Fr George Calciu on Pious Prayer

St Basil the Great, St Gregory the Theologian, St John Chrysostom and the Social Issues of their Time

The Alabaster Box by C.S. Lewis

The Business of Heaven: Daily Readings from C. S. Lewis 
By: C. S. Lewis Edited by Walter Hooper,  ISBN: 0156148633
Available from these sellers 
Publisher: Harvest Books - 1984 1st Edition

Tonight I opened for the first time my copy of a book published
and purchased 29 years ago. It consists of a collection of 
devotional readings for each day of the year. The readings come
from a "wide range of Lewis' writing".  I looked at the reading for
July 22nd and smiled,

"It is nice to be still under the care of St. Mary Magdalen... The

allegorical sense of her great action dawned on me the other day.

The precious alabaster box which one must break over

the Holy Feet is one's heart. Easier said than done. And the

contents become perfume only when it is broken. While 

they are safe inside they are more like sewage. All very 

alarming." C. S. Lewis from page 187

I'm glad I picked up this book! After 29 years, it is about time.

Injustice and False Accusation by St Theophan the Recluse

Available from ArchangelsBooks.com

Have you ever wondered what is the most effective way to respond
to slander, false accusations and injustice? When the ego goes into 
self-preservation drive, it can be pretty hard to hold back and 'do
nothing'. From what I read from the Church Fathers and holy 
monastics, I learn the unanimous counsel from them all, "Forgive
your enemies, pray for those who hurt you, etc" I have to confess
that at times I have been quite annoyed by these 'unrealistic
expectations'. Life can be very 'unfair' and something in my 
personality demands that all wrongs be made right, all evil 
confronted.

So I kept reading; and coming up with the same counsel decided to
take a look at what modern cognitive behavioral therapy has to say
about the subject; and in the process, received a great lesson which
finally settles this question for me. 

In their book, "Cognitive Behavioral Therapy" p.329, by Rhena
Branch and Rob Wilson, published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
West Sussex, England, the authors write "Sometimes, life's just
plain unfair. Sometimes, people treat you unjustly and nothing
gets done to put the balance right. On top of being unfair, life's
unpredictable and uncertain a great deal of the time. And really,
that's just the way life is.You can still strive to be fair yourself,
but if you accept that unfairness exists you may be less outraged
and less horrified if and when justice simply doesn't prevail."

Notwithstanding my personal feelings during a moment in which
I have to face the 'injustices' of this life, I know that the well
trodden path of our monastics and holy ones is the path to the
healing of my soul. As such, I do not need secular science to
validate this truth. Much of secular psychology stands in
opposition to the patristic method for the healing of man but in
this case, cognitive therapy concurs with the ancient wisdom
of the Orthodox Church.

For example, St Theophan the Recluse, in his letters to a young
Russian lady which are compiled in the book, "The Spiritual Life
and How to be Attuned to It", published by St Herman Press,
Platina, CA 1996, writes in Letter no. 78 p.307,

"May the Grace of God be with you!
Again?! Injustices, wrongful accusations! It is probably from
somewhere outside. No matter where it is from, I would say to you,
do not just be courageous and stand fast , but rejoice. It means that
things with your soul are going well. The Lord is leading you to
cleansing, and the enemy is encountering strong opposition within
you. Stand your ground firmly. There is no need to be troubled by
injustices and wrongful accusations.

He who causes them will be judged by God, and he who 
suffers them must bear them with good cheer and give
thanks to God. Do not forget that there is another life in
which everything here will be answered for, in praise or
in remorse. What if you endure injustice? There will be
praise. If you do not? Remorse. Do not say, "That is not right."
Whether something is right or not is not your business to judge,
it will be said,"Why did you not bear it?"

Injustices do not come from God, but are permitted by God for
the good of the person to whom they are permitted. Truly for the
good! These are not just words, but a real thing. I cite for
you the example of the martyrs, who were tormented in every way
possible. And where was the Lord? He was there indeed, and
appeared to them comforted them, lessened their suffering, but
all the same left them to bear their torments to the end, so as to
receive the full crown. Similarly, each falsehood and
wrongful accusation prepares a crown. But the person to 
whom they befall must endure them. Now you have encountered
this necessity. Endure them with good cheer, if you will, as if they
did not exist. God wants this from you for your own benefit.

