There was a pause as Fr. Maximos signaled that he was ready for the next question. “During the morning session you said something very significant,” said Eleni, a professional accountant who had decided to get an M.A. in theology. “You mentioned that in order to understand the essence of who we are as human beings we need to understand the nature of God. What did you mean by that? Who is God? What can you
God always entices us through love. Most of us were taught that God would love us if and when we change. In fact, God loves you so that you can change. What empowers change, what makes you desirous of change, is the experience of love. It is that inherent experience of love that becomes the engine of change. If the mystics say that one way, they say it a thousand ways. But because most of
Authority and Obedience Authority and obedience can never be divided, with some people having all the authority while others have only to obey. This separation causes authoritarian behavior on the one side and doormat behavior on the other. It perverts authority as well as obedience. A person with great authority who has nobody to be obedient to is in great spiritual danger. A very obedient person who has no authority over anyone is equally in
In St Silouan’s teaching concerning the bonds that unite us humans to the rest of creation, there are three points that I find particularly interesting: The Starets underlines the spiritual value of the human body. While he adopts a negative attitude towards the passions, he is fundamentally positive in his estimate of our human physicality. We are to hate, not our bodies as such, but the sinfulness that corrupts them. In its present fallen state
On August 15, Orthodox Christians celebrate the greatest of all the religious festivals which the Church established in honor of the All-Holy Virgin Mary (Panagia), the feast of the Dormition (Koimêsis) of the Theotokos. The feasts of the Virgin Mary (theomêtorikai eortai) are second in importance after those of our Lord Jesus Christ in the annual cycle of festivals observed by the Orthodox Church because, after our Lord Himself, the All-Holy Virgin is the most
1. Every generation offers hymns, O Virgin, to honor your entombment 2. Come with all creation to sing the hymns of parting as you are raised, O Virgin. 3. Disciples of my Lord Christ, arrive to tend the body of my God’s purest Mother. 4. Invisibly attending, the archangels and angels in ranks sing hymns to praise you. 5. The women high in honor along with the apostles are crying out and weeping. 6. O
1. Truly it is right that we magnify you who bestow life, just as your pure Mother you magnify for her life-creating falling into sleep. 2. Truly it is right that we magnify you, Theotokos, you took your divine and all-blameless soul and entrusted it into the Hands of God. 3. Wonder strange and new! For the Door now passes through the Doorway, Heaven enters Heaven! We stand in awe as the Throne of God
1. In a grave they laid you yet, O Christ, you are life and they now have laid the Mother of Life as well: both to angels and to men a sight most strange! 2. We exalt you greatly, Theotokos most pure, and we glorify your holy Dormition now, as we bow before your honored precious tomb. 3. In your womb you held him who cannot be contained; you are life to all the faithful:
In our Orthodox tradition we are usually very careful to distinguish between the “Dormition” of the Mother of God and her “Assumption” into heaven. The former, we feel, is properly Orthodox, while the latter strikes us as a purely Western designation, derived from a Roman Catholic “misunderstanding” of the meaning of this feast, celebrated universally on August 15. It is true that some very genuine yet misguided interpretations of Mary’s death and exaltation can be
“O you apostles, assembled here from the ends of the earth, bury my body: And You, Omy Son and my God, receive my spirit” (Exapostilarion of Dormition of the Theotokos) To be a genuine Orthodox Christian is to share in the joy of fellowship gathered around the holy Mother of God, Mary the ever-virgin one. Yet in America a hesitancy arises even with the Church among the faithful. What is so normal and self-evident an
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