Quotes by Orthodox Christian Saints

Quotes by Orthodox Christian Saints
Showing posts with label Eastern Orthodox Theology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Eastern Orthodox Theology. Show all posts

Sunday, July 23, 2023

All who have lived according to God still live unto God, though they have departed this life. For this reason, God is called the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, since He is the God, not of the dead, but of the living (cf. Mt. 22:32).

St. Gregory the Theologian

Monday, June 12, 2023

Take, in the next place, the subjection by which you subject the Son to the Father. What, you say, is He not now subject, or must He, if He is God, be subject to God? You are fashioning your argument as if it concerned some robber, or some hostile deity. But look at it in this manner: that as for my sake He was called a curse, who destroyed my curse; and sin, who takes away the sin of the world; and became a new Adam to take the place of the old, just so He makes my disobedience His own as Head of the whole body. 

As long then as I am disobedient and rebellious, both by denial of God and by my passions, so long Christ also is called disobedient on my account. But when all things shall be subdued unto Him on the one hand by acknowledgment of Him, and on the other by a reformation, then He Himself also will have fulfilled His submission, bringing me whom He has saved to God. For this, according to my view, is the subjection of Christ; namely, the fulfilling of the Father’s Will. But as the Son subjects all to the Father, so does the Father to the Son; the One by His Work, the Other by His good pleasure, as we have already said. And thus He Who subjects presents to God that which he has subjected, making our condition His own. Of the same kind, it appears to me, is the expression, ‘My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?’ It was not He who was forsaken either by the Father, or by His own Godhead, as some have thought, as if It were afraid of the Passion, and therefore withdrew Itself from Him in His Sufferings (for who compelled Him either to be born on earth at all, or to be lifted up on the Cross?) But as I said, He was in His own Person representing us. For we were the forsaken and despised before, but now by the Sufferings of Him Who could not suffer, we were taken up and saved. Similarly, He makes His own our folly and our transgressions; and says what follows in the Psalm, for it is very evident that the 22nd Psalm refers to Christ.


St. Gregory the Theologian

Saturday, June 10, 2023

In order that you may move your will more easily to this one desire, in everything—to please God and to work for His glory alone—remind yourself often that He has granted you many favors in the past and has shown you His love. He has created you out of nothing in His own likeness and image, and has made all other creatures your servants; He has delivered you from your slavery to the devil, sending down, not one of the angels, but His Only-begotten Son to redeem you, not at the price of corruptible gold and silver, but by His priceless blood and His most painful and degrading death. Having done all this He protects you, every hour and every moment, from your enemies; He fights your battles by His divine grace; in His immaculate Mysteries He prepares the Body and Blood of His beloved Son for your food and protection. All this is a sign of God’s great favor and love for you; a favor so great that it is inconceivable how the great Lord of hosts could grant such favors to our nothingness and worthlessness.

St. Nicodemus of life Holy Mountain

Friday, June 9, 2023

One should not seek among others the truth that can be easily gotten from the Church. For in her, as in a rich treasury, the apostles have placed all that pertains to truth, so that everyone can drink this beverage of life. She is the door of life.

St. Irenaeus of Lyon

Thursday, June 8, 2023

Whatever the soul may think fit to do itself, whatever care and pains it may take, relying only upon its own power, and thinking to be able to effect a perfect success by itself, without the co-operation of the Spirit, it is greatly mistaken. It is of no use for the heavenly places; it is of no use for the kingdom – that soul, which supposes that it can achieve perfect purity of itself, and by itself alone, without the Spirit. Unless the man who is under the influence of the passions will come to God, denying the world, and will believe with patience and hope to receive a good thing foreign to his own nature, namely the power of the Holy Spirit, and unless the Lord shall drop upon the soul from on high the life of the Godhead, such a man will never experience true life, will never recover from the drunkenness of materialism; the enlightenment of the Spirit will never shine in that benighted soul, or kindle in it a holy daytime; it will never awake out of that deepest sleep of ignorance, and so come to know God of a truth through God’s power and the efficacy of grace.

St. Macarius the Great

A penitent is an undisgraced convict. Repentance is reconciliation with the Lord by the practice of good deeds contrary to the sins.

St. John Climacus

Tuesday, May 23, 2023

O All-transcendent God (and what other name could describe You?), what words can sing Your praises? No word does You justice. What mind can probe Your secrets? No mind can encompass You. You alone are beyond the power of speech, yet all that we speak stems from You. You alone are beyond the power of thought, yet all that we can conceive springs from You. All things proclaim You, those endowed with reason and those bereft of it. All the expectation and pain of the world coalesces in You. All things utter a prayer to You, a silent hymn composed by You. You sustain everything that exists, and all things move together at Your command. You are the goal of all that exists. You are one and You are all, yet You are none of the things that exist, neither a part nor the whole. You can avail Yourself of any name; how shall I call You, the only unnamable? All-transcendent God!

St. Gregory the Theologian

You are Christ, 

my Holy Father, 

my Tender God, 

my Great King, 

my Good Shepherd, 

my Only Master, 

my Best Helper, 

my Most Beautiful and my Beloved, 

my Living Bread, 

my Priest Forever, 

my Country’s Leader, 

my True Light, 

my Holy Sweetness, 

my Straight Path, 

my Supreme Wisdom, 

my Pure Simplicity, 

my Peaceful Harmony, 

my Complete Protection, 

my Good Portion, 

my Everlasting Salvation.


St. Augustine of Hippo

Friday, May 19, 2023

The rule of piety admits nothing new. All things are to be delivered to those who come after us with the same fidelity with which they were received by us. It is our duty to follow religion, not make religion follow us.

St. Vincent of Lerins

Saturday, May 13, 2023

The thief who received the kingdom of heaven, though not as the reward of virtue, is a true witness to the fact that salvation is ours through the grace and mercy of God. 

All of our holy fathers knew this and all with one accord teach that perfection in holiness can be achieved only through humility. 

Humility, in its turn, can be achieved only through faith, fear of God, gentleness and the shedding of all possessions. 

It is by means of these that we attain perfect love, through the grace and compassion of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory through all the ages. Amen.


St. John Cassian

Tuesday, May 2, 2023

The Christian is one who imitates Christ in thought, word, and deed, as far as is possible for human beings, believing rightly and blamelessly in the Holy Trinity. The lover of God is he who lives in communion with all that is natural and sinless, and as far as he is able neglects nothing good. The continent man is one who lives in the midst of temptations, snares, and turmoil, and who is eager to imitate with all his might those who are free from turmoil.

St. John Climacus

Friday, April 21, 2023

Years are not needed for true repentance, and not days, but only an instant.

St. Ambrose of Optina

Thursday, April 20, 2023

Brethren and fathers, God, who fashioned us and brought us out of non-existence into being, has placed us in this life as in a schoolroom to learn to gospel of his kingdom.

St. Theodore the Studite

Friday, April 14, 2023

When God revealed himself, he united himself with our mortal nature in order to deify humanity through this close relation with deity. Since this is so, through his flesh, constituted by bread and wine, he implants himself in all believers.

St. Gregory of Nyssa