• 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.

He who fears God will pay careful attention to his soul and will free himself from communion with evil.

Spiritual freedom is release from the passions; without Christ’s mercy you cannot attain it.

Love and self-control purify the soul.

Strive to love every man equally, and you will simultaneously expel all the passions.

When we turn our spirit from the contemplation of God, we become the slaves of carnal passions.

Great Lent - all of its services are united by the idea of preparing for Holy Pascha, to meet the Risen Christ with a clean heart.

Paschal joy is a foretaste of eternal joy in the approaching kingdom of Christ.

St. Paul says: 'The person engaged in spiritual warfare exercises self control in all things' (I Cor. 9:25). Aware of all that is said in divine Scripture, let us lead our life with self-control, especially in regard to food.

The holy Fathers' counsel is to begin with small things, for, says Ephraim the Syrian, how can you put out a great fire before you have learned to quench a small one? If you wish to set yourself free from a great suffering, crush the small desires, say the holy Fathers. Do not suppose that the one can be separated from the others: they all hang together like a long chain or a net.

If you lay down rules for yourself, do not disobey yourself; for he who cheats himself is self-deluded.

So long as the soul is sick with passions, its senses have no perception of the spiritual; and the soul does not even know how to desire it, but desires it only from hearsay and writings. The power of the soul is cured of these diseases by the hidden practice of commandments, with sharing in Christ's passion.

You cannot destroy the passions on your own, but ask God, and He will destroy them, if this is profitable for you.

If the passions strike you from time to time, this should not distress you. We must continue the 'unseen warfare' all our lives. The battle itself is not a problem; there is trouble only if we become weak in it. If this does not happen, our spiritual life is in good order. The peace that is with you in battle bears witness to this. But we must beware that we do not feel a different kind of peace, the kind one feels when there is no battle. This kind of peace is dangerous. It indicates that the enemy has done away with open battle and wants to build an invisible and clever snare for us! In cases like this one must intensify one's usual vigilance and sobriety! Do not weaken in any way!

Control your stomach, sleep, anger, and tongue, and you will not 'dash your foot against a stone.'

Do not allow a passion to harden into a habit.

Along with an evil thought, a hostile power enters into us, and then the soul is clouded, and evil thoughts harass her.

Evil is not an actual substance, but absence of good; just as darkness is nothing but absence of light.

If Nabuzardan, the court cook of the King of the Babylonians, had not gone to Jerusalem, then the Temple would not have burned (cf. 2 Kings 24), That is to say, a person’s mind is not attacked by the flames of carnal pleasures, if a person is not conquered by gluttony.

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)