You say it is terrible to give yourself over to falsehoods for an
entire lifetime. Of course it is terrible. That is why it is said of
those who follow the Lord, "Be thou strong and of good courage!"
Deut. 31:6. Ahead of you is a cross. It appears that nothing more
remains other than to give yourself over to sorrows, privations
and wrongful accusations. This self denial, I would say to you,
is the beginning of the true path. Give yourself over to that! The
very moment you deny yourself, you begin following the Lord.
Think over all this and decide, if you will, in a Godly manner.
All success is from the necessary resolution of this point."

"Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,
At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,
When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death
And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again."
Mr. Beaver in 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'
p.74-75, C.S. Lewis, Collier Books Macmillan Publishing Company,
New York, 1970

The Foolishness of the Cross - Love your Enemies

Icon of Christ carrying His cross, Church of Panagia Dexia,
Thessaloniki, Greece

"For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are
perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power
of God." 1 Corinthians 1:18
NASB BibleGateway.com

I have always read the following passage from the Gospel
according to St Luke, with a sense of astonishment;
"“But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good
to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, prayfor those who mistreat you. Whoever hits you on the 
cheek, offer him the other also; and whoever takes away
your coat, do not withhold your shirt from him either.

Give to everyone who asks of you, and whoever takes
away what is yours, do not demand it back.Treat othersthe same way you want them to treat you. If you love
those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even
sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those
who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even
sinners do the same.If you lend to those from whom you
expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even
sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same
amount.

But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting
nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you
will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to
ungrateful and evil men. Be merciful, just as your Father
is merciful."Luke 6:27-36
NASB Source-BibleGateway.com

The commandment has a sense of absoluteness. It demands
total and unconditional surrender of oneself. And I have toconfess that I did not understand it. What Christ is asking
seems inhumane!

Does He mean this literally?, I continually asked myself.
What kind of a person behaves in this way and is able to
survive? And I thought, "there is no way I can fulfill this
commandment!"

I read St Silouan, "Blessed is the soul that loves her brother,
for our brother is our life. Blessed is the soul that loves her
brother: the Spirit of the Lord lives manifest within her,
affording peace and gladness, and she weeps for the whole
world." From 'St Silouan the Athonite' by Archimandrite
Sophrony p.371, St Vladimir Seminary Press 1991
Such words sound so simple but it takes a heart full of the
Holy Spirit to understand. I thought, "Alright, maybe
finding out what St Silouan means by 'love' will help my
understanding, and immediately recalled 1 Corinthians 13,
where it reads,

“Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does
not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly;
it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take
into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in
unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all
things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all 
things.” NASB 1 Corinthians 13:4-7

And I despaired of ever been able to live and experience
this love. Then I read this passage from St Silouan;
"The soul cannot know peace unless she prays for her
enemies. The Lord taught me to love my enemies. Without
the grace of God we cannot love our enemies. Only the
Holy Spirit teaches love,..."
And I realized that my feelings of impotence are warranted,
that is, if I think I am called to have this love in the power
of my human strength. The beloved Elder knows this and he
has words of encouragement for us,
"To begin with, constrain your heart to love enemies, and
the Lord, seeing your good will, will help you in all things,
and experience itself will show you the way. But the man
who thinks with malice of his enemies has not God's love
within him, and does not know God."

