Feast Day: June 5th


The Life of Saint Dorotheos: He devoted himself to Monastic activity with an even greater zeal. Upon entering the Monastery, he says in his tenth Instruction, he decided that his study of Virtue ought to be more fervent than his occupation with secular science had been…

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Prayers

Saint Dorotheos Pray to God for us.


Pride & Humility


“Before anything else we need humility. By humility of wisdom, all the weapons of the enemy and adversary are broken.”

“Listen to what the Lord says: “Learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls” (Matthew 11:29). He shows here the root and cause of all ills and their cure, the cause of all good, namely, that self-exaltation has brought us down and that pardon cannot be obtained except through its opposite, humility. What has brought all our afflictions upon us? Was it not pride? Man was created for every kind of enjoyment and was in the Garden of Eden. But one thing he was forbidden to do, yet he did it. You see the pride? You see the disobedience (the daughter of pride)?”

“Thereupon God said: man does not know how to delight in joy alone. If he does not experience afflictions he will go still further and will perish completely. If he does not learn what are sorrow and labor he will not know what are joy and peace; and so God banished him from the Garden of Eden. Here he was surrendered to his own self-love and his own will, that they might break his bones and thereby teach him to follow not himself but God’s commandments, and that the very sufferings of disobedience should teach him the blessings of obedience, as the Prophet says: “Thine apostasy shall correct thee” (Jeremiah 2:19). So now God’s mercy calls: “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). He says, as it were: you have labored and suffered enough and have experienced the evil results of disobedience, come now and be converted: restore yourselves to life by humility, in place of the arrogance by which you put yourselves to death. “Learn of me; for I am meek and lowly of heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls” (Matthew 11:29).”

“When Saint Anthony saw all the nets of the devil spread out, he sighed and asked God, “Who can escape them?” God answered him, “Humility escapes them” and, what is still more wonderful, added, “They will not even touch it.” Do you see the power of this virtue? Indeed there is nothing stronger than humility, for nothing can conquer it. If some affliction befalls a humble man, he immediately blames himself for deserving it and will not reproach or blame another. Thus he endures everything that may befall (him) untroubled, without grief, with perfect calm; and so he is angered by no one and angers none.”

“The two kinds of humility… The first humility consists in considering that one’s brother has better judgment and is in all things superior to oneself-or in considering oneself below all men. The second humility consists in ascribing one’s achievements to God. This is the perfect humility of the Saints.”

“No one can describe in words what humility is and how it is born in the soul, unless he learns this from experience. From words alone no one can know it. One day Abba Zossima was speaking of humility, when a sophist who was present asked him: “Do you not know that you have virtues? After all, you see that you are obeying the commandments: how then in that case do you regard yourself as a sinner?” The staretz could not find how to answer him but said simply, “I do not know what to say to you, but I consider myself a sinner.” And when the sophist went on bothering him with the question “How?”, the staretz continued to repeat the same thing: “I know not how, but I truly regard myself such. Do not confuse me.” Or again, when Abba Agathon was nearing death the brethren asked him, “Are you not afraid, father?” He answered, “As far as I could I have made myself keep the commandments, but I am a man, and how can I know whether what I have done is pleasing to God. For God’s judgment is one thing and man’s another.”

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“The closer we are to God, the closer we become to one another. And the closer we are to one another, the closer we become to God.”

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The Will of God & Our Conscience

“Have you seen a fallen person? Know that he followed his own will.”

“In creating man God implanted in him something Divine – a certain thought, like a spark, having both light and warmth, a thought which illumines the mind and shows what is good and what bad. This is called conscience and it is a natural law. By following this law – conscience – the Patriarchs and all the Saints pleased God, even before the law was written. But when, through the fall, men covered up and trampled down conscience, there arose the need of written law, of the Holy Prophets, of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, to uncover and raise it up, to rekindle this buried spark by the keeping of His Holy Commandments. So not it is in our power either to bury it again or to let it shine in us and illumine us, if we obey. When our conscience tells us to do something and we disregard it, and when it tells us again but we continue to trample on it and not act on it, we bury it. Then it can no longer speak to us clearly for the weight which presses upon it, but like a lamp shining behind a curtain it begins to show us things more and more dimly. Just as no one can recognize their face in water muddied with slime, so we, after transgression, fail to apprehend the voice of conscience, so that it seems to us not to exist in us at all. Conscience is called the adversary, because it always opposes our evil will; it reminds us of what we ought to do but do not, and condemns us if we do something we ought not. That was why the Lord called it adversary and commanded us: “Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him” (Matthew 5:25), that is, while you are in this world, as Basil the Great says. So let us guard our conscience, while we are in this world; let us not allow it to accuse us in something, nor disregard it in anything however small. For you must realize that from disregarding this small and insignificant thing we pass to neglect of big things. If someone begins to say “What does it matter if I eat this scrap? What of it if I look at this or that?”, then from this “What matters this, what matters that?” he will fall into a bad habit and will begin to neglect big and important things and trample down his conscience. Thus becoming hardened in evil, he will be in danger of falling into complete insensitivity.

“Because we become careless about our own faults and do nothing lament our own death. we lose the power to correct ourselves and we are always at work on our neighbour.”

“When we do not reveal our thoughts and intentions and do not seek the counsel of the experienced, we hold on to our own will and follow our own justifications. Then, apparently doing something good, we spread nets for ourselves, and so without realizing it we perish. For how can we understand the will of God or completely surrender ourselves to it, when we trust ourselves and cling to our own will? Therefore Abba Pimen said that “our will is a brass wall between man and God.”

