THIS PANDEMIC IS NOT A CHANCE OCCURRENCE ALLOWED BY GOD, BUT A SIGN OF THE TIMES

Orthodoxia News Agency

This pandemic is not a chance occurrence allowed by God, but a sign of the times; it is a fruit of Divine indignation, as man is doing not what is natural, what is reasonable, but what is absurd and abnormal. Imagine how dismayed the Holy Spirit is, and how God the Father, again in His paternal role – because we should never forget that any tribulation allowed by God is not as executioner, or as an avenger, but allowed as a didactic motivated by love, precisely in order to bring man – the wanderer, the obscured – to bring him, through affliction and misfortune, through this lesson, closer to Him; and for him (man) to comprehend, not through the study of volumes, but in practice, to comprehend he is nothing.

ELDER ARCHIMANDRITE EPHRAIM: PANDEMIC NOT A CHANCE EVENT, BUT A SIGN OF THE TIMES

 Greek-English

Orthodoxia News Agency 

«The pandemic is not a chance event, it is a sign of the times; it’s the product of divine indignation ,» Elder Archimandrite Ephraim, the Abbot of the Holy and Great Monastery of Vatopedi, warned early Saturday morning, after the conclusion of an all-night vigil at the Holy Monastery.

ELDER EPHRAIM OF THE HOLY MOUNTAIN AND ARIZONA

Ιερα Μητρόπολη Ναυπάκτου και Αγίου Βλασίου  

Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and St Vlassios

Translated into English from the original article in Greek:  Ὁ Γέροντας Ἐφραίμ ὁ Ἁγιορείτης καί Ἀριζονίτης

On Saturday 7 December 2019 Elder Ephraim fell asleep in the Lord at the Holy Monastery of St Anthony in Arizona in the USA. His funeral service was held on 11 December 2019 at the same Monastery in the midst of many of his spiritual children, whom he brought to new birth spiritually: clergy, monks and laypeople of all ages and categories.

Ο ΑΜΕΡΙΚΗΣ ΕΛΠΙΔΟΦΟΡΟΣ: «Ο ΓΕΡΩΝ ΕΦΡΑΙΜ ΕΖΗΣΕ ΩΣ ΑΓΙΟΣ ΚΑΙ ΦΕΥΓΕΙ ΩΣ ΑΓΙΟΣ»

Ιερά Μονή Μπίγκορσκι

Αγαπητοί μου αδελφοί,

Σεβασμιώτατε Μητροπολίτα Αγίου Φραγκίσκου κ. Γεράσιμε,

Πανοσιολογιώτατε εκπρόσωπε της Αυτού Θειωτάτη Παναγιώτητος του Οικουμενικού μας Πατριάρχου κ.κ. Βαρθολομαίου,

Άγιοι Καθηγούμενοι, Πατέρες, Οσιολογιώτατες Καθηγούμενες μετά των συνοδιών Σας,

Αγαπητοί μου αδελφοί,

Εάν παρατηρήσει κάποιος από μακριά αυτήν την σύναξη, τόσων πολλών ανθρώπων σήμερα στην Ιερά αυτή Μονή του Αγίου Αντωνίου, εκ πρώτης όψεως θα νομίση ότι πρόκειται περί μιας πανηγύρεως, ότι πρόκειται περί χαράς, ότι πρόκειται περί ενός χαρμοσύνου γεγονότος.