Translation from the book:

Στεργίου Ν. Σάκκου, «Ὦ πανύμνητε Μῆτερ!», ἐκδ. «ΧΡΙΣΤΙΑΝΙΚΗ ΕΛΠΙΣ» ΟΡΘΟΔΟΞΗ ΑΔΕΛΦΟΤΗΤΑ, Θεσ/νίκη 2010, σσ. 35-45 (Stergios N. Sakkos [Read CV], "You, all-laudable Mother", pp. 35-45)

  Joy is a great and vital theme in our life. Man was created to live in the joy of paradise and he actually experienced it in his communion with God. But disobedience to God’s will, sin, took him out of paradise. So, ever since he lived with the great poverty caused by the lack of joy. But he did not stop looking for it wherever he suspected that he could find even a trace of it, a drop of joy. Man could be described as a "beggar of joy and a hunter of truth" or "a beggar and hunter of true joy".

  Of course, the Lord, in his Sermon on the Mount, blesses those who mourn (Mt 5:4) and the Lord’s brother James exhorts: “Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.” (Jas 4:9). Also, our Church always and especially during the period of Lent, strongly emphasizes mourning, repentance, deep distress for our sins. Perhaps this caused a misunderstanding: that Christians have nothing to do with joy but only with mourning. Some even equate Christianity with gloom. They claim that the Gospel opposes to joy, that it supposedly does not allow Christians to laugh and rejoice.
  All this is said by those who do not know our Christian faith and they ignore the Bible. If they had read the book of Psalms even once, they would have found out how often it refers to joy, and in fact to complete, perfect joy. Perfect joy is both an internal and external state. It springs from the depths of the heart and is expressed in a variety of ways: “A happy heart makes the face cheerful” we read in the God-inspired Proverbs (Prov 15:13). Few of the many references from the book of Psalms will be cited here: “Therefore my heart is glad, and my tongue rejoices” (Ps 15:9 [16:9]). “I will be glad and rejoice in thy mercy” (Ps 30:8 [31:7]). “O let the nations be glad and sing for joy” (Ps 66:5 [67:4]).
  We must remember that there are two "joys": the true and the false; the joy of the Church and the joy of the world; the joy of Christ and the joy of Satan; the joy of purity and holiness and the joy of debauchery and prodigality. Our Lord has made things clear. He gave us the attributes of true joy, of His own joy.
  And what is Christ’s joy? How does it stand out from the joy of the world? Christ’s joy has two basic features: permanence, " no one will take away your joy" (Jn 16:22), and fullness, " I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them" (Jn 17:13; cf. 15:11). That is why the apostle Paul urges the faithful: " Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!" (Phil 4:4; cf. 1 Thess 5:16).
  Jesus Christ in the famous farewell speech to his disciples, after the Last Supper, reveals that God is triune. It is very interesting that in that same speech (see Jn 13-16) the Lord presents another holy trinity, which has to do with our spirituality, with our sanctification. He speaks of love, peace and joy, which in fact He distinguishes from those of the world; He refers to His own love, to His own peace, to His own joy; “Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy.” (Jn 16:20).
  These three great and important gifts that Christ gives to his disciples, namely love, joy and peace, which are connected with the Last Supper, are recorded by the apostle Paul as the first three fruits of the Holy Spirit. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace” (Gal 5:22). What an amazing combination! How much it reveals and teaches us! Consequently, in order to have Christ’s love, to enjoy true peace, permanent and complete joy, we need the Holy Spirit. Only by the Holy Spirit do we obtain these great things, because these are His fruits.
  That is why virgin Mary radiates with joy! She is the one who received in her life the visitation of the Holy Spirit in a unique way, as the angel foretold her: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you” (Luke 1:35). With the Holy Spirit, the humble girl of Nazareth conceived the fruit of life, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Redeemer, the donor of true and so the complete and inalienable joy. Thus, how can she not shine like the sun? She radiates her Son’s radiance. This is how the evangelist John saw her, as he writes in Revelation: "a woman clothed with the sun" (Rev 12:1). This is how she has been experienced by the Church in the first Stasis (A) of the Akathist Hymn, in the first Salutation that greets her with this verse: “Rejoice, through whom joy shall shine forth; Rejoice, through whom the curse shall vanish.”
  Do you want, then, to see joy not depicted in a painting, nor imprinted in a poem, but embodied in a person? Worship virgin Mary with reverence. She is the inexhaustible source of joy and the model of true joy. In the Small Supplicatory Canon (Small Paraklesis) we chant: " With gladness fill my heart, Most Holy virgin Lady, for you are she who received the abundant joy". Those who want to study joy, those who want to acquire joy, those who want to keep joy, those who want to rejoice, those who want to sing and praise the incarnated joy, let kneel before the blessed and highly favored Maria. In her virgin person they will meet joy at the highest and perfect degree.
