By Fr. Nicholas Belcher Today, the Holy Orthodox Church commemorates the repose of the Holy Apostle and Evangelist, St. John the Theologian. As we learn from the Holy Gospels, St. John, one of the sons of Zebedee, was called by Christ to abandon his fishing nets to become a fisher of men and a son of thunder. Saint John became one of the twelve apostles, and despite his being – according to tradition – the youngest,
By Fr John Breck, March 1, 2008 In the prologue to his Gospel, the evangelist John takes up the account of creation given in the first chapter of Genesis, in order to illustrate the story of redemption accomplished by Jesus Christ, the eternal Son and Word of God. “In the beginning,” out of His infinite otherness, with God and as God, the Word comes forth, to create the world and to save it from death
By Daniel Manzuk from The Word, June 2008 It would be a gross understatement to say that much has been written about the Feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos. Yet very little has been written about the fast that precedes it. Every Orthodox Christian is aware and generally knows the reason behind the fasts for Pascha and Christmas. But while they may know of the Dormition Fast, few follow it, and more than a
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, June 16, 2019 Pascha (Easter) comes with a great note of joy in the Christian world. Christ is risen from the dead and our hearts rejoice. That joy begins to wane as the days pass. Our lives settle back down to the mundane tasks at hand. After 40 days, the Church marks the Feast of the Ascension, often attended by only a handful of the faithful (Rome has more-or-less moved the
Today is the last day of Pascha for Christians of the Byzantine tradition. Each major feast on the Church calendar has an Apodosis that comes, normally, at the end of the octave. The hymns for Matins, the hours, Vespers, Compline, and the Divine Liturgy are repeated as on the first day of the feast. For Pascha, however, the Leave-Taking is on the vigil of the Ascension, but, with the exception of the changed lectionary, the
By Fr John Breck, April 1, 2009 The final Old Testament reading for Holy Saturday vespers—Daniel 3:1-57, the story of the three young men in the fiery furnace in Babylon—is composite, drawing upon both Aramaic and Greek (Septuagint) traditions. The latter modifies and amplifies a detail the Church’s patristic witnesses consider essential. That small detail is a typological image that announces the primary theme of Orthodox Pascha or Easter: the descent of Christ into the
This weekend our nation observes Memorial Day – a date on the civil calendar when the nation does (and should) honor the men and women who have given their lives in defense of our nation – of us – during their tours of service in the various branches of our USA Armed Forces. They have paid the ultimate sacrifice for the freedoms we enjoy as Americans. They have died so that the world might be
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, October 12, 2016 Noise. The sound of the world around us generally qualifies as little more than noise. Almost nothing advertises itself as unimportant or something to be attended to later. The insistent cries of everything often raise the demands for our attention to a deafening pitch. “Do this! Read this! Buy this! Remember this! Believe this!” The world constantly presents itself to us as though it were teetering on the
Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, May 9, 2021 Faith. Deep and true faith means being open to what the truth turns out to be as we grow and learn and come more fully to understand. We come to know most fully through an experience of the Living God just like so many did when encountering the Crucified One risen from the dead. In the journey of faith we must be willing to
By Fr John Breck, May 1, 2007 Since the recent publication and popularization of the Gospel of Judas, it has been fashionable to look on this disciple either as a victim of circumstance or as a hero, blessed by Jesus to set the stage for His condemnation. Aside from resting on bad exegesis, this interpretation ignores a basic truth about Jesus’ incarnation and His saving death. The so-called Gospel of Judas burst on the popular scene over
© 2020 Saint Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral
