08/19/2026
READ EVERY LINE, A THOUSAND TIMES! You (and I) will not understand much of this sermon, but it is the best explication of the Light of Tabor, and our destiny, that I have every seen. The homily makes it clear that this light is for all believers, if only we pray! Feast of the Transfiguration, 2026
St. Sophrony (Sakharov)
A HOMILY ON THE TRANSFIGURATION
On the Light of Tabor
Translated from https://predanie.ru/book/220926-rozhdenie-v-carstvo-nepokolebimoe/?chapter=chapter_40
http://www.orthodox.net/sermons/homily-on-the-transfiguration-on-the-light-of-tabor-by-st-sophrony-(sakharov).docx
http://www.orthodox.net/sermons/homily-on-the-transfiguration-on-the-light-of-tabor-by-st-sophrony-(sakharov).pdf
“Behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him.” (Matt. 17:5; Mark 9:7; Luke 9:35)
Today, on the occasion of this great ecclesiastical celebration, a celebration which, as we draw nearer to the completion of our earthly journey, not only does not diminish, but continually increases in its power and significance, we shall, as though forgetting our infirmity, permit ourselves to speak of the uncontainable and never-setting Light which shone forth upon Tabor.
I ask you, at this hour forget my insignificance; close your eyes to my ignorance and coarseness and, if possible, look upon me as one of the “watchmen upon Mount Ephraim,” proclaiming: “Arise ye, and let us go up to Zion unto the Lord our God.”
God, Who “made heaven and earth,” is our God from our mothers’ wombs. After our birth according to the flesh, before we had learned to “discern between our right hand and our left hand,” in the font of Baptism we had already received a second birth, from above, and upon us was invoked the great and terrible Name, even to the heavenly powers themselves, the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
After this we received another priceless gift, of which our soul cannot either speak or think without trembling, namely, the anointing of the Holy Spirit, Whose seal of sanctification was placed upon all the members of our body with the words of the Mystery: “The seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
And thus we became the dwelling place of God Most High, and our bodies “the temple of the Holy Spirit.”
From our infancy we are nourished in the Church by the Divine Body and Blood of Christ. We are His children, flesh of His Flesh and blood of His Blood. From our youth we live in the atmosphere of the Word of God, which opens before us boundless expanses in the knowledge of the beginningless God, our Father, giving us even here a foretaste of the blessedness of eternal abiding with Him and in Him.
In our Church, every day we live amid a certain inexpressible superabundance of every spiritual riches, and the grateful soul is moved to cry out: Truly rich is our God; everywhere present and filling all things, He ceaselessly encompasses us, all and each one.
And yet, notwithstanding all this, we are poor in spirit. Within the bounds of this earth, our hunger for the knowledge of God is insatiable and our thirst unquenchable; for our striving is to attain the Unattainable, to see the Invisible, to know the Boundless.
This striving grows unceasingly in every man when the Light of the Godhead is pleased to illumine him, even by the slightest approach of Itself, for then there is revealed to the eyes of our mind the abyss of darkness in which we abide.
This vision strikes the whole man, and then his soul knows no rest, nor can it have rest, until it is wholly freed from the darkness that encompasses it, until it is satisfied with the Food that can never satiate, until this Light increases within it and is united with it in such a way that Light and soul become one, transforming our poverty into Divine glory.
The Transfiguration of the Lord is the firm foundation of our hope for the transfiguration of our entire life, now filled with toil, sickness, and fear, into a life incorruptible and God-like.
[8/19/2026 5:49 AM] Seraphim Holland: “Of His boundlessness and, consequently, of His ultimate ‘invisibility’ and ultimate ‘unknowability,’ the New Testament says:
‘No man hath seen God at any time.’ (John 1:18)
And elsewhere: ‘God dwelleth in the light which no man can approach unto; Whom no man hath seen, nor can see.’ (1 Tim. 6:16)
“But when philosophers and heretics appeared who asserted the complete knowability of God, then the holy Fathers, in order to cut this mad idea off at its root, returned to the images and language of the Old Testament:
‘And the Lord said unto Moses: Go down, charge the people, lest they break through unto the Lord to gaze... And the people stood afar off, and Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was.’ (Exod. 19:21; 20:21)
“Thus, in order to strike more powerfully the consciousness of these unwise wise men, the Fathers resorted to the word darkness, the word by which the wise Lawgiver Moses restrained his people, still naïve in the knowledge of God, from an irrational impulse to see God.
“And, in order not to depart from the revelation of the New Testament, the Fathers called this darkness most radiant.
“The true path toward the vision of the Divine Light lies through the inner man.
“All our thought, all the power of our desire, must be directed solely toward this: to ‘keep the commandment of God without spot, unrebukeable’ (1 Tim. 6:14).
“Then the Divine Light, as the experience of the ages has shown, at sundry times and in divers manners visits man.
“And no one can ever state the limits of God’s good pleasure toward us, for it is truly boundless.
“And however much man may strive toward God, however intensely he may burn with love for Him, the outpourings of the Light will always remain indefinable and innumerable, for there is no end to them, even when the Light exceeds the powers of our nature to bear its radiance.
“And the one word, the one assertion possible in this matter, is that:
‘God is Light, and in Him is no darkness at all,’
and that:
‘He dwelleth in the light which no man can approach unto,’
and that He always appears in Light and as Light.”
But even at these words the perplexity in my fearful soul was not dispelled.
I saw no path before me.
I did not know how to enter into this life, where to begin.
I felt myself to be in darkness and asked: “What shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?”
And the answer was given to me: “Pray!”
Like St. Gregory Palamas, who for years cried out:
“Lord, enlighten my darkness!” and was heard.
Pray in the words of the Church’s hymn:
“O Giver of Light, may Thine ever-existing Light shine forth also upon me, a sinner.”
And strengthen yourself in faith, remembering that the Church does not pray for what is impossible.
And then that man, as though admitting no possibility that such a prayer could remain unanswered from above, concluded his discourse in this way:
“When thy soul comes to know this Light, then afterward, when thou losest it, thou wilt long for it, and, imitating St. Symeon the New Theologian, thou wilt seek Him and cry out unto Him:
Come, O true Light,
Come, O eternal Life;
Come, O raising of the fallen;
Come, O lifting up of those cast down;
Come, O resurrection of the dead...
Come, O all-holy King,
Come and dwell in us,
And abide in us without departing,
And reign in us without division,
Thou, the Only One, unto the ages of ages.
Amen.