“It is God, Who is merciful and grants everyone what he needs, Who is building him up when He gives him more than he needs; in doing so He shows the abundance of His love for men and teaches him to give thanks. When He does not grant him what he needs, He makes him compensate for the thing he needs through the working of the mind and teaches him patience.”

“The Fathers said that man acquires the fear of God if he keeps death and torments in his memory, if each evening he questions himself as to how he spent the day, and each morning how he passed the night, if he is not presumptuous and, finally, if he remains in close communion with a man who fears God. For they relate that once a certain brother asked a staretz, “What should I do, father, in order to fear God?” The staretz answered, “Go, live with a man who fears God; and by the very fact that he fears God, he will teach you too to fear Him.” We repel the fear of God from ourselves by doing everything contrary to what has been said-we have neither memory of death nor memory of torments, we have no attention on ourselves and do not question ourselves about how we spend out time, but live heedlessly and commune with men who have no fear of God, and we are presumptuous. This last is the worst of all-it is utter ruin-for nothing drives the fear of God away from the soul more than presumptuousness. Abba Agathon, when asked about it, once said, “Presumptuousness is like a strong scorching wind, from which all flee when it begins to blow, and which kills all the fruit on the trees.” May God save us from this all-destructive passion-presumptuousness.”

“The devil trips up as he likes the man who trusts his own mind and keeps to his own will. But he has no access to a man who does everything with counsel. That is why he hates questions and the guidance in response, hates the very voice, the very sound of such words. Is it not clear why? Because he knows that his evil wiles will at once be exposed when people begin to ask questions and talk of useful things. And there is nothing he fears more than being exposed, for then he can no longer be wily as he wills. When a man asks and hears the advice of someone experienced, “do this, but do not do that” or, “now is not the time for that” or sometimes “now is the time,” the devil cannot find how to harm or bring him down, since he always seeks counsel and protects himself on all sides. So the saying “in much counsel there is safety” is fulfilled for him.”

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Passions & Sins

“In His loving-kindness God has given us purifying Commandments so that, if we wish, we can by their observance be cleansed not only of sins but also of passions themselves. For passions are one thing and sins another. Passions are: anger, vanity, love of pleasures, hatred, evil lust and the like. Sins are the actual operations of passions, when a man puts them into practice, that is, performs with the body the actions to which his passions urge him. For it is possible to have passions and yet not to act from them.”

“The (old) Law had as its purpose to teach us not to do what we did not want done to us; consequently it forbade only the actual doing of evil. Now however (in the New Testament) we are required to banish the passion itself, which urges us to do evil-hatred itself, love of pleasures, love of fame, and other passions.”

“Sin has no existence or substance of its own but is brought into existence through our own carelessness and again through our correction it is destroyed and loses its existence. Virtue or vice are formed in the Soul by repeated actions. When we carry out what is good, we generate for ourselves a habit of virtue – that is, we take up a state proper to our nature, we return to a state of health. Vice is foreign to us, something unnatural. A man with a single passion, set into a habit, is destined to punishment. We must go on fighting and Praying to God night and day lest we fall into temptation.”

“Thus they not only kept the Commandments, but also brought gifts to God. Commandments are given to all Christians and it is the duty of every Christian to obey them. It is the same as the tribute that in the world is due to the king. But as in the world there are great and distinguished people, who not only pay tribute to the king but also bring gifts to him for which they are granted special honours, reward and rank, so too the Fathers not only paid tribute to God by obeying the Commandments, but also brought Him gifts, such as virginity and poverty, which are not commandments but acts of their own will. For it is said of the first: “He that is able to receive it, let him receive it” (Matthew 19:12), and of the second: “If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give it to the poor” (Matthew 19:21).”

“Enough about sobriety in eating. We must not only keep a sharp watch over our diet, but keep away from all other kinds of sin so that as our stomach keeps fast, so also may our tongue as we abstain from calumny, from deceit, from idle talk, from railing and anger and all other vices which arise from the tongue. So also let our eyes keep fast. No looking for trivialities, no letting the eyes wander freely, no impudent lying in wait for people to talk to. The same with the hands and feet, to prevent them from doing anything evil. Fasting in this way, as Saint Basil says, is an acceptable fast and, leaving behind all the evil to which our senses are inclined, we may come to the Holy Day of the Resurrection, renewed and clean and worthy to share in the Holy Mysteries, as we have already said.”

“When the time came to eat food, Abba Dorotheos said to him: “Eat until you are full, only tell me how much you eat.” He came and said to him: “I ate a loaf and a half of bread, and in a loaf there are three pounds.” Abba Dorotheos asked him: “Was this enough for you, Dositheos?” He replied: “Yes, my lord, this was enough for me.” The Abba asked him: “Are you not hungry?” Then Abba Dorotheos said to him: “No, master, I am not hungry.” Then Abba Dorotheos said to him: “Next time eat one loaf, and divide the other half-loaf into halves; eat one quarter, and the other quarter divide in two, and eat one half.” Dositheos did as he was told. When Abba Dorotheos asked him: “Are you hungry, Dositheos?” he replied, “Yes, lord, a little hungry.” In a few days he again said to him: “How is it with you, Dositheos, do you continue to feel hungry?” He answered, “No, lord, by your Prayers all is well with me.” The Abba said to him: “Then put aside also the other half of the quarter.” He did this. Again in a few days Abba Dorotheos asked of him: “How is it with you now, Dositheos, are you not hungry?” he replied: “It is well with me, lord.” The Abba said to him: “Divide the other quarter also in two, and eat half, and leave half.” He did this. And thus with God’s help, little by little, from four and a half pounds he stopped at eight ounces; for, consumption of food is also a matter of habit.”