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The Wondrous and Paradoxical Ethos of Monasticism
To become an image of Pentecost, the monk must be a worker of repentance, a man of ardent desire, and persevere in the earthquake of repentance that renews his soul. Then he will bear witness to the humble ethos of Christ which has overcome his nature. This ethos reveals the supernatural transformation he has undergone: from a divided and distorted being into a living image of the Lord Jesus.
£23.00
The Ineffable Folly of Divine Love
The angels are always mindful of their createdness: they cover their faces and their feet with four wings to preserve their humility before the Lord Who brought them from non-being into being. Although they are immortal and incorporeal beings, they never forget that they are creatures, that they are not without beginning. Therefore, it is with restrained boldness – with only two wings – that they fly around ‘the throne of the Majesty in the heavens’. Humility gives them the strength to abide in everlasting doxology before God.
£23.50
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Audiobook: Remember Thy First Love
Audiobook Sample
Total listening time: 17 hours, 3 minutes
£16.00
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What a blessing to read and eavesdrop on conversations involving Father Sophrony and the artistic workshops of the Monastery. This is due in no small part to the generosity of Sister Gabriela who shares from her personal notebooks made during her apprenticeship to Father Sophrony. She is also kind enough to supply forensic detail of paints, surfaces, techniques and her ongoing experiments with pastel, canvas and egg emulsion, for example. This sharing of knowledge is a tonic in comparison to the often selfish and ego driven spirit of the art world.
Sister Gabriela also debunks any myths of an effortless artistic inspiration. Instead we encounter challenges regarding plasters, plasterers, paint consistency, resurfacing and repainting of a chapel ceiling, pictorial composition, appropriate biblical imagery and the teachability of younger artists. The wise, firm and gentle input of Father Sophrony is ever present.
The physical format of the book has the chunkiness of a working sketchbook which this pastor/artist reader found very appealing!
However, for all its working detail, the book is chiefly an illustration of the practical and the prayerful: the labour of the humble artist and the ample supply of God’s wisdom and grace. These elements have combined to produce spaces of welcome and wonder.
Tony Martin
Wonderful audio book, the answers are very helpful in practical situations. Father Zacharias guides us along the spiritual path with great comments on the Scripture and very practical examples that are applicable in many daily situations. As it says in the beginning of chapter 7: “It is possible to meet God in every place of our life, we can glorify Him in our joys and sorrows, in life and in death and even when we are in the deepest hell. Father Sophrony would sometimes tell to me: if I didn’t know the lives of the Saints, I would have fallen into despair many times, but being familiar with them I was able to bear more.” The examples in this audio book encourages us to have more faith. Thank you!
Every year I purchase calendars for members of my family. As always they are beautiful with a different theme each year but which depicts the soul of the monastery. Delivery was prompt and packaging exceptional. Many thanks and may your blessings be with us always. I wish you all a Merry Christmas 🙏
Beautiful calendars I’m pleased to be have in my possession again this year, and also share as gifts. Inspiring images with encouraging words of kindness and wisdom to commence each day, and memories of this serene and wonderful community.
Wonderful book! I bought for my husband for his birthday and he loved it very much. It is beautifully printed and bound, and the content was well written. Will buy more books from here in the future.
Another beautiful book by our beautiful Arch Zacharias- this one is easy to read and covers everything/ from how we are saved to how to make the Theotokos your spiritual Mother- love her Icon Paramithia- the Comforter- how to make the Liturgy your own- a true relationship in Christ- so as to look forward to the next Liturgy! Living and lovong Christ – more blessed to serve than to be served- what a blessing in a beautiful marriage- humility being the golden word! 100 stars!
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Publications Stavropegic Monastery of St John the Baptist
Continuing the Christian teaching legacy of Saints Silouan and Sophrony through our publications. We share posts with our books on Instagram if you are there. But if you're not? There's no need to join, you can see all our posts here.
The ethos of Christ is the example and ‘the kind’ of the incarnate Son of God, His divine otherness, His Spirit, His love to the end and His indescribable humility. It is that which can be known of God: not His divine essence itself, but the energy that flows from His essence, the incorruptible grace of the Holy Spirit.
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The way of the Lord is a way of incomprehensible descent, a way of utter humility. This becomes apparent before our eyes through all the events that took place at His divine Passion. All those who seek the Face of the Lord and the imperishable wealth of His presence, are inspired to place themselves on this narrow but wondrous way wherein sorrows are interwoven with ‘joy unspeakable and full of glory’ (1 Peter 1:8). They proceed downwards in humility, knowing that the way of the Lord is not grievous, for when they enter His presence, this way becomes a dynamic increase, according to the words of the Saviour, ‘He who has been faithful in little will be lord over much?’ (Matthew 25:23).
— Excerpt from: The Otherness of Love • The Otherness and Ethos of the Lamb of God (p. 23, 28) • Archimandrite Zacharias (Zacharou)
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✍🏻 Sketch of Christ by St. Sophrony from book ‘The Face of Light’
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The Lord attracts man by revealing to him the otherness of His Person, His mystical and humble way in which He appears among men. He never constrains but only attracts, transmitting to all the word of the Heavenly Father and leaving it up to their free will whether or not to follow His way. It is the indescribable humility of Christ that attracts their hearts and convinces them of His greater love which no man hath, as His words confirm: ‘When I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men unto me’ (John 12:32). Nothing attracts the heart and opens the mind to His divine Person more than the wonder of His kenosis, of His dwelling among men.
