St. Nikolai of Žiča & South Canaan

Quotes on Orthodoxy / St. Nikolai of Žiča & South Canaan

“Consider all men to be your brothers.”

If your heart has been softened either by repentance before God or by learning the boundless love of God towards you, do not be proud with those whose hearts are still hard. Remember how long your heart was hard and incorrigible.
Seven brothers were ill in one hospital. One recovered from his illness and got up and rushed to serve his other brothers with brotherly love, to speed their recovery. Be like this brother. Consider all men to be your brothers, and sick brothers at that. And if you come to feel that God has given you better health than others, know that it is given through mercy, so in health you may serve your frailer brothers.

– St. Nikolai of Žiča & South Canaan

Featured image: On the Suna river. From the Prokudin-Gorskii collection. Photographer: Sergei Mikhailovich, 1863-1944. Library of Congress

Quotes on Orthodoxy / St. Nikolai of Žiča & South Canaan

“How can we hope that God will forgive us…”

Absolutely nothing will help us if we are not lenient toward the weaknesses of men and forgive them. For how can we hope that God will forgive us if we do not forgive others?

– St. Nikolai of Žiča

Quotes on Orthodoxy / St. Nikolai of Žiča & South Canaan

“Why do some envy the evil man when evil is a greater sickness than leprosy?”

Be not envious of evil men (Proverbs 24:1).
Does anyone envy the leper? No one envies him. Why then do some envy the evil man when evil is a greater sickness than leprosy?
Leprosy is a disease of the flesh but evil is a disease of the soul. A leper can be healthy within while he is unhealthy on the outside. However, the evil man can be healthy on the outside but his interior is ill, his heart is sick. Greater value has a tree that is sick on the outside but has a healthy core than a tree that is healthy on the outside but has a rotten core.
Does the physician envy the sick person? He does not envy him. Neither does the righteous one envy the sinner. If you do not know whether you are righteous examine your heart: do you envy the sinner? If you envy the sinner then you are not righteous; if you do not envy the sinner, then rejoice, O righteous one of God. A physician recognizes a fatal illness of his patient and, knowing that, he pities him but does not envy him. The righteous one recognizes the sickness of sin, horrifying and deadly, and does not envy the sinner but pities him.

O good and compassionate Lord, uproot envy from our hearts and implant love. To You be glory and thanks always. Amen.

– St. Nikolai of Žiča

Featured image: St. Nikolai blessing a young child during a visit to London in the early 1950s

Quotes on Orthodoxy / St. Nikolai of Žiča & South Canaan

“Man is more than sublime when he cares for the dead.”

Man is sublime when he cares for the living; man is more than sublime when he cares for the dead. A man often cares for the living out of selfishness. But what selfishness can there be in a man’s caring for the dead? Can the dead pay him, or express their gratitude?
Some animals bury their dead; giving them to the grave, they give them over to forgetfulness. But when a living man buries a dead one, he buries a part of himself with the dead man and returns home carrying a part of the dead man in his soul. This is especially clear – terribly clear – when a kinsman buries a kinsman, and a friend a friend.

– St. Nikolai of Žiča

Featured image: St. Nikolai with soldier, WWII

Quotes on Orthodoxy / St. Nikolai of Žiča & South Canaan

“When people praise you, think how you might worthily bear insult.”

If you become rich, consider whether or not you could worthily bear poverty. If you are happy, imagine how you could worthily meet unhappiness. When people praise you, think how you might worthily bear insult. And, all your life, think how you might worthily meet death.

– St. Nikolai of Žiča & South Canaan, Thoughts on Good & Evil

Featured image: “Silent night in Grabarka, Poland.”

Quotes on Orthodoxy / St. Nikolai of Žiča & South Canaan

“It is not of any value to us how the world is going to regard us.”

We are fools for Christ’s sake (1 Corinthians 4:10).
Thus speaks the great Apostle Paul who in the beginning was guided by worldly wisdom, which is against Christ, until he recognizes the falsehood and decay of the wisdom of the world and the light and stability of the wisdom of Christ. Then, the holy apostle did not become angry with the world because they called him a fool for Christ’s sake. Neither did he, in defiance of the world, hesitate to be called by this name.
It is not of any value to us how the world is going to regard or call us. However, it is important, extremely important, how the holy angels in the heavens will regard and call us when, after death, we meet with them. This is of crucial importance and everything else is nothing.
Whoever does not believe in the Living God, nor in eternal life, nor in the Incarnation of the Lord Christ, nor in Christ’s Resurrection nor in the truth of the Gospel nor in God’s eternal mercy and justice – is it any wonder if he considers that one a fool who does believes in all of this? Let us rejoice and be glad if the non-believers call us such, for that means that we are close to Christ and far away from the non-believers. Let us rejoice and be glad and repeat with a powerful echo in the ears of the world: yes, yes, indeed we are fools for Christ’s sake!

O Lord Most-wise, strengthen us by Your power that we not fear the non-believing world neither when they lash us with whips nor when they insult us with words for Your sake.

– St. Nikolai of Žiča

Featured image: St. Nikolai, in the diocese of Bitola