The prayer of the Church has such great power that, even if we speak less than stones, it could make our tongue lighter than a feather. Just as, when a breeze fills the sails of a ship and makes it go faster than an arrow, so the prayer of the Church, when it falls onto the tongue of those saying it, makes our words stronger than the breeze.
The last part of the Divine Liturgy consists of the thanksgiving for Holy Communion and the Dismissal. The priest takes the chalice and paten to the Preparation Table, folds the red cloth and places the Gospel on it, while saying prayers of thanksgiving, in which the congregation take part. There are two brief hymns: ‘We have seen the true light; we have received the heavenly Spirit; we have found the true faith, as we worship the undivided Trinity; for the Trinity has saved us’. And: ‘Let our mouths be filled with your praise, Lord, that we may sing of your glory. For you have counted us worthy to partake of your holy, divine, immortal and life-giving Mysteries. Keep us in your ...
The Place of the Artist The place and prominence of the artist in society has shifted radically in the last millennium. Very little is known about the artists prior to the end of the Middle Ages. The architects, artists, and craftsmen were not identified. They did not sign their works. Artistic accomplishments were brought forth out of the cultural context and were an expression of the world view or the faith of the people and the time in which they were created. Just as we do not know the names of the bankers, or contractors, or chariot builders, the names of artists were not recorded. It was not until the Renaissance and the rise of humanism that artists began to be ...
Of the several ministry-related issues which are raised in the book, I think that two have particular relevance to me in my ministry experience in light of the Pastoral Epistles and the Letter to the Ephesians. The first issue that I see as relevant to my ministry is the need for ministry to be rooted on the Apostolic model and to resist the secular mindset which is permeating local churches and denominational jurisdictions. The congregation should not set the tone, scope or nature of the pastor’s ministry. By mere definition, it shouldn’t because it can’t. Ontologically, the pastor’s call is of Apostolic origin. As the authors rightly observe, “Everybody and his dog has a job description for the pastor. Everybody knows ...
People need to taste the sweetness of Grace in their soul, so as to understand how unfair they’re being to themselves if they don’t try to find it.
That Christians should open their eyes to ecological problems, and recognize their responsibility for the preservation of their natural environment, is the insight underlying this conference at the St. Michael’s institute. And I want to thank Father Alexander for having invited me to participate, for the permission, as a woman, to break the silence we should usually observe, and for the opportunity to learn more about what it means for a Christian to worry about the environment. That Christians should open their eyes to ecological problems, and recognize their responsibility for nature’s resources, was brought home to me in Germany while I was still a Protestant. In its 1983 Vancouver meeting, the World Council of Churches initiated its conciliar process, a ...
1. In accordance with the faith of our Church, we teach you and tell you that Christ will appear to us twice, not only once, and that His second coming will be incomparably more brilliant and glorious than the first. Because in the first, Christ’s patience was manifested in all its depth, whereas in the second the whole of the power and glory of His Kingdom will be revealed. … So let’s not dwell only on the first appearance but let’s also consider the second. And if, at the first appearance we said ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’ (Matth. 21. 9), at the time of His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, at His second coming we ...
I never saw any correction through anger, always simply through love. Then the person being chastised is also sacrificed.
"Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it and was glad”. Then the Jews said to Him, "You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?" Jesus said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am". (John 8:56-58) The Orthodox understanding of the Old Testament is rooted in three vital affirmations: 1) All Scripture is divinely inspired and useful for teaching (2 Tim. 3:16) 2) The Old Testament speaks of Christ 3) All manifestations of God in the Old Testament are of the Son of God In this article, we will look at one of the earliest manifestations of God in the Old Testament: the appearance of three men to Abraham by the ...
Meatfare Sunday Today’s Gospel gives an anthropomorphic description of the fundamental dogma of our faith regarding Christ’s Second Coming on earth and the Judgement. The throne on which Christ will sit depicts the majesty of the judgement, its impartiality, and the separation of people. In fact, everything happens all at once. The Judge has no need of any particular procedure in order to reach His verdict: people are judged according to their works. Our works demonstrate our true or disordered freedom. True freedom is when we align our will with that of God. Disordered freedom is the opposite of that. Free will, which is God’s greatest gift to us, is what separates us from all the other creatures and gives us the ...
