St. Diadochos of Photiki – Alana Nickels

Quotes on Orthodoxy / St. Diadochos of Photiki

“Ideas of value always shun verbosity.”

When the door of the steam baths is continually left open, the heat inside rapidly escapes through it; likewise the soul, in its desire to say many things, dissipates its remembrance of God through the door of speech, even though everything it says may be good.
Thereafter the intellect, though lacking appropriate ideas, pours out a welter of confused thoughts to anyone it meets, as it no longer has the Holy Spirit to keep its understanding free from fantasy. Ideas of value always shun verbosity, being foreign to confusion and fantasy.
Timely silence, then, is precious, for it is nothing less than the mother of the wisest thoughts.

– St. Diadochos of Photiki, “On Spiritual Knowledge and Discrimination.” Philokalia, Vol. 1

Featured image: Nun in cemetery, c. 1980s. Photographer Maryna Yurchenko. source

Quotes on Orthodoxy / St. Diadochos of Photiki

“He who only believes and does not love lacks even the faith he thinks he has.”

He who loves God both believes truly and performs the works of faith reverently.
But he who only believes and does not love, lacks even the faith he thinks he has; for he believes merely with a certain superficiality of intellect and is not energized by the full force of love’s glory. The chief part of virtue, then, is faith energized by love.

– St. Diadochos of Photiki, “On Spiritual Knowledge and Discrimination.” Philokalia, Vol. 1

Featured image: From a series of photos of Athonite monks, likely Russian, early 20th c. source

Quotes on Orthodoxy / St. Diadochos of Photiki

“His soul is filled with burning desire that God should be glorified in him.”

I know a man who loves God with great intensity, and yet grieves because he does not love Him as much as he would wish. His soul is ceaselessly filled with burning desire that God should be glorified in him and that he himself should be as nothing. This man does not think of what he is, even when others praise him. In his great desire for humility he does not think of his priestly rank, but performs his ministry as the rules enjoin.
In his extreme love for God, he strips himself of any thought of his own dignity; and with a spirit of humility he buries in the depths of divine love any pride to which his high position might give rise. Thus, out of desire to humble himself, he always sees himself in his own mind as a useless servant, extraneous to the rank he holds. We too should do the same, fleeing all honor and glory in the overflowing richness of our love for the Lord who loves us so greatly.

– St. Diadochos of Photiki, “On Spiritual Knowledge and Discrimination.” Philokalia, Vol. 1

Featured image: Procession in Pribilof Islands, Alaska, 1907.