Photios Kontoglou

By Photios Kontoglou We have made our own Christianity, a convenient, humane and reasonable Christianity, as the Grand Inquisitor of Dostoevsky says, because the Christianity taught by Christ is inapplicable, inhumane. Instead of rising towards Christ, who said “if I am lifted up from the earth I will draw all people to Myself”, we have brought Him down to where …

By Photios Kontoglou The faith of a Christian is tested by the Resurrection of Christ like gold in a furnace. Out of the entire Gospel, the Resurrection of Christ is the most unbelievable thing, totally inadmissible by our logic and a true cause of its suffering. Because it is something totally unbelievable, for this reason it requires all of our …

By Photios Kontoglou On Pascha [Easter] Monday, in the evening after midnight, before lying down to sleep, I went out into the little garden behind my house. The sky was dark and covered with stars. I seemed to see it for the first time, and a distant psalmody seemed to descend from it. My lips murmured, very softly: “Exalt ye …

By Photios Kontoglou Those simplistic people, those illiterate old men and old women, who during Lent and Holy Week can be found all day in church, lived out their younger years in the education and admonition of the Lord, and understood the joy-giving mourning, which has not been understood, alas, by our scholars, who wanted to teach them, rather than …