"If you cannot love, then at least do not revile or curse
your enemies, and things will already be better; but if a
man curses and abuses his enemies, it is plain that an evil
spirit lives in him, and if he does not repent, when he dies
he will go to the place where evil spirits dwell. May the
Lord preserve every soul from such adversity!"
From, 'St Silouan the Athonite', p377 to p.378
The words are comforting but also bring fear, hopefully
the fear of God. It is this fear that moves me to constrain
myself and struggle towards God and not away from Him.
God loves us so much, that His Providence makes a plan
for us. How, you may ask? The beloved Bishop of Zicha
knows very well how, as revealed by his prayer,


"LORD, BLESS MY ENEMIES, A Prayer by St. Nikolai of Ochrid
Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not
curse them.
Enemies have driven me into your embrace more than
friends have. Friends have bound me to earth, enemies
have loosed me from earth and have demolished all my
aspirations in the world. Enemies have made me a
stranger in worldly realms and an extraneous inhabitant
of the world. Just as a hunted animal finds safer shelter
than an unhunted animal does, so have I, persecuted by
enemies, found the safest sanctuary, having ensconced
myself beneath Your tabernacle, where neither friends
nor enemies can slay my soul.

Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not
curse them.

They, rather than I, have confessed my sins before the
world. They have punished me, whenever I have hesitated
to punish myself. They have tormented me, whenever I
have tried to flee torments. They have scolded me, whenever
I have flattered myself. They have spat upon me, whenever
I have filled myself with arrogance.

Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not
curse them.

Whenever I have made myself wise, they have called me
foolish. Whenever I have made myself mighty, they have
mocked me as though I were a dwarf. Whenever I have
wanted to lead people, they have shoved me into the
background. Whenever I have rushed to enrich myself,
they have prevented me with an iron hand.
Whenever I thought that I would sleep peacefully, they
have wakened me from sleep. Whenever I have tried to
build a home for a long and tranquil life, they have
demolished it and driven me out. Truly, enemies have cut
me loose from the world and have stretched out my
hands to the hem of your garment.

Bless my enemies, Ο Lord. Even I bless them and do not
curse them.

Bless them and multiply them; multiply them and make
them even more bitter against me: so that my fleeing to
You may have no return; so that all hope in men may be
scattered like cobwebs; so that absolute serenity may
begin to reign in my soul; so that my heart may become
the grave of my two evil twins: arrogance and anger; so
that I might amass all my treasure in heaven; ah, so that
I may for once be freed from self-deception, which has
entangled me in the dreadful web of illusory life.

Enemies have taught me to know what hardly anyone
knows, that a person has no enemies in the world except
himself. One hates his enemies only when he fails to realize
that they are not enemies, but cruel friends. It is truly
difficult for me to say who has done me more good and who
has done me more evil in the world: friends or enemies.

Therefore bless, Ο Lord, both my friends and my enemies.
A slave curses enemies, for he does not understand. But a
son blesses them, for he understands. For a son knows that
his enemies cannot touch his life. Therefore he freely steps
among them and prays to God for them.

Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not
curse them."
From 'Prayer LXXV, Prayers by the Lake p.142-144, Bishop Nikolai
Velimirovich, Trans. by Rt. Rev. Archimandrite Todor Mitka, 1999
ORTHODOX HERITAGE. APRIL 2005. BROTHERHOOD OF ST.
POIMEN Source

Immediately two things seem very clear, I must pray to
God with perseverance to be able to learn to love my
enemies, and I must trust in, and submit to God's
Providence as revealed in the circumstances of my life.
Father Zacharias Zacharou explains, "God's commandments
are beyond man's conception and power to fulfill. We are
humbled from the moment we come in contact with them.
The commandments of God have the specific effect of
crushing the arrogance of our darkened minds and hearts
as to clear the way for grace to dwell within us. They shed
light on our imperfection, on our spiritual poverty and
weakness, so that we cry out to God from the heart,
asking Him to come and fulfill His own commandments
in us. This is the only way, as He Himself said, "Without
Me ye can do nothing." John 15:5
From 'Remember Thy First Love' p.318, by Archimandrite Zacharias
Zacharou, Stravopegic Monastery of St John the Baptist, Essex,
England, 2010

"The very greatness of loving our enemies is obvious from
this simple example: if we have a misunderstanding with
someone and we ourselves are to blame, how difficult we
find it to humble ourselves and say, 'Forgive me, I made a
mistake' But how much greater the crucifixion of ourselves
if we are to love someone who has provoked us, even as our
conscience tells us that we are blameless. This, however is
the way of Christ, Who loved us unto the end even while
we were His enemies. ..
Love for one's enemies, then, is the 'madness' of our faith,
'the foolishness of the cross'. And woe unto him who does
not accept this foolishness! His is foolishness of a different
kind: 'The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God'
Psalm 14:1.

