Lectures: Sacraments of Healing by Bishop Kallistos Ware

Bishop Kallistos in Vézelay

Here are transcriptions of Bishop Kallistos’ six lectures given in April 1999 at the Orthodox Peace Fellowship retreat in Vézelay. Please note that these are not to be published elsewhere without the permission of Bishop Kallistos and the Orthodox Peace Fellowship.

• First lecture: Glorify God with your body: the healing of the whole person
• Second lecture: The passions: enemy or friend?
• Third lecture: Approaching Christ the Physician: confession and anointing
• Fourth lecture: In peace let us pray to the Lord: peace and healing in the Liturgy
• Fifth lecture: Let us go forth in peace: healing in the parish, the local Church, between Churches and in the world
• Sixth lecture: A peaceful ending to our life: bodily death as an experience of healing

Glorify God with your Body

Sacraments of Healing: In April 1999, at the end of Bright Week, Bishop Kallistos of Diokleia led a retreat for members of the Orthodox Peace Fellowship. Our host was the parish of St. Etienne and St. Germain in the village of Vezelay, France. This is the first of six lectures…

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The Passions: Enemy or Friend?

Orthodox Peace Fellowship retreat in Vézelay, April 1999 / second lecture by Bishop Kallistos

Consider the word “wonder.” We have come to a place full of wonder, this ancient pilgrimage town of Vezelay. I can recall very vividly my first visit here when I was a student at university. It was in the year 1954. I was traveling with a party of fellow students in a lorry. It was from the back of that lorry …

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Approaching Christ the Physician

The True Meaning of Confession and Anointing

My theme this afternoon is “Coming to Christ, the Good Physician.” And I’ll be speaking about confession chiefly. But I’ll be looking at it as a sacrament of …

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In Peace Let Us Pray to the Lord: Peace & Healing in the Divine Liturgy

Orthodox Peace Fellowship retreat in Vézelay, April 1999 / fourth lecture by Bishop Kallistos

This afternoon I spoke about the sacrament of Confession. Tonight, I would like to say something about the Holy Eucharist

Let me begin with two words. The first is from 19th century Russia, St. John of Kronstadt: “The Eucharist is a continual miracle.” And my second word …

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Let Us Go Forth in Peace

Healing in the Parish, Local Church and in the World

Our theme is the liturgy after the Liturgy.

I’m reminded of Tolstoy’s story, called The Three Hermits. Do you know it?

Once upon a time there was a bishop traveling from Archangelsk to the Solovyetski Islands on the White Sea. And in the middle of the morning, the captain pointed …

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A peaceful ending to our life

Bodily death as an experience of healing

Our theme during these days together has been to explore peace understood in terms of healing, of wholeness. So we looked at the wholeness of the human person in my first two talks, and the third we began to speak of the sacraments, and of …

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