By Fr. Lev Gillet, April 20, 2019 Strictly speaking, Lent ends on the Friday which follows the fifth Sunday of Lent: the period of forty days is then over. The time of the Passion lasts from the end of Lent until the Resurrection, anticipated on Holy Saturday. It therefore comprises the Saturday which follows the fifth Sunday of Lent, called ‘Lazarus Saturday’, and the first six days of Holy Week. Lazarus Saturday has a very
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, March 25, 2015 I consider it both a strange mystery and a settled matter of the faith that God prefers not to do things alone. Repeatedly, He acts in a manner that involves the actions of others when, it would seem, He could have acted alone. Why would God reveal His Word to the world through the agency of men? Why would He bother to use writing? Why not simply communicate
By Fr. Stavros Akrotirianakis, December 24, 2018 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory. John 1:14 The Gospel accounts of the Nativity are limited to a mere forty verses. In the Gospel of Matthew, there are 19 verses about the Nativity. The Gospel of Luke has 20. The Gospel of Mark makes no mention of the Nativity. It begins with the Baptism of Christ. The Gospel of John
By Fr. Stavros Akrotirianakis, December 14, 2018 We began this short series on figures of the Nativity by comparing them to roles in a Christmas pageant. There are eight defined “speaking” roles in just about every Christmas pageant—Mary and Joseph, the shepherds, the magi, the innkeeper, King Herod, the angels and the crowd in Bethlehem. There are some other roles in the story. I’ve watched many a Christmas pageant in my years as a priest,
By Fr. Stavros Akrotirianakis, December 11, 2018 Most movies have a villain. In fact, the storyline in many movies, as well as in life in general, is the conflict between good and evil. In Christian terms, church fathers and saints have written about spiritual warfare—the conflict between Godliness and things that are against God. In the Nativity story, we have our villain, and it’s King Herod. When the wise men came to Jerusalem asking King
By Fr. Maximos (Constas) The metaphors used by Scripture and the Church are not random and arbitrary, and the deeper you dig into any particular symbol the more meaning it will generate. Those who work with plants and gardening, or maybe biologists who know about reproduction, and the activity of seeds and sperm will be able to unpack even more insight. But the thing about a seed is that seeds remain dormant until they are
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, July 30, 2015 The most difficult part of my Orthodox experience to discuss with the non-Orthodox is the place and role of the Mother of God in the Church and in my life. It is, on the one hand, deeply theological and even essential to a right understanding of the Orthodox faith, while, on the other hand, being intensely personal beyond the bounds of conversation. I am convinced, as well, that
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, O my 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
The Byzantine Church since at least the 5th century has practiced a period of fasting prior to the feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos. This ancient custom has much to offer contemporary Christians. Christians of the East have always recognized the mystery of Our Lady’s Dormition, her ‘falling asleep’ at the end of her natural life. The passage of Mary the Virgin Mother of God from this life to life eternal is a cause
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