Lenten Distancing
Church closed. Community members scattered widely. Weeks without normal daily and weekly routine, without spiritual instruction, without icons to…
Reflections in Christ
The Forty Martyrs of Sebaste
Anyone wandering about near a freezing cold pond one night near the city of Sebaste in the year 320 would have seen an astounding sight: forty…
The Triumph of Orthodoxy, Us, and The Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ
We have completed the first week of the Great Fast! We began it one week ago by receiving the universal impetus gathered as the…
Windsor Castle: a Change in Perspective
In 1992, a spotlight was left too close to a curtain in Windsor Castle in England, and the heat from that spotlight caused the…
Will We See our Pets in Heaven?
I suspect that every pastor has been asked this question at one time or another, and it usually comes from one of the more junior members of the…
Sheep Dog or Guard Dog?
In an issue of the Road to Emmaus journal I read a wonderful interview with Fr. Artemy Vladimirov, a priest in Moscow, in which…
The Lord’s Prayer: The Final Doxology
For most English speaking people in our culture, the Lord’s Prayer ends with the words, “For Thine is the Kingdom, and the power, and…”
The Lord’s Prayer: “Lead Us Not into Temptation, but Deliver Us from Evil”
The next petition in the Lord’s Prayer is, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil”. These two conjoined sentences…
The Lord’s Prayer: “Forgive Us our Trespasses”
We come now in our series on the Lord’s Prayer to the petition, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”. This rendering…
The Patron Saint of What?
“He who dwells in peace collects spiritual gifts as it were with a scoop, and he sheds the light of knowledge on others.” - St. Seraphim of Sarov…