“Using his gift of clairvoyance the elder related various facts about the man’s own life to him and he advised him to get a job even if he didn’t need one…the work would do him good. Impressed by the elder’s spiritual gifts the man asked him about meditation and other spiritual techniques. “Techniques don’t matter at all. You’re trying but for yo’ure digging bears no gold; there’s just the devil. The gold is Christ.””
Elder Paisios
~Elder Paisios of Mt. Athos

“My Elder wanted to remain with the zealots but I pressed him. “If you don’t do this I’ll leave.” The elder was forced to give in. When we return to our cell he said bitterly and remorselessly, “Why, boy, did you pressure me to do this thing? When I had died you could have done what ever you wanted afterwards.” The result? Grace departed for me and I remain dry without sensation or consolation. For two years I experienced abandonment and trials as a penance from God I came to understand out of the significance of dependency and obedience.”
Elder Ephraim of Katounakia
~Obedience is Life

“I tried to pray with whatever little understanding I had about noetic prayer by didn’t accomplish anything. I was making a good effort but my nous was wandering here and there. After little while had passed he asked: “Do you experience anything? Did you feel the grace of God?” “No, my dear father.” “Get out! After all this time you didn’t experience anything? Every time I say the prayer is as sweet as eating a loukoumi. My heart became so luminous and joyful and you felt nothing? Are you an ox? What are you doing?” “I have no idea what I am doing.” He was so simple and holy! He felt the just anyone could attain his state instantly. But he was unequaled. His unshakable faith and his obedience to Elder Joseph had filled him with spiritual gifts.”
Elder Epraim’s experience with Elder Arsenios
~My Elder Joseph

“In debates if you say a few words about religion you will prevail. Let the person who has a different opinion give free reign to his thoughts and speak as much as he likes…LKet him sense that he is addressing himself to a calm and uncontentious person. Influence him to your graciousness and prayer and speak briefly. It will achieve nothing if you speak heatedly… Show indifference outwardly but be praying inwardly. Be prepared, know what you are talking about and speak boldly to the point but with saintliness, meekness and prayer. But in order to be able to do this you must become saints.”
Elder Prophyrios
~Wounded by Love

“Do you want the prayer inside you? Do you want to find Christ? Well, you will find it here with the people we are working with. Do you hear them chatting idly, joking and laughing? Be careful as much as you can not to imitate them or to say to yourself “What kind of people are they?” And, to condemn them. You will be silent, do you work on your own and constantly say the Prayer. Then you will see what prayer you will find while working here in the mountain, while you’re killing yourself at work.”
Elder Haralambos
~Elder Haralambos Dionysiastis

“Many people honored the elder as a saint. If you were critical of him and accused him of being a sorcerer, he would answer them with his full self-assessment. “I’m not a saint or a sorcerer. I’m a sinful human being who tries to struggle. I look at myself as a speck of dust in the universe. I wish it were at least a clean speck!””
Elder Paisios
~Elder Paisios of Mt. Athos

“I however, feel that I am the most sinful person in the world. Of course, whatever I remembered I confessed, and I know God has forgiven me. But now I have the feeling that my spiritual sins are very many and I ask all those who have known me to pray for me…I always made the effort to pray, to read the hymns of the Church, the Holy Scriptures and the Lives of the Saints. May you do the same.”
St. Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia
~Final Letter in 1991

“When you see the contrary spirit approaching you to take hold of you do not be afraid; neither look at it nor attempt to expel it from within you. What do you do? The best thing is contempt. Open your arms to Christ like a little child that sees a wild beast approaching and is not afraid because his father is at his side: he throws himself into his father’s embrace. That is how to deal with every attack of the evil one and with every evil thought – with contempt.”
Elder Prophyrios
~Wounded by Love

“We must think about what Christ has prepared for us, in the good good Paradise, after the Second Coming. Now we go to the narthex of Paradise, but it cannot enter the mind of man what the good good Paradise is like. All light! All fragrance! Joy unspeakable! Blessedness! Nothing will grow old! Christ wants everything new in His Kingdom. Nothing odd. My mother died at 95 years old and I see her in Paradise at thirty years old.”
Elder Ephraim of Arizona
~2014 Interview

“‘Christian’ ecumenism relies on its support upon a vague but nonetheless real feeling of common Christianity which is shared by those who do not think or feel too deeply about the Church and its aims somehow to build a church comprising all such indifferent “Christians.” But common support can be dialogue with non-Christians rely on what possible ground can there be any kind of unity however loose between Christians and those who not merely do not know Christ but – as is the case with all the present-day representatives of non-Christian religions who are in contact with Christianity – decisively reject Christ?”
Fr. Seraphim Rose
~Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future