  "Your birth, O virgin Mother of God, proclaims joy to the whole world, for from you arose the Sun of Righteousness, Christ our God;” we sing on the feast of the Nativity of the blessed virgin Mary. She is the one who gave birth to the source of true joy, the sun of righteousness. Her completely special and unique relationship with Jesus Christ made her a spiritual sun, which radiates joy to all, young and old; to the happy she increases their joy and to the sad ones she dissolves their sorrow. She did not cease to radiate joy even during her hard hours of pain, when she saw her Son naked, humiliated, wounded, hung on the cross; when a sword pierced through her soul, just as Simeon had prophesied (see Luke 2:35). In those moments when the pain pierced her soul, no other mother has ever experienced a pain greater than this one, the virgin Mary patiently endured. The Holy Spirit from within comforted and guided her, so that she could interpret the Lord’s Passion, to see in it the redemption of the human race. This is wonderfully expressed by many Theotokia and in fact Stavrotheotokia, which are chanted in the Services of Wednesday and Friday.
  The value of a good and ripe fruit becomes obvious when we place it near a rotten or an unripe one. Genuine currency is better valued when compared to counterfeit currency. Similarly, the joy of our Most Holy Lady, the most favoured and obedient God’s servant, who co-operated in the mystery of our salvation, shines more dazzlingly when we compare it with the situation in which our race was led by Eve’s disobedience. This is what the second verse points out: “Rejoice, through whom the curse shall vanish.”
  Our Most Holy Lady incarnates, expresses and gives to all of us the greatest, the strongest joy, because she played a unique role in the world history. She became God's partner in the fulfillment of the First Gospel=First Good News (see Ge 3:15)
  • to crush the devil,
  • to get rid of the "curse" of sin which Eve's disobedience brought us,
  • and to lead us to salvation.
  And while the ancestor of our race, Eve, by disobeying God’s will caused a curse on us, the virgin Mary with her free submission to God’s call brought the antidote to that first curse, redemption into the world and offered to all of us joy.
  Of course, the Redeemer of mankind, the only and irreplaceable one, is Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul writes it simply and clearly in his Epistle to the Galatians; "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us" (Gal. 3:13) and our Church chants with gratitude in the “Kathisma” of Holy Thursday: “You have redeemed us from the curse of the law by Your precious Blood. Having been nailed to the Cross and pierced with a spear, You have poured forth immortality upon mankind. O our Savior, glory to You.” His Most Holy Mother is raised and honored for her special and unique relationship with the Redeemer. The Word of God took her own blood to become man and it is this blood that He shed on the cross for our redemption!
  Our life can be characterized as a “valley of tears”. It is intertwined with sorrows and tears! And yet Christians, by believing in the Lord the Savior and through the intercessions of Ηis Most Holy Mother, can experience the exhortation of the apostle James; “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various temptations” (Jas 1:2). They can rejoice with the apostle Paul, who in his adventures and sufferings never lost his joy; “Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you” is what he writes to the Colossians (1:24) from the prison of Rome. From there he also wrote the famous Epistle to the Philippians, also known as the Epistle of Joy.
  This does not mean that Christians remain insensitive to grief and various forms of pain. Anything but that! However, they live a mystery; even in pain they retain Christ’s joy. The joy of the world proves many times to be sad and its pleasure painful. On the contrary, in our Christian faith sorrow becomes joy, pain turns into sweet pleasure! Even the greatest suffering, which is caused by sin, which is the root and cause of all the pains in our lives, is neutralized in faith, because Jesus Christ’s redemptive blood "cleanses us from all sin" (1 Jn 1:7). With sincere repentance and confession of our sins, with a conscious sacramental life, we get rid of the burden of sin and live that peculiar kind of joy, which the holy Orthodox Fathers call " joyful sorrow".
  When somebody experiences reconciliation with God, then all other burdens, all sufferings and problems, no matter how serious they may be, cannot take Christ’s joy away from them. These are his cross, through which he will be led to the resurrection. Our Church declares it “for behold through the Cross, joy has come in all the world”. In addition, our Jesus Christ said that the joy of his faithful is complete and no one can take it away. It cannot be taken away even by disease, slanders, persecutions and hardships, not even when the world defames us; even when our dearest friends betray and abandon us and turn into deadly enemies, not even by death! (see Rom 8:35-39). No one and nothing can steal from us Christ’s joy, the virgin Mary’s joy, the true joy that sanctifies us, enlightens us and guides us to the eternal land of joy, to the Paradise of our Lord. There is where the virgin Mary with all the saints live, where we all long to go. May we, with her intercessions, be able to hear the Lord to say about us as well; “Well done, good and faithful servant … Enter into the joy of your lord.” (Mt 25:21.23).

