Holy Cross Chaplaincy at UBC
Welcome! + When + Where + Who
Posted 2 years ago
Last Vespers

This coming Tuesday will be the last vespers of the semester as we will be breaking for exams and the Christmas holiday.  Fr. Michael Fourik will be serving with us, and will finish his talk on Russian Orthodoxy in Vancouver.  As always, we will be meeting first for supper in Regent College at 5 pm.

Update

Fr. Michael is not able to join us tonight after all, but will be coming sometime next semester instead.  Instead, tonight we will have a reader’s vespers.  Please do come and pray with us.

Posted 2 years ago

Elder Cleopa of Romania on prayer

(For a biography of Elder Cleopa, click here and scroll to the bottom)

Posted 2 years ago
Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware) on Elder Amphilochios of Patmos: “What most distinguished his character was his gentleness, his humor, the warmth of his affection, and his sense of tranquil yet triumphant joy.  His smile was full of love, but devoid of all sentimentality.  Life in Christ, as he understood it, is not a heavy yoke, a burden to be carried with sullen resignation, but a personal relationship to be pursued with eagerness of heart.  He was firmly opposed to all spiritual violence and cruelty.  It was typical that, as he lay dying and took leave of the nuns under his care, he should urge the abbess not to be too severe on them: ‘They have left everything to come here, they must not be unhappy.’ Two things in particular I recall about him.  The first was his love of nature and, more specifically, of trees….A second thing that stands out in my memory is the counsel which he gave me when, as a newly-ordained priest, the time had come for me to return from Patmos to Oxford, where I was to begin teaching at the university.  He himself had never visited the West, but he had a shrewd perception of the situation of Orthodoxy in the Diaspora.  ’Do not be afraid,’ he insisted.  Do not be afraid because of your Orthodoxy, he told me; do not be afraid because, as an Orthodox in the West, you will be often isolated and always in a small minority.  Do not make compromises but do not attack other Christians; do not be either defensive or agressive; simply be yourself.”

Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware) on Elder Amphilochios of Patmos:

“What most distinguished his character was his gentleness, his humor, the warmth of his affection, and his sense of tranquil yet triumphant joy.  His smile was full of love, but devoid of all sentimentality.  Life in Christ, as he understood it, is not a heavy yoke, a burden to be carried with sullen resignation, but a personal relationship to be pursued with eagerness of heart.  He was firmly opposed to all spiritual violence and cruelty.  It was typical that, as he lay dying and took leave of the nuns under his care, he should urge the abbess not to be too severe on them: ‘They have left everything to come here, they must not be unhappy.’

Two things in particular I recall about him.  The first was his love of nature and, more specifically, of trees….A second thing that stands out in my memory is the counsel which he gave me when, as a newly-ordained priest, the time had come for me to return from Patmos to Oxford, where I was to begin teaching at the university.  He himself had never visited the West, but he had a shrewd perception of the situation of Orthodoxy in the Diaspora.  ’Do not be afraid,’ he insisted.  Do not be afraid because of your Orthodoxy, he told me; do not be afraid because, as an Orthodox in the West, you will be often isolated and always in a small minority.  Do not make compromises but do not attack other Christians; do not be either defensive or agressive; simply be yourself.”

Posted 2 years ago