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Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen! The Sixth Tuesday of Pascha: Let God Arise!

By Father Daniel Kovalak “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:14). In God’s “strategic plan” for the life of the world and its salvation, He decisively intervened, in Person, “trampling down death by death.” In the radiant light of Jesus’ glorious resurrection, darkness is overcome, creation is renewed, disappointment and despair no longer have the final word, sorrow is turned to

Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen! The Sixth Monday of Pascha: Holy Pascha: The Blast of a Trumpet

By Father Lawrence Farley From the prophecies of Isaiah: “It will come about also in that day that a great trumpet will be blown, and those who were perishing in the land of Assyria and who were scattered in the land of Egypt will come and worship the Lord in the holy mountain at Jerusalem” (Isaiah 27:13).  The prophet here surveys the world around him, and sees how the people of God were languishing in

Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen! The Fifth Wednesday of Pascha: The Descent of Jesus into Hades (Part VII)

By Father Thomas Hopko We all become the bride of Christ, and we all relate to each other. We do not cease being who we are, because even the risen Christ, when He is raised, is still Jesus of Nazareth. In John’s Gospel, and in the Gospels generally, he even shows the continuity by showing the wounds in His hands. That causes some difficulty for some people, because they say, if He is raised into

Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen! The Fifth Tuesday of Pascha: The Descent of Jesus into Hades (Part VI)

By Father Thomas Hopko He came to them, but we must remember that those who were literally dead were also still somehow alive in the hands of God, even before the Messiah came. When, for example, the Sadducees, who did not believe in the resurrection of Christ, tried to catch Him in his words by saying that according to the Levite law of Moses, if a man had a wife, and he died, his brother

Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen! The Fifth Monday of Pascha: The Descent of Jesus into Hades (Part V)

By Father Thomas Hopko And we do not ever want to imagine the dead as disincarnate souls. Some of the great teachers of Christianity do that, even Metropolitan of Nafpaktos, Hierotheos, he does that. I must say honestly say I do not agree with him when he does that. The dead are simply completely and totally dead. And then when you are alive, you are completely and totally alive. And I believe that when Christ

Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen! The Fourth Friday of Pascha: The Descent of Jesus into Hades (Part IV)

By Father Thomas Hopko We Christians believe, Orthodox Christians believe, that Christ is that Messianic King who frees us, and He frees us by dying. He liberates us. He ransoms us by the power of hell. He gave Himself, a ransom, to death, by which we were held captive, in order to release us, and that is what trampling down death by death means. So the icon of the so-called Descent into Sheol shows that

Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen! The Fourth Thursday of Pascha: The Descent of Jesus into Hades (Part III)

By Father Thomas Hopko Even on the Russian Orthodox crosses, by the way, there is a little inscription at the foot of Jesus’ feet on the cross, in four Slavonic letters, M, L, R, and B, in Slavonic, which translated means, “The place of the skull (or Golgotha) has become Paradise.” So the bosom of Abraham had to be transformed into Paradise, into a living reality again, with interrelationship with all of creation—the sun, the

Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen! The Fourth Wednesday of Pascha: Mid-Pentecost, Feast Day of Saint Sophia Cathedral, Washington, DC.

By Evangeline Hopkins, Proskynitria  …those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.  1 Corinthians 1:24 How is Christ the Power and Wisdom of God? God’s power allowed Him to become human in a way that flummoxed nature. He did this to rescue us from the grips of death, both in Hades and in sin, and to restore the human relationship with God that Adam