Love does not know how to be angry. ✝️ St Isaac of Syria

The spiritual life. It's no more difficult that herding cats.

✝️ St John of Kronstadt

Beloved 7th-century Syrian saint, ✠Andrew of Crete (July 4 / July 17) is said to have remained mute until age seven, when he gained the power of speech after receiving Holy Communion.

The Venerable Father, Bishop, Theologian, Homilist and Hymnographer (also known as Andrew of Jerusalem) is best known as the author of the “Great Canon,” a lengthy penitential Compline prayer traditionally offered during Lent, filled with praises to the All-Pure Virgin.

St Andrew’s sermons and liturgical hymns reflect a deep interior life of faith. “I confess to Thee, O Saviour, the sins I have committed, the wounds of my soul and body, which murderous thoughts, like thieves, have inflicted inwardly upon me.”

Through thine intercessions, O Andrew, deliver us from shameful passions and, we pray thee, make us now partakers of Christ’s Kingdom; for with faith and love we sing thy praises.

Even as Archbishop, St John (Maximovitch), Archbishop of Shanghai and San Francisco (June 19/ July 2) lived in poverty, wearing a cassock was made of Chinese "peasant cloth" stitched with crosses by orphans once in his care. His "miter" was sometimes a cloth cap to which he had glued paper icons. He went barefoot in all seasons, even in the United States-- until, after a foot infection, his Metropolitan ordered him to wear shoes. St John chose sandals.

At his funeral, the eulogist declared that because Archbishop John was able to live the spirituality of the Orthodox Church so fully, even in modern, western, urban society, so should we-- without excuse.

Glory to God for all things.

Eighteen Orthodox priests and a deacon, most of them Serbs, participated in this unforgettable service. Like the sick man who had been lowered through the roof of a house and placed in front of the feet of Christ the Savior, the Greek Archimandrite Meletios was carried on a stretcher into the chapel, where he remained prostrate throughout the service.

The priests who participated in the 1945 Dachau Easter service are commemorated at every Divine Service held in the Dachau Russian Orthodox Memorial Chapel, along with all Orthodox Christians who lost their lives ‘at this place, or at another place of torture.’

Within the Dachau Resurrection Chapel is a large icon depicting angels opening the gates of the Dachau concentration camp and Christ Himself leading the prisoners to freedom.

Should you ever come to Germany, be sure to visit our Russian chapel at Dachau and pray for all those who died ‘at this place, or at another place of torture.’”

— from “In Communion”, Pascha/ Spring 2011 (Issue 60)

On Easter Sunday, May 6, Serbs, Greeks and Russians gathered at the Catholic priests' barrack. Although Russians comprised about 40 percent of the Dachau inmates, only a few managed to attend the service. By then ‘repatriation officers’ of the special ‘Smersh’ units had arrived in Dachau by American military planes, and began the process of erecting new lines of barbed wire for the purpose of isolating Soviet citizens from the rest of the prisoners – the first step in preparing them for their eventual forced repatriation.

In the entire history of the Orthodox Church there has probably never been an Easter service like the one at Dachau in 1945. Greek and Serbian priests together with a Serbian deacon wore the make-shift vestments over their blue and gray-striped prisoners uniforms. Then they began to chant, changing from Greek to Slavonic, then back to Greek. The Easter Canon, the Easter Sticheras – everything was recited from memory. The Gospel – ‘In the beginning was the Word’ —also from memory. The Homily of St. John Chrysostom also from memory. A young Greek monk from the Holy Mountain stood up in front of us and recited it with such infectious enthusiasm that we shall never forget him as long as we live. St. John Chrysostomos himself seemed to speak through him to us and to the rest of the world as well!

A fellow prisoner and chief interpreter of the international prisoner's committee, Boris F., paid a visit to my typhus-infested barracks, Block 27 to inform me that efforts were underway, in conjunction with the Yugoslav and Greek National Prisoner's Committees, to arrange an Orthodox service for Easter, May 6th.

Among the prisoners there were Orthodox priests, deacons and monks from Mount Athos. But there were no vestments, no books, no icons, no candles, no prosphoras, no wine. Efforts to acquire all these items from the Russian parish in Munich failed, as the Americans could not locate anyone from that parish in the devastated city.

Nevertheless, some of the problems could be solved. The approximately 400 Catholic priests detained in Dachau had been allowed to remain together in one barrack and say mass every morning before going to work. They offered us Orthodox the use of their prayer room in Block 26. The chapel was bare, save for a wooden table and an icon of the Theotokos hanging above the table.

A creative solution to the problem of the vestments was also found. New linen towels were taken from the hospital of our former SS-guards. When sewn together lengthwise, two towels formed an epitrachilion and when sewn together at the ends they became an orarion. Red crosses, originally intended to be worn by the medical personnel of the SS-guards, were put on the towel-vestments.

Protected by God, who desires nothing but that the sinner should turn to Him and live, she uprooted all the passions from her heart by means of her extraordinary ascesis and was able to turn the fire of carnal desire into a flame of divine love that made it possible for her to endure the implacable desert with joy as though she were not in the flesh...”
—From the Life of St. Mary of Egypt