St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite on Inappropriate Ways To Celebrate Pascha

By St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite

Now, my Christian brethren, do you bear it in your soul, instead of thanking and glorifying the sweetest Jesus Christ, and God the Father your Creator, you dishonor Him and intimidate Him with the demonic acts which you do on the day of His Resurrection? He endured so much to free you from sin, and you again bring it back to life? He resurrected to raise you from evil, and you again fall? And when? On the same days on which He raised you. O great ingratitude! O unheard of hard-hearted Christians!

You who throughout Holy Great Lent and Holy Week lift up your hands and pray and do your cross, and when Pascha comes, you dare to make those hands instruments of sin, playing tambourines and lyres and other diabolical games?

You who with your tongue and lips commune of the Body and Blood of Christ and chant such spiritual and divine songs on the day of Pascha, and after with the same tongue and lips sing pornographic and diabolic songs?

Holy New Martyr Anastasios of Nafplion (+ 1655)

St. Anastasios of Nafplion (Feast Day - February 1 and June 4)

By St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite

Verse

The limbs of your flesh were cut Anastasios,

Like bread you will rise in the eschaton.

Anastasios, the holy neomartyr, was born and reared in Nafplion of the Peloponnese. He was a painter by trade. In his homeland, he was betrothed to the daughter of a a certain Christian. However, a few days later, he heard of some faults of his fiancee, and he dissolved the engagement. The parents of his former betrothed (not being firmly grounded in Christianity) took recourse in the magic arts to inveigle him into loving her and joining her in wedlock. Consequently, within a short period of time, the charm began to take effect and the young man went completely mad, roaming about aimlessly. The Hagarenes noticed this behavior and took advantage of his insanity, making him a Muslim by circumcision. Despite this, God pitied Anastasios, and, in a matter of days, He granted him complete restoration of his mental faculties. When Anastasios regained his senses and saw that he was wearing a white turban on his head like the Muslims, he shouted without hesitation into a crowd of Turks: "I was a Christian, I am a Christian, and a Christian I will always be!"

St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite on Vampirism

Canon 66 of St. Basil the Great

A grave-robber shall remain excluded from Communion for ten years.

Footnote to this Canon by St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite

It is fitting that we add in the present footnote how great condemnation those priests or laymen deserve who open graves in order to find, as they say, the Vrykolakas*, as they call them, and put them to death.