Where Heaven Touched Earth: An Orthodox Christian Guide to the Holy Land

The Official Website of the RTOC Diocese of Pallini & Western Europe
The Official Website of the RTOC Diocese of Pallini & Western Europe


There is a great treasure in the Orthodox spiritual tradition that is always near us, yet which we so often neglect: noetic prayer—the gathering of the mind into the heart and its turning continually toward God. The Holy Fathers speak…

by Priest Marco Mannino-Giorgi On the day of the Transfiguration of Our Lord Jesus Christ, we see the priest bless the grapes and distribute them to the people of God. But where does this practice originate? The blessing of fruit…

The Seven Holy Sleepers of Ephesus: A Witness to the Resurrection There are places in the Holy Land and throughout the ancient Christian world where history and the living faith of the Church seem to meet in a particularly powerful…

“Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.” — Psalm 22 (23):4 There is something striking in these words of the Psalmist. We might expect him to say, “Thy mercy and Thy love comfort me,” or “Thy protection and Thy…

It’s trendy for sure!

There is a sin that is rarely named in confession. It is not because it is uncommon. Quite the opposite. It is woven into so much of our daily life that we hardly recognize it as a sin at all.…

With sorrow but with the joyful hope in resurrection in Christ, we announce the falling asleep in the Lord of our beloved sister in Christ, Vera Smolonogova of Sydney, Australia. Vera was a dear and faithful sister, beloved by so…

There is a strange thing about the spiritual life that we often forget: the presence of temptation does not mean that we have already fallen. In fact, sometimes the very temptation that makes us feel weak can become the occasion…

We hear it constantly. “Life is a matter of choices.” At first glance, it sounds profound. It is repeated in motivational speeches, business seminars, and self-help books. Success or failure, happiness or misery—it is all reduced to the choices we…