• 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.

You will pay glorious homage to God if, through virtues, you imprint His likeness on your soul.

Make the body serve the commandments, keeping it so far as possible free from sickness and sensual pleasure.

Keep the commandments, and you will find peace; love God, and you will attain spiritual knowledge.

The roof of any house stands upon the foundations and the rest of the structure. The foundations themselves are laid in order to carry the roof. This is both useful and necessary, for the roof cannot stand without the foundations and the foundations are absolutely useless without the roof-- no help to any living creature. In the same way the grace of God is preserved by the practice of the commandments, and the observance of these commandments is laid down like foundations through the gift of God. The grace of the Spirit cannot remain with us without the practice of the commandments, but the practice of the commandments is of no help or advantage to us without the grace of God.

The foundation of every virtue is the realization of human weakness.

Struggle until death to fulfill the commandments: purified through them, you will enter into life.

Virtues do not stop demons attacking us, but keep us unscathed by them.

Do not be deluded by thoughts that virtue exceeds your powers and is impossible for you; but, inspired by faith, boldly make a beginning, show before God your good will and diligence - and you will see the help He will send you to practice virtue.

Rejoice when you perform the virtues, but do not become exalted, lest, arriving at the pier, you suffer a shipwreck.

A Christian has great difficulty in attaining three things: grief (over sins), tears, and the continual memory of death. Yet these contain all of the other virtues.

Blessed is he who preaches virtue by means of his deeds. But if you say something that pertains to virtue, but do the opposite, this will not save you.

Virtue does not have a bell that rings to rouse your curiosity, to make you turn and see him. It is an immaterial gift of God.

Virtue can only be attained by unremitting effort.

If you give gladly, even if you give only a little, it is a big gift. If you give unwillingly, even if you give a big gift, you turn it into a small one.

Unless a man keeps the commandments of God, he cannot progress, even in a single virtue.

A greedy appetite for food is terminated by satiety and the pleasure of drinking ends when our thirst is quenched. And so it is with the other things... But the possession of virtue, once it is solidly achieved, cannot be measured by time nor limited by satiety. Rather, to those who are its disciples it always appears as something ever new and fresh.

Almsgiving heals the soul's incensive power; fasting withers sensual desire; prayer purifies the intellect and prepares it for contemplation of created beings. For the Lord has given us commandments which correspond to the powers of the soul.

We must not think that anyone slips and comes to ruin by a sudden fall; it is rather that he has been deceived by the beginnings of evil habits, or else, by prolonged mental negligence, virtue has little by little withdrawn from him, and vices have thereby grown stronger, and he has come thus to a miserable fall. For Pride goeth before destruction, and the spirit is lifted up before a fall (Prov.16:18 LXX). Just as a house never falls in ruin by a sudden shock unless there has been some long-standing fault in the foundations, or by the prolonged carelessness of the tenants, little driblets at first penetrate through and slowly undermine the walls, which, inconsequence of the old neglect, open in ever wider apertures and crumble away, and then let in the tempest of rain and storm in torrents. For by slothfulness a building shall be brought down, and through the weakness of hands the house shall drop through (Ecclus. 10:19 LXX).

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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)