Tag: Starets Zosima

She Gave an Onion

Dostoevsky was concerned lest his depiction be considered blasphemous, and he thus includes in his postscript “one small nota bene: please don’t imagine that I would allow myself, in a work of mine, even the…

Today’s One-Liner (#273)

I looked with deep tenderness, and for the first time in my  life I consciously received the first seed of the word of God in my soul.  ––Starets Zosima, in Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

It’s Not Easy

But the love revealed in Jesus, simple as it sounds, is terribly arduous. That is why the history of our faith so often reads like a history of our resistance to love. Give us rules….

Today’s One-Liner (#242)

Brothers, do not be afraid of men’s sin, love man also in his sin, for this likeness of God’s love is the height of love on earth. –Zosima, in Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

Today’s One-Liner (#238)

And every day, down to this day, I have remembered the long-suffering servant of God, Mikhail, in my prayers. –Starets Zosima, in Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

Love Is Labor

I am sorry that I cannot say anything more comforting, for active love is a harsh and fearful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams thirsts for immediate action, quickly performed, and with…

A Note from Natalie Long

I’m reading “The Sayings of the Desert Fathers”. This excerpt, recounted in the section on Abba Poemen, reminded me of Father Zossima. 34. Another brother questioned him in these words: What does, “See that none…

Reading “Job”

There were ample precedents in Dostoevsky’s work for his thematic focus on the problem of theodicy raised by Ivan—the problem of the existence of evil and suffering in a world presumably created by a God…

Today’s One-Liner (#60)

Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. –Staretz Zosima, “Of Prayer, Love, and the Touching of Other Worlds,” in Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov Easter morning 2012, Chouteau AvenuePhoto by Andrew Wimmer