• 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.

If they will praise you, you must remain silent—do not say anything.

Compunction comes when you consider how much you have grieved God Who is so good, so sweet, so merciful, so kind, and entirely full of love; Who was crucified and suffered everything for us. When you meditate on these things and other things the Lord has suffered, they bring compunction.

A treasure that is known is quickly spent: and even so any virtue that is commented on and made a public show of is destroyed. Even as wax is melted before the face of fire, so is the soul enfeebled by praise, and loses the toughness of its virtue.

The Church Fathers regard Sacred Tradition as the safe guide in the interpretation of Holy Scripture and absolutely necessary for understanding the truths contained in the Holy Scripture. The Church received many traditions from the Apostles... The constitution of the church services, especially of the Divine Liturgy, the holy Mysteria themselves and the manner of performing them, certain prayers and other institutions of the Church go back to the Sacred Tradition of the Apostles.

They (namely the Apostles) have not handed down everything in writing, but have also delivered many things in unwritten form. The former and the latter are equally trustworthy, and so we also consider the [unwritten] Tradition of the Church to be trustworthy. Is it Tradition? Seek no further.

It is a great work to shake from the soul the praise of men, but to reject the praise of demons is greater.

A true monk does no reproach and does not praise.

How harmful is the praise of man! Even though a person may have done something worthy of praise, when he enjoys the sound of praise he is already deprived of future glory, according to teachings of the holy fathers.

People of high spirit bear offence nobly and gladly, but only the holy and righteous can pass through praise without harm.

Sacred Tradition is the very Church; without the Sacred Tradition the Church does not exist. Those who deny the Sacred Tradition deny the Church and the preaching of the Apostles. Before the writing of the Holy Scriptures, that is, of the sacred texts of the Gospels, the Acts and the Epistles of the Apostles, and before they were spread to the churches of the world, the Church was based on Sacred Tradition... The holy texts are in relation to Sacred Tradition what the part is to the whole.

Pay no attention to praise and fear it; remember what one of the holy fathers says: 'If someone praises you, expect reproaches from him too.'

The way to attain compunction is an attentive life. ‘The beginning of repentance comes from the fear of God and attention,’ as the holy martyr Boniface says.

If you have received from God the gift of knowledge, however limited, beware of neglecting charity and temperance. They are virtues which radically purify the soul from passions and so open the way of knowledge continually.

Our enemies (demons) fell because of their pride, and call us to follow them, and bring us feelings of praise. And if your soul accepts that praise, then grace will depart, until the soul becomes humble again. And so all your life you must learn the humility of Christ.

Of the teachings and proclamations preserved in the Church, some we possess from written teaching, while others we have received in secret from the Tradition of the Apostles; these both have the same validity [ie. authority] for true religion. And no one will deny these points, at least if he is even moderately experienced in Church [matters].

Whoever reproaches us gives us a gift, but whoever praises us, steals from us.

If someone is judged worthy to receive the gift of knowledge but allows his heart to be full of bitterness or rancor or aversion to another, it is as if he had been struck in the eye by a thornbush. That is why knowledge is no good without charity.

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)