A Sermon by Fr. Antony Hughes In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. Glory to Jesus Christ! The Reading is from John 7:37-52; 8:12 “He who believes in me, as the scripture says, ‘Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.’ Now this he said about the Spirit, which those who believed in him were to receive.” “Do you not know,” writes
The Holy Martyrs Kyrikos and Julitta lived in the city of Iconium in the province of Lykaoneia in Asia Minor. Saint Julitta was descended from an illustrious family and was a Christian. Widowed early on, she raised her three-year old-son Kyrikos. During the emperor Diocletian’s persecution of Christians, Saint Julitta departed the city with her son and two trustworthy servants, leaving behind her home, property, and servants. Concealing her noble rank, she hid out first
Synaxis of the Holy Archangel Gabriel: The Archangel Gabriel was chosen by the Lord to announce to the Virgin Mary about the Incarnation of the Son of God from Her, to the great rejoicing of all mankind. Therefore, on the day after the Feast of the Annunciation, the day on which the All-Pure Virgin is glorified, we give thanks to the Lord and we venerate His messenger Gabriel, who contributed to the mystery of our
By Father Stephen Freeman Few ideas contrast as starkly to our modern myths as Tolkien’s view of history as “the long defeat.” I have been very interested in the continuing comments that struggle with the perceived pessimism of such a phrase. I have refrained from commenting at length myself, for the very reason that I wanted to do so in an article. For the nature of the long defeat that is the Christian life and
Commemorated on July 11 Saint Olga, Equal of the Apostles, was the wife of the Kievan Great Prince Igor. The struggle of Christianity with paganism under Igor and Olga, who reigned after Oleg (+ 912), entered into a new phase. The Church of Christ in the years following the reign of Igor (+ 945) became a remarkable spiritual and political force in the Russian realm. The preserved text of a treaty of Igor with the Greeks
Once we have become aware of our enslavement, and have passed from mere lamentation and a sense of misery into a sense of broken heartedness and poverty of spirit, our imprisonment in the land of Egypt is answered by the words of the next beatitudes: ‘Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted’, ‘Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth’. This mourning that is the result of the discovery of
Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, December 12, 2021 We know that Jesus used parables in his teaching. It is important to remember what a parable is. Parables are extended metaphors that use concrete examples to form a brief, coherent story. Parables are not history and their meaning is not immediately accessible. They are meant to draw us in and provoke us to “subvert conventional ways of seeing and living and to invite hearers
The Holy Great Martyr Procopius, in the world Neanius, a native of Jerusalem, lived and suffered during the reign of the emperor Diocletian (284-305). His father, an eminent Roman by the name of Christopher, was a Christian, but the mother of the saint, Theodosia, remained a pagan. He was early deprived of his father, and the young child was raised by his mother. Having received an excellent secular education, he was introduced to Diocletian in
By Fr. Stephen Freedman, January 12, 2018 The imagery of a cosmic battle with chaos…is properly the foundation for the Christian life. “Chaos” is a metaphor for so much that threatens God’s good creation and makes war against His saints. It is also an understanding that is almost completely lost in the modern world. We generally fail to notice that modernity is a phenomenon of the “first world.” It is an understanding that presumes the
Without Religion the Government of a Free People Cannot Be Maintained. Americans of the twentieth century often fail to realize the supreme importance which the Founding Fathers originally attached to the role of religion in the structure of the unique civilization which they hoped would emerge as the first free people in modern times. Many Americans also fail to realize that the Founders felt the role of religion would be as important in our own
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