him.

You must know that the angry person usually doesn’t have control over his tongue; therefore, bad voices come out of him and his heart pulse isn’t stable and you might feel that a strange power that is not from God dwells in him. He might, sometimes, use physical violence and his mental ability might be weakened. He loses his good judgment of things, his words start attacking like large rock, and you wouldn’t be able to convince him in anything because he’d be too busy marginalizing you.

Fear the hidden anger that can’t be expressed through the tongue. This anger might be more dangerous and wicked than the obvious one.

In order to reach calmness, never speak when you feel that a power is ascending from your chest to your throat in order to explode, do not speak and stay comfortable. Immediately, pray silently for couple of minutes and pray for the person that’s in front of you and causing your anger. Forget the insult if he insulted you; forget his annoyance, his lying, his refusal, and do not return his evil through making your voice loud, because if you loved him in that moment and if you forgave him for his weakness and embraced him to your heart, you cannot get angry.

You are allowed to rebel the evil that you see, but evil cannot be healed through evil. Direct the person that made you angry to the good attitude because your goal is to reform him and not take revenge. Do not put an obstacle in front of another. Strike the thickness of the person that made you angry through humbleness that comes from the Holy Spirit.

Gandhi’s friends once told him: “Why do you preach us about nonviolence? Your friend Jesus took the whip and struck the pigeon sellers and the exchangers”. Gandhi replied: “Jesus was always humble. If you were able to be humble all the time, I would then allow you to be violent”. What is meant here is that the angry person loses his humbleness while being angry.

You must stay independent from what surrounds you and free from the evil that you see. Always think about what could help the sinner spiritually and lead him calmly to his own calmness. Make peace with yourself; this requires continuous praying. If your biggest deformity was anger, then ask God to save you from it. Focus in your prayer on this request. If you thought that the person coming towards you would make you angry, start praying immediately as he arrives. When you argue about an issue, do not stick to small ideas and to defending an issue that might not be correct.

You shall achieve the great calmness when you get liberated from all desires. The lust for money, the body, notability, power… is a direct reason for anger. When you stick to any of these desires, you’d certainly get angry and defend the desire when someone prevents you from accomplishing it. Internal peace is a condition for the peace of speech and expression. When your voice gets loud, be sure that you didn’t get liberated yet from desire. When you know your desire and strike it, your tongue shall stay away from shouting.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “الغضب” – 05.09.2004

The Lord warned us from the lust for money and its unlimited increase, whether you had money or didn’t. There’s no difference between the rich and the poor when the love for money controls their souls; the danger is not in the presence of this love but in its tyranny.

Temptations are not necessarily found in wealth, because you may be rich but modest at the same time. The danger of having money is when you lose your need for others. (There is a relation in Arabic between the expressions “rich” and “don’t need others”). God wants you to feel your need for others whether you gave or took. This relation in this field or any other one is sharing and the spirit of sharing. For if you had this spirit people would be in your heart and not their money.

Remember the Lord’s saying: “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money” (Matt 6: 24). Money has power over you that can make you its slave, as St. John Chrysostom said about this subject: “Its love (money) dominates all loves and removes from the soul all other desires”.

In this sense apostle Paul said: “covetousness is idolatry” (Col 3: 5 and Eph 5: 5). The Bible didn’t say not to make your living through your work and effort. It asked us not to get totally absorbed, i.e. not to have something physical as our first goal for this would take us away from Christ. You are allowed to protect yourself from the coming days because the economy we live is built this way. When the Lord said: “Do not worry about tomorrow”, he didn’t mean that we shouldn’t find a job for tomorrow; but he meant that tomorrow shouldn’t occupy your entire mind. Work for today and tomorrow, but do not be disturbed from anything. There is effort, and with this effort comes hope.

The dominating thought in the subject of acquisition is that money isn’t a possession for anyone; this means that you use wealth as an agent and not as an enjoyer. You are trusted over God’s possessions; therefore, you use them for you and for others. You take your need and do not overtake or get greedy if you had a lot. The rule is that you should live – even if you were rich – in modesty, you shouldn’t show what you have to charm others and tempt them. You and your possessions should be under others’ service. You don’t have the choice between giving and stinginess. This is why the Psalms have said: ” He has dispersed abroad, He has given to the poor; His righteousness endures forever”. Do not ask how much money you should give today; give according to your love. You have to strengthen your desire for giving in order to get rid of the slavery of acquisition. Watch out not to spend imaginary amounts on your guests and the weddings or your sons. Live in shyness, modesty, and pureness.

The Lord didn’t reject the rich. He just revealed the spiritual dangers facing them, and these dangers face each person obtaining the gains of this world. This danger threatens the beautiful and the educated. It is difficult for the person that felt proud concerning what he owns –money, beauty, or education- to enter the Kingdom of heavens, therefore we ask for the “smartness of the soul” or spiritual attentiveness in order not to fall in temptation.

However, the great danger that surrounds wealth is falling in the temptation of authority. This is the sin of sins because it carries exclusion and cancellation of others. When you become the master, this means that you accepted that the Lord is not the master. Therefore, stay away from bragging and worthless glory and especially from notability over the pure and the pious for the Lord. 