Copyright © 2021 by Orthodox Christian Association «ΧΡΙΣΤΙΑΝΙΚΗ ΕΛΠΙΣ» ΟΡΘΟΔΟΞΗ ΑΔΕΛΦΟΤΗΤΑ. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Translation from the article:

Ἀποστόλου Παπαδημητρίου, Ὁ φωτισμός καί ὁ "Διαφωτισμός", περιοδ. "Ἀπολύτρωσις" 77 (2022) 8-9.

(Apostolos Papadimitriou, Electrical engineer, Columnist and Author)

  The Epiphany is one of the oldest feasts of the Church. During it, the baptism of Christ is celebrated, which was followed by Ηis three years of public life, Ηis teaching, Ηis Passion and his Resurrection. For Christians in the West the Epiphany marks the enlightenment of humanity with the entry of God into the history of mankind. “O Christ our God, Who hath appeared and enlightened the world” is the final phrase of the Apolytikion of the celebration. And the people of God gave to the feast the name of the Light, because Christ enlightened the world with his epiphany. In remembrance of the event of baptism, the Church established the service of sanctification of the waters, which for centuries takes on a festive character in places near the sea, lake or river. This tradition was respected by our conquerors, even those of other religions. The people of God took care to bring a vessel to the church for the reception of the holy water. They used this to sanctify not only their family members, but also their animals and fields, their houses, and even their filthy stables, so that everything would have God's blessing. And they maintained stock for use throughout the year by adding water. And they did not hide their satisfaction that the holy water remained unaltered, which is a sign that our faith is alive, unlike others, even other Christian denominations.
   Centuries passed. The West was detached from the body of the one, holy, catholic Church of Christ. The faith was altered, the image of the person was distorted. The ascetic view of life and traditions were devalued. Intellectualism under the influence of philosophical reflection “created a building” which didn’t have the teaching of Christ as its foundation. The consequences were painful. Freedom in Christ was replaced by the regime of feudalism and the "Inquisition", and the enlightenment of Christ was replaced, admittedly by most, by the darkness of the Middle Ages.
   And when arbitrariness reached extreme manifestations, it provoked reaction, which manifested itself in the so-called religious reform. A feature of this was not the search for the truth lost in the realm of despotic papacy, but the arbitrary course which was not based on the tradition of the Apostolic Church that was ignored in the West, but on the personal beliefs and perceptions of the reformers. And the new fallacy proved to be worse than the first, as evidenced by the multi-fragmentation in the field of reformers and the unstoppable multiplication of their "churches"! They boasted that in "rationality" they built the "true" faith in Christ. That is why they were adversaries and particularly hostile to local traditions, which they collectively rejected as superstitions of the so called "dark" past!
