If we ask what eternal life is, Jesus gives us the answer: “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” Jesus speaks here about eternal life which is connected with the knowing of God the Father, and with the knowing of Jesus Christ. We may know God – Jesus Christ even now in prayer, in reading the Gospel, in suffering and especially when we renounce our own will and make an act of love by accepting the will of God by faith and in self-surrender. Jesus spoke about eternal life even before, when He said: The Father has given the Son authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as He has given Him.

During the prayer stops we can think particularly of the words: “know You”.

This whole system of Feng-Shui is tied up with pagan magic practices and with false faith focused on a number of absurdities through which man is deceived, bound and promised false happiness and false prosperity. It does not say a single word about eternity, conscience or morality. One only speaks about spirituality, about harmony with so-called “ch’i” energy, and that according to yin and yang philosophy. It is a whole system of lie. Certain objects are attributed spiritual power. Those who are just superficial Christians let themselves be deceived by these massmedia-advertised practices.

The root of paganism is an effort to find favour with “a deity” or to get harmonized with so-called energies – demons. However, who meets with Christ’s Gospel, the life of the one undergoes a radical change. The one transforms one’s mind and believes in the Gospel (cf. Mk 1:15).

Nowadays paganism is carrying out an effective mission in Europe which has fallen away from the living Christianity.

+ Elijah
Patriarch of the Byzantine Catholic Patriarchate

What accord has Christ with Belial? We can never say that Christianity and paganism are equal ways to salvation! Salvation is only in Jesus. If pagan ways led to salvation, Christ would not have come to our earth and died for our sins. But, as the Scripture says, He came and endured pain, suffering and humiliation to save us and to deliver us from darkness and from the slavery of the devil. Today the exact opposite is being proclaimed. This being the case, mission becomes pointless. It is not even possible to carry out any mission, nor are we allowed to say who we are because pagans, as the saying goes, would take offence. 20 years ago, an editor of a Catholic magazine in USA was prohibited from publishing an article about the conversion of a Buddhist because the editor-in-chief told him that such article dishonoured other religions. So if someone converts to Christianity, it reportedly offends pagans. And it was no atheistic magazine! What destructive manipulation of human minds!

+ Elijah
Patriarch of the Byzantine Catholic Patriarchate

We need to know the essence so that we may be witnesses in the place where we are. Everyone should ask for the power of the Holy Spirit to be an evangelist, teacher or prophet at a particular place. An evangelist preaches the Gospel in power. A teacher interprets Scripture. A prophet is the one who sees and points out the essence of things. There is a so-called law of spiritual entropy. An example is the people of Israel. The Israelites came out of Egypt but then returned to their idols. As soon as Moses went up to the mountain, they made for themselves a metal bull calf. This is the picture of our old self: it is eager to bow before sin and demons, even to make sacrifices or observe fasts… For example, some Indian gurus are skin and bone, but not for the sake of Christ and for the salvation of their soul. They are stimulated by their pride and by demons to whom they opened. In contrast to them, we must be full of the Holy Spirit, we must be witnesses to Christ, we must have a sense of the essence. We shape our environment above all by the example of our life.

We must receive the Word of God as the Word of God, the simple truths of the Gospel of God as they are presented to us by Jesus. The apostles were no theologians. They were simple fishermen. But the whole world was saved through their preaching. Human pride and philosophizing is absurd. The Word of God is connected with mystery. Human reason must be conformed to the Word of God, then it can govern the will, and emotions come last. If we reverse the order and cast away the relationship with God founded on faith, everything in our life is turned upside down. This is the result of our pride. Many people have no experience of spiritual battle and of the cunning of human nature but they set norms and invent theories without ever trying them out in practice.

+ Elijah
Patriarch of the Byzantine Catholic Patriarchate

What is it in us!? Conscience, the voice of God, on the one hand and the poison of sin on the other. If people hear lies, they gladly believe in them. On the other hand, they keep questioning the truth. They even question the truths of our salvation – maybe it is true, maybe not… Our attitude must be unwavering: “Jesus said it and it is true! I won’t invent anything! He who believes will be saved; but he who does not believe will go to hell.” And what to say to those who speculate or to Jehovah’s Witnesses if they ask: “And what about hell? What is it like?” Say simply: “You’ll see for yourself when you are there! Don’t ask me; I’ve never been there and I don’t want to go there either!”

“Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said:

“Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You.””

“Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said:

“Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You.”

Jesus closes His intimate words to the apostles with a prayer. He spoke about a deep mystery related to the Holy Spirit, about the life of the Triune God in us, about the promise that the Father will hear a prayer in the name of Jesus, about the greatest love which we can show for our friends when we lay down our life for them, and about other deep mysteries.

“Jesus spoke these words…” It concerns the words in chapters 13-16. “…lifted up His eyes to heaven…” Jesus thus sets an example to us. We must lift up our eyes to heaven too. We often look down or fix our eyes on vanity or even sin. Jesus said: “Father, the hour has come.” What hour? The hour of Jesus, the hour of His physical and mental suffering and of His death in disgrace on the cross.

+ Elijah
Patriarch of the Byzantine Catholic Patriarchate

29 May 2015

To the Irish nation

On 22 May 2015, Ireland held a referendum in which the nation voted of their own free will for the legalization of gay and lesbian marriages. The referendum had a turnout of 60.5%. Thus the Irish nation chose to go to its doom. God’s Word clearly says that for the sin of homosexuality, Sodom and Gomorrah were punished with fire from heaven and that this punishment is a warning to all nations (Jud 7). What is worse, however, is eternal fire after death which awaits those who received this spirit. To what extent the public was manipulated – as it was stated even by some MEPs – should be discussed by competent people. We point out in the first place the crimes within the Church – heresies, syncretism with paganism and denial of God’s laws.

The Church hierarchy is most to blame for the moral catastrophe in Ireland, as they did not punish paedophilia among priests who worked in educational institutions for youth. In recent decades, the spiritual infection of heresies progressed. These heresies deny the Divinity of Christ, His redemptive death on the cross (e.g. Archbp. Zollitsch), real and historical resurrection of Christ, the inspiration of the Holy Scripture.

One can live in a community which has received the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, who wants to guide us into all truth (“When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth”) and yet one can become withdrawn and not let oneself be influenced by the community. Jesus says: “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will do it! He will guide you into all truth!” And what are the fundamental and full truths of the Gospel? It is above all the truth that we are sinners enslaved by the old self, flesh, world and devil. People do not want to hear it and think they are free.

“These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace.

In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

True happiness on this earth does not lie in abundance of property, wealth or career but in true peace. We can find this peace only in Christ. Supposing we seek it somewhere else or in someone else, we will not find it. We can by no means find this peace in the world. In the world we will only have tribulation. We must know it. There is no peace in the glory of the world, in vanity or in sin. If someone lives without Christ, he may look peaceful and be always smiling but such peace is just a piece of play-acting, deceit! One serious thought of death and God’s judgment, and everything comes apart at the seams.