"There Shall Be Wailing and Gnashing of Teeth" Depicted in a 14th Century Fresco

14th century fresco in the Narthex of the Church of Panagia Forviotissa (more popularly known as Panagia Asinou) in Cyprus

"So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth" (Matthew 13:49-50).

"For whereas He Himself is the sower, and that of His own field, and out of His own kingdom He gathers, it is quite clear that the present world also is His. But mark His unspeakable love to man, and His leaning to bounty, and His disinclination to punishment; in that, when He sows, He sows in His own person, but when He punishes, it is by others, that is, by the angels... For lest, on being told, 'They cast the bad away,' you should suppose that ruin to be without danger; by His interpretation He signified the punishment, saying, 'They will cast them into the furnace.' And He declared the gnashing of teeth, and the anguish, that it is unspeakable" (St. John Chrysostom)

 

The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus About Life After Death

By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos

We regard Christ's parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus as the most suitable aid for guiding the reader into the subject "life after death". Therefore in what follows we shall analyse this parable in the simplest possible way.

We could make use of many patristic texts that interpret the parable of the Rich man and Lazarus, but we shall not do so, because, as we have said, the aim of all that follows is to introduce the reader to the teaching of the Church on life after death.

What Elder Ambrose Lazaris Taught About Judgment Day

Elder Ambrose Lazaris used to say about the end of the world that it will last as long as the Six Psalms of Matins lasts, a few minutes.

At the time when we will be judged, in heaven the Angels will chant the Six Psalms [that is why we do not sit during the reading of the Six Psalms].

All people living at that time will experience death instantly and immediately after will be resurrected.

We will all be with our bodies in an intangible way, in another form, as the Evangelist Mark says, we will not take up space, but one will see and recognize the other and all will be at the age of thirty three years old.

God Is Fire (A Homily of St. John Maximovitch)

By St. John Maximovitch

"God is a consuming fire" (Heb. 12:29). When an object touches fire, it changes: it either burns out or hardens.

So a person, touching God, either perishes or is saved.

Fire is always fire! But from touching it, both ashes and steel are obtained, depending on what it touches.

A Message to the Faithful from the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece: "The Gifts of the Holy Spirit and False Prophets"

June 14, 2022

To the fullness of the Church of Greece that bear Christ's name,

Topic: "The Gifts of the Holy Spirit and False Prophets"

Beloved children of the Lord,

One week after the feast of Pentecost, during which the Church of Christ was revealed to the world, we honor the offspring of this "new creation" of Grace, that is, the Church, who are all the Saints of God, people who are truly Spirit-bearers.

The Ascension of the Lord is the Penultimate Affair of the Second Coming

By Demetrios Panagopoulos, Preacher (1916-1982)

 

One person says:

"On Ascension Day, swimming begins."

This is what man sees ... Beyond his flesh, beyond his pleasures, etc. he does not see.

What is the Ascension? What is celebrated? What do you remember? People do not know this. And due to the fact that they do not know this, they score a low grade, but the fact that they do not want to know this, it nullifies them.
 

Epiphanios of Salamis and the Doctrine of the Bodily Resurrection

 

In his polemic with pagans and heretics (especially with Origen), Epiphanios reveals the Church teaching about bodily resurrection: “Our holy Mother Church believes, as she herself truly preached and truly prescribed, that we shall all die and be resurrected with this very body and with this very soul (σὺν σώματι τούτῳ, σὺν ψυχῇ ταύτῃ), with all our members, so that each one may receive according to what he has done" (Ancor. 119.11).

Against the pagans, Epiphanios proves the possibility of resurrection with examples from nature: day follows night, awakening follows sleep; seeds planted into the ground, as if dead, germinate and are reborn into a new plant, etc. (Ancor. 833-5). Pagan writers also knew and cited stories about the resurrection of people or their return from the underworld - for example, Alcestis, Pelops, Amphiaraus, Glaucus, Castor, etc. (Ibid. 85.2-4).

Elder Eumenios Saridakis on How the Third World War Was Avoided By the Intervention of the Panagia

By Monk Simon

Elder Eumenios once told me that the Third World War would have taken place, in the area of Russia, namely Ukraine, and he also said this later when we went on a pilgrimage to Russia.

"We were all at the forefront," he told us.

"What do you mean 'we'?"

"All of us, Father Porphyrios was there, Father Iakovos was there, Father Paisios was there, all of us monks went to the forefront."

Chapel of the Second Coming of Christ in Sikinos

Sikinos is among the Cyclades Islands of Greece. There one can find a picturesque little chapel dedicated to the Second Coming of Christ, the only shrine with such a dedication in the Orthodox world. The annual feast of this chapel is celebrated on Meatfare Sunday, because on this day the Gospel reading of the Divine Liturgy concerns the Last Judgment.

Homily Three for the Sunday of the Last Judgement (St. Luke of Simferopol)

 By St. Luke, Archbishop of Simferopol and All Crimea

(Delivered on March 4, 1951)

"As the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be" (Matt. 24:37-39) - the terrible second coming.

Will it be exactly like that? No, what happened in the days of Noah is cited by Christ in His discourse about the Last Judgment in order to show that just as suddenly, just as unexpectedly, the Son of Man will appear to us in His glory with all the holy angels to begin His Judgment.

Blessed Are The Peacemakers: Archimandrite Bartholomew of Esphigmenou Responds to Metropolitan Neophytos of Morphou About the War in Ukraine

 

By Archimandrite Bartholomew,
Abbot of the Monastery of Esphigmenou on Mount Athos

As a child I often heard people say "war is coming, gather food!"

Now that the world is objectively heading in dangerous paths, I hear some of a similar spiritual quality with the aforementioned, saying "there must be a war to cleanse the earth of evil." They say it and it fills their mouths! They say it and are happy with the expectation of slaughtering people!

In the past, when there was no issue, they terrorized people with the threat of war, in order to paralyze them spiritually and control them. Now, when there is an issue, instead of being advocates of peace and law, they are publishing supposed prophecies, in order to paralyze the resistance of Christians to evil.

The Place of the Apocalypse in the Canon of St. Gregory Nazianzen

 By Frank Thielman

After explicitly naming every other New Testament book but the Apocalypse, St. Gregory Nazianzen closes his poetical list of ‘the genuine books of the inspired scripture’ with the statement, ‘You have all. And if there be any outside these, it is not among the genuine books’ (Πάσας ἔχεις. εἴ τι δὲ τούτων ἐκτός, οὐκ ἐν γνησίαις).1 Studies of the New Testament canon commonly understand the omission of any clear reference to the Apocalypse in the list and these definitive closing statements to mean that Gregory did not view the Apocalypse as canonical.2 If so, then Gregory, whose list comes from sometime in the 380s, did not agree with Athanasius’ judgement in his famous Easter letter of 367 but took the position of many in the fourth-century eastern church that the Apocalypse stands among the excluded books. Three pieces of evidence, however, should caution against coming to this conclusion too hastily.

A Gift Greater Than Clairvoyance, Foresight and Prophecy

By Elder Joseph of Vatopaidi

When I was a young monk, I was impressed by clairvoyance, foresight and the prophetic gift. Wherever I heard that there was an elder with such gifts I ran with enthusiasm to meet him.

Now that I'm old, I'm not impressed by these gifts.

For me it is more valuable to meet a man who has patience without complaining during long-term and painful sicknesses. This moves me and teaches me. 

 

Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.