Pemptousia Archives - Saint Sophia

Forgiveness Sunday – Do We Know What We’re Doing?

03/02/2025

~By Fr Stephen Freeman, March 13, 2016 This is a meditation I shared with my parish this week as the Sunday of Forgiveness approaches: Perhaps the most generous words spoken by Christ are those we hear from the Cross: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Taken at face value, the words make little sense. Surely, those who crucified Christ knew that they were killing a man. Surely they were

From Darkness to Light

02/27/2025

~By Archimandrite Varnavas Lambropoulos On the eve of our entry into Great Lent, everything in church speaks to us of repentance. The wonderful hymns ‘robe’ the message of repentance in a poetic manner; the Gospel reading gives us the keys to open the gates of repentance; and the Epistle reminds us of one of Saint Paul’s most pressing admonitions: to call us to repentance. In essence the leading apostle repeats, in his own, graphic manner,

Who Loves Perfectly?

02/25/2025

~By Fr. Andreas Agathokleous I don’t know if, in other eras, people experienced confusion regarding words, that is, that they said one thing and meant another. Despite the great achievements of scientific progress, technological development, the shrinking of distances, and tremendous communications, I think that, in our own age there’s the following particular contradiction: although we’re always waxing lyrical about love (in songs, poetry and prose), in reality we don’t know what it is, because,

Distress and Delight

02/20/2025

Fr. Andreas Agathokleous How is it that you want to be friends with someone, but yet you don’t make any effort to get in touch with them, particularly when there’s no reluctance on their part? How is it that you want to feel God’s joy within you, to feel the sweetness of his presence, but yet you don’t pray? How is it that you say you love God, but yet you don’t observe his commandments?

How Does the Holy Trinity Create a Person?

02/04/2025

Dr. Nikolaos Koios, Content Coach of Pemptousia It’s been noted by theological scholarship on more than one occasion that, in Orthodoxy, dogma and ethos, theory and practice, faith and life are indissolubly bound together. Every invitation to spiritual struggle has a powerful dogmatic foundation and vice versa: the spiritual life of the Church of love and humility is what produces, in a sense, the dogmatic conscience of each member individually and of the Church as

Pentecost Saturday for Souls

06/22/2024

Published by Pemptousia Partnership on June 19, 2021 Petros Panayiotopoulos, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Theology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Our holy Church offers us another opportunity to remember and honor our dead people, our beloved persons who passed away, and all her members by whom we are in communion through God’ s love and the grace from the sacraments, beyond this sense of time. To say it in other words, by this care we confirm the unity of

Why Don’t the Orthodox Feel Guilt?

06/20/2024

Published by Pemptousia Partnership on May 30, 2021 Fr. Andreas Agathokleous There’s clearly confusion among a good few members of the Church as to how to live, how to behave and what constitutes a sin. There’s also a strong attachment to their sinful past and this increases their feelings of guilt. Nobody wants to live without joy, without appreciating life, without a thankful recognition of the many gifts which have been bestowed on us by God’s love. I

The Ascension of Jesus Christ in Glory

06/13/2024

Published by Pemptousia Partnership on June 10, 2021 Archimandrite Zacharias Zacharou ‘God is gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet.’ The Ascension is the last event in Christ’s earthly life. Of course, Pentecost is the fulfilment of God’s dispensation, which is why is called ‘the last feast’. God the Father was well pleased to see man as he had conceived him before the foundation of the world and sent the Holy Spirit

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! The Fourth Monday of Pascha: Saint John the Russian

05/27/2024

Published by Pemptousia Partnership on May 27, 2021 Metropolitan Meletios of Nikopolis † For people who have any understanding of God and his kingdom, nothing’s a misfortune. Saint John suffered one of the greatest misfortunes that can befall anyone. He was taken prisoner of war. By the Turks. At the age of twenty. What could have been worse? Yet this misfortune proved to be his greatest good fortune. Not only did he gain the kingdom of God, the

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! The Third Wednesday of Pascha: The Lord’s Resurrection

05/22/2024

Published by Pemptousia Partnership on June 16, 2020 George Mantzarides, Professor Emeritus of the Theological School of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Saint Sophrony, from Essex, said that the greatest sin these days is that people have sunk into despair and no longer believe in the resurrection. In the pre-Christian era, and later in the world outside Christianity, there was widespread belief in the immortality of the soul. But even this belief has been abandoned in our own

Archive

Forgiveness Sunday – Do We Know What We’re Doing?

From Darkness to Light

Who Loves Perfectly?

Distress and Delight

How Does the Holy Trinity Create a Person?

Pentecost Saturday for Souls

Why Don’t the Orthodox Feel Guilt?

The Ascension of Jesus Christ in Glory

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! The Fourth Monday of Pascha: Saint John the Russian

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! The Third Wednesday of Pascha: The Lord’s Resurrection

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