Fr. Ghelasie Tepes talks about Church as being heaven on earth, a place adorned with martyrs' sacrifice. Fr. Ghelasie is the abbot of Sighisoara Monastery in Transylvania, Romania and a disciple of Fr. Arsenie Boca.

Video source (2018):
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Fr. Ghelasie:
Don't you rejoice to receive communion, the Body and Blood of our Lord?
You jump for joy, sometimes you feel like detaching yourself from the earth... And often you don't even know if you're still on earth... As the Father said:"The church is heaven on earth"...

Well, how can it not be heaven if the One from heaven comes here on the holy table...
Look, the church is adorned with icons, with saints... with the Holy Trinity, with the Mother of God, with St. John the Baptist and with all the saints... and down here on earth, it is adorned with us, with people, do you see?

Each of us with our wounds...

Look, the saints on the walls, they have those halos above their head, that is their sacrifice, that is why their heads shine so beautifully, because to one they cut his hand, to another one the head, to another one they removed his eyes, to another one they cut his tongue, and so on, another one was burned at the stake, another was stabbed, only God knows the pain of each one of them...

Do you see how beautifully they are adorned? But in reality they suffered... Do you see? And we are full of wounds as well, don't think that we are not... And who is the first to hurt you? Your eyes, your ears, your tongue... isn't it? These hurt us a lot...

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