Great Lent Archives - Page 2 of 30

The Sunday of St. Gregory Palamas: Unmediated Grace

03/16/2025

~By Stephen Freeman, March 30, 2013 This Sunday the Orthodox Calendar commemorates St. Gregory Palamas – perhaps the most significant theologian and teacher of the late Byzantine period. He particularly is important when considering the nature of the Christian experience of God. Orthodoxy believes that it is truly possible to know God though He remains unknowable. The mystery of this true knowledge constitutes the heart of St. Gregory’s work. I first encountered St. Gregory’s writings

The Second Friday of Great Lent. Saint Gregory Palamas (2nd Sunday in Lent) – A Christian Existentialism

03/14/2025

Fr. John Meyendorff In its opposition to Barlaamite nominalism, Palamite thought is a solemn affirmation of divine immanence in history and in man. God does not reveal Himself to the world only “through creatures” but directly, in Jesus Christ. We have all, all of us, known the Son by the Father’s voice speaking to us from on high (Matt. 3: 16-17) and the Holy Spirit himself, who is unutterable light, has shown us that this is indeed

The Second Thursday of Great Lent. Great Lent: An Empirical Journey into the Depths of Our Being

03/13/2025

~ By Elder Patapios Kavsokalyvitis, Superintendent of the Skete of the Holy Trinity, Mount Athos By fasting, we learn to say ‘No’ to our desire for food and also learn to say ‘No’ to our often self-destructive will. We also learn to say ‘Yes’ to God, which is always redemptive. We’ve begun the Triodio, this blessed period of the liturgical year, with repentance, because we’ve felt deeply, existentially, within us the need to return from

The Second Wednesday of Great Lent: Depth Spirituality

03/12/2025

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, October 25, 2020 Let me begin today by reading from Paul’s letter to the Galatians chapter 5, vs. 22-23: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” Let’s focus on self-control today since one of the hallmarks of what we call “possession” is the loss of it. Our Holy Fathers and Mothers were not acquainted as

The Second Tuesday of Great Lent. And Not to Judge my Brother

03/11/2025

~By Protopresbyter Georgios Dorbarakis It’s a constant exhortation on the part of the Church, all the year round, but particularly during Lent. Indeed, the prayer of Saint Efraim the Syrian is a powerful reminder which we repeat on a daily basis: ‘And not to judge my brother’. And how could it be otherwise, when Jesus Christ himself, the head of the faith, gave us the commandment which expresses the existence or absence of love towards

The Second Monday of Great Lent. The Sunday of Orthodoxy

03/10/2025

~ By Metropolitan Athanasios of Lemessos On the first Sunday of Lent [yesterday, Sunday], we celebrate[d] the Sunday of Orthodoxy, that is to say the feast of the restitution of the holy icons, as the Church once again, by the grace of God, vanquished the heresy of the iconoclasts and preserved with exactitude the faith and the tradition of the Holy Fathers of the Church, as it has been preserved throughout the ages. This faith

The Sunday of Orthodoxy

03/09/2025

~By Fr. Stephen Freeman, March 7, 2009 The first Sunday of Great Lent is always observed as the “Sunday of Orthodoxy” in our Churches. It marks both the return of the icons to the Churches following the end of the Iconoclast Controversy, but also as a summation of all the Holy Teachings of the faith which Orthodoxy holds and for which many have died. Most of our parishes will have a procession around the Church

The First Thursday of Great Lent. Charity and Lent

03/06/2025

Protopresbyter Antonios Christou Dear readers, Great Lent is a time of strenuous, spiritual struggle with ourselves (less sleep, less nutrition, less ease and preoccupation with things we like doing, greater participation in the services and prayers, and so on). I don’t know, however, whether we truly realize the extent to which another fundamental aim is charity towards others. Apart from the general principle expressed in the Sermon on the Mount (‘Blessed are the merciful* for

The First Wednesday of Great Lent: Recommitting to the Gospel

03/05/2025

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, December 6, 2020 In the year 313 AD an imperial edict proclaimed Christianity to be the preeminent religion of the empire. Something was lost in that moment. I am not the first to say it, nor will I be the last. What was largely lost was the prophetic voice of the Church. The Church was from the beginning a counter-cultural movement. It became an arm of the

The First Tuesday of Great Lent: Saint Andrew, Archbishop of Crete

03/04/2025

Saint Andrew, Archbishop of Crete, was born in the city of Damascus into a pious Christian family. Up until seven years of age the boy was mute and did not talk. However, after communing the Holy Mysteries of Christ he found the gift of speech and began to speak. And from that time the lad began earnestly to study Holy Scripture and the discipline of theology. At fourteen years of age he went off to

Archive

The Sunday of St. Gregory Palamas: Unmediated Grace

The Second Friday of Great Lent. Saint Gregory Palamas (2nd Sunday in Lent) – A Christian Existentialism

The Second Thursday of Great Lent. Great Lent: An Empirical Journey into the Depths of Our Being

The Second Wednesday of Great Lent: Depth Spirituality

The Second Tuesday of Great Lent. And Not to Judge my Brother

The Second Monday of Great Lent. The Sunday of Orthodoxy

The Sunday of Orthodoxy

The First Thursday of Great Lent. Charity and Lent

The First Wednesday of Great Lent: Recommitting to the Gospel

The First Tuesday of Great Lent: Saint Andrew, Archbishop of Crete

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