“’Apart from Me, you can do nothing (Jn 15:5). Well, we might say, what do you mean? People are constantly doing all kinds of things—building gigantic buildings, sending people into space, conquering nations; all sorts of things are going on in the world, seemingly apart from Christ. But our Lord means that we can do nothing that has any eternal durability, that passes from this life into the next, apart from Him. Everything that we do apart from Christ perishes.”

(Homily from the ‘Burning Bush’ monastery journal)