Sayings Fr. John Meyendorff ~ St. Mary (Theotokos) & Institutional Feminism

 

   There is no doubt in my mind that the Protestant rejection of the veneration of Mary and its various consequences (such as, for example, the really "male-dominated" Protestant worship, deprived of sentiment, poetry and intuitive mystery-perception) is one of the psychological reasons which explains the recent emergence of institutional feminism.

~  Fr John Meyendorff

quote from:

from Man, Woman, and Priesthood, pp. 68-90, edited by Peter Moore, SPCK London, 1978.

Sayings Archbishop Athenagoras of Thyateira ~ Divinity and Humanity meet

 

   God in his love sent his Son to be a man, whilst in return humanity offered Saint Mary the Virgin to be the cleansed and perfected vessel in which humanity and divinity meet in the God-manhood of Christ.

~ Archbishop Athenagoras of Thyateira

quote from:

from Man, Woman, and Priesthood, pp. 68-90, edited by Peter Moore, SPCK London, 1978.

Sayings St. Barsanuphius ~ On the knowledge of Death

 

   Don't be deceived regarding the knowledge of what will be after your death: what you sow here, you will reap there. After leaving here, no one can make progress. Here is the work, there the reward; here the struggle, there the crowns.

(St. Barsanuphius the Great, Instructions, 606)

thanks to:

http://orthodox.cn/patristics/300sayings_en.htm

Sayings St. Irenaeus ~ Eternal Communion with God means

   

   God gives His communion to all who love Him. Communion with God is life and light and sweetness with all the good things that He has. But those who of their own will forsake him he rewards with separation from Him, which they themselves have chosen. As separation from light is darkness, so also alienation from God is deprivation of all good things which He has. But the good things of God are eternal and without end, so that the loss of them is eternal and without end. Thus sinners shall be the cause of their own torments, just as the blind do not see the light, although it is shining on them.

(St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies, V.27)

thanks to:

http://orthodox.cn/patristics/300sayings_en.htm

The Death Prayer By Venerable Parthenius of Kiev

  The Death Prayer

By Venerable Parthenius of Kiev

1. When I, dejected by illness, feel the approach of the end of my earthly existence: Lord, have mercy on me.

2. When my poor heart, in its last beats, will languish and pine in deathly torments: Lord, have mercy on me.

3. When my eyes are watered for the last time with tears at the thought that during my life I offended You, O God, with my sins: Lord, have mercy on me.

4. When the frequent beating of the heart begins to hasten the exodus of my soul: Lord, have mercy on me.

5. When the mortal pallor of my face and my chilling body strike fear into my loved ones: Lord, have mercy on me.

6. When my vision is darkened and my voice is cut off, my tongue is petrified: Lord, have mercy on me.

7. When terrible spirits and visions begin to drive me to despair in Your mercy: Lord, have mercy on me.

8. When my soul, struck by the memories of my crimes and the fear of Your judgment, is exhausted in the struggle with the enemies of my salvation, who are trying to drag me into the region of the darkness of torment: Lord, have mercy on me.

9. When the sweat of death drenches me, and the soul with painful suffering will move away from the body: Lord, have mercy on me.

10. When the darkness of death closes all the objects of this world from my cloudy gaze: Lord, have mercy on me.

11. When all sensation ceases in my body, my veins become numb and my muscles turn to stone: Lord, have mercy on me.

12. When human voices and earthly sounds no longer reach my ears: Lord, have mercy on me.

13. When the soul comes before Your face, O God, in anticipation of Your appointment: Lord, have mercy on me.

14. When I begin to heed the just sentence of Your judgment, which determines my eternal fate: Lord, have mercy on me.

15. When the body, abandoned by the soul, becomes the prey of worms and corruption, and, finally, all my composition turns into a handful of dust: Lord, have mercy on me.

16. When the trumpet will quicken everyone at Your second coming and the book of my deeds will open: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, Your sinful servant (name). Into Your hands, O Lord, I commit my spirit. Amen.

thanks to:

https://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2022/03/the-death-prayer-of-venerable.html?m=1

2 Peter 1:5-11

 

5 But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, 6 to knowledge self-control, to self-control [a]perseverance, to perseverance godliness, 7 to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. 8 For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither [b]barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.

10 Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble; 11 for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Sayings Saint Gregory Palamas ~ What is changeable vs eternal glory

 

   Anyone united with what is changeable either suffers all manner of reverses and loses what he has, such as riches, splendour and pleasure, or else he dies and brings upon himself the greatest change of all, departing naked and abandoning all the goods of this present life and his hopes for them... By contrast, for those who despise this world's goods and seek to learn about the world to come and hasten to do what serves to attain it, death does not inflict loss when it comes, but rather it conveys them away from what is vain and unstable to the day without evening, undying life, inexhaustible riches, unfading joy, eternal glory, and things that truly exist and remain forever unchanged

~ Saint Gregory Palamas

thanks to

http://theodorakis.net/orthodoxquotescomplete.html