“Vladyka, you witnessed the collapse of something everyone thought unshakable. Rome had stood for a thousand years. How do you go on living when stability itself has become a thing of the distant past?

“the Dormition calls every Orthodox Christian to prepare for the passage from earthly life to heavenly life

Patriarch Daniel ›

Reported

“However much we may avoid this thought, each of us is moving towards the day when we will leave this world. But the Christian does not ask only: How will I die? The far more important question is: How do I live before I die?

“The question is not whether to love it, but how to love it rightly. Our citizenship is in heaven, says the Apostle, and from there we await the Savior. Remembering this does not mean despising the earth. It means refusing to demand from it what it could never give us in the first place – an unshakable foundation.

Blessed Augustine ›

Bishop

Direct quote

“The Christian passes in soul from transient earthly life to eternal heavenly life while awaiting the resurrection of the dead—that is, eternal life for the body as well

“not to corruption, but to life; not to despair, but to Resurrection; not to isolation, but to eternal communion in the Kingdom.