All Saints of North America Orthodox Church · Phoenix, Arizona

Orthodox Christianity on the west side of Phoenix Arizona including Sun City, Surprise, Peoria, Glendale, Litchfield Park, Buckeye, Tonopah, and more

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The Filioque in Brief

January 19, 2021 By Fr. John Peck [edit]

by John Nichiporuk We were recently asked the following question: “Why is it so wrong to say that the Spirit also proceeds from the Son, if He indeed is co-eternal with the Father? Understanding the complexity of this issue, causing argument for more than a thousand years, we will try to give a short answer to it, with no pretension to providing a complete coverage of this theological problem. Testimony of the Holy Scripture First of all, indeed, both Catholics and the Orthodox confess the co-eternity of the Holy Spirit and the Son with the Father, as well as Their consubstantiality and Their complete ontological equality. However, returning to the question posed, the co-eternity of … [Read more...]

Filed Under: General, Theology [post-edit]

A Pagan Records the Slaughter of the Holy Innocents

November 27, 2020 By Fr. John Peck [edit]

Matthew says that when Herod realized the magi were not going to return, he ordered the slaughter of all male children two years old and under in Bethlehem and the neighboring towns (Matt. 2:16-18).  Although Mark and Luke do not mention the Slaughter of the Innocents, John alludes to it in the Apocalypse (Rev. 12:1-4), and thus becomes a witness to the verity of the Matthew’s record.  The witness of Matthew and John is also corroborated by a pagan writer named Macrobius. Macrobius wrote an encyclopedic account of Roman culture entitled the Saturnalia, in which he records the legends and lore of the holidays marking the Roman calendar.  In book two, Macrobius records some of the witty … [Read more...]

Filed Under: General, Theology Tagged With: christmas, Herod, Holy Innocents, Nativity [post-edit]

The Sacrifice of Thanksgiving

November 25, 2020 By Fr. John Peck [edit]

“He who offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving honors Me; And to him who orders his way aright I shall show the salvation of God.” - Psalm 49:23 (LXX) Next year is the 400th anniversary of the celebrating Thanksgiving to God for the mercy, love, and bounties he pours out on us. The giving of thanks is the central act of Christian worship, and it is an integral feature of Old Testament worship, which are types of Christian worship. There are many instructions for sacrifice throughout the Pentateuch, but Leviticus chapters 1-7 is completely dedicated to the 5 Levitical offerings which were the main sacrifices used in the rituals. The 5 kinds of sacrifices described in such detail in Leviticus … [Read more...]

Filed Under: General, Theology [post-edit]

What Happens to Those Who Have Never Heard of Jesus?

October 22, 2020 By Fr. John Peck [edit]

What happens to those who have never heard of Jesus? Will God condemn people to hell for not believing in someone they have never heard of? First, people are not condemned to hell for not believing in Jesus whom they have never heard of. Rather they are already condemned because of their sin. Thus, the real question is not how can God send someone to hell, but how can God condescend to save any one of us? As Paul has so beautifully written in the book of Romans, "God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we are now justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God." (Romans 5:8-9). It is hard to … [Read more...]

Filed Under: General, Theology [post-edit]

“God’s Wrath” Was Not Part of the Theology of Israel’s Sacrificial System

October 13, 2020 By Fr. John Peck [edit]

by Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon Adult converts to the Orthodox Church often remark on a sense of relief---not to say liberation---they felt when they became acquainted with Orthodoxy's teaching on Salvation. I have heard testimonies on this point times out of mind. These folks, coming mainly from Western Christian backgrounds, had previously thought about Salvation chiefly in forensic terms. They were accustomed to hearing the word "merit" a lot with respect to the Cross. Their former Soteriology might be summarized in Archbishop Cranmer's lines in The Book of Common Prayer, which declare that on the Cross Jesus Christ, "by his one oblation of himself once offered," made "a full, perfect, … [Read more...]