— Excerpt from: The Otherness of Love • The Ethos of Christ (p. 31-32) • Archimandrite Zacharias (Zacharou)
Purchase book at: essexmonastery.com
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‘The fiery sword no longer guards the gate of Eden’
Saint Simeon the New Theologian likens the Scriptures to a locked chest full of treasures. To open this chest, however, man must strive to fulfil all the commandments and thus receive the Spirit of the Comforter, Who opens unto him the words of the Scriptures and reveals the divine life they contain.
Only when we surrender ‘to the end’ and follow Christ do the greatest potentials of our nature unfold within us and we become capable of receiving the Gospel in its eternal dimension.
The Son and Word of God holds the messianic ‘key of David’ (Rev. 3:7). When the ‘key of David’ is turned to the right, the heart ‘opens’ and nothing can close it until it ‘breaks’ with the overflowing love of Christ. Yet God never violates the freedom of His creature. He does not force Himself into our hearts if we are not disposed to open the door to Him. He is well-pleased when we also make Him our target, when we stand before the door of His mercy and knock with all our might. And when the door of the heart is knocked from both sides, the burdens of the passions are crushed and the Christian lives his personal Passover, God’s feast with man.
— Excerpt from: Knock, and It Shall Be Opened Unto You • Prologue (p. 9) • Archimandrite Peter
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The perfection of the way of the Lord was foreknown when He was born in Bethlehem and the angels said to the shepherds, ‘This shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes?’ The binding of the infant from the beginning was interpreted by the Fathers as the sign of the Cross that the Lord would endure for the salvation of man. It prefigured the binding of the Lord in graveclothes when they sealed Him in the tomb.
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The binding of the infant with swaddling bands prefigures the mystery of the Cross of Christ and should render in us the mystery of continual deadening. That is, we must go through a deadening of the passions of the old man which is symbolised by the swaddling clothes of the infant in the cradle. It is as if the Church is telling us, now is the time to prepare yourself a new garment, a spotless raiment that will allow you to enter the Bridal Chamber of Christ.
Of course, we men find it difficult to humble ourselves and to surrender all our privileges and desires to the will of God. We are full of our evil self which separates us from God and from other men. We are always reluctant to accept the pain, the afflictions and the swaddling clothes that constrain and bind us and hold us captive and crucified for God.
— Excerpt from: Echoes of the Spirit • Humility: The Extreme Trial, The Time for the Lord to Act (p. 41, 43) • Archimandrite Zacharias (Zacharou)
🖼️ Icons by Sister Gabriela found in the book: The House of Our Father
Purchase book at: essexmonastery.com
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The Lord of Heaven entered the fallen world where man was lost and ‘stumbling upon the dark mountains’. The path of Christ in the world was a way of suffering.
Our Great and Almighty God became a vulnerable infant laid in a manger of dumb beasts. He became weak to draw near to us, to heal us and save us. An ancient prophecy of Christ is given by the patriarch Jacob: ‘Binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass’s colt unto the choice vine; He washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes.’ This prophesies the great self-emptying of the Lord of glory, to condescend from His ineffable and incomprehensible Divine nature, and to unite Himself with human nature, to become flesh and blood.
The Lord Almighty, the King of creation, was born a defenceless child under the threat of death by a worldly king: ‘Herod was overcome with wrath, mothers were bereft of their infants by an untimely death.’ Together with Herod, Jerusalem, the City of God, was ‘breathing threats and murder’. The Lord spoke about it with great pain before His Passion: ‘O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!’
At the holy Nativity, we see the infinite magnitude of the kenosis and humility of Christ. Yet, why did God choose this way to approach man? He came with great reverence for His creature, whose likeness He would assume. By His almighty power, He could have compelled us all to follow Him. Yet in His unfathomable wisdom, He preferred to become a vulnerable child and draw us to Himself by His humble love.
— Excerpt from: Echoes of the Spirit • Humility: The Extreme Trial, The Time for the Lord to Act (p. 39-41) • Archimandrite Zacharias (Zacharou)
🖼️ Icon by Sister Gabriela found in the book: The House of Our Father
Purchase book at: essexmonastery.com
📘 @essexmonastery
💀➕ @orthodoxoutcast
With the incarnation of the Son of God, a new time of God’s good pleasure dawned in the history of mankind. At the Annunciation, the Body of Christ, the Church, manifested itself in history for the first time. This Holy Body of the Son of God, wherein ‘dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead’ became the inheritance of ‘a chosen generation’? This inheritance and all the gifts that ensued, were made possible through the marvellous instrument of God, the Most Holy Virgin Mary. She is therefore rightly called ‘the fulness of time’ that brought the Kingdom of God down to earth.
— Excerpt from: Mariam: The Mother of the Lord and Mother of Our Life • The Garment of Humility of the Mother of God, The Pattern for Monasticism (p. 25) • Archimandrite Zacharias (Zacharou)
🖼️ Icons by Sister Gabriela found in the book: The House of Our Father.
Purchase book at: essexmonastery.com
📘 @essexnmonastery
💀➕ @orthodoxoutcast