The truth is that the Son is the revelation of the Father and is testimony to the fact that, without a profound investigation of the mystery of sonship, it is impossible to delve into the sacred mystery of real paternity. Fatherhood and sonship are linked with bonds in this life and the next. It is a mystery that is both dual and single at the same time. In our human, historical reality, paternity and sonship are in continual conflict, to the extent that, as we have seen, it is very common for the one to deny and exclude the other. So why is such crucial importance attributed to them in the Gospels? Without question, because, within real fatherhood and sonship ...
Jesus, Son of God, have mercy upon me. Be my joy in sorrows.
In Marva Dawn and Eugene Peterson’s book The Unnecessary Pastor, we are given an insight into the plight of contemporary pastoral leadership. Originally, the title of this book was taken from a Regent College church leaders’ conference which was led by the authors. The authors provide us with the following stunning thesis: the clergy and churches are in crisis today in large part due to an identity crisis in how the culture, congregations, and the clergy themselves view and regard their respective call, role and function. In the book, the focus is on the Pastoral Epistles (I & II Timothy, Titus) of what pastoral ministry ought to be through the lens of the larger framework of the Letter to the Ephesians. ...
So the whole structure and organization of today’s coenobitic monasticism is such that, through the common ownership of property, each monk or nun is guaranteed personal poverty and the spirit of renunciation is ensured for each monk or nun. They’re provided with the necessities, without owning anything, they work wherever they’re asked to without any ambition. All the financial activities of the Monastery are conducted or the needs of the community, in a spirit of service. Anything that creates additional distraction or abuse through excessive commercial or business activity is held to be a deviation from the norm. Profit is never the aim, only meeting the needs of everyday life, as defined by the canons of the monastic life, of ...
One of the greatest problems of Orthodox spirituality in recent years has been the distortion of Orthodox eschatology, that is the prophetic discourse concerning the last times. It’s common for people with no experience spiritually, without any real awareness of what Orthodoxy means or of its magnificent essence, to concern themselves with whatever’s been recorded as the word of the Lord, either as the word of an Apostle or Saint, regarding the last times of the world. They do this hurriedly and without the necessary spiritual background. In fact, the main characteristic of most of them is that, without ever having studied the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles of Saint Paul and the other Apostles, that is, without ...
The more sins and evil multiply on earth, so to do the correctional visitations, that is famine, earthquakes, wars, all kinds of sicknesses and death. Our concern, as Christians, is to abandon sin, to reconcile ourselves with God, to have fear of Him, humility and patience, and then all our tribulations will lessen and will become very beneficial for our salvation.
Photios Kontoglou, the greatest icon painter of modern Greece and one of her most important theologians and literary writers, died in Athens on July 13, 1965. His death, during surgury, passed almost entirely unnoticed in America, even among Greek-Americans, but he was deeply mourned throughout Greece. I was in Greece when he died and had the good fortune of seeing and talking with this great and holy man just five days before his “falling asleep.” The editor of an Athenian religious monthly asked me to write an obituary . . . I have undertaken to write this brief biography. Photios Kontoglou was born on November 8, 1895, at Kydoniai (Aivali), on the west coast ...
“Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ,” St. Paul wrote in his First Epistle to the Corinthians (11:1). The most excellent way to follow the Apostle’s prescription is to practice Christ’s own words recorded in the Gospel of John: “If you love Me, keep My commandments” (14:15). Those who most excellently follow His commandments after the Birth-giver of God, the Most-holy Theotokos, are His saints, known and unknown. Saints are an integral part of the Orthodox Church: St. Clement of Rome writes, “Cleave to the saints, for they who cleave to them shall be made holy,” while St. Ephraim the Syrian adds, “Blessed is he who plants in his soul good plants, that is, the virtues and the lives of saints.” Reverence for ...
