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…
Most feast days celebrated in the Orthodox Church focus on the remembrance of Jesus Christ, the Mother of God, or other saintly persons. Celebrated as well are other feast days remembering specific miracle working icons of Christ or the Theotokos. The Holy Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, known for generating the…
I am sure many of us experience what I have come to call the “post-Paschal funk.” We spend long hours in church during the Great Fast and Holy Week. We experience the intensity of the Lord’s final days in Jerusalem. We stand at the foot of the Cross and see Him laid in the tomb. We experience the palpable joy of…
The image of fire appears frequently in the Orthodox Church’s prayers and teachings concerning our eternal destiny as human beings. For example, on the Sunday of the Last Judgment (Meatfare Sunday) we sang in the kontakion, “When You, O God, shall come to earth with glory, all things shall tremble, and the river of…
On November 15, the Church entered the period of the Christian year known as the Nativity Fast (Advent). For forty days our attention will be directed toward the Nativity of Christ, both in the proper parts of the services and in the scriptural readings.
As part of the lenten effort several days in…
On Sunday, November 11, 2018, we will gather in our churches for the Divine Liturgy as our nation celebrates Veterans Day. This year marks the centenary observance of the end of World War I, the “war to end all wars,” as the armistice came into effect on the 11th day of the 11th month at the 11th hour. Americans…
Then Jesus said to them, “These are my words which I spoke to you, while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer…
NOTE: Saturday, February 10, 2018 marked the 45th Anniversary of the Consecration of His Beatitude, Metropolitan Herman, Former Archbishop of Washington and New York, Metropolitan of All America and Canada, to the episcopacy. He had been elected by the Holy Synod of Bishops on October 19, 1972. He retired on…
We hear the song “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” so often during this season that we may not think much about the words. But among the variety of things on the internet is the story of the song’s original lyrics, which are quite different from the ones we hear today.
Written for the movie Meet Me in St.…
As widely reported, this year—2017—marks the 100th Anniversary of the Election and Enthronement of Saint Tikhon as Patriarch of Moscow during the All-Russian Church Council. His Beatitude, Metropolitan Tikhon and a delegation representing the Orthodox…
When we lose someone that is very near and dear to us, we are troubled by a solitary, perplexing question that we cannot answer, and it seems that no one else can give us a satisfactory response for it either. We all have the question, “WHY why did our loved one die?” It is a very natural…
Words are wonderful. June 30 is the Synaxis of the Holy Apostles. What is a Synaxis?
Interestingly, synaxis is a Greek word directly related to synagogue, both which mean “gathering. On June 29, we celebrate the memory of the Chief Apostles, Peter and Paul,…
Hank Hanegraaff is well-known as the “Bible Answer Man.” His recent conversion from Protestantism to Orthodoxy has caused comments across a wide spectrum of opinion. Some people have welcomed him home to the true Orthodox faith. Others say he has forfeited his soul by abandoning the faith of the Bible.
The…
Iceland has been in the news lately. For one thing, it has been named by the World Happiness Report as the third happiest country in the world. Only Norway and Denmark are even happier.
Two of the criteria by which countries are judged are national wealth per capita and perceived freedom from corruption in government…
by Father Andrew Morbey
The American poet and Orthodox convert, Scott Cairns, writes in a chapter of God For Us: Rediscovering the Meaning of Lent and Easter:
.... at first, I was surely among the crew that Father Alexander Schmemann acknowledges when he writes (in his amazing and very helpful book, Great Lent), “For many, if not for the majority…
Orthodox Christian Scriptures proclaim—and the Liturgy celebrates, the Sacraments realize, the Icons depict, the Canons protect, the Martyrs witness, the Fathers explain, and the Saints live—the Blessed Exchange that God accomplished in the incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection and glorification of His Son Jesus…
by Matushka Valerie Zahirsky
When the great boxing champion Muhammad Ali died recently, events in his life were reviewed in the media. One of those events was Ali’s public embrace of Islam and his rejection of his birth name, Cassius Marcellus Clay, which he denounced as a “slave name.”
One has to wonder whether Ali really understood what…
by Father Theophan Whitfield
On the weekend of Palm Sunday, we begin the celebration of Holy Week—a 10-day long procession to the Cross, to the tomb, and to the Resurrection. And as we get ready, our Lord extends the same invitation to us as He extended to James and John. To all of us who wish to see His glory, who desire to be by His side at…
“The end is approaching, O my soul – it is approaching! So why do you not care or prepare yourself for it? Arise! The time is short! The Judge already stands at the door. Life is vanishing like a dream – so why do you continue living in vanity? Arise, O my soul, and reveal the evil things you have done. Ponder them well and…
by Father J. Sergius Halvorsen
Everyone loves a winner.
We celebrate athletes that run and jump, throw and catch better and faster than anyone else. We marvel at entrepreneurs who start companies that earn billions of dollars. We idolize the actors and musicians who are at the top of their craft. Everyone loves a winner.
We live in a culture…