How to fight passions

Once there came to the elder two young men and asked him: "Tell us, Father, how to get rid of evil inclinations and get root out bad habits?" The old man asked one of them to pull out a young tree, which he easily did. Then he asked to root out another one. The boy pulled it out too, but it was stronger, and he had to work hard. The hermit led the boy to a third tall and strong tree. Despite big effort, the young men even together failed to pull it out.

The old man resumed: "My children, evil inclinations and habits are similar to those trees, if they do not grow long and are recently rooted in the heart, a strong will is enough to eradicate them; but if they are deeply rooted, it is already very difficult or almost impossible to dominate them. So work hard, while there is time and a heavy struggle does not exceed your strength!"

Triumph of Orthodoxy – why this feast belongs to artists

There is a small icon in the British Museum – just thirty-seven centimeters high. It is from this modest board that one should begin speaking about what happened in March 843.

Buried alive: How hegumen Athanasius outwitted kings and Jesuits

He was killed three times – defrocked, put in shackles, and shot. We reconstruct the chronicle of the saint's feat based on documents.

Stories about the early Church: The state of clergy in the first centuries

Sources from this period present a rather mixed picture of the state of the clergy. To form a clearer understanding of it, let us examine three aspects: education, morality, and material support.

The mathematics of a knot: why the prayer rope remains a silent weapon

An object a passerby might mistake for decoration is given to a monk at his tonsure as a spiritual sword. What lies hidden in the nine interweavings of a single knot?

Silver candlesticks: How mercy becomes the price of a soul’s salvation

We often think of forgiveness as an easy gesture – a light motion of the heart, a simple “it’s fine,” a quick letting go. But a scene from Victor Hugo’s novel reveals a different truth: another person’s freedom always costs something. And the coin of that purchase is very often our own silver.

Brotherhoods: A network against the empire

In 1596, Orthodoxy in Ukraine was declared “dead.” But while elites were drifting into Catholic cathedrals, ordinary townsmen built a structure that outplayed both empire and Jesuits.