Sermon on Cheese-Fare Sunday, the Remembrance of Adam’s Expulsion from Paradise

Archimandrite John (Krestiankin)

Translation by Nun Cornelia (Rees) 

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit! 

The quickly flowing river of time rushes on to eternity. Only the Holy Church and God’s feasts stop this motion momentarily, as if counting the time. And our entire life, from our birth to departure from it, is reflected in this yearly cycle; it reminds us and calls to us, “Know yourself, look inside yourself, O man. Who are you, how do you live, and what awaits you ahead? You are rushing headlong with this flow of time to timelessness, to eternity.” So it is every day, every year. 

Word on the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee and the feast day of St. Gregory the Theologian

Archimandrite John (Krestiankin)

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit!

My dear, our other three events, three memory must simultaneously resurrected today in our heart and mind. "Repentance E Open to the door, O Giver of life ..." - sounded again publicly in the churches of God. And looking pretty quiet time of repentance post. Evangelical Pharisee and the publican cause us today to look into your heart and see it or hypocritical: "... I do not like other people ..." - or, seeing there the abyss of sin to bow before God in humility Mytareva repentance ( Lk. 18, 11).

Word of the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee

Archimandrite John (Krestiankin)

This sermon was not published during his life on. John

Brennan. Publican and the Pharisee (1858)

The temple of God - our heavenly Father's house - a house of prayer. It convenes He their own children in prayerful communion they desperately voschuvstvovali His closeness, His love, to warm the Father's edification and strength it took with them in the difficulties of life. All he sees the light of His Gospel of Truth blesses the audience to the last depths. So it was during the earthly life of the Savior, when the Pharisee and the tax collector praying in the great temple of Jerusalem, and now God sees you and me coming to Him in prayer, it always will be until the last days of the world.

MAY GOD GIVE YOU WISDOM! THE LETTERS OF FR. JOHN KRESTIANKIN. LETTERS TO LAYPEOPLE

Pravoslavie.ru (English edition) is therefore pleased to present each week day excerpts from the forthcoming book May God Give You Wisdom! The Letters of Fr. John Krestiankin (published by Sretensky Monastery and St. Xenia Skete). May our readers find in them answers to perplexities, sober instruction, and deep Christian wisdom, coming from a true elder and confessor of the Faith.

Letter to a beginner

Dear N.!

Everything will be very simple and easy if you decide to do it unto God, for God's sake, and to the glory of God. Everything in life and in the soul will immediately come together.

Do not leave your job, live on your salary from the museum, and work at home for your soul. Do not accept gifts, and do not count on getting your only profit from payment for icons.

Work in the museum for now, and the time will come when you will only work in the church, even better, in a monastery.^[1] But now you should gain experience and knowledge, and raise your level of qualification, study where you can. If they find out about your domestic practice at work, then you can explain it easily by saying, “I am doing it to get practice in restoration work and increase my experience, but I do not take money.” After all, your work is knowingly and consciously serving God, and not mammon. Do you understand?

You must also learn that no matter where you work, especially if it's in the Church, there will always be many disappointments and disenchantments, because people are people everywhere, with each one's “plusses” and “minuses.”