Hamzali ( 09.04.2005 )
In the male monastery of Saints Clement and Nahum of Ohrid in Hamzali today Divine Liturgy was celebrated by Metropolitan Nahum of Strumica and the hieromonks superiors of the monastic brotherhoods of the monasteries in the diocese: the hieromonk George, the hieromonk Arsenius, and the hieromonk Agathon. At the Liturgy were commemorated the recently killed Goran Georgievski and Nenad Velkovski the Lord to rest their souls. The present faithful partook of the Holy Mysteries of Christ.
“When every passion indwelt in the soul is removed from it, and the mind returns to itself, collecting fully all the other powers of the soul as well, then the mind by fulfilling the virtues makes the soul also virtuous, progressing toward ever greater perfection, tending to a further ascent (cf. Ps. 84:5). Moreover, cleansing and washing itself with God’s help the mind not only purifies from demonic deposits, but it also removes from itself all else, even what seems valuable and reasonable. When it ascends beyond all spiritual (intelligible) and beyond the notions of fantasy for itself, denying all for the love and fear of God, then, as said, it stands “deaf and soundless” before God. At that moment it goes beyond the law of the matter and unhindered it assumes its most sublime form, free from all external. This is made possible by the grace within, which transforms into better, and what is more wondrous, with ineffable light illumines the soul’s interior and perfects the inner man.” (Saint Gregory Palamas, On Passions and Virtues, on Fruits of Noetic Stillness)