There is indeed no God for him, for he is unmoved at seeing
Christ-God with arms outstretched upon the cross in love
for His enemies. Such a fool is so hardened that the word of
life, the word of the cross, no longer penetrates his heart.
And this word is the one that speaks most eloquently to us
of what love for our enemies truly is." Ibid p.320-321


I am speechless! With pain of heart I acknowledge that I do
not yet possess this love. But I can pray, I can ask, "Lord
Jesus Christ, have mercy on me! Transform my heart of
stone. I believe, help my unbelief!"

And while I pray, there is also something else I can do, I can
start to act as if I had this love... 

The Orthodox Painting Art by Michael Alevizakis

Source

The icon above and the article in this post is from the Greek

Iconographer Manuel Alevizakis. I think his work is magnificent!

It reminds me of Photis Kontoglou and Manuel Panselinos.

Please visit his website here and his blog here to view

more of his work. It truly is amazing!

"The Orthodox Painting Art by Michael Alevizakis

The Christian Temple is an expression and visualization of the
presence of the Lord in the material world. The temple is "the
House of the Lord because there, the Lord is worshiped, his
Word is announced by sermon, and the main sacrament of his
Presence, the Holy Eucharist, takes place.

It is the place where the liturgical synaxis of the true believers
takes place, which is the visible expression of the body of the
Church, the head of which is Christ. The sacrament of Holy
Worship is reflected upon the churches’ liturgics, architecture
and iconography.

However, regarding the architecture, and especially the
iconography, soon the need to provide answers to the following
paradox came up: how is it possible to use drawings and colors
to depict not the nature, the individuality or the decay, but the
hypostasis of people and things [Saint Theodoros Stouditis: It
is not the nature, but the hypostasis of the person portrayed
that is shown forth in the icon ("Παντός εικονιζομένου ούχ ή
φύσις, άλλη υπόστασις εικονίζεται)]. How, in other words, will
they be transformed into a revelation of the salvation event?
Is it possible a way of existence, which phases out autonomy,
space and time as a sequence of the previous and posterior, to
be depicted with the material means of the artistic creation?
This extreme is achieved via the magnificent expressive force
of Byzantine icon, which elevates and transforms the natural
reality into a higher conception of form and leads from the way
of pretence to the way of truth.

The Christian art expresses the salvation event as it historically
happened. It expresses not the individual emotions but the
collective acceptance of the "impenetrable mystery which is
ministered during the Worship.
The icon invites for a direct communion/relation with the images,
for a transition to the primeval prototype; that is the hypostasis
of the iconographically represented person [Saint Basil the Great:
For any honor paid to the icon (or picture) redounds upon the
original, and whoever bows down in adoration before the icon, is
at the same time bowing down in adoration to the substance (or
hypostasis) of the one therein painted ( Η της εικόνος τιμή επί το
πρωτότυπον διαβαίνει και ο προσκυνών την εικόνα προσκυνεί
έν αύτη τού έγγραφομένου τήν υπόστασιν)]. To portray a person
according to his hypostasis means to use the artistic creation
language to present the divinized human nature. 

Saint’s faces are historical but at the same time they manifest the
presence of Lord’s glory, according to Apostle Paul (2 Cor. 3:18).
The icon depicts the eschatological existence of the person
represented; it expresses the bliss of the renewed man in Christ.