   The delusion of Western Christianity lies in its foundation in intellectualism and "rationalism", with which they believed they could persuade non-Christians to accept the faith of Christ, in essence their own faith. Thus their edifice, without Christ being its foundation, was swept away and fell by storm during the age of the so-called "Enlightenment". It was preceded, during the so-called "renaissance", the questioning of the authority of God's "representative" on earth. This was followed by the questioning of God himself as the God of history. He was initially repelled in the "heavens", as a God indifferent to his creatures, to be led to non-existence, which Nietzsche tragically proclaimed with the cry "God is dead"! The "god-killers" became gods themselves and undertook the task to illuminate the world with their own "lights", those of the "enlightenment"! And the world has since moved by the arrogance of the administrators of the soul-damaging experiment. They reassure the masses that everything is going well and that there is no need for concern, as they know too well how to manage the crises that they themselves cause! Selfishness does not allow them to shout Goethe’s (from the monologue of "Faust").
   “I 've studied now Philosophy
   And Jurisprudence, Medicine, -
   And even, alas! Theology,
   From end to end, with labor keen;
   And here, poor fool! with all my lore
   I stand, no wiser than before.
   We, too, were dazzled by the "lights" of the West, when, after bloody sacrifices, we re-tasted the illusion of national freedom. According to Makrygiannis, our west-stricken compatriots, in the service of our foreign "protectors", conveyed the "lights" of Western Europe to our country as well, in order to illuminate us. Our people resisted this change/alteration with all the strength they had under slavery. In the end, they seem to succumb, accepting that "we belong to the West" and all the change that this brings with it as something inevitable. Our slavish attitude to everything that is foreign reveals the discrediting of our tradition. In fact, we brag foolishly: "We can live without Christ! Our planet is flooded with lights! It is high time we walked the path of "progress" opened by the people of the West, the "enlightened ones"!
   When will we ever feel our spiritual darkness? I wonder…

Copyright © 2021 by Orthodox Christian Association «ΧΡΙΣΤΙΑΝΙΚΗ ΕΛΠΙΣ» ΟΡΘΟΔΟΞΗ ΑΔΕΛΦΟΤΗΤΑ. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Translation from the book:

Στεργίου Ν. Σάκκου, Ἀληθῶς ἀνέστη ὁ Κύριος, 

ἐκδ. «ΧΡΙΣΤΙΑΝΙΚΗ ΕΛΠΙΣ» ΟΡΘΟΔΟΞΗ ΑΔΕΛΦΟΤΗΤΑ, ἔκδ. 3η, Θεσ/νίκη 2007, σσ. 160-164 

(Stergios N. Sakkos [Read CV], The Lord is truly risen, pp. 160-164)

   First of all, I will present a trial which, in fact, remains unknown. The high priests, the Pharisees and the Roman authorities, represented by Pilate, tried in every way to keep this out of the public eye. The evangelist Matthew saves a few but clarifying facts about this trial in some verses of the last two chapters of his Gospel. It is the trial of some soldiers of this guard, the sixteen-member Roman guard, which were under the jurisdiction of the religious leadership of the temple. With Pilate’s permission, this guard was placed outside Jesus’ grave by the Pharisees and the high priests. As a result, the disciples would not be able to steal the dead body and then spread the news that He was resurrected.

