Elder Joseph was one of the few Athonites Who had experienced the sober intoxication of divine grace and thus could clearly tell if something was from God, the demons are one’s nature. As he himself explained: “We know that once everyone has tasted wine can tell if they give him vinegar instead. This is how you should understand divine grace as well. One who has already tasted it recognizes delusion. For the demons imitate grace he who has eaten the prude of truth, as we have said, those who fruit of delusion.”
Elder Joseph
~My Elder Joseph

“Weren’t disobedience and self will because of the fall in the root of angels and men? Doesn’t the law of corruption at work in our sentient nature and condition have disobedience as its cause by which the whole creation groans and travails together according to Paul and anticipates its restoration through regeneration? Absolutely never in over a half-century of my life as a monk if I managed to have peace in my soul going in the activity or thought that concerned me if I found myself in disobedience are willfulness.”
Elder Ephraim
~Obedience is Life

“UFO phenomena are but one part of an astonishing outpouring of paranormal events – what just a few years ago most people would have considered as miracles. Period. Orthodox Christian government and public order whose chief representative on earth was the Orthodox Emperor and Orthodox Christian worldview no longer exist as a whole and Satan has been loosed out of his prison where he was By the grace of the church of Christ in order to “deceive the nations” and prepare them to worship antichrist at the end of the age. Perhaps never since the beginning of the Christian era have demons appeared so openly and extensively as today. The visitors from outer space theory is but one of many pretexts they are using to gain acceptance for the idea that higher beings are now to take charge of the destiny of mankind.”
Fr. Seraphim Rose
~Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future

“Every day we must have our passports in our hand. We don’t know what can happen. Once I confessed someone in a hospital with nods then they died. He did something good in his life and was saved at the last moment. In my life I went through many hardships and I saw that Divine Providence directs everything for the good of man. May the memory of death never be absent from us.”
Elder Ephraim of Arizona (2014 Interview)

“But to today’s charismatics miraculous gifts are for everyone; almost everyone who wants to can and does speak in tongues and there are manuals telling you how to do it. But what do the holy fathers of the Orthodox Church teaches? According to Bishop Ignatius the gifts of the Holy Spirit “exist only in Orthodox Christians who have attained Christian perfection, purified and prepared beforehand by repentance.” They are “given to Saints of God solely in God’s good will and God’s action, and not by the will of man and not by one’s own power. They are given unexpectedly, extremely rarely, in cases of extreme need, by God’s wondrous Providence and not just at random.” (Isaac the Syrian)
Fr. Seraphim Rose
~Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future

“My elder Poppa Nikiphoros was hardly a notable monk. In spite of this I observed great things as his disciple regarding obedience. I had ordered various fruit bearing trees without his consent. Not one of them took despite my effort and care for them. I made a second attempt, this time planting vines without his approval. These didn’t flourish either. Still I tried a third time. The elder reproach me saying that I was troubling myself needlessly. Indeed I failed. And even if a tree did manage to survive it never bore fruit.”
Elder Ephraim
~Obedience is Life

“I don’t have time to write you about the miracle that the Lord showed me to correct a mistake I was making out of ignorance, as you know. So, do you see the great goodness of our Lord? Do you see that He even works miracles when His divine providence deems it suitable? Many times a person is diluted out of ignorance are because others mislead him. But when he has an upright soul and good intentions, the Lord does not abandon him but will bring him enlightenment in various ways. This makes me feel like dirt, ash and a worm of the earth. Most surely, great is the mercy of the Lord.”
Elder Joseph
~Monastic Wisdom

“During the nearly 40 days that we were at the monastery, Paisios was always the same: innocent, extremely spiritual, and thoughtful. While he silently labored at his assigned tasks he was most likely at prayer. On my final day there after having said my goodbyes, I departed with the certitude that I was leaving behind me a holy man. As time passed I would hear about Paisios, that he was getting progressively stricter with himself. Not too long after my departure I learned that he left the monastery for a desert place on the Godtrodden mountain and that he lived there given himself entirely to asceticism coming down to the monastery only on occasion.”
Witness describing a Young Elder Paisios in Sinai
~Elder Paisios of Mt. Athos

“In these conditions of spiritual crisis with no way out, there inevitably comes upon us the chief question of a worldview: what am I living for if there is no way out? And when this frightful moment comes each of us feels that death has caught him by the throat: it’s some kind of spiritual answer does not come, life comes to an end because without God not only is everything permitted but life itself has no value and no meaning. I saw in the camp how people went out of their minds are ended with suicide. And I myself clearly felt that if after all I came to the firm and final conclusion that there is no God, I would simply be obliged to end with suicide since it is shameful and belittling for a rational creature to drag out a senseless and tormenting life. Thus at the second stage of spiritual rebirth we discovered that atheism, though out of its logical end, inevitably brings a man to perdition because it is a complete teaching of immorality, evil and death.”
Fr. Seraphim Rose
~God’s Revelation

“[A wife stealing eggs] well, her husband couldn’t take it any longer. He came out of the corner where he was hiding and shouted “so that’s it! You are stealing the eggs! Aren’t you ashamed eating a whole hencoop worth of eggs on your own while your donkey of a husband works hard in the feels only with pieces of dry left over bread?” The young people listening laughed. The Elder continued “yes, you’re laughing. But don’t you know what a demon gluttony is? If a person has this passion and no love they can eat a whole banquet of food on their own and let everyone else die from hunger.”
Elder Arsenios
~Elder Arsenios the Cave-Dweller