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Are These the End Times?
by Abbot Tryphon We dare not surrender to the temptation of despair, even if these are the End Times. The cultural and spiritual warfare that is taking place because of the pandemic, with the forced separation of mass numbers of people from their extended families, elders, parish communities, and fellow workers, has brought our world to a place not experienced in hundreds of years. Coupled with the polarization of the populous within the United States, and the mass apostasy from Christianity in the West, many Christians are now thinking we must be entering the period of the End Times. Yet when we consider the words of the Our Father, "Thy will be done, on earth as it is in … [Read more...]
The Earliest Hymn to the Virgin Mary
The earliest known hymn to the Virgin Mary is known as “Beneath thy compassion” (Greek: Ὑπὸ τὴν σὴν εὐσπλαγχνίαν). The earliest text of this hymn was found in a Christmas liturgy of the third century. It is written in Greek and dates to approximately at least 250 A.D. In 1917, the John Rylands Library in Manchester acquired a large panel of Egyptian papyrus including the 18 cm by 9.4 cm fragment shown at left, containing the text of this hymn in Greek. C.H. Roberts published this document in 1938. His colleague E. Lobel, with whom he collaborated in editing the Oxyrhynchus papyri, basing his arguments on paleographic analysis, argued that the text could not possibly be older than the third … [Read more...]
The Books will be Opened
by St Symeon the New Theologian God is truth and light, God’s judgement is nothing else than our coming into contact with truth and light. In the day of the Great Judgement all men will appear naked before this penetrating light of truth. The ‘books’ will be opened. What are these ‘books’? They are our hearts. Our hearts will be opened by the penetrating light of God, and what is in these hearts will be revealed. If in those hearts there is love for God, those hearts will rejoice in seeing God’s light. If, on the contrary, there is hatred for God in those hearts, these men will suffer by receiving on their opened hearts this penetrating light of truth which they detested all their life. … [Read more...]
Weekly Bulletin for Sunday, July 26, 2026
Click here to download PDF weekly bulletin for Sunday, July 26, 2026 Weekly Bulletin for Sunday, July 26, 2026 … [Read more...]
The Ancient Western Way of Making the Sign of the Cross
The sign of the cross is a beautiful gesture which reminds the faithful of both the cross of salvation while invoking the Holy Trinity. The early Church Fathers attested to the use of the sign of the cross. Tertullian (d. 250) described the exceptional frequency of the sign of the cross being made: “In all our travels and movements, in all our coming in and going out, in putting on our shoes, at the bath, at the table, in lighting our candles, in lying down, in sitting down, whatever employment occupies us, we mark our foreheads with the sign of the cross” (De corona, 30). St. Cyril of Jerusalem (d. 386) in his Catechetical Lectures stated, “Let us then not be ashamed to confess … [Read more...]
Why Satan attacks Orthodox Christians
by Elder Sampson “One must always remember the difference between the emotional, the spiritual, and the physical: the life of the spirit, the life of the soul (that is, the senses and emotions, and the life of the body. This is exactly where there is so much confusion. By the way, the Western [Christan] denominations . . . all have precisely this confusion between the spirit and the soul. The mother can transmit to the child many wonderful qualities of character, of the soul, right? But not the qualities of the spirit: faith and love towards people which are given by the Holy Spirit. “Therefore [because Orthodoxy discerns the difference between the gifts of the Holy Spirit … [Read more...]
Glorious Liberty
Hello my dear Campers. Today we celebrate freedom. Liberty! And it is not the absence of boundaries, but the capability to do what we should do, to do as we ought to do. Let us start with God. Christianity teaches that apart from Christ, human beings are naturally in a state of bondage—often physical, often psychological, but always spiritual. Through the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ our God, believers are liberated from several tyrannies. Bondage of Sin: Freedom from the ultimate power, grip, and control that destructive, sinful desires have over human behavior. The Penalty of the Law: Believers are freed from the spiritual condemnation and eternal punishment of God's … [Read more...]
Orthodox vs Catholic Salvation Explained
If you were raised Roman Catholic or are now comparing ancient Christian traditions, the question of Orthodox vs Catholic salvation is not academic. It touches confession, baptism, communion, repentance, assurance, and the whole shape of the Christian life. People often ask which Church "teaches salvation by grace" as though one side believes in grace and the other does not. That is the wrong starting point. Both the Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church confess that salvation is impossible apart from the grace of God in Jesus Christ. Neither teaches that man saves himself. The real difference is found in how salvation is described, how grace is understood in the life of the … [Read more...]
Orthodox Bible Study Lessons That Form Faith
A Bible study can leave a person with more information and less understanding. That is often the modern problem. Many Christians have read the text, underlined verses, and listened to countless teachers, yet still feel unmoored. Orthodox Bible study lessons begin from a different conviction: Holy Scripture belongs in the life of the Church. It is not a private puzzle book, and it is not a platform for each reader to invent his own theology. It is the written witness received, proclaimed, and rightly understood within the worshiping body of Christ. For many inquirers, that alone is a relief. They are tired of treating every passage as a debate topic. They want to know how the apostles … [Read more...]
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