The sayings of St. Silouan the Athonite
and Fr. Sophrony (his disciple)
and Fr. Sophrony (his disciple)
Rejoice, peoples of the earth, for a luminary hath risen in these latter times, by whom God illumineth all those among you who have been immersed in despondency and in the shadow of death. It is our Father Silouan crying to all: “In the darkness of hell do not despair, but come to the light, to Christ Who granteth His great mercy to all men.” --SERVICE TO OUR HOLY AND GOD-BEARING FATHER SAINT SILOUAN OF MOUNT ATHOS (September 24) VESPERS, On Lord, I have cried, Tone 6.
‘Keep your mind in hell and despair not.’ -St. Silouan
‘Stay on the brink of despair but when you feel you are falling over, step back.’ - Fr. Sophrony
‘It is one thing to believe in God and another thing to know God.’
-Fr. Sophrony
‘When the soul gives itself over to the will of God, then in the mind there is nothing but God alone...
-St. Silouan
Man deserts God: To the extent that we live in this world, to that same extent we are dead in God.
-Fr. Sophrony
Divine grace comes only in the soul which has undergone suffering.
-Fr. Sophrony
There are three things I cannot take in: non-dogmatic faith, non-ecclesiological Christianity and non-ascetic Christianity. These three—the Church, dogma and asceticism ----constitute one single life for me.
-Fr. Sophrony
If one rejects the Orthodox Creed and the Eastern ascetic experience of life in Christ, which has been acquired throughout the centuries, then Orthodox culture would be left with nothing but the Greek minor [key] and Russian tetra phony.
--Fr. Sophrony
Historical experience has demonstrated that natural intellectual reasoning, left to its own devices, fatally arrives at pantheistic mysticism with its particular perception of reality. If this takes place in the soul of the Christian who does not want to reject Christ (as in the case of Leo Tolstoy), he arrives at Protestant rationalism or at spiritualism, which stands mystically close to pantheism... I am convinced that the rejection of the Church will lead to the rejection of the Apostolic message about ‘that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes... and our hands have handled (1Jn.1:1) [148].
-Fr. Sophrony
Life has showed me that, without real experience of God or cosmic spiritual phenomena, possession of intellectual information does not reveal the meaning of religion- does not lead to experiential knowledge of Primal Being- of God that is.
-Fr. Sophrony
‘Keep your mind in hell and despair not.’ -St. Silouan
‘Stay on the brink of despair but when you feel you are falling over, step back.’ - Fr. Sophrony
‘It is one thing to believe in God and another thing to know God.’
-Fr. Sophrony
‘When the soul gives itself over to the will of God, then in the mind there is nothing but God alone...
-St. Silouan
Man deserts God: To the extent that we live in this world, to that same extent we are dead in God.
-Fr. Sophrony
Divine grace comes only in the soul which has undergone suffering.
-Fr. Sophrony
There are three things I cannot take in: non-dogmatic faith, non-ecclesiological Christianity and non-ascetic Christianity. These three—the Church, dogma and asceticism ----constitute one single life for me.
-Fr. Sophrony
If one rejects the Orthodox Creed and the Eastern ascetic experience of life in Christ, which has been acquired throughout the centuries, then Orthodox culture would be left with nothing but the Greek minor [key] and Russian tetra phony.
--Fr. Sophrony
Historical experience has demonstrated that natural intellectual reasoning, left to its own devices, fatally arrives at pantheistic mysticism with its particular perception of reality. If this takes place in the soul of the Christian who does not want to reject Christ (as in the case of Leo Tolstoy), he arrives at Protestant rationalism or at spiritualism, which stands mystically close to pantheism... I am convinced that the rejection of the Church will lead to the rejection of the Apostolic message about ‘that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes... and our hands have handled (1Jn.1:1) [148].
-Fr. Sophrony
Life has showed me that, without real experience of God or cosmic spiritual phenomena, possession of intellectual information does not reveal the meaning of religion- does not lead to experiential knowledge of Primal Being- of God that is.
-Fr. Sophrony