Filed Under: General, Theology Tagged With: atonement, Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon, God's wrath, Israel, sacrificial system, salvation [post-edit]

Six Men Who FAILED to Paganize the Origins of Christmas

September 29, 2020 By Fr. John Peck [edit]

by John Sanidopoulos Every Christmas season, the usual myths are hauled out and distributed for popular consumption. You know them. We’ve all heard or read them. That Christmas celebrations were stolen from the Romans The Christmas tree is a pagan hangover That other gods had virgin births That Yule and the mistletoe are all about Odin These falsehoods are repeated often and loudly, under the guise of being “historical truths.” And strangely they still stump most Christians, who are then filled with doubt about what they believe. Of course, these myths were designed to elicit precisely this sort of reaction from believers. All of them were invented in the 18th- and … [Read more...]

Filed Under: General, Theology [post-edit]

The Holy Eucharist: A Live Coal

July 1, 2020 By Fr. John Peck [edit]

by Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon Speaking of the Holy Eucharist, the Fathers and early liturgical texts of the Church have recourse to the metaphor of the flaming coal (anthrax, pruna) in reference to the Lord’s body. For instance, with Isaiah 6:7 obviously in mind, The Liturgy of St. James refers to “receiving the fiery coal” (labein to pyrinon anthrax) from the Eucharistic altar. Indeed, even without using this word, those same doctrinal sources regularly appeal to Isaiah’s experience, when they speak of the Holy Eucharist. Thus, in The Liturgy of S. John Chrysostom, when the Christian has received the Holy Communion, the priest tells him: “Lo, this has touched your lips and has … [Read more...]

Filed Under: General, Theology [post-edit]

An Uncomplicated Truth

July 1, 2020 By Fr. John Peck [edit]

by Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon It is reasonable, I suppose—or at least natural—for modern students of religion to wonder how the earliest Christians, all of them Jews, were able to reconcile their belief in the divinity of Christ with the monotheism enshrined in Israel’s Sh’ma’. Indeed, historians of Christian thought have devoted many studies to that inquiry. Looking at the apostolic writings through the lens of this inquiry, I gain an interesting impression of the earliest Christians: Their confession of the divinity of Jesus, while it was difficult, seems not to have been complicated. First, the recorded difficulty of the apostles was not an impasse of reason (“How can this Jesus be both … [Read more...]

Filed Under: General, Theology [post-edit]

On the Unique and Exclusive Presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church

June 8, 2020 By Fr. John Peck [edit]

by Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon Christ's greatest gift to the Church is the gift of the Holy Spirit; this gift is, moreover, original, unique, and exclusive. Now if someone finds this assertion unsurprising, I suspect he may not have given it the critical reflection it calls for. There should be at least a few faithful Bible-readers, I think, who are disposed to wonder if it is true. Consider, for instance: Does not our hymnography proclaim that the Holy Spirit is "everywhere present and filling all things"? Since the Spirit hovered over the face of the deep in the first instance of Creation, doesn't He already fill the length and breadth of the Universe? And, moreover, doesn't the … [Read more...]

Filed Under: General, Theology Tagged With: church, gift, Holy Spirit, unique [post-edit]

On Pentecost

June 6, 2020 By Fr. John Peck [edit]

St. Gregory Nazianzus "the Theologian" Our father among the saints Gregory the Theologian , also known as Gregory of Nazianzus (though that name more appropriately refers to his father) and Gregory the Younger, was a great Father and Teacher of the Church. He was a close friend of St. Basil the Great.  He was one of the great Cappodocean Fathers, and is one of only three saints given the title “Theologian” in all of Orthodox hagiography and theology. I. Let us reason a little about the Festival, that we may keep it spiritually. For different persons have different ways of keeping Festival; but to the worshiper of the Word a discourse seems best; and of discourses, that which is best … [Read more...]

Filed Under: General, Theology [post-edit]

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All Saints of North America Orthodox Church

11234 W. Alabama Ave.
Youngtown, AZ 85363

(928) 910-2186

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