  The tomb was secured “the next day, the one after Preparation Day” (Mt 27:62). These fanatical supporters of the Law about Sabbath did not even respect the Sabbath day. Why? Because they dreaded the Resurrection. They remembered that “while he was still alive that deceiver said”, while Jesus was still alive – therefore, they themselves confirmed that he was dead – He had said that “after three days I will rise again” (Mt 27:63). Although, the disciples did not keep in mind this prophecy at all, Jesus’s enemies and crucifiers were the only ones who believed it and they took every precaution to prevent its fulfillment. Indeed, with Pilate's approval, the high priests and Pharisees – after being sure that the dead body was inside - secured the tomb by putting a seal on the stone (Mt 27:66). What purpose did seals serve? They protected the tomb from the guards, while the soldiers guarded the tomb from the disciples or anyone else who would attempt to steal Jesus' dead body. The tomb was secured and the soldiers guarded the tomb. Now the high priests of Israel could sleep peacefully and “eat the Passover” happy and legally clean, free from sin (see Jn 18:28).
  Their peace, however, was disturbed by the presence of these soldiers in Jerusalem the next morning, “on the first day of the week” (Mk 16:2). The high priests and elders were assembled and “had taken counsel” to judge the custodian guards. In their testimony, the soldiers reported to the chief priests everything that had happened (Mt 28:11-12). Being faithful to the mission assigned to them, they guarded the tomb. But at dawn “on the first day of the week”, after a terrible earthquake, they realized that the tomb was empty. How did that happen? They were unable to explain it. However, the high priests and elders understood it very well. Yes, despite the draconian measures they took, the prophecy of the “deceiver” was verified (Mt 27:63). Jesus Christ was risen. Therefore, he was not a deceiver but they themselves were deceived. How could they admit it, though? How could they confess it to the people? They would have to recant what they had said. For this reason, they find a formula which covers them, at least for the time being. They bribe the soldiers with “a large sum of money” (Mt 28:12), telling them, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.’” (Mt 28:13).
  For Roman soldiers to fall asleep while on duty was a serious offense and punishable by death. What did the Roman ruler Pilate have to say about this? Normally, he should have beheaded the soldiers after the interrogation, as Herod did a little later, when an angel of the Lord released the imprisoned Apostle Peter. He “interrogated the guards and sentenced them to death” (Acts 12:19). Why was Pilate silent? Why did he not apply the law? The question was answered by the judges of these soldiers, the high priests, who assured that “If the governor hears about it” -the alleged negligence of the soldiers- (Mt 28:14), they would intervene themselves to convince him not to punish them. It is not difficult to understand how the high priests would achieve this. Bribery and blackmailing were the usual ways in which conquered peoples influenced conquering Romans.
  So, the soldiers “took the money and did as they were instructed” (Mt 28:14), that is, they said that the disciples stole Jesus’ dead body of while they were sleeping. However, the testimony of the soldiers is not only unconvincing, but it also offends the judges-high priests. Saint Augustine aptly observes (Enarrationes in Psalmos 63, 15· Corpus Christianorum 39, 817) “Sleeping witnesses ye adduce: truly you yourself hast fallen asleep, that in searching such devices hast failed. If they were sleeping, what could they see? If nothing they saw, how are they witnesses? But they failed in searching searchings: failed of the light of God, failed in the very completion of their designs: when that which they willed, nowise they were able to complete, surely they failed”. If the judges relied on the words of the sleeping soldiers, they affirm that they made plans to deceive us. How did the soldiers, while sleeping, see that the disciples stole Jesus' body? If, on the other hand, they saw nothing, then what did they testify? Their testimony sounds as if they said: we testify that Jesus' disciples stole his body. Our testimony is completely indisputable, because at the time when the students were stealing the body, we were sleeping so deeply that we neither heard nor saw anything!
  The result of the trial is that the “large sum of money” closed the mouths of the soldiers. But they were not able to keep the empty tomb closed, to prevent “the stone rolled away from the tomb” (Lk 24, 2) from revealing to the guards, to the crucifiers and to the whole world that Christ is Risen.

Copyright © 2021 by Orthodox Christian Association «ΧΡΙΣΤΙΑΝΙΚΗ ΕΛΠΙΣ» ΟΡΘΟΔΟΞΗ ΑΔΕΛΦΟΤΗΤΑ. Used by permission. All rights reserved.