My beloved spiritual children in Christ Our Only True God and Our Only True Savior,
CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST! HE WAS, IS, AND EVR SHALL BE.
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ON JULY 20th OUR HOLY ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN CHURCH COMMEMORATES THE HOLY AND VENERABLE PROPHET ELIAS
A man who saw God, a wonderworker, and a zealot for faith in God, Elias was of the tribe of Aaron, from the Tishba, whence he was known as 'the Tishbite'. When Elias was born, his father Sabah saw Angels of God around the child, swaddling it with fire and feeding it with flames. This was foreshadowing of Elias' fiery character and his God-given fiery powers. He spent his whole youth in prayer and meditation, withdrawing often to the desert to ponder and pray in tranquility. At that time, the Jewish Kingdom was divided into two unequal parts: the Kingdom of Judah consisted only of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, with its capital at Jerusalem, while the Kingdom of Israel consisted of the other ten tribes, with its capital at Samaria. The former kingdom was ruled by the descendants of Solomon, and the latter by the descendants of Jeroboam, a servant of Solomon's. The Prophet Elias came into the greatest conflict with the Israelite king. Ahab, and his evil wife Jezebel, for they worshipped idols and turned to the Syrian god, Baal, and appointed many priests to the service of this false god. Prophet Elias performed many miracles by the power of God: he closed the heavens, that no rain should fall for three years and six months; called down fire from heaven to consume the sacrifice to his God, while the pagan priests of Baal were unable to do this; brought rain from the heavens at his prayers; miraculously multiplied corn and oil in the widow's house at Zarephath, and restored her dead son to life; prophesied to Ahab that the dogs would lick up his blood, and to Jezebel that the dogs would devour her--which came to pass. He talked with God on Horeb and heard His voice in the calm after the great wind. At the time of his death, he took Elisha and appointed him his heir as a Prophet; he parted the Jordan with his mantle and was finally borne to heaven in a fiery chariot drawn by fiery horses. He appeared, together with Moses, to our Lord Jesus Christ on Mt. Tabor. At the end of the world, Elias will appear again, to break the power of antichrist (Revelation 11).
Author's note: In the Greek Lives of the Saints, the following miracle of the Holy Prophet Elias is recorded: a certain Paisius, Abbot (Egoumenos) of the Monastery of Saint Elias in Jerusalem, went to Constantinople and from Constantinople to Belgrade, Rumania, at the time that Patriarch Paisius was staying there. At that time, there was an Orthodox Christian living in Belgrade, married to a Latin wife. On Saint Elias day, the wife planned to make bread, but her husband said to her: 'You must not work.' His wife replied that the feast had been two days earlier (according to the Roman Catholic Calendar). And so a dispute arose between them. The stubborn woman kneaded the dough, but then a marvel! The dough became stone in her hands! At that, the neighbors gathered around, and each of them took a piece of the stone. Paisius took a piece of it, as a witness to God's miracle, and took it with him to Jerusalem. He laid this piece of stone in front of the holy icon of the Holy Prophet Elias in his monastery (This is recorded in Dositheus Book XII, Ch. 11, Para. 2, p. 1192)
FOR CONSIDERATION
Writing about the life of his sister Macrina, Saint Gregory of Nyssa refrained from enumerating her miracles, saying: '...that I may not bring weak men to the sin of unbelief'. He calls those weak who do not believe. And, indeed, there is none weaker than the man without faith. A man without faith believes in the power of dead things but does not believe in the power of God or of the men of God. That is spiritual obtuseness, and that obtuseness is equivalent to spiritual death. Thus souls that believe are alive and those that do not are spiritually dead. Living souls believe in the mighty miracles of the Prophet Elias; these miracles delight and encourage them, for they know that they are revelations of the power of God. If God can reveal His power through dead things and elements, can He not reveal it through the living and holy men? That which gives the greatest joy to the believer is that the Prophet Elias appeared alive on Mount Tabor at the time of the Lord's Transfiguration (Metamorphosis). During his earthly life, this Great Prophet gave proofs of the existence of the one, living God, and, after his death -- several hundred years after it - his appearing on Mt. Tabor gave to men a living proof of life after death. (Source: The Prologue from Ochrid)
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"Glory Be To GOD For All Things!" -- Saint John Chrysostom
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With sincere agape in His Holy Diakonia (Ministry)
The sinner and unworthy servant of God
+Father George