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It is the sin which our forefathers’ committed in the Garden of Eden where the Creator had positioned them. Because man was honest and harmless, without having an idea what sin was, he ought to be tested as a rational and free personality to consciously decide over his relationship with God. In order to prove this, he must have adhered to God’s command not to eat from the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Man disobeyed the command and betrayed his trust in God’s will. This action caused a triple blame to our ancestors. Firstly, they disobeyed the One who had issued the command. Secondly, it was an unjust act of audacity or boldness, ungratefulness and lack ...

Both Luke’s Gospel (1:3) and the Book of Acts (1:1) are addressed to a man named Theophilus, whom Luke calls “most excellent” (kratistos). This honorific adjective, which in antiquity a person might use when approaching someone of a higher social class than himself, was deemed especially appropriate for addressing government officials. Indeed, Luke himself provides three examples of this usage: the letter of Lysias to the governor Felix (Acts 23:26), an address to the same man by Tertullus (24:3), and St. Paul’s speech to the governor Festus (26:25). It is not surprising, then, that many interpreters of Holy Scripture think Theophilus was a Roman political figure. This is an attractive and likely suggestion. Apostle Luke, icon by hand of Federico ...

When No Priest is Available Reading the Service Books While Traveling or at Home This article is over fifteen years old. You will want to check out Fr. John Whiteford's Liturgical Texts and Resources Site for more recommendations on current liturgical materials available in English. Nevertheless, this article is still timely due to current world events that could easily result in many Orthodox Christians being cut off from their parish churches, if not openly persecuted. It behooves all those who love Christ and His Holy Church to know, and to have the materials to do, the Divine Services so that they may be carried on regardless of one's ability to attend church. This article is admittedly out-of-date. A plethora of service books has appeared since ...

You can't approach God without unceasing prayer. Yearn for God and He'll fill you with his love.

There has been some debate, even at local school-board levels, about the theory of evolution vs. creationism and the more recently offered idea of “intelligent design.” Now Cardinal Cristoph Schönborn has weighed in with an op-ed piece in the New York Times (July 7), claiming that Christians cannot believe that life’s origins can be found in natural selection’s chancy, random stabs at development. Some kind of intelligent design must lie behind it, and reason can lead to a rational belief in an intelligent designer. This has been seized on as a retreat from John Paul II’s endorsement of the theory of evolution as real science, a sign that the new papacy will retreat from serious science into the intelligent design ...

Young people in Greece today have a number of weaknesses. They don’t like hard work, they’re indifferent towards matters of real importance, they reject concepts out of hand and they’re easily led astray with trivial ideas. On the other hand, however, they retain a great desire for truth, they hanker for authenticity, they’re sensitive in a good way, spontaneous, bright, self-restrained and humane. They’re wary of the Church, which they associate with the mistakes of its representatives. They’re somewhat wary of patriotism, after the anti-patriotic harangues of certain modern non-patriots. They make fun of politicians, who have displayed more than enough incompetence and iniquity, but they also include politics itself, which is a pity. The sacred past doesn’t inspire them and ...

2. Besides, the person of the Patriarch Isaac, his birth and the offering of him as a sacrifice to God by his father Abraham have attracted the attention of many interpreters of the Holy Scriptures.             Isaac truly was born through the promise of God. He was born of a mother who was sterile and a father who was well-stricken in years. According to Paul, this means that we, the faithful, “are offspring through the promise of Isaac”, precisely because Isaac was born from a sterile mother, just as the Church was sterile before the advent of Christ and the descent of the Holy Spirit.               With reference to the sacrifice of Isaac, Saint John Chrysostom initially underlines the fact that Abraham ...

(Previous publication:...) "P".: Is there any fundamental problem you have seen with the way bioethics functions today? “Cornelia Delkeskamp-Hayes”: When we speak of “how bioethics functions today”, we speak, first of all, of a huge network of scholarly institutions. These are attached either to medical schools, or to medical humanities departments, or else to philosophical faculties. Here medical students are introduced to the moral quandaries of their profession. So far, so good. But here also the so-called bioethics experts are trained. These experts then serve as consultants on all levels of health care institutions, law making, policy design right down to the nitty gritty of conflict resolution in the hospital, when the interests and commitments of hospital owners, hospital managers, the medical staff, ...

Humility and hardships liberate people from all sin: the first cuts off the passions of the soul; and the seconds those of the body.

