I am amazed that there are some who are extremely doubtful whether the holy Virgin should be called Mother of God or no. For if our Lord Jesus Christ is God, then surely the holy Virgin who gave him birth must be God's mother.
-St. Cyril of Alexandria, Letter I to the Monks in Egypt. B#15, p. 252., 5th Century


Now the health of the soul is the accomplishment of the Divine Will, just as, on the other hand, the disease of the soul that ends in death is the falling away from this good will.
-St. Gregory of Nyssa, The Lord's Prayer. B#51, pp. 58-59., 4th Century


We fell ill when we forsook the wholesome way of life in Paradise and filled ourselves with the poison of disobedience, through which our nature was conquered by this evil and deadly disease ...
-St. Gregory of Nyssa, The Lord's Prayer. B#51, pp. 58-59., 4th Century


The words of the [Lord's] Prayer bring the cure of the disease which is in the soul. For He prays as if His soul were immersed in pain, saying. “Your Will be done.” Now the will of God is the salvation of men.
-St. Gregory of Nyssa, The Lord's Prayer. B#51, pp. 58-59., 4th Century


If therefore we prepare to say to God: “Your will be done also in me,” it is absolutely necessary first to renounce what was contrary to the Divine Will and to give a full account of it in confession ... When Your will is done in me, every foul and wicked movement of my free will is brought to nought.
-St. Gregory of Nyssa, The Lord's Prayer. B#51, pp. 58-59., 4th Century


If therefore we prepare to say to God: “Your will be done also in me,” it is absolutely necessary first to renounce what was contrary to the Divine Will and to give a full account of it in confession ... When Your will is done in me, every foul and wicked movement of my free will is brought to nought.
-St. Gregory of Nyssa, The Lord's Prayer. B#51, pp. 58-59., 4th Century


As an example of what it means to interpret Scripture in a liturgical way, guided by the use made of it at Church feasts, let us look at the Old Testament lessons appointed for Vespers on the Feast of the Annunciation, on March 25th. They are three in number ...
-Bishop Kallistos of Diokleia, How to Read the Bible., 20th Century


These texts in the Old Testament, then, as their selection for the 25th of March and other feasts of the Theotokos indicates, are all to be understood as prophecies concerning the Incarnation from the Virgin. Mary is Jacob's ladder, supplying the flesh that God incarnate takes upon entering our human world. Mary is the closed gate who alone among women bore a child while still remaining inviolate.
-Bishop Kallistos of Diokleia, How to Read the Bible., 20th Century


Mary provides the house which Christ the Wisdom of God (I Corinthians 1:24) takes as His dwelling (in another interpretation, the title Wisdom or Sophia refers to the Mother of God herself). Exploring in this manner the choice of lessons for the various feasts, we discover layers of Biblical interpretation that are by no means obvious on a first reading.
-Bishop Kallistos of Diokleia, How to Read the Bible., 20th Century


But the head of every good endeavor and the guiding force of right actions is perseverance in prayer. By means of it we can daily obtain the rest of the virtues by asking God for them. By this means are engendered in those deemed worthy the fellowship of God's holiness and of spiritual energy and the attachment of the mind disposed toward the Lord in ineffable love. For the person who daily forces himself to persevere in prayer is enflamed with divine passion and fiery desire from a spiritual love toward God, and he receives the grace of the sanctifying perfection of the Spirit.
-St. Makarios the Great, Homilies 40.2, in Spiritual Homilies, 4th century