Concerning the Tradition of Long Hair and Beards: Igumen LukeAnyone looking at photographs and portraits of clergy in Greece, Russia, Rumania, and other Orthodox countries taken in the early twentieth century will notice that almost without exception, both the monastic and married clergy, priests and deacons, wore untrimmed beards and hair. Only after the First World War do we observe a new, modern look, cropped hair and beardless clergy. This fashion has been continued among some of the clergy to our own day. If one were to investigate this phenomenon in terms of a single clergyman whose life spanned the greater part of our century one would probably notice his style modernize from the first photographs up through the last. Read More →
Television: Archbishop Vitaly of Montreal & CanadaWe have not yet felt the huge after-shock of the coming of television which in a short while has managed to secure a niche for itself in almost every home. Its powers of persuasion and attraction have proved to be practically supernatural and are coupled with a subtle and awesome ability to corrupt. Today, the priesthood cannot and must not ignore the phenomenon of television a phenomenon unrivaled in the extent of its influence over the human soul. Without exaggeration, a campaign against it must be our immediate and primary concern because every day and every hour its effects are being felt in our own homes. So let us look at television objectively, see the good and the evil in it, and only then will we be in a position to make use of its positive aspects and to reject the negative. Read More →
Concerning Fasting: Bishop Ignatius BrianchaninovOrthodox Life, Volume 2 #2, March/April, 1951
The head or chief of the virtues is prayer; their foundation is fasting. Fasting is constant moderation in food with prudent discernment in its use. Proud man! You think so much and so highly of your mind, while all the time it is in complete and constant dependence on your stomach. The law of fasting, though outwardly a law for the stomach, is essentially a law for the mind.