‘Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death! And to those in the tombs he has given life’: this is the constant theme, in the Eastern Church, of the Easter celebration, the ‘feast of feasts’. ‘The day of Resurrection! The Passover, the Passover of the Lord! From death to life … Christ our God has brought us over… Now, all is filled with light, heaven and earth and the places under the
By Father Steven Kostoff “Then will appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven….“ [Matthew 24:30]. Contemporary scholars debate the meaning of the word “sign” in the words of Christ found in the above passage that describes, in highly symbolic terms, His parousia or return in glory. This sign, whatever it may be, will be impossible to miss or misinterpret. It will overwhelm those who are present to observe it and stand in its shadow,
Two Kinds of Loneliness In the spiritual life we have to make a distinction between two kinds of loneliness. In the first loneliness, we are out of touch with God and experience ourselves as anxiously looking for someone or something that can give us a sense of belonging, intimacy, and home. The second loneliness comes from an intimacy with God that is deeper and greater than our feelings and thoughts can capture. We might think
The Descent of the Holy Spirit By Bishop Alexander (Mileant) The descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles on the day of Pentecost is described by the Evangelist Luke in the initial chapters of his book “Acts of the Holy Apostles.” It was God’s will to make this event a turning point in the world’s history. Pentecost, celebrated on the fiftieth day after the Jewish Passover, was one of the three major holidays of
By Father Lawrence Farley From the prophecies of Isaiah: “It will come about also in that day that a great trumpet will be blown, and those who were perishing in the land of Assyria and who were scattered in the land of Egypt will come and worship the Lord in the holy mountain at Jerusalem” (Isaiah 27:13). The prophet here surveys the world around him, and sees how the people of God were languishing in
By Hieromonk Damascene The Consequences of Christ’s Redemptive Work, Part IV The Body of the resurrected Christ was incomparably more spiritual than the incorrupt body of Adam before the Fall. Christ’s resurrected, spiritual Body was like the spiritual body that Adam was supposed to attain by ascending to God in Paradise. Likewise, the New Heaven and the New Earth will be incomparably more spiritual than the incorrupt creation before the Fall. Through Christ the New Adam, the
By Hieromonk Damascene The Consequences of Christ’s Redemptive Work, Part II In the Gospels, especially the Gospel of St. John, Christ makes several statements which reveal how His followers would be able to receive the Grace of the Holy Spirit by means of His death. In the temple Christ preached: He that believeth on Me … out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. After quoting these words of Christ, the Apostle John explains: But this
By Hieromonk Damascene The Consequences of Christ’s Redemptive Work, Part I Now, having looked at how Christ redeemed us through His death on the Cross, let us turn to the saving fruits of Christ’s death. What does it mean for mankind to be ransomed from guilt, to be forgiven of sins? It means, in the words of St. John Damascene, that “the road back to the former blessedness [i.e., before the Fall] has been made
By Hieromonk Damascene The Means of Redemption, Part I Now, having looked at the pre-Fall state and the consequences of the Fall, let us look more closely at how Christ restores man to the pre-Fall state and in fact beyond and above this state. The how of the redemption, like the nature of God the Holy Trinity, is ultimately a mystery. And yet the Holy Scriptures and the Holy Fathers help us to approach this mystery. They enable us
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
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