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Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen! The Second Tuesday of Pascha: What Christ Accomplished on the Cross (The Consequences of the Fall, Part I)

By Hieromonk Damascene The Consequences of the Fall, Part I Such was the lofty original state of man and the creation, and such was man’s lofty original calling. But as we all know and experience every day, the first man, Adam, fell from this state and brought himself and all of creation into a state of corruption and death. The whole story of the Fall and why it occurred lies outside the scope of this

The Great and Holy Pascha! Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen!

“This is the day which the Lord hath made; let us rejoice and be glad therein.” Pascha is the day of universal joy and peace. The entire world, every breath and all creation, triumphs and rejoices. For the Lord has conquered and destroyed death, abolishing the “dominion of death” – the power of death. With the Resurrection of Christ, the dawn of the coming general Resurrection has already begun to break over all creation, for

Holy Ground

Holy Ground All this might sound like a new sort of romanticism, but our own very concrete experiences and observations will help us to recognize this as realism. Often we must confess that the experience of our loneliness is stronger than that of our solitude and that our words about solitude are spoken out of the painful silence of loneliness. But there are happy moments of direct knowing, affirming our hopes and encouraging us in

Journey to Pascha

Desiring to commune with the Divine Pascha . . . let us pursue victory over the devil through fasting. (First hymn of the aposticha for Vespers, Thursday of the first week of Lent) Having thus been encouraged and inspired by the memory and veneration of the Cross on which Christ suffered for our sakes, we are persuaded to continue our own Lenten effort, to carry on bearing our cross for His sake, and to walk

Renewal Monday, Christ is Risen!

It is necessary to explain that Easter is much more than one of the feasts, more than a yearly commemoration of a past event? Anyone who has, be it only once, taken part in that night which is “brighter than the day,” who has tasted of that unique joy knows it. But what is that joy about? Why we can sing, as we do, during the Paschal liturgy: “today are all things filled with light,

Christos Anesti! The Holy and Great Sunday of Pascha!

On the Great and Holy Feast of Pascha, Orthodox Christians celebrate the life-giving Resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. This feast of feasts is the most significant day in the life of the Church. It is a celebration of the defeat of death, as neither death itself nor the power of the grave could hold our Savior captive. In this victory that came through the Cross, Christ broke the bondage of sin, and

Great and Holy Saturday

Comments on the Main Themes On Great Saturday the Church contemplates the mystery of the Lord’s descent into Hades, the place of the dead. Death, our ultimate enemy, is defeated from within. “He (Christ) gave Himself as a ransom to death in which we were held captive, sold under sin. Descending into Hades through the Cross … He loosed the bonds of death” (Liturgy of St. Basil). The hymnographer of the Church describes the mystery

Great and Holy Friday

Comments on the Main Themes On Great Friday the Church remembers the ineffable mystery of Christ’s death. Death -tormenting, indiscriminate, universal – casts its cruel shadow over all creation. It is the silent companion of life. It is present in everything, ready to stifle and impose limits upon all things. The fear of death causes anguish and despair. It shackles us to the appearances of life and makes rebellion and sin erupt in us (Heb

The Sixth Wednesday of Great Lent

Courage and Humility Defeat Death Isidore said: ‘The one who is faithful to God ought not to trust in God’s own faithfulness: nor should the one who sins against God despair of God’s mercy. In the heart of both are hope and fear side by side: hope of forgiveness which inspires courage, and fear of punishment which rouses humility. ‘It is necessary that the penitent never feel secure with regard to their sin, because such

The Second Wednesday of Great Lent

Before the Ship Sinks An illness that has become chronic, like a habit of wrong-doing that has become ingrained is very hard to heal. If after that, as very often happens, the habit turns into second nature, a cure is out of the question. So the ideal would be to have no contact with evil. But there is another possibility: to distance yourself from evil, to run away from it as if from a poisonous