Joy of All Who Sorrow Orthodox Monastery

03/19/2026

This is worth watching:

What does Orthodox Christianity teach about the human soul?Is the soul damaged by sin—or destroyed? Is salvation forgiveness alone, or healing and transforma...

01/01/2026

Wishing everyone a healthy, joyful, prosperous, and blessed New Year.

You are warmly invited to visit the monastery website and sign up for Daily Readings. Each day you will receive the Scripture readings, the fasting guidance for the day, and brief reflections on some of the major saints being commemorated, according to either the Julian or Gregorian calendar.

Daily notifications are available by email and/or SMS, making it easy to stay grounded in prayer and the rhythm of the Church throughout the year.

Julian Gregorian Thursday, December 19, 2026 (Julian Calendar) Thursday of the 30th week after Pentecost Nativity Fast Wine and Oil are Allowed ► Free Sign Up for Audio & Daily Delivery Commemorations Martyr Boniface and Righteous Aglaida Scripture Readings Heb 10.35-11.7 ▼ ► (Epistle) 35 Cast...

12/05/2025

Much has happened at the monastery since the last post, in June of 2022, when this page was hijacked. Now that control has been restored to the monastery, some more frequent updates will follow. The most important item is to invite all Facebook visitors also to visit the new monastery website at www.joyofallwhosorrowmonastery.org, which is up but still in the process of being completed. There will be found more resources for visitors, as time goes on.

An Orthodox monastery in Tennessee devoted to prayer, repentance, and the worship of God through the Divine Liturgy.

09/07/2022

“The glorified [the saints] have authority in the church because they have a true and unerring knowledge of God. The people who follow the glorified have true faith… The glorified are the unerring teachers in the church and we rely on their teaching in order that we too may know God by experience... Since the glorified are authoritative teachers, when assembled in local and ecumenical councils, they formulate the teaching of the church unerringly and with divine inspiration… this is the perspective from which we should view the virtue of obedience. We do not obey every teaching that comes along. We obey the glorified, who have experience of God, because in this way obedience will lead to glorification and participation in the uncreative glory of God… Obedience to those initiated by experience is necessary for progress towards glorification. This does not mean that the canonical institution of the church is undermined or overlooked.” - Metropolitan Herotheos Vlachos

Those who know about God through the glorified have correct faith in God… Correct faith in God, however, does not mean knowledge of God. Knowing God face-to-face is different from believing correctly in God because we have the glorified as our guides. It is like the students of astronomy in relation to the expert astronomer who looks through the telescope. Exactly the same relationship exists… In the Orthodox Church obedience was never interpreted as blind obedience to someone in authority by reason of ordination, because someone is a bishop or someone is an Abbot. No! Authority is spiritual authority. When someone is glorified or illumined and is skilled in guiding other people in a therapeutic treatment, we are obedient to him in order to learn the method, until we reach a certain point ourselves. We will obey someone like that, but not just anyone… These [the Saints] are the living sermons of Orthodoxy. Orthodoxy is always based on the lives of the saints. The calendar of saints is the backbone of Orthodox theology.” - Fr. John Romanides

From: Empirical Dogmatics, pages 336-338.

06/23/2022

05/15/2022

In our lives on this earth, the lobby of Heaven, are we not like these invalids at the pool? Are we not waiting like them for some Angel of God to perform a miracle that will make us see, hear and live?