PHILOKALIA MINISTRIES

The Earthquake That Leaves Nothing Standing “Is not My word like fire, says the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces.” Jeremiah 23:29 Most men read the Word of God without ever being touched by it. They read it as information. They read it as reassurance. They read it as confirmation of what they already believe about themselves. The Word passes over the surface of the mind and leaves the heart undisturbed. They close the book unchanged. They remain intact.

The Spirit of Repentance as a Ring of Fire Around the Heart “A broken and humbled heart, O God, You will not despise.” (Psalm 50/51) What Archimandrite Zacharias Zacharou is describing here is not moral remorse. It is not spiritual hygiene. It is not even sorrow for sin in the ordinary sense. He is describing repentance as a tectonic field of fire  that surrounds the monk and makes it impossible for him to go back to sleep inside himself. The fathers wanted the spirit of repe