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The Radical Nature of Christianity (1)

06/07/2023

Published by Pemptousia Partnership on February 23, 2022 George Mantzarides, Professor Emeritus of the Theological School of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki The Gospel of Christ doesn’t come from this world, nor is it compatible with the spirit of the world. Moreover, the Gospel of Christ isn’t usually preached intact in the world, nor has it ever been applied in its true dimensions by humankind as a whole or by any particular people over the course of history.

The Light in Silence

06/06/2023

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, July 11, 2021. From time to time the image of God becomes blurred and almost forgotten. People forget what God “looks like,” how he sounds, how he is, and in the resulting vacuum create idols like the children of Israel and their Golden Calf. The search for an earthly savior always ends in the creation of an anti-Christ. I truly believe our abuse of the earth is

Monday of the Holy Spirit: The Orthodox Church as Continuous Pentecost

06/05/2023

Published by Pemptousia Partnership on June 23, 2021 Saint Justin Popovich Who is Jesus Christ, who is both God and human? What in him is God and what is human? How do we recognize the God in him and the human? What did God grant us in the person of Jesus? All of this is revealed to us by the Holy Spirit, the ‘Spirit of Truth’. In other words, he reveals the truth about Jesus, about the God

Pentecost and the Liturgy of Hades

06/04/2023

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, June 21, 2021 Pascha (Easter) comes with a great note of joy in the Christian world. Christ is risen from the dead and our hearts rejoice. That joy begins to wane as the days pass. Our lives settle back down to the mundane tasks at hand. After 40 days, the Church marks the Feast of the Ascension, often attended by only a handful of the faithful (Rome has more-or-less moved the

Why did the Church Establish the Saturdays of the Souls?

06/03/2023

Published by Pemptousia Partnership on March 1, 2022 Fr. Ioannis Sourlingas The Saturday before Meat-fare Sunday is called the ‘Saturday of the Souls’. It’s the first of two, the other being the Saturday before the Sunday of Pentecost. Even though every Saturday is dedicated to the departed, the Church established the Saturdays of the Souls for the following reason: because there were occasions when people died alone, at unknown times and places, at sea, on mountains, precipices and

The Kingdom Within

06/02/2023

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, July 12, 2019 In December of 1849, the Russian author, Fyodor Dostoevsky, stood waiting his turn for execution, having been found guilty of plotting against the Russian Tsar. At the last minute, under instructions from the Tsar, the sentence was commuted from death, to four years in a Siberian prison. Later that day, Dostoevsky wrote a famous letter to his brother, describing the experience. He was shaken and changed to the

Projecting

06/01/2023

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, December 4, 2016 at St. Mary Orthodox Church in Cambridge, MA. “Unless we look at a person and see the beauty there is in this person, we can contribute nothing to him. One does not help a person by discerning what is wrong, what is ugly, what is distorted. Christ looked at everyone he met, at the prostitute, at the thief, and saw the beauty hidden there.

Are there limits to human kindness?

05/31/2023

Published by Pemptousia Partnership on November 15, 2021 Ioannis Karavidopoulos, Professor Emeritus of New Testament Hermeneutics, A. U. Th. It’s right and proper, if you’re in a hurry to get to work, to your office, or to go about your business that you should stop on the way and help somebody in need, even though you risk being late, losing out on something or even getting into trouble. Organization and the pace of life, a schedule and a

The Invitation

05/30/2023

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, December 11, 2016 Salvation is about relationship. We cannot be saved alone. It starts at the very beginning when God says, “Let us make humanity in our own image.” The Hebrew writer gloriously uses the plural: God speaking to God. And gradually the mysterious mutuality of God in Trinity is revealed from the opening verses of Genesis, to the Oak of Mamre, to the Incarnation, the Baptism,

May 29, 1453: The Day Constantinople Fell

05/29/2023

By Philip Chrysopoulos, May 29, 2021 The fall of Constantinople, which occurred on May 29,1453 was the final phase of the Byzantine-Ottoman Wars (1265-1453) and the darkest page in Greek history and in the Orthodox Church. The seat of the Byzantine Empire for a millennium, Constantinople was the main target of the Ottomans. Ascending to the Ottoman throne in 1451, Mehmed II began making plans to conquer the Byzantine capital. The Byzantine empire had been declining in power

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The Radical Nature of Christianity (1)

The Light in Silence

Monday of the Holy Spirit: The Orthodox Church as Continuous Pentecost

Pentecost and the Liturgy of Hades

Why did the Church Establish the Saturdays of the Souls?

The Kingdom Within

Projecting

Are there limits to human kindness?

The Invitation

May 29, 1453: The Day Constantinople Fell

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