Metropolitan Hierotheos (Vlachos) of Nafpatkos, pictured here (on the right) many years ago with Elder Sophrony Sakharov. Below are the stages of prayer he outlines. What I learned the hard way is that you MUST begin at the first stage and you CANNOT force your way to higher stages. Trust me. My pride convinced me that I was better than others and could immediately go to mental prayer. I spent years with a wandering mind and little time in actual prayer. The Holy Spirit will lead to you to higher levels as you progress in your ability to concentrate. It is best not to force it. Also, you will find that progress in prayer is not a linear progression as indicated by the neatly presented five steps. You will move up and then return to the beginning from time to time.
Articles and information about how to live an Orthodox Christian life. This includes prayer, fasting, repentance, holy communion and the other sacraments of the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Jesus Prayer - Five Stages
Metropolitan Hierotheos (Vlachos) of Nafpatkos, pictured here (on the right) many years ago with Elder Sophrony Sakharov. Below are the stages of prayer he outlines. What I learned the hard way is that you MUST begin at the first stage and you CANNOT force your way to higher stages. Trust me. My pride convinced me that I was better than others and could immediately go to mental prayer. I spent years with a wandering mind and little time in actual prayer. The Holy Spirit will lead to you to higher levels as you progress in your ability to concentrate. It is best not to force it. Also, you will find that progress in prayer is not a linear progression as indicated by the neatly presented five steps. You will move up and then return to the beginning from time to time.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Making the Prayer of the Heart Come Alive
Fr. Artemy says, "If you want to calm your mind and ease your heart, try calling instead on the most holy name of Jesus Christ, without haste and with only one intent: to attract His attention and repent of your sins."
The Jesus Prayer is the most powerful spiritual practice I have found. Father says,
To stand before the face of God, to cleanse your heart and sanctify the space of your life by invoking His name, this is your aim. We don’t know how God cleanses our heart by His name, but we believe that He does so in a supernatural way. In saying the Jesus Prayer, it is not so important whether you are “a monk or a drunk,” but you are to be very steadfast, attentive, humble, mild, and concentrated.
Father Artemy says,
You may even do this somewhat mechanically, knowing that this tradition has been sanctified by generations of saints, but as you walk and pray, try not to think of anything else. Just walk in the presence of God. ...you will find that your fevered mind is soothed, that the noisy bazaar of your thoughts has become light, clear, and direct, and that your heart has begun to say other prayers in a manner that satisfies you. You pray, you breathe, you speak to God; you are not just repeating empty words. What does it mean to have your mind in your heart? It means that you are to control your feelings. You are not to admit invaders into your heart, but are to check your heart with your mind, to observe everything that takes place there. To have your mind in your heart is exactly what our Lord prescribes to us in His commandment: When thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father who is in secret…”.
Info on Archpriest Artemy Vladimirov
Monday, September 28, 2009
Why Become Orthodox?
Brought into the Orthodox Church by marriage, my conversion to Orthodoxy has been a rather gradual one. At first, I did not have much interest in Church, period. It didn't matter if it was Methodist, Baptist or Orthodox. I was a product of the age of relativism. Religion just wasn't all that important when I was twenty-two. My wife would tell me that she did not feel like she had been to church when we visited the Methodist Church of my parents and my childhood. As I began to attend the Divine Liturgy, all in Greek without an english translation to follow, I slowly became attached to it (at first I was terribly bored sitting there for an hour and a half listening to Greek which I didn't understand). Even though I could not understand the words, the chanting penetrated my soul, the incense brought me to attention, and the walls covered with holy icons caressed my wandering mind. I didn't really know why, but I always felt uplifted afterwards. It was the same week after week and is still the same as it was 40+ years ago (and of course 1500 years ago as well). Orthodoxy, I learned has a stability about it. It's the same no matter where you go int he world. It's the same year to year. This stability in its teachings and ritual is most comforting in our fast paced world of change.
I recently read a story about a Roman Catholic nun who converted to Orthodoxy. Here is how she described her experience.
The first Greek Orthodox liturgy I experienced was on Pascha at the Church of the Resurrection. This was the decisive experience. It is difficult for me to describe what I experienced there. I felt I was in heaven or that heaven had descended to earth. At that time I did not know what the Cherubic Hymn was, however, when I heard it for the first time, I felt such a deep self-concentration and I thought that at that moment the angels were chanting with the people. (Later I learned that two emissaries of the Russian Tsar had felt the same when they experienced the liturgy in Constantinople for the first time). My deepest experience was the certainty of an inner knowledge; NOW I HAVE ARRIVED HOME! This was as if an answer to my interior uneasiness. This was what I had lacked, as I said earlier, it was this interior experience. Then I did not know much of the history of the Church, about the Filioque, the schism etc.
