• 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 have no peace from thoughts, which impel you to trouble others, and in turn to be troubled by others. But know, my brother, that if we offend by word or deed, we are thereby ourselves offended a hundredfold. Be longsuffering in all things and refrain from letting your own will enter into anything. Carefully examine your thoughts lest they infect your heart with deadly poison (ill temper) and make you take a gnat for a camel, a pebble for a cliff, and lest you become like a man who has a beam in his own eye but beholds the mote in the eye of another.

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The garment of your soul must shine with the whiteness of simplicity.

Where there is simplicity, there are a hundred Angels, but where there is cleverness – there are none.

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.

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.'

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.

Live simply and God will not leave you...

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

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.

A true monk does no reproach and does not praise.

May simplicity go before you everywhere; especially be simple in your faith, hope, and love, for God is an Essence of Simplicity, a Unity that is worshipped everlastingly, and our soul is simple. The simplicity of our soul is hindered by our flesh, when we please it.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Blessed are those who, from love of God, have girded their loins with unquestioning simplicity for this sea of suffering, and who do not turn back.

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

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