by Abbott Tryphon The Old Testament is filled with the image of God’s people being a holy people, set apart. The ancient Israelites were not like their neighbors. Their values and their faith impacted everything about them. They dressed differently than many of their neighboring pagan tribes. Their worship was centered on the God that had revealed himself to them and made them his chosen people. Their spiritual and moral views reflected this relationship with the One God that had entered into communion with them and who had revealed Divine Truth through the prophets. The Church is the continuation of the Church of the Old Testament and as such, we are the chosen people of God. Our lives … [Read more...]
Where is our Bliss in Paradise if our Loved Ones are in Fiery Gehenna?
by Priest Alexei Taakh The idea that God created such a “concentration camp” for eternal and cruel torture of sinners is nonsense. He is Love, He came down into our world and suffered for us; He taught love and forgiveness… And then He suddenly turned into a ruthless executioner and tortures His children everlastingly as punishment for several years of sinful life? It is nonsense. “After the general resurrection we will meet with our kin and friends. This long–awaited meeting and the life of the age to come is the fundamental hope of Christians. This is how we console ourselves after the deaths of our loved ones. But after the Last Judgment not everyone will inherit the Kingdom of … [Read more...]
Spiritual Maturation and the Church Calendar
by Abbot Tryphon One of the most spiritually profitable discoveries for me, personally, was when I started, as a new Orthodox Christian, the observance of the liturgical calendar. Each day of the year I was carried along with the cycle of commemorations that brought to life various events in the life of Christ. The calendar provided me with daily scripture readings that quenched my thirst. The historical memory of the Church, lived out in the various periods of fasts and feasts, allowed me to experience a Christianity that was vibrant and meaningful. An important element in the calendar, I discovered, was the daily commemorations of Christian saints and martyrs. These saints came alive … [Read more...]
“Children, It is the Last Hour”
by Fr. Lawrence Farley It is sometimes imagined that the Resurrection of Christ finds its full significance as the last happy chapter in the story of His life, so that after a gruelling chapter about His betrayal, arrest, crucifixion, and burial, the tale can end with the Evangelist concluding, “And He lived happily ever after”. Consistent with this is a theological view which finds the sole significance of His Resurrection as proof that the price Jesus paid for our sin on the cross was accepted by the Father—that is, the Father indicated that the price Jesus paid by dying for our sins was fully sufficient. In this view, the Resurrection of Christ had no salvific value such as did His … [Read more...]
Inaugural Arizona Icon Writing Workshop Complete!
The first Arizona Icon Writing Workshop, sponsored by ASONA and Christ the Savior Churches is complete. Running from June 12-17, 2023, the week long Iconology Workshop was led by Tatiania and Dimitry Berestova of the Prosopon School of Iconology, and featured 12 students, lay and clergy, including two advanced students who have studied under the Prosopon School previously. Consisting of 22 distinct steps that were executed in 6 days, the Christology, anthropology, patterns, symbolism, and allegories of the icon and iconography were well presented by Tatiania Berestova. Running all day, from morning til evening, the workshop closed at around 5 pm on Saturday evening, just in time for Great … [Read more...]
The Divine Liturgy Sustains the Cosmos
Sermon 21 by St. Seraphim (Zvezdenski) Translated by Fr. Zachariah Lynch Below the reader will find my translation from the Russian of sermon number 21 by St. Seraphim (Zvezdenski), On the Divine Liturgy (only one more to go!). St. Seraphim reveals, once again, to us that the Divine Liturgy is a direct window to the Sun of Righteousness. Through it, the world is sustained and upheld. Is it any wonder, therefore, that the enemy seeks to halt the service of the Divine Liturgy? Be it through outright hindrance or by replacing it with an anti-liturgy, a false liturgy (such as is performed, for example, by the pseudo-church in Ukraine, the “orthodox church of Ukraine” [OCU-EP]). We also see … [Read more...]
Christ’s 2nd Coming or Antichrist: Who are Modern Christians Waiting For?
by Professor Alexei Osipov A lecture given to students of the Moscow Theological Academy Who is more awaited by modern Christians: Christ with His spiritual blessings, but Who has not improved people’s earthly life a whit, has not solved their daily problems—political, economic, social, or cultural; or antichrist, who promises to do give all this? Those Christians of all confessions, who see the meaning of their lives and faith itself in receiving the maximum of earthly blessings, will, of course, receive this earthly king as their savior. You don’t believe it? Well, just look at what modern Christians around the world seek most of all—of course they seek an abundance of earthly … [Read more...]
Why Do We Decorate Churches with Grass, Flowers and Tree Branches on Pentecost?
by Archpriest Boris Stark It symbolizes the soul, which blossoms and turns green after its winter sleep because the grace of God has touched it. Since ancient times, there is a pious tradition to decorate churches on the day of Pentecost with greenery – leaves, flowers, birch branches and so on. What is the origin of this tradition? Many people ask this question. I think there are two reasons for it: the first reason is church-historical, while the second one is symbolic. From the historical viewpoint, I believe, this branches remind us about the Mamre oak-wood: there was the oak under which the Lord, the Holy Trinity, appeared to Abraham in the shape of three angels.* We can see this … [Read more...]
Christianity without Pentecost
by Fr. Josiah Trenham In this sermon, Fr. Josiah presents an intriguing idea: What happens if Christians experience Ascension, but do not experience Pentecost. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God. Amen. The last ten days in the Church have been unusual. In some sense we have been living between two realities. On the leave-taking of Pascha we ceased the sustained celebration of the Holy Resurrection of the Lord as well as our saying, “Christ is risen. Truly He is risen.” The next day we celebrated the Glorious Ascension of our Savior into the heavens to sit at the right hand of the Father. For these days between Ascension and Pentecost we have … [Read more...]
Freedom and Pentecost
What has Pentecost to do with freedom? What is freedom exactly? What is it not? by Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon When we declare that God created the Cosmos in freedom, we mean that nothing outside of God had to be. Modern philosophers seriously ask—as other philosophers, for centuries, implied—why is there something instead of nothing? This sane and sensible question rests on the plain insight that nothing we see in the Universe really has to be. And if nothing in the Universe has to be, then the Universe itself does not have to be. So, then, why does it exist, since there appears to be no necessity that it should exist? The biblical doctrine of Creation, to which the Church is committed by … [Read more...]
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