How liberating it is for someone to take part in an Orthodox liturgy and to know that she is unchanging and not like with the Catholic liturgy, to have to be afraid of what to expect next. A few times I have thought that even many Orthodox people do not know how much spiritual wealth and what treasure has been given to them, how grateful to God we should be for this and how responsible we should be in guarding it!

This story rings true with me. Why it is that so many cradle Orthodox do not appreciate the wealth of wisdom the Orthodox Church contains? Why don't they appreciate this gift they have received just because of where or to whom they were born? Why is it the converts are the ones who seem to be most intent on carrying forward the Holy Traditions without change?
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Pure Prayer - The Struggle and Learning from the Saints
Among the treasures of the Orthodox Church are the numerous accounts that record a saint's path to union with God. One of these is given to us by Archimandrite Sophrony on the Life of Saint Silouan the Athonite. Saint Silouan began life as a Russian peasant. After completing his military service he came to Mount Athos where he remained until his death in 1938. He was not a learned man, but through tireless strivings he was able to find an authentic personal experience identical with the early Desert Fathers. Archimandrite Sophrony was one of his disciples.
What does this softening of the heart mean? I am still learning. But I now know that I do not have one and my heart is hard. I pray for it to be softened and I seek to further understand what this means.
He continues,
Finally he warns that this is very difficult.
So, I continue my struggle but with hope.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Letting Go for True Prayer
Here is the key to solving this problem that I am now learning from the Church Fathers. True prayer requires that we let go of our struggle to make "sense" about everything. In prayer we are approaching God, the creator of all. Our mind can never grasp this infinite source of life and all goodness. As we struggle to make sense out of what is in the end not understandable, we block our experience of the Divine and reduce it to mere mental objects.
Consider the following by Archpriest Nicholas Deputatov:
Friday, September 25, 2009
Is Orthodoxy a Bit Weird?
Thursday, September 24, 2009
The Abyss Beyond Reason

Gregory of Nyssa describes the nature of the leap of faith that is involved.
The Good that we have learned to seek and to cherish is beyond all creation, and hence beyond all comprehension. Thus how can our mind, which always operates on a dimensional image, comprehend a nature that has no dimension, especially as our minds are constantly penetrating, by analysis, into things which are more and more profound...
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
True Knowledge of God - Elder Sophrony
From Father Stephen's blog: Glory to God for all Things
The dogmatic consciousness I have here in mind is the fruit of spiritual experience, independent of the logical brain’s activity. The writings in which the Saints reported their experience were not cast in the form of scholastic dissertations. They were revelations of the soul. Discourse on God and on life in God comes about simply, without cogitation, born spontaneously in the soul.
Dogmatic consciousness where asceticism is concerned is not a rational analysis of an inward experience – it is not ‘psychoanalysis’. Ascetics avoid this rational speculation because it only weakens the intensity of their contemplation of the Light but, indeed, interrupts it, with the result that the soul sinks into darkness, left as she is with a merely abstract rational knowledge devoid of all vitality.
What is the use of reasoning about the nature of grace if one does not experience its action in oneself? What is the use of declaiming about the light of Tabor if one does not dwell in it existentially? Is there any sense in splitting theological hairs over the nature of the Trinity if a man has not within himself the holy strength of the Father, the gentle love of the Son, the uncreated light of the Holy Ghost?
Dogmatic knowledge, understood as spiritual knowledge, is a gift of God, like all forms of real life in God, granted by God, and only possible through His coming. This knowledge has by no means always been expressed in speech or in writing. The soul does not aspire to expound her experience in rational concepts when God’s grace descends on her. She needs no logical interpretations then, because she knows with a knowledge that cannot be demonstrated but which equally requires no proof that she lives through the true God….
…God is made known by faith and living communion, whereas human speech with all its relativity and fluidity opens the way to endless misunderstandings and objections. (From St. Silouan the Athonite).
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
What to ask for in Prayer
Monday, September 21, 2009
Why Do we Seek Virtues?