The objective rules on how to make an icon subdue the individual
perception, the idea, to a view which is an event of communion. The
"work of art" is not taken as an individual creation but as a meeting
place of the Church with the Eternal God.
For the Byzantines, it is the Church that "paints the icons "by the
hand of the painter, who subdues the individual perception to a
given iconographical type. It is written in the decisions of the 7th
Ecumenical Council that: "The making of icons is not an invention
of painters but an approved institution and tradition of the Catholic
Church... (Ού ζωγράφων εφεύρεσις ή τών εικόνων ποίησις, αλλά
τις καθολικής εκκλησίας έγκριτος θεσμοθεσία και παράδοσις……).
As a consequence, there is a given iconographical type, which,
however, does not limit but rather frees the painter from his
individual impulses and, as a result, the Church recognizes her truth
inside this work of art. This does not mean that the artistic genius of
the great Byzantine masters (Manuel Panselinos, Michael Astrapas,
Theofanis the Cretan etc.) is abolished, but the icon is not just an
artistic suggestion, an individual achievement… it is mainly a
revelation, a common attitude in life.

The Byzantine art conveys to the true believer the spiritual
truths via the senses: the light and the colour are used in
awareness of their impact. The Byzantines believed that both
of them are directly associated to God: God is the Source of
light. The light being dispersed through the wall paintings
symbolizes the primeval, supernatural light, whose source is
God, the only source of every light. The Byzantines considered
vision to be the highest of the five senses, while at the same
time they considered colour and not shape to be the main
distinctive characteristic of an object.
The colour perception of the world has a deep importance: the
composition of colours and forms ends up in a completely
different rhythm, in a rhythm which, as basic it may be in art
and perhaps in life, cannot be easily rationalized.

As a result, the painters’ main task was and still is to find those
colours that correspond better to the primeval beauty.
According to them, the artistic procedure and its work could
be considered as imitation. Imitation is called the attempt to
transfer the primeval prototype into an authentic repetition,
preserving and rendering its meaning from the past till the
present. It is clear that we do not talk about servile
reproduction, restoration or formalism. Significant variations
of the form, composition or colour were and are acceptable
within certain limits. 

But the theological quest for truth applies equally to the 

Church’s writings and its painting, which is the reason why we
have above mentioned the freedom from individual impulse. As a
consequence, the obligation to follow a certain archetype comes.
The morphological characteristics of the archetypes form a visual
rule of the Church within which it is difficult to alter anything.

By referring to archetypes, the Byzantine art is inevitably
dominated by the principle of repetition. In this view, repetition
is a structural need. The imitation of older prototypes, once a
certainty, gradually became an aesthetic problem, as it started
to be influenced by the principles of Western art tradition, which
compel the artist to originality as well as to constant variation,
ending up to present only individual natures. This stance results
in a deviation from older works of art.

Today, thanks to the great master Fotis Kontoglou, a renaissance
of church art has taken place; a conscious approach of the old
prototypes is attempted both in terms of iconographic types and
of artistic style. It is essential that the Byzantine icon is safeguarded
not as an object of museum value but rather as an anchor that
brings man to involvement in the bosom of the Lord, as an
expression of Church’s certainty for the constant presence of the

"already accomplished. The testimony and the experience of a 

communion of the living and the dead is the preservation of a 

memory supporting a tradition, the established practice of a

timeless collective experience.

Such a goal requires respect; but respect requires, in its turn,
acquaintance, acceptance and knowledge. Nothing is preserved
without certified knowledge; nothing is kept without love; love
is the one that keeps everything together; the pursuit is a need
steaming from an already expressed demand: the demand that
wants Byzantine tradition to be everyone’s legacy. It is not yours
what you do not know while you cannot share what is not yours.

The value of the tradition lies not as much in the antiquity that
elevates it, but in the trial it undergoes, which in the end
determines what is bequeathed from generation to generation.
The work of the great Byzantine Christian artists has created a
timeless relation with each one of us, because it serves something
they knew that surpassed them, it serves community over
individuality, the Church over autonomy. This created relation lies
at the antipodes of usage, appropriation and self-interest.

This relation presupposes the resignation from ourselves, the
self-transcendence, and this is why it succeeds to defeat even time.

Michael Alevyzakis
Athens, January 2012" 

From the website, "A Byzantine Iconography by Michael Alevizakis