On watching television :The theatre lulls the Christian life to sleep ( Saint John of Kronstadt )

 

The theatre lulls the Christian life to sleep, destroys it, communicating to the life of Christians the character of the life of heathens. "They all slumbered and slept" (St. Matthew 25:5); this disastrous sleep is produced, amongst other things, also by the theatre. And what besides? The sciences, taught in the spirit of heathenism, worldly cares carried to excess, love of gain, ambition and sensuality. 

The theatre is the school of this world, and of the Prince of this world, that is, the Devil, but sometimes he is transformed into an angel of light in order to more easily tempt people who are not far-seeing, he sometimes introduces an apparently moral play on to the stage.  This is done in order that everybody should proclaim and repeat that the theatre is a most moral institution, and that it is not less worth frequenting than the church, and even, perhaps more so, because in church everything is the same, whilst in the theatre there is a variety of plays, scenery, costumes and actors.

Most men not only bear Satan's burden willingly in their hearts, but they become so accustomed to it that they often do not feel it, and even imperceptibly increase it. 

Sometimes, however, the evil enemy increases his burden tenfold, and then they become terribly despondent and fainthearted, they murmur and blaspheme God's name. The usual means that men of our time take to drive away their anguish are, entertainments, cards, dancing, and theatres. But such means afterwards increase still more the anguish and weariness of their hearts.

 If, happily, they turn to God, then the burden is removed from their heart, and they clearly see that previously the heaviest burden was lying on their heart, though frequently they did not feel it. O, how many men there are who have "forsaken [God] the Fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no [living] water"! 

Men have very many such broken cisterns, nearly everybody has his own. The broken cisterns are our hearts, our passions....

How is TV damaging to the soul of kids.. ( St.Paisios )

Television has done us great damage. It's especially destructive for children. A seven-year-old child came to the hermitage once. I saw the demon of television speaking through the child's mouth, exactly as demons speak through the mouth of the possessed. It was like a baby born with teeth. It is not easy to find normal kids; they are turning into little monsters. And you see they don't get to think for themselves, they only repeat what they have heard and seen on television. That's why they have come up with television to begin with: to make people numb and dumb, so that they will take what they hear and see on television for a fact and act accordingly.

St. Paisios

TV is damaging to our souls , especially to youthful ones ... ( St. Paisios )

Television has done us great damage. 
It's especially destructive for children. A seven-year-old child came to the hermitage once. I saw the demon of television speaking through the child's mouth, exactly as demons speak through the mouth of the possessed. It was like a baby born with teeth. It is not easy to find normal kids; they are turning into little monsters. And you see they don't get to think for themselves, they only repeat what they have heard and seen on television. That's why they have come up with television to begin with: to make people numb and dumb, so that they will take what they hear and see on television for a fact and act accordingly.

 We should be trying to lead our children to seek to turn on the "spiritual television"

[Mothers must be helped to] understand that television dulls their children's minds. They lose the ability to think on their own, to think critically—not to mention the damage it causes to their eyesight. And we are talking about man-made television. But there is another kind—a spiritual television. When people uproot their old self, and the eyes of the soul are cleansed, they can see into the future without the aid of any machines. Have they told their children about this other kind of television? If they won't, these boxes will make our children dumb."

From the Spiritual Counsels of the Blessed Elder Paisios the Athonite 

The Stranger Sitting on the Television...

The following story is told by John Chrysopoulou, an architect from Alexandroupoli:

I’m married to Evanthia Siontopoulou, and we have three children. A few years ago when my son Christos was three and a half years old, he was watching his mother burn incense in the home. He followed her around the whole house with a wooden rattle which looked like a censer, while she censed [the house], repeating, “Lord have mercy.”
One day, while playing his censing game as he usually did, he neglected to “burn” incense in the corner of the living room where the TV was. My wife noticed this and asked why he didn’t cense the whole living room.
Christos replied, quite naturally, that the stranger sitting on the TV would not allow him to burn incense there.

“But what stranger?” my wife asked.
“Him, dear mother, who sits on the TV, don’t you see [him]?“
Christos saw, with the pure eyes of his soul the devil on the TV, who inhibited even Christos’ make-believe incense.

https://lessonsfromamonastery.wordpress.com/2013/06/28/the-stranger-sitting-on-the-television/