Category: Orthodox Christianity
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Christos Voskrese – Christ Is Risen!
This delightful youtube video is a favorite of mine. One of our readers and occasional commenter, Dejan, (without a doubt my favorite Serb) provided the English translation. The words are from a poem by St. Nikolai Velimirovich who served for a time as the Rector of St. Tikhon’s Seminary – truly one of the great…
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The Sound of Silence
On Holy Saturday the Church celebrates Christ victory in the very depths of Hades. I was reminded as well, that this victory happens “silently,” without a witness on the earth – and yet it is a dogma of the faith. It is a silence that overwhelms the world. It is said that “silence is the…
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In the Midst of Holy Week
Holy Week has long been my favorite time of year. I remember coming to it rather slowly in my college years. My wife and I were active Episcopalians at the time (while in college we volunteered to be in charge of the junior youth group – some 60 teenagers – that qualifies as being “active”).…
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In the Belly of the Whale
The marvelous book of Jonah, read in its entirety on Holy Saturday, includes a very rich prayer which is obviously intended to be spoken from within the depths of Hades itself – thus its inclusion on Holy Saturday, the day on which Christ is proclaiming liberty to those “in prison.” Like the phrase from Psalm…
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Palm Sunday and Hearing the Word of God
I am convinced after years of preaching and listening to preaching that the bulk of Scripture has become lost to our ears. We hear it, but fail to “hear” it. And I do not mean this merely in the moral sense (doubtless we fail to be “doers” of the word). Rather, I am aware of…
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Lazarus Saturday
Largely ignored by much of Christendom, the Orthodox mark the day before Palm Sunday as “Lazarus Saturday” in something of a prequel to the following weekend’s Pascha. It is, indeed a little Pascha just before the greater one. And this, of course, was arranged by Christ Himself, who raised His friend Lazarus from the dead…
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The Annunciation – The Cause of All Things
I treasure the small volume of George Gabriel, Mary the Untrodden Portal of God. Gabriel occasionally strikes hard at the West and the book would perhaps be strengthened with a less combative approach to the differences of East and West in the faith (my own opinion), but I liked the book and found Gabriel addressing many…
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The Weakness of Man
It is counter-intuitive that God saves man through His own weakness. The irony of the Divine Reversal has provided endless material for the hymnographers of the Church through the centuries. The Strong becomes weak, the Sinless takes on our sin, the Rich becomes poor, God becomes man – the whole of the gospel seems to…
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Favorite Thoughts and Thanksgiving
I awoke this morning from two days in bed battling a nasty little virus. My fever had broken and my appetite returned. There are no words for my gratitude. I offer this short piece on favorite thoughts and pray God’s blessing on us all. Any reader of this blog will very quickly notice certain ideas…
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Hitchens on Hitchens – Belief on Unbelief
For those of you who follow contemporary discourse – particularly that by contemporary atheists on contemporary Christianity – you will find of great interest this article by the brother of Christopher Hitchens. (Christopher Hitchens has made himself famous as one of the current proponents of the “new atheism.”) Peter Hitchens does an admirable job of speaking…
Father, What a beautiful post. It causes me to want to respond with something equally beautiful, but I can’t articulate…