Sunday, September 20, 2009
The Beatitudes: Jesus’ Power Point Presentation
Friday, September 18, 2009
8th Beatitude: Blessed Are They That Suffer Persecution For Justice' Sake
In this Beatitude we have reached the peak of our quest. Our reward of our efforts is to become worthy of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Gregory says,
No longer do we go astray, pinning our hope on what is unstable and subject to change. For earth is the place of variation and flux; but in the things that appear moving in heaven we observe nothing like that, because they do not behave in such a way; but all heavenly things move in their own courses in series of orderly sequence.
The examples we have for this final step are the martyrs of the Church.
Gregory says
It seems that in the last words He holds out to them the highest Beatitude like a crown. For it is truly blessed to suffer persecution for the sake of the Lord. And why? Because being chased by evil becomes the cause of attaining to the good, since separation from the wicked one is made the occasion for drawing near to the Good, that Good that is above every good, the Lord Himself, to whom runs the man who is persecuted. Therefore he is truly blessed, because he uses the enemy to help him attain the Good…
Hence the immediate aspect of the persecution which tyrants unleash against the martyrs is indeed painful to the senses; but the outcome of it exceeds all beatitude.

We all know how difficult it is to deal with those who scheme against us and who do not show their love for us. Gregory uses the story of Joseph as an example. His brothers plotted against him, sold him, yet by this action he became a king over those who had plotted against him. But the persecution in the days of the early Church (which still continues to this days in parts of the world) horrible and was something known by all. Many of Saint Gregory's peers had horrific scars to show this (This is the reason the veiled headgear that monks wear to this day was initiated.). To become blessed because someone has plotted against you, or worse physically harmed you, is not a logical thought. We do not normally see the outcome of inflicted pain as something that is good.
Gregory says,
The fact that the persecution the tyrants inflict on the faithful brings much sensible pain, makes it difficult for the more carnally minded to accept the hope of the Kingdom that is to be realized through these pains. But the Lord, who looks down upon the infirmity of our nature, tells the weak beforehand what is to be the goal of the struggle, so that they may more easily overcome the transitory feelings of pain.

The first martyr Stephen who willingly received the stones that killed him is another example he uses. As Stephen confessed his faith he saw the glory of the Lord shine down on him from heaven. Who else could be more blessed?
Now it is really difficult to prefer what is invisible versus the good things of this world, like the martyrs were able to do.
Gregory says,
Now the soul is in some way attached to the pleasant things of life through the senses of the body. Through the eyes it delights in material beauty, through the ears it inclines to melodious sounds, and so it is also affected by smell, taste, and touch, as nature has disposed to be proper to each. Hence, as it is attached to the pleasant things of life through the sensible faculty as if by a nail, it is hard to turn away from them. It has grown up together with these attachments much in the same way as the shellfish and snails are bound to their covering of clay; and so it is slow to make such movements, since it drags along the whole burden of a lifetime. As such is its condition, the soul is easily captured by its persecutors with the threat of confiscation of property or loss of sonic other things that are coveted in this life; and so it gives in easily, and yields to the power of its persecutor.
But when we God’s grace penetrates our being it is transformed. As Paul says, “For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword…” (Heb 4:12)
Gregory says,
It cuts through the things that have badly grown together, and disrupts the fetters of habit… He is not pained by the loss of earthly things, but gladdened by the gain of heavenly ones. Therefore he will readily accept every form of torture as a means that will help him to attain to the joy before him: the fire, as a purification from matter; the sword, as disrupting the union of the mind with what is material and carnal. Every device for inflicting pain he will receive eagerly as an antidote against the dangerous poison of pleasure.
Gregory conclude with this:
Therefore affliction is the flower that will yield the hoped-for fruits. Hence let us pick the flower for the sake of the fruit. Let us be persecuted so that we may run, but if we run, let us not run in vain. Let us race towards the prize of our supernal vocation; so let us run that we may obtain. What is it that we shall obtain? What is the prize, what the crown? It seems to me that what we hope is nothing else but the Lord Himself. For He Himself is the Judge of those who fight, and the crown of those who win. He it is who distributes the inheritance, He Himself is the goodly inheritance. He is the portion and the giver of the portion, He makes rich and is Himself the riches. He shows you the treasure and is Himself your treasure. He draws you to desire the beautiful pearl; He offers it to you as it were for sale, if you will trade fairly. In order to gain it, therefore, as if in the market, let us compare the things we have not with those we have. Let us not be sorrowful, then, if we are persecuted, but rather let us rejoice, because by being chased away from earthly honors, we are driven towards the heavenly Good. For this He has promised, that those who have been persecuted for His sake shall be blessed, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven, by the grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and power for ever and ever.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
7th Beatitude: Blessed are the Peacemakers

In this Beatitude we continue our climb toward perfection.