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “شهوة المال” – 29.08.04

The circulation of authority in ruling so that tyranny doesn’t spread is compared to the circulation of service in parish councils. Some Oak-like individuals insist on staying in councils even if they didn’t declare that. I do not deny their jealousy and we might be blessed through their piety. However, the Holy Synod didn’t see that while organizing these councils. The synod insisted on the circulation of service between people as an expression of the participation of the excited, discerning and devout people. No one denies the roots of an Oak tree, but there are other trees that also have their immunity and youthfulness. You, as an elder among your people, do exist, and this is a grace that you should thank God for. But others exist too. And since, being great, you left a heritage, someone will come and carry it; you will leave a laic organization that is based on giving, but you will not leave the Church where you can give through love and advice. We should learn how to leave so that we show that others are also capable of giving.

Things, for us, are based on experience. We have tried you, and we do thank you although a believer doesn’t wait to be thanked. We must try others. If the earth doesn’t stop its course when someone of us dies, then an organization or a serving group also doesn’t stop when someone leaves it in order to get another person, and I am not saying who’s better because I do not compare.

Leaving a place is something that trains us to humility, which we cannot reach the heaven without. And in the same importance, it is a shame on some people to interrupt the bishop’s time with their sadness and complaint, and the only argument that they show or hide is that they are indispensable. If a person was dispensed in a certain position, he shall still have his status in understanding, guidance and love. Let the youth carry the burdens that you have carried with loyalty so that our youth practice maturity and we all feel happy.

Moreover, it is not acceptable to take my attention and strength through the game of equilibriums as you have planned it for yourselves. If I did what a village wanted once every while in order to keep your calmness, this doesn’t mean that I am convinced with this game. I choose whoever I see qualified for service or whoever I was told that he is useful for this service. Someone in this world must have the decisive word. I understand that we could have democratic elections in which every adult comes to the Church hall to vote, and this means that we should count all adults and record them on election lists. And this implies a game of candidates. You might have that or an assigning by the bishop according to the investigations that he does, and it is impossible for the assigned people to be accepted by everyone. In simpler words, we must submit to the decision and wait for the best after all names are completed or after the time of the council ends.

The priests and I serve you spiritually, and the fact that the Word of God reaches you and that I feel happy for your happiness and sad for your sadness is more important than a simple formation called parish council.

When a council appears performing a full service and being loyal to the property and money and activating Orthodox culture, this would carry Glory to God whether it was through you or through others. There is no place for competition because this is a glory free organization; competition exists through giving and righteousness, and both are lived together in the Church of Christ.

Every conflict over the formation of parish councils is a destruction for Church and an intense grief for me.  Don’t get busy with trivial things. Be interested in the salvation of your souls. There are things that are still rigid because of this illicit race. If you wanted me not to fear schisms do not react if the assigning wasn’t according to what you have expected. I told you that the bishop is the only person that says the final word.

If this final word was said, it must be accepted so that mess wouldn’t be spread. We can’t leave speeches in the grocery stores of the village or on street corners and feuds can’t appear between us. We need to go forward and not to be eaten by spiritual death.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “تداوُل الخدمة” –Raiati 34- 22.08.2004

I hope that women would understand that church’s insistence on modesty is not a tyrannical attitude. It is just an expression of the fact that the woman is not alone in the church and that man shares her chastity. Paul says that she sanctifies him because of what she has from loyalty and dedication. I hope that she understands that she is harming his chastity if she uncovers seductive parts of her body as she also harms her own chastity. The body for us is not an exhibited thing for greedy eyes. The body is a place for a love encounter with the partner of a deep sentimental relationship where sexual relation is one way of expression. Outside this relationship, the body must be covered.

The woman knows in her feeling and experience that any exposure is seductive. She knows the limits and doesn’t need to be taught. We do not have any legitimate judgments that classify details; morals are enough to know what should be covered and what is acceptable to uncover without any lying and hiding behind the excuse of fashion. The woman is neither the prisoner of fashion nor a fashion model. It is not enough to say that I like this thing; there are a lot of things in life that we like but are harmful for us and others. It is shameful to lie and claim that the weather is hot. Men also feel the temperature but still they cover themselves. And if we want to take into account modesty in general, we have first to do that in church as the faithful go there in order to pray, and not to see a fashion show. What everyone complains about, men and women, is the scene in weddings where chastity is insulted in a severe way. Maybe the excuse is that after the wedding there is a welcome party; but again why not have this party in modesty?

The main harm in all of this is that men get distracted from praying, so they don’t hear any word of prayer because their eyes are busy with the seduction. The deeper thing is that the woman, who’s insulting her clothes, forgot that her body is the place of encounter with her husband; so if she has the right to be beautiful for her husband, does she have the right to do that for all people and hurt their purity? Isn’t this harmful for them and her?

Isn’t this the pride of beauty? And if it was wrong for anyone to be proud of his intelligence and status, is it right for the woman to be proud of her beauty? Isn’t it pride to expose the body in such a cheap way?

It is known for analyzers that sexual seduction carry a lot of the love of authority. As revenge to this authority of women, man tries to take control over through seducing her with money. This way the love relationship between them becomes a relation of a master and a slave, where mastery goes from him to her through money and from her to him through seduction.

There are things that became familiar in general, and there are other things that will never become familiar even after a thousand years if we still have faith in chastity. What is important here is to have honesty and some courage so that the woman won’t have to imitate others in a blind way or become the prisoner of fashion shops.

You (woman) are responsible for your brother the man, in public places, the office or in church. Your body is not an object; it became sacred after it was anointed with Myron. I can not see a way for it to become sacred if you were, with your own will, a fashion model.

This does not require a great effort from you; modesty isn’t something heroic. It is enough to decide to be modest as a loyalty towards Christ and as a support to the chastity of the man, your brother.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “الحشمة” – 8.8.2004