A great man is one who collects knowledge the way a bee collects honey and uses it to help people overcome the difficulties they endure - hunger, ignorance and disease!
- Nikola Tesla
Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.
- Franklin Roosevelt
While their territory has been devastated and their homes despoiled, the spirit of the Serbian people has not been broken.
- Woodrow Wilson
Miloš Milorad Velimirović (December 10, 1922 – April 18, 2008) was an American musicologist. Twice a recipient of a Fulbright fellowship, he was considered an international expert in the areas of Byzantine music, the history of Slavonic music, and the history of Italian opera in the 18th century.
Velimirović was born in Belgrade, Serbia, to Milorad and Desanka (Jovanović) Velimirović, a physician and a piano teacher respectively. In his boyhood in Serbia, he learned to play the violin and piano. He was gifted with the ability to learn multiple languages, in addition to a lifelong passion for music. During his adolescent years he studied music history and music theory. Velimirović began a program of studies in music history at the University of Belgrade, also studying violin and piano at the conservatory. In 1941, with the invasion of the Axis powers, the university was closed, and Velimirović's studies there were suspended until after the war.
by Archimandrite Aimilianos of Simonopetra
Publisher’s note
Many readers of the addresses of Elder Aimilianos, which have been published in the five-volume series, rchimandrite Aimilianos, Spiritual Instructions and Discourses (Ormylia, 1998-2003), have frequently expressed the wish for an abridged and more accessible form of his teaching. In response, we are happy to inaugurate a new series of publications incorporating key texts from the above-mentioned collection. Other considerations have also contributed o this new project, such as the selection of specific texts which address important, contemporary questions; the need for a smaller, more reader-friendly publication format; and the necessity for editing certain passages in need of clarification, without however altering their basic meaning.
Above all, the works collected in this volume reflect the importance which the Elder consistently attached to prayer, spirituality, community life, worship, and liturgy. Thus the experientially based works "On Prayer", and "The Prayer of the Holy Mountain", which deal primarily with the Prayer of the Heart, appear first, followed by the summary addresses on "The Divine Liturgy", and "Our Church Attendance". These are in turn followed by the more socially oriented discourses on "Our Relations with Our Neighbor", and "Marriage: The Great Sacrament". Finally, the present volume closes with the sermons on "Spiritual Reading" and "The Spiritual Life", which in a simple and yet compelling manner set forth the conditions for "ascending to heaven on the wings of the Spirit".
It is our hope that The Church at Prayer will meet the purpose for which it is issued and will serve as a ready aid and support for those who desire God and eternal life in Him.