Rev. Patrick H. Reardon By way of showing the parabolic teaching of Jesus to be a fulfillment of biblical prophecy, the Gospel of St. Matthew (13:35) cites a line from Psalm 77(78):2: “I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things hidden from the foundation of the world.” The first half of this quotation, found in Matthew alone among the four Gospels, comes verbatim from the traditional Septuagint version of the Psalms, but no extant version of that text explains precisely where Matthew derived his wording in the verse’s second half. It is reasonable to think that he was quoting the psalm from memory, which would explain why he quoted it inexactly. However that may be, two expressions ...

Vasiliki Kouzari was born in 1891 in Varosi, Famagusta, in Cyprus, in what are now the Occupied Territories. Her family was very poor. She had another four siblings, though she herself was the youngest. She lost her mother when she was very young. A man called Konstantinos Psaras, a widower with two children, asked to marry her sister Milia. Milia made it a condition of their marriage that she should bring with her her 10-year-old sister, Vasiliki, and he agreed. Vasiliki brought up the two orphans and another seven children which her sister had with Konstantinos. All the children loved her more than they did their mother, because she loved them so much. As a reward for her efforts with his children and ...

Indignation may be linked to anger, wrath, mischief, irritability and resentment. There is righteous and justified anger, which brings forth indignation, sometimes holy indignation, from the turmoil in the soul which has been affected. This is a dreadful eruption which is expressed publicly, by indignant people protesting in a variety of ways, some extreme, at being mocked, lied to, fooled and deceived. This is a sudden, spontaneous, general expression of outrage, a wave of wrath, a storm of disapproval, a powerful, simmering anger. Scandals among leaders and the powerful caused sparks to fly, irritability, a flare-up of reactive determination, a culmination in the protests, stress, acrimony, fury and hostility. And so there came an eruption of passions, an outbreak of demands. ...

Eucharistic Gathering I. The Church is founded on a rock. “You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against her.” These words could be inscribed on the front of the main churches of all confessions, including Rome, but, of course, without the Roman interpretation. The belief that the Churchof Christis unshakeable and unconquerable comprises one of the most basic convictions of Christianity. In the epoch of deep world crisis and in the dusk of man’s historical paths this unshakeable quality of the Church is a haven for the Christian soul. The face of the earth is changing; mankind is entering unknown and unexplored paths, and we ourselves, just like ...

It's not the history of the Jews, it's the pre-history of our Lord Jesus Christ. They have to understand this. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob may be the forefathers of the Jews, but in spirit they're ours. Saint Paul says so (Gal. 3, 7-9). And the Lord said to the Jews: 'Don't think it's any good to say that you have Abraham for a father, because you don't live like him’.

Evidence for C.S. Lewis’ status as a prophet could be argued from two of his works, one of which is The Abolition of Man, written as a pamphlet in 1943.  (The other work is a short essay entitled, “Priestesses in the Church?”, written in 1948, well before his Anglican Communion began ordaining women to the priesthood in the 1970’s).  Lewis would, of course, utterly dismiss any suggestion that he was a prophet, and I use the term here very loosely.  What is beyond dispute is that much of what Lewis (who died in 1963) predicted and feared has come to pass.  In this brief essay I look a little more closely at the slim volume The Abolition of Man, for ...

This  is a Bible Game for helping your students learn to “follow” the Ten Commandments. In the book of Exodus, God gave Moses the Ten Commandments to share with the Hebrew people. The commandments help us to understand God’s nature and what He considers to be right and wrong, but they don’t actually help us get close to Him. For that, we need Jesus! Object: For students to follow the path of the Ten Commandments, which leads to Christ Jesus in Graceland. Materials Needed: 1 copy of the Ten Commandments 11 pieces of construction paper 1 dark crayon Preparation: Cut the first 10 pieces of construction paper into the shape of a foot print, or simply draw a footprint on each. Number each foot print 1-10 using ...

The sacrament of the Divine Eucharist was prefigured by a variety of events in the era of the Old Testament. These events were investigated from as early as the time when the New Testament was being written. They were interpreted and analyzed by the writers of the New Testament, and thereafter by the Fathers of the Church, not only because they’re noteworthy in themselves, but also because they were harbingers of the Truth. The advent of Christ didn’t mean a commentary on the old, nor a transfer from the relative to the relative, but a progression from the old (enslavement) to the new (liberty. His presence “makes all things new, and the very fact of His incarnation is “he only ...

People today have become like robots. Judgment's ceased. The only people who'll have any judgment are those doing research, the rest will be like machines.