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The Eighth Day of Christmas Advent. I am the Handmaiden of the Lord

11/22/2016

Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit. -Matthew 1:18 God’s grand plan for our salvation involved incarnating the Word of God into the flesh, for God to become like one of us. And this would happen in a way that was both miraculous and understandable. The understandable

The Seventh Day of Christmas Advent. It Was a Cave, Not a Barn!

11/21/2016

And she gave birth to her first born Son and wrapped Him in swaddling clothes and laid Him in a manger because there was no place for them in the inn. -Luke2:7 Every Nativity play I have ever watched has a scene where Mary and Joseph go to an inn and are told that there are no rooms available. They are, however, told that there is a stable out back and are shown to a

The Fourth Day of Christmas Advent. St. Ephraim the Syrian: If he was not flesh (Part II).

11/18/2016

St. Ephraim the Syrian: If he was not flesh . . . And if he was not God . . . If he was not flesh, who wept at Lazarus’ grave? And if he was not God, who by his command brought out one four days dead? If he was not flesh, who sat on the foal? And if he was not God, whom did the crowds go out to meet with glory? If he

The Third Day of Christmas Advent. St. Ephraim the Syrian: If he was not flesh (Part I).

11/17/2016

St. Ephraim the Syrian: If he was not flesh . . . And if he was not God . . . The facts themselves bear witness and his divine acts of power teach those who doubt that he is true God, and his sufferings show that he is true man. And if those who are feeble in understanding are not fully assured, they will pay the penalty on his dread day. If he was not

The Second Day of Christmas Advent. Saint Matthew Apostle and Evangelist.

11/16/2016

The name Matthew is derived from the Hebrew Mattija, being shortened to Mattai in post-Biblical Hebrew. In Greek it is sometimes spelled Maththaios, BD, and sometimes Matthaios, CEKL, but grammarians do not agree as to which of the two spellings is the original. Matthew is spoken of five times in the New Testament; first in Matthew 9:9, when called by Jesus to follow Him, and then four times in the list of the Apostles, where

The First Day of Christmas Advent. The Origins of Advent.

11/15/2016

By Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon In the Roman Catholic Church and other Christian churches of the West, the several weeks prior to Christmas are known as Advent, a name from a Latin word meaning “coming.” It happens that the beginning of Advent always falls on the Sunday closest to November 30, the ancient feast day (in both East and West) of the Apostle Andrew. Among Christians in the West, this preparatory season, which tends to

A Layman in the Desert (Preface, Part III)

11/14/2016

When we see life in the world as amounting to a series of responsibilities that get in the way of real Christian life, then a spiritual break-down becomes virtually inevitable. If we think we are being saved only in those times that we can get away from work, family, society and the like, then we will find our faith is slowly extinguished by the demands of those things upon us, or marked by continuous despair,

Remembering Our Veterans

11/11/2016

By the Reverend Andrew J Demotses President Harry Truman was the object of an assassination attempt in which two secret service agents were killed while protecting him. In recounting the experience of that terrible day, Mr. Truman said, “You can’t imagine how a man feels when someone else dies for him.” The Old Testament recounts the story in which a similar feeling caused David to worship God. When he had expressed a longing to drink

The Cell, Meeting God and Ourselves (Part VI)

11/10/2016

The cell is an environment for salvation because in that specific place the monk turns to God as the source of his or her true self. Salvation is the restoration of the soul to its true content rather than a purification of “the pollution of the body [29] This desert understanding of salvation is in contrast to both the contemporary Greek Gnostic thought of that period which valued the spirit over the body and to

Nektarios the Wonderworker, Metropolitan of Pentapolis

11/09/2016

Saint Nektarius was born in Selyvria of Thrace on October 1, 1846. After putting himself through school in Constantinople with much hard labour, he became a monk on Chios in 1876, receiving the monastic name of Lazarus; because of his virtue, a year later he was ordained deacon, receiving the new name of Nektarius. Under the patronage of Patriarch Sophronius of Alexandria, Nektarius went to Athens to study in 1882; completing his theological studies in

Blog

The Eighth Day of Christmas Advent. I am the Handmaiden of the Lord

The Seventh Day of Christmas Advent. It Was a Cave, Not a Barn!

The Fourth Day of Christmas Advent. St. Ephraim the Syrian: If he was not flesh (Part II).

The Third Day of Christmas Advent. St. Ephraim the Syrian: If he was not flesh (Part I).

The Second Day of Christmas Advent. Saint Matthew Apostle and Evangelist.

The First Day of Christmas Advent. The Origins of Advent.

A Layman in the Desert (Preface, Part III)

Remembering Our Veterans

The Cell, Meeting God and Ourselves (Part VI)

Nektarios the Wonderworker, Metropolitan of Pentapolis

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