Dear Readers,
As I slowly continue to produce brief studies on the Seven Churches in the Book of Revelation, I wanted to provide you with the link to the extensive study by Archimandrite Athanasios of blessed memory. It is a voluminous work which seems to be firmly grounded upon the Patristic ethos.
Link – Study of the book of Revelation by Archimandrite Athanasios (Mitilinaios)
Here are two other links to portions of his other works which may be read online –
On Ecumenistic Post-Patristic Theology
The Inkless Pen 
Thank you. From the Orthodox in Idaho. Thomas a sinner
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‘Every Orthodox Christian is placed between two worlds: this fallen world where we try to work out our salvation, and the other world, heaven, the homeland towards which we are striving and which, if we are leading a true Christian life, gives us the inspiration to live from day to day in Christian virtue and love.
But the world is too much with us. We often, and in fact nowadays we usually forget the heavenly world. The pressure of worldliness is so strong today that we often lose track of what our life as a Christian is all about. Even if we may be attending church services frequently and consider ourselves “active” church members, how often our churchliness is only something external, bound up with beautiful services and the whole richness of our Orthodox tradition of worship, but lacking in real inner conviction that Orthodoxy is the faith that can save our soul for eternity, lacking in real love for and commitment to Christ, the incarnate God and Founder of our faith. How often our church life is just a matter of habit, something we go through outwardly but which does not change us inwardly, does not make us grow spiritually and lead us to eternal life in God.
OUR TIMES
We live in the times which our Lord warned us about in the Gospel, when “the love of many shall grow cold” [Matt 24:12], in the latter times when the Christian Gospel which was received with such fervor by the first Christians has become only one small part of the worldly life that most of us lead, instead of the center and meaning of our life—which is what it should be if we realized what our faith really is. Orthodox Christianity, as a burning faith which we are not ashamed to confess and to have as the most precious thing in our life, is to a great extent in a state of decline and retreat in the world today.’
Blessed Fr. Seraphim (Rose); THE FUTURE OF RUSSIA AND THE END OF THE WORLD
This address, delivered at the Orthodox Youth Conference in San Francisco in 1981, was originally published in The Orthodox Word, Nos. 100-101 (1981; vol. 17, nos. 5-6), pp. 205-217. A tape recording of the address is available from Holy Trinity Monastery Bookstore, Jordanville, NY 13361
Also appears in Heavenly Realm, Lay Sermons of Eugene Rose (Blessed Father Seraphim Rose)
(Curious note:address in ‘Heavenly Realm’ contains material not found in on-line versions…)
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