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Christmas Advent: The Thirtieth Day

12/14/2012

The Russian Nativity Icon The Russian nativity icon vividly portrays the Christmas perspective of the Orthodox Church. Through symbolism and teaching about Gods incarnation (becoming human) the icon presents Christmas as a “feast of re-creation.” The word icon is a Greek word meaning “image” or “likeness.” The nativity icon is done in an art style dating back to the sixth century Byzantine Empire. Orthodox iconography is a purely idealistic art form. Through the Byzantine style

Christmas Advent: The Twenty-Ninth Day

12/13/2012

Thin Places (Part III) More hectic than holy? If you visit Bethlehem today, you’ll find that it doesn’t have the same kind of pastoral, quiet and mystical aura of a thin place like Iona. There’s jostling with a long line of pilgrims waiting to get into the Church of the Nativity, monks yelling instructions to be quiet, cameras flashing, security officers mulling about — all for people to get one chance to touch the star

Saint Spyridon the Wonderworker of Trymithous

12/12/2012

The island of Cyprus was both the birthplace and the place where this glorious saint served the Church. Spyridon was born of simple parents, farmers, and he remained simple and humble until his death. He married in his youth and had children, but when his wife died he devoted himself completely to the service of God. Because of his exceptional piety, he was chosen as bishop of the city of Tremithus (Trymithous). Yet even as

Christmas Advent: The Twenty-Seventh Day

12/11/2012

Thin Places (Part II) Bethlehem, a thin place The prophet Micah called the people of Judah to focus hard on finding a thin place in the midst of the thick and foreboding threat of foreign invasion. Like a raging storm, the Assyrian invaders were bearing down on them to sweep them away as God’s instrument of judgment against his people. They would dodge that particular fate at the hands of Assyria, but they would not

Christmas Advent: The Twenty-Sixth Day

12/10/2012

Thin Places (Part I) A thin place, according to the ancients, was the small space between heaven and Earth, and if you could find such a space, you were indeed blessed. Was — is — Bethlehem such a place? The Isle of Iona in Scotland is a tiny, windswept place in the western Hebrides off the western coast of Scotland. It’s a skinny little island, only about 3.5 miles long and 1.5 miles wide, but

Christmas Advent: The Twenty-Third Day

12/07/2012

SOMEONE TO SURRENDER TO And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. – JOHN 1:14 Let me begin with a quote from twentieth-century writer G.K. Chesterton: “When a person has found something which he prefers to life itself, he (sic) for the first time has begun to live.” Jesus in his proclamation of the kingdom

Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker, Archbishop of Myra

12/06/2012

SAINT NICHOLAS HAS COME A LONG WAY: from being a fourth century bishop in the distant Roman province of Lycia, through innumerable pious legends, until he became “Sinter Klaas,” which is older Dutch for Saint Nicholas; in our day Americans have turned him into Santa Claus, patron saint of the seasonal commandment to shop until you drop. What should Christians do about Santa Claus? Reject him or reclaim him? I suggest we reclaim him. The

Saint Savvas the Sanctified

12/05/2012

The unknown village of Mutalaska, in the province of Cappadocia, became famous through this great luminary of the Orthodox Church. Savvas was born there of his parents John and Sophia. At the age of eight, he left the home of his parents and was tonsured a monk in a nearby monastic community called Flavian’s. After ten years, he moved to the monasteries of Palestine and remained longest in the Monastery of St. Euthymius the Great

Saint Barbara the Great Martyr

12/04/2012

During the reign of the impious Roman Emperor Maximian, there lived in the East, near Heliopolis, a wealthy, renowned nobleman named Dioscorus, by ancestry and faith a Hellene. He had a daughter named Barbara, his only child, over whom he kept watch as the apple of his eye. The maiden was exceedingly beautiful, and no girl or woman in the country could compare with her. Thinking baseborn, common folk unworthy to behold his daughter’s fair

Christmas Advent: The Nineteenth Day

12/03/2012

THE BLIND FAITH OF MARY AND JOSEPH Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel. -ISAIAH 7:14 Kingdom people are history makers. They break through the small kingdoms of this world to an alternative and much larger world, God’s full creation. People who are still living in the false self are history stoppers. They use God and

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Christmas Advent: The Thirtieth Day

Christmas Advent: The Twenty-Ninth Day

Saint Spyridon the Wonderworker of Trymithous

Christmas Advent: The Twenty-Seventh Day

Christmas Advent: The Twenty-Sixth Day

Christmas Advent: The Twenty-Third Day

Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker, Archbishop of Myra

Saint Savvas the Sanctified

Saint Barbara the Great Martyr

Christmas Advent: The Nineteenth Day

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