Gregory says:
All that the Divine Word has so far laid down is indeed perfectly holy. But what we are now' invited to contemplate is truly αδυτον, and the Holy of Holies. For if the blessedness of seeing God cannot be surpassed, to become the son of God transcends bliss altogether… If you call that which the Beatitude promises good, or glorious, or sublime, yet what is made known is something more than these words mean: it is fulfillment that outstrips prayer, gift surpassing hope, grace transcending nature...
How can one give thanks worthily for such a gift? With what words, what thoughts that move our mind can we praise this abundance of grace? Man transcends his own nature, he who was subject to corruption in his mortality, becomes immune from it in his immortality, eternal from being fixed in time–in a word, a god from a man. For if he is made worthy of becoming a son of God, he will possess in himself the dignity of the Father and be made heir of all the Father's goods. How munificent is this rich Lord! How generously He opens His Hands wide to give us His ineffable treasures! Through His love of man He brings our nature, dishonored by sin, to an honor that almost equals His own.
If we were to obtain all the benefits available to us in this world; riches, good health, friends, all kinds of pleasures, etc.; what would it mean if peace were missing.
Gregory says,
Therefore peace itself is sweet to enjoy, and sweetens all that is held dear in life. And even if we suffer any human misfortune, as long as there is peace the evil is borne more easily, because it is mixed with some good; but if life is haunted by war, we become in a way insensible even to our own occasions of grief. For the common calamity is greater than the individual causes of pain…
By this, therefore, one can see how greatly He loves man, that He bestows the precious reward not on pains and sweat, but, so to speak, on the enjoyment of happiness. Peace is indeed the greatest of the joy-giving things; and this He wishes each of us to have in such measure as to keep it not only for himself, but to be able to dispense from the overflow of his abundance also to others.
Now who is a peacemaker? This is a person who “gives peace to another.” To be able to give peace to another you must first have peace in yourself. Therefore God wants us to be filled with the blessings of peace so we can then pass it on to others.
What is peace?
Gregory says,
Surely it is nothing else but a loving disposition towards one's neighbor. Now what is held to be the opposite of love? It is hate and wrath, anger and envy, harboring resentment as well as hypocrisy and the calamity of war. Do you see for how many different diseases this single word is an antidote? For peace is equally opposed to every one of the things mentioned, and wipes out these evils by its own presence. Just as illness vanishes when health supervenes, and as no darkness is left when light begins to shine, so also when peace appears, all the passions connected with its opposite are eliminated.
Gregory asks us to focus on all the passions associated with hate. He say the the passions of the devil appear in those dominated by wrath.
He says
For when the passion lays hold of a man and the heart-blood bolls over, when wrath, as they say, makes the black gall diffuse itself throughout the body, then all the senses that are placed in the head are affected with cramp by the compression of the internal vapors. The eyes protrude from under their confining lids, staring bloodshot like dragons at the offending object; the inside is compressed, panting for breath, the veins III the throat swell and the tongue thickens...
The evils of wrath are obvious and one who prevent such actions are truly blessed. But still worse, he says, is envy and hypocrisy because they are hidden deep in a man’s heart.
Gregory says,
It is cherished secretly in the depth of the heart, like a hidden fire, while externally everything is made to look deceptively like friendship. It is like a fire that is hidden under chaff. For a time it smolders inside and burns only what lies near; the flame does not flare up visibly, only a biting smoke penetrates, because it is so vigorously compressed from within.
We never know when this will bust out causing great harm. This is the story of an envious Cain who murdered Able who received praise. The envy within commanded the murder, but hypocrisy became its executioner, says, Gregory.
Those who have obtained a pure heart, who are able to imitate the Divine love of others and who exemplify the Divine energies of God are truly blessed.
Gregory concludes,
I think that man is called a peacemaker par excellence who pacifies perfectly the discord between flesh and spirit in himself and the war that is inherent in nature, so that the law of the body no longer wars against the law of the mind, but is subjected to the higher rule and becomes a servant of the Divine ordinance.