“When the Theotokos dominates within us, then she strengthens us,” Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens and all Greece said from the Church of the Dormition of Panagia Chrysospiliotissa in Aiolou Str., where he performed the sacrament of Holy Communion in the morning.
The temple observed all the necessary protection measures against the novel coronavirus, while the faithful came keeping the prescribed distances and using masks.
During his sermon, the Archbishop stated that “if we had the opportunity to spread the wings of our imagination where there are Orthodox Christians, we would see countless people climbing mountains to find pilgrimages dedicated to the Theotokos, to praise her, to glorify her.”
He pointed out that “the fathers of the church, when they think and reflect on what the Theotokos offered to the world and to each of us individually, take another person through the life of the Church, Eve, and make a comparison. They are two personalities that respond differently to God’s call and live differently. So we have the first thought: Where does Eva live and where does the Theotokos. And the first difference: In the way they deal with the will and communication with God. Eva, while living privilegedly in paradise, rebelled. The Theotokos, for her part, who grew up in a difficult place, in Nazareth, did not deny the words of the Archangel.”