Should We Believe in Luck? Are There Unlucky and Lucky People?

Should We Believe in Luck? Are There Unlucky and Lucky People?

By Archimandrite Athanagoras Karamantzanes

For Christianity and our Orthodox Church, luck does not exist. Nowhere in Holy Scripture or in the entire body of Patristic literature is belief in luck taught. The word luck expresses nothing other than our ignorance of the causes of the phenomena or events of life. There is no goddess and no blind force called luck (τύχη). Whatever appears to us as accidental or coincidental always springs from a deeper cause.

When we say that an event is due to luck, it is merely a manner of speaking, and we mean nothing more than that its cause was unknown to us — not that luck is the cause of things. That is why someone once said: “Luck is perhaps the pseudonym of God, when He does not wish to put His signature.”

But then what does exist? The Providence of our Almighty, All-wise, and All-good God, which is expressed as the uncreated energy of creation, preservation, and governance of the visible and invisible world. Through the Providence of God, every created being is helped to fulfill the purpose for which it was created. In the Old Testament we read: “For Your providence, O Father, governs all things, because You have given even in the sea a way and amid the waves a safe path, showing that You are able to save from every danger” (Wisdom of Solomon 14:3).

What is Fortune Telling?

By St. Nikolai Velimirovich

What is fortune telling? There are three kinds of belief, which have their origin in fortune telling: belief in blind chance, belief in things and belief in the almighty power of the spirits of darkness. Through fortune telling, events are prophesied, the power of things differentiated and an oath is sworn to the spirits of darkness.

Not any faith so decisively condemned and rejected fortune telling as did the Christian faith. Not any faith, except Christianity is free and pure of fortune telling. Other faiths are, more or less, fortune telling and some consist only of fortune telling.

Saint Paisios the Athonite on Sorcery

Having spoken to you many times about Paradise, the Angels and the Saints so that you may be helped, I shall now also say a few words about Hell and the demons, so that you can be aware of who we're fighting against: again, so that you may be helped.

A young sorcerer from Tibet once visited me at my cell and told me a lot of things about his life. This child, no sooner was he weaned from his mother than his father dedicated it - at the age of three - to a group of thirty, high-ranking sorcerers in Tibet, in order to initiate it in their art. He reached the eleventh degree of sorcery - the twelfth being the highest. At the age of sixteen he left Tibet and went to Sweden, to see his father. While there, he happened to meet an Orthodox priest - a very devout one - and invited him to a conversation. In the room where they had sat down to talk, he began to do some of his magic, in order to show the priest his powers. He invoked an initial(1) demon, Menas, and said to it: "I want water". A glass rose up from the kitchen, it went to the tap on its own, the tap came on, it filled the glass with water, then it passed through the glass screen and entered the room they were in. He took the glass and drank the water. Then he "showed" the priest all the universe: the skies, the stars, etc. He used magic of the fourth degree and intended to continue, up to the eleventh degree. He asked the priest what he thought of all those things.

On Astrology, Fortune-Tellers and Mediums

By Archimandrite Vasilios Bakoyiannis

ASTROLOGY

This can be divided into two categories: a) The Zodiac: this has to do with the month in which we are born and b) Horoscopes: these are our everyday almanacs that depend on the position of the stars.

The Zodiac

Description: There are twelve signs (one for each month). They are called Libra, Scorpio, Aries and so on. People who concern themselves with these believe that: depending on the month in which you were born, you will belong to a certain zodiac sign. And depending on the sign you belong to, you’ll have the particular character that goes with it. In other words, what you are doesn’t depend on you but on your zodiac sign. The influence of each sign begins on the 21st of each month and runs through to the 20th of the following month. Scorpio, for example, belongs to November. Its “reign” begins on October 21st and ends on November 20th. So if you were born during that period (even at one minute past twelve on the morning of October 21st), then you’ll have the character associated with Scorpio, the main feature of which is treachery! Naturally, it’s hardly your fault that you’re like this. You’re the victim! Your sign is to blame, the moment of your birth. If only your mother had gone into labor a bit earlier and you would have been born at one minute before 12 on October 20th, and you would have been a Libra. Then you would have been different as a person and had a different character. You would have been straightforward and kind, all because of your good zodiac sign.