• Vespers: Saturdays 5PM
  • Divine Liturgy: Sundays 9:30AM
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Quotes

A collection of scriptural meditations from Saints and Fathers of the Church.

Walk before God in simplicity, and not in subtleties of the mind. Simplicity brings faith; but subtle and intricate speculations bring conceit; and conceit brings withdrawal from God.

Understand what I say: there can be no knowledge of the mysteries of God on a full stomach.

Self-love precedes all passions, and the scorn of ease precedes all the virtues.

Let all of us who wish to attract the Lord to ourselves draw near to Him as disciples to the Master, simply, without hypocrisy, without duplicity or guile, not out of idle curiosity. He Himself is simple and not composite, and He wants souls that come to Him to be simple and guileless. For you will surely never see simplicity bereft of humility.

The prayer of one who does not consider himself sinful is not well-pleasing to God.

Repentance raises the fallen, mourning knocks at the gate of Heaven, and holy humility opens it.

The more a man's tongue flees verbosity, the more his intellect is illumined so as to be able to discern deep thoughts; for the rational intellect is befuddled by verbosity.

Faith is the door to mysteries. What the bodily eyes are to sensory objects, faith is to the eyes of the intellect that gaze at hidden treasures.

Let no one on seeing or hearing something supernatural in the monastic way of life fall into unbelief out of ignorance; for where the supernatural God dwells, much that is supernatural happens.

Live in the world as if only God and your soul were in it; then your heart will never be made captive by any earthly thing.

Those who live in obedience are strangers to love of money. For where even the body has been given up, what is left to be one's own? Only in one way can they be harmed, namely by being ready and quick to go from place to place. I have seen material possessions make monks patient to remain in one place. But I praise those who are pilgrims for the Lord.

The world is everything that holds us and satisfies us sensuously: that within us which has not known God (John 17:25).

Self-knowledge is a true idea of one's spiritual growth, and an unbroken remembrance of one's slightest sins.

He who does not consciously choose to distance himself from a cause for sin, will be drawn to sin, even against his will.

Ascetical endeavor is the mother of sanctification. From sanctification the first taste of the perception of Christ’s mysteries is born...

No one in the face of blasphemous thoughts need think that the guilt lies within him, for the Lord is the Knower of hearts, and He is aware that such words and thoughts do not come from us but from our foes.

The beginning of the mortification both of the soul’s desire and of the bodily members is much hard work. The middle is sometimes laborious and sometimes not laborious. But the end is insensibility and insusceptibility to toil and pain. Only when he sees himself doing his own will does this blessed living corpse feel sorry and sick at heart; and he fears the responsibility of using his own judgment.

When you are praying, don’t rack your brains to find words. On many occasions the simple, monotonous stammering of children has satisfied their Father who is in heaven. Don’t bother to be loquacious lest the mind is bewildered in the search for words. The tax-collector gained the Lord’s forgiveness with a single sentence, and a single word charged with faith was the salvation of the robber. Loquacity in prayer often fills the head with foolish fancies and provokes distractions. Brevity on the other hand - sometimes only one word is enough - in general favors recollection.

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Parish

Mailing Address

Archangel Michael Orthodox Church
5025 E. Mill Rd
Broadview Heights, Ohio 44147

Email, Phone, and Fax

[email protected]
440-526-5192 (Phone)