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Just before the Divine Liturgy begins, the celebrant invokes the Holy Spirit by reciting the hymn above. Nothing can happen without inspiration. What the word means is to be filled with the Holy Spirit. What happens is that each of us becomes aware of some new energy within us, filling us with power that raises our consciousness to a higher lever of…
The Lord God Almighty is the Giver of life. This is the greatest of His blessings, and the life we now live is a prelude and preparation for everlasting life in His kingdom. This is why the gravest of all sins is suicide. The ordeal of suicide regardless of how it may be justified is the rejection of God’s gift of life. It is the ultimate defeat,…
Suppose the heretics were right. Imagine if you will that all you and I believe about Jesus Christ were false—that the Church made up the story that our Lord were the Son of God, and that He were just another human being, even if He were somebody really special. Would it matter? Many who call themselves Christians in our time feel it doesn’t make…
It happens more than you may think. I find persons in the church sitting or kneeling in the empty seats. Not those looking at the icons on the walls, but the ones alone or just lonely, staring ahead or with bowed head. Do I leave them to their reflections and prayers, or should I offer some counseling or consolation?
Some I recall more than…
The more I write about Orthodox Christianity, the more I find myself returning to the fundamentals. For instance, among the first words from the lips of Jesus Christ is the phrase, “One does not live by bread alone.” He tells us so much in this phrase:
The voice of the Father, the Lord Jesus and the Spirit like a dove—Three Persons acting in unison for our salvation. Here is the meaning of Theophany, or God’s manifestation par excellence. The Church spells it out in the hymn:
“The voice of the Father bore witness to You, calling You His beloved Son; and the Spirit in the form of a dove,…
Warm joy leaps in my heart as I recall my first years as the youngest priest in our New York City cathedral. I would stand holding my taper at the end of the line of priests listening to the glorious Afonsky choir pour forth hymns of exquisite loveliness from the loft. Now and then one tenor’s voice would rise aloft to transcend all the other…
We hear so often, “She’s just like her mother,” or “He’s the spitting image of his father.” Even the old Russian proverb repeats the cliche: The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. It can mean so much or be inconsequential. Eye color, the stride, the way they deal with traumas, or the faint trace of a smile stamp the child as carrier of the…
Here is the traditional method for cleansing all Israel of their sins committed in a year. The ritual is carried out liturgically. The actions of religion performed ceremonially express in dramatic vividness what it is that the clergy hope to demonstrate. The high priest prays over one of two goats, pleading with the Lord to combine all the sins of…
A true Orthodox Christian doesn’t have to have a sense of humor, but it helps when comparing our faith with the fantasies of the society we share with the non-Orthodox. Take for instance the platitudes surrounding St. Nicholas, a.k.a. Santa Claus. “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus,” children are told despite their misgivings. And what is Santa…
In the churches of the renowned monasteries of Mt. Athos, ostrich eggs are hung from ribbons. Some would think that they represent Paschal eggs at their largest size. Not at all. They dangle before the eyes of the monks as a reminder that the female ostrich guards her egg intensely, permitting nobody to come near and snatch it away. What the egg is…
Are Christ’s friends our friends? Not necessarily, and not always. We gather each Sunday at the Divine Liturgy and share the sacred meal offered to us by Him. And we come not as strangers, not even as guests, but as family. It’s why we are commanded to love one another; otherwise it becomes more of a secular gathering than the anticipation of what…
Most of us can identify with Martha. We are worried and troubled about so many things not only every day, but also all the daylong. If we are employed, we worry about job security and all the tasks that are assigned to us during our working hours. If we are at home, there’s never an end to what needs doing. If we are school children, we can always…
We know the outcome. The daughter of Herodias would perform a sensual dance that ended in the decapitation of St. John the Baptist. Why did he stick his neck out? What prompted him to shout to heaven and the people that their king was an adulterer and perhaps even a pedophile? Noblesse oblige. Royalty has its obligations. The Windsor’s of England…
Our Lord’s words are clear: “Let your light so shine before others, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). The great saint Symeon the New Theologian added a vivid image that takes this idea even further on the way to spiritual understanding. He calls on us to imagine a lamp filled with oil, and in it a…
A sublime moment in the vision given to the apostle John that Sunday morning on Patmos Island—the appearance of a wounded Lamb in the middle of the throne area. He’s at the very center of the whole scene of the throne surrounded by four living creatures and an outer ring of twenty-four elders.
We know that Lamb. He is the One that St. John the…
Of course I don’t know how to pray on my own without the Holy Spirit’s help. I never will know how, and the only wise statement I can make about it is that I realize my spiritual limits. I’ve been praying, or listening to my mother pray before I could hardly talk, and though I’ve been doing it all of my life, nevertheless I cannot pray without help.…
I’m told that as a person ages, he requires less sleep. I’m there now, but I never was a sound sleeper. And of course, it’s worse when one is not in his familiar bed. Western Europe is a good place for insomniacs like me. Europeans think about those still awake, and they feel sorry for us. They have several ways to try and get us to shut our eyes.…
The iconographer created a grouping of the twelve men presently canonized as the saints of North America. They occupy the rear wall of our nave. How different this icon is from all the other icons throughout our temple. The most striking feature is that many are nearly our contemporaries. St. Nicolai of Zhitza, the Serbian saint who had ended his…
The Bible has produced three great religions: Judaism, Islam and Christianity, with differing relationships to space. And the differences impact upon the United States. At enormous cost in money and effort including sacrifice of human life our nation has set Iraq free of an oppressive dictator, yet the very people who have been delivered from…