Almsgiving (Eleemosyne)
ἐλεημοσύνη — eleēmosynē · el-eh-ay-mo-SEE-nee
In brief
Almsgiving is mercy shown to the poor with one's own goods — and in the Gospel it stands as the third of the three pillars of the Christian life, alongside prayer and fasting. The Greek word, eleēmosynē, means "mercy" or "pity" before it means a donation: almsgiving is compassion put into action. The Church teaches that it is to be done quietly, without display, and that in the poor we meet Christ Himself — so that mercy given to them is given to Him.
The third pillar
In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ names three practices as the basic exercises of the devout life and treats them as a set: giving alms, praying, and fasting (Matthew 6:1-18). The Church has kept them together ever since, and calls for all three especially in Great Lent. They lean on one another: fasting without almsgiving is, the Fathers warn, merely a diet, because the very point of eating less is to have more to give away. Prayer lifts the heart to God; almsgiving turns that same love toward the neighbor; fasting frees the resources and the will to do it. Remove any one and the other two lose their balance.
Christ's one condition is secrecy. "When thou doest alms," He says, "let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth," so that the gift is "in secret" and seen only by the Father (Matthew 6:3-4) — the opposite of the giver who "sound[s] a trumpet" to be admired (Matthew 6:2). Almsgiving done for reputation has already collected its reward; almsgiving done in hiddenness is stored up with God. This is why the Church surrounds the practice with reticence rather than publicity.
Christ in the poor
Orthodoxy's deepest reason for almsgiving is not social improvement, real as that good is, but who is met in the poor. In the parable of the Last Judgment the King identifies Himself with the hungry, the stranger, the naked, and the prisoner: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me" (Matthew 25:40). The beggar at the door is therefore not an interruption of the spiritual life but one of its appointed meeting-places with God. St. John Chrysostom pressed exactly this link between the fast and the poor: "Do you fast? Give me proof of it by your works. ... If you see a poor man, take pity on him."
The older Scriptures already treat mercy to the poor as something that reaches God directly. "He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the LORD" (Proverbs 19:17). Among the books the Orthodox Church reads, Tobit gathers the teaching into a father's counsel to his son: "Give alms of thy substance," giving much if you have much and a little if you have little, for "alms do deliver from death" (Tobit 4:7-11). This is not a claim that generosity buys salvation, but that a merciful heart is already turned toward the God who is mercy, and that such a heart cannot finally be lost.
Mercy, not only money
Because eleēmosynē means mercy first, almsgiving is wider than the coin dropped in a cup. It includes the gift of time, attention, food, shelter, and forgiveness — the whole range the tradition calls the works of mercy — and it overlaps with hospitality and the parish's organized mercy ministries. It is closely tied to the regular, planned giving the Church calls stewardship, though almsgiving reaches beyond any fixed portion to the spontaneous mercy of the moment. "Give, and it shall be given unto you" (Luke 6:38), Christ promises — not as a transaction but as a description of how love multiplies. The measure is not the size of the gift but the mercy in it: the widow's two coins outweighed the large sums of the rich because she gave herself. Practiced quietly and habitually, almsgiving slowly loosens the grip of possessions on the heart and trains a person in the one thing that lasts — the love that, at the Last Judgment, turns out to have been love of Christ all along.