Saint Gregory Palamas is famed for articulating the distinction between God’s essence and his energies and for his discussion of the uncreated Light. His doctrines are an indispensable part of Orthodox Christian dogma. However, it must be remembered that he was not articulating these doctrines in response to abstract problems: he was defending the…
Today, an angel stands in fear and awe in the presence of woman, she who is “more honorable than the cherubim and more glorious beyond compare than the seraphim.” This is not Byzantine hyperbole: the Mother of God contained within herself the one before whom the angels merely tremble, immeasurably surpassing every other creature by her total…
Today, as we celebrate the triumph of Orthodoxy, we remember the countless confessors who suffered on account of their veneration for the holy icons. Now these confessors are themselves depicted on icons. This is the victory and triumph of Christianity: suffering transformed into beauty, death and mortality swallowed up by the light of eternal life.…
The rite of forgiveness takes place once a year in most parishes, but in some monasteries, it is a daily practice. Forgiveness, after all, should not be limited to one day in the year. This Forgiveness Sunday, as we enter into Great Lent and renew our commitment to lead the life in Christ, we might consider making the asking and granting of…
On this Sunday, we remember the end of the world. “Pondering upon that fearful day,” as the hymns exhort us to do, we realize that we have no righteousness, no worthy deeds, nothing by which we might justify ourselves before that dread tribunal that knows no respect of persons. All we can do is ask for mercy. Glimpsing the end of the world,…
This week, we begin our Lenten efforts by making no efforts to fast whatsoever. This is an important reminder: God does not need our fast, but we always stand in need of his grace. No matter what efforts we make or fail to make during the coming weeks, our fast is not our project, much less our accomplishment: it is merely a small attempt to…
During the first week of Lent, we sang the Great Canon of Saint Andrew over the course of four nights at Great Compline; today this lengthy penitential canon is appointed in full at Matins. Some small details concerning the order of the troparia and the like have changed, too. This serves as a reminder that repentance is not static; our repentance…
The Ladder of Saint John leads the Christian, step by step, rung by rung, along the ascent to heaven. Naturally, the higher steps involve more dangerous temptations and more exalted virtues. For many of us, who remain perpetual beginners, it is good to be reminded of the first steps: we must renounce the world, become detached from worldly cares,…
The Cross stands at the center of the fast as it stands at the center of all our activities, indeed, at the center of our entire life. The world is cruciform, and, as we see in holy icons depicting the days of creation, the Lord formed his creation with the hands that were pierced by Roman nails. Following his lead, in all our activities, let us…
One week after the Sunday of Orthodoxy, we attach an appendix, as it were, to that celebration: the feast of Saint Gregory Palamas. Saint Gregory Palamas’s teachings concerning the divine energies, the light of Tabor, and hesychasm are well-known but, in many cases, only superficially understood. More accessible are the great saint’s homilies,…
What is the triumph of Orthodoxy? Historically, this was the victory of the Iconodule party in the Byzantine Empire, with imperial backing. Yet, since then, year in and year out, in lands throughout the world, that triumph is celebrated—and realized—again and again. Ultimately, Orthodoxy’s triumph is not by force of arms, not by princes or…
In his hymns for today’s feast, Saint John of Euchaita refers to this day as “heralding from afar the coming feast of the Resurrection,” stating that “this present time of relief prefigures the coming feast” of Pascha. These joyful words remind us that, even throughout these forty days of sustained ascetical effort, there are times when we…
After a month of preparation, we begin the forty days of Great Lent. During these days of ascetic struggle, may we all take refuge in the prayers and instructions of the holy ascetics who have gone before us. May we guard ourselves against all temptation by the Cross of the Lord. May the Mother of God be a joyous presence during this time, as we…
In the reading from the prophecy of Isaiah on the first day of the fast, we hear a word of caution. Our annual observance of times and seasons, our gatherings to worship, are not, in and of themselves, pleasing unto God. “What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? Who requires of you this trampling…
Though we commonly call today “Forgiveness Sunday,” liturgically it is known as Cheesefare Sunday, or the Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise. As the last day before Lent, it is a day of preliminaries. Before Adam and Eve could find their way back from their fall, they had to leave the garden behind and know death and its consequences. We,…
True leadership brings people where they need to be but don’t want to go.
No Christian worth their salt believes Christ went to His crucifixion subservient to the Jewish leaders and Roman state. Even though the Jewish high priest, Caiaphas, gave voice to the common plot to put Jesus to death when he said “it would be…
At the direction of our Archbishop Alexander, I served the Divine Liturgy Sunday with only four people present: the choir director, one singer, one altar server, and myself. I found it to be a very sad experience: what is usually a joyful gathering of the faithful now a handful.
In his letter Archbishop Alexander calls our…
“Rejoice in the Lord; rejoice in the Lord; rejoice in the Lord. May the Lord guard your soul and body and spirit from every evil, as well as from every opposition of the devil and every troubling imagination. The Lord will be your light, your protection, your way, your strength, your crown of gladness and eternal help.”…
Church closed.
Community members scattered widely.
Weeks without normal daily and weekly routine, without spiritual instruction, without icons to venerate, without Sunday eucharist, without community agape meals.
This was the deliberate practice of the monastery of Abba Zosima in the sixth century Palestinian desert,…
We have completed the first week of the Great Fast! We began it one week ago by receiving the universal impetus gathered as the Church in worship to surrender our hearts to the direction given at the service of vespers, ‘to cleanse our soul as we cleanse our flesh,’ and ‘to abstain from passion as we abstain from food.’ We do this…