Daily Meditations Archives

Prophet Zacharias and Righteous Elizabeth

09/05/2025

On September 5th, the Orthodox Church celebrates the parents of John the Baptist: Prophet Zacharias and Righteous Elizabeth. They are also commemorated on the Nativity of the Baptist on June 24th. Both Elizabeth and Zacharias were of the lineage of Aaron and Elizabeth was the sister of St Anna, mother of the Theotokos. So, Jesus and John the Baptist were cousins. Zacharias served as a priest in the Temple. Both were righteous before God, walking in

Faith in Christ is a Matter of the Heart

09/04/2025

Protopresbyter Georgios Dorbarakis Faith in Christ is principally a matter of the heart, and then of reason. The Lord didn’t say, ‘If you understand me’, but ‘If you love me, keep my commandments’. This means that we can understand him to the degree that we try to love him. Our love for him, expressed as observance of his commandments, opens the door for him to come and dwell in our soul and body, so that

Peter, Self-Denial, and Change

09/03/2025

~Sermon Preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, September 24, 2006 In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. Glory to Jesus Christ! Metropolitan Anthony Bloom once advised inquirers to Orthodoxy to put down their books and attend a Divine Liturgy. “The service is long, but even Orthodox services eventually come to an end. And if you simply stand there and are open to whatever

Discourse on Love

09/02/2025

Archimandrite Georgios Kapsanis, Abbot of the Holy Monastery of Gregoriou † Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ handed down to us the perfect teaching on salvation. And he himself was the first to implement what he taught. It is he who ‘practices and teaches’ (Matth. 5, 19). He also gave us the parable of the Good Samaritan as an example of real love. But the most outstanding Good Samaritan is Christ himself, who took upon

Church New Year. Beginning of the Indiction: Ecclesiastical New Year

09/01/2025

Commemorated on September 1 The first day of the Church New Year is also called the beginning of the Indiction. The term Indiction comes from a Latin word meaning, “to impose.” It was originally applied to the imposition of taxes in Egypt. The first worldwide Indiction was in 312 when the Emperor Constantine (May 21) saw a miraculous vision of the Cross in the sky. Before the introduction of the Julian calendar, Rome began the

The Beheading of the Holy Glorious Prophet, Forerunner, and Baptist John

08/29/2025

The Beheading of the Prophet, Forerunner of the Lord, John the Baptist: The Evangelists Matthew (Mt.14:1-12) and Mark (Mark 6:14-29) provide accounts about the martyric end of John the Baptist in the year 32 after the Birth of Christ. Following the Baptism of the Lord, Saint John the Baptist was locked up in prison by Herod Antipas, the Tetrarch (ruler of one fourth of the Holy Land) and governor of Galilee. (After the death of

Listening to God’s Voice

08/28/2025

~Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, November 8, 2020 Today, once again, Jesus, through his compassionate words and actions, tells us the truth. People are what matters, not the Law, not ideology. People. The welfare of human beings in the eyes of our Lord trumps everything. That is the meaning of the Lord’s words, “The Sabbath was made for man not man for the Sabbath.” Did Jesus condemn the Woman with the Issue

Saint Martyr Fanourios

08/27/2025

W.J. Lillie We have nothing to say with certainty about the famous martyr of Christ, Fanourios, as regards where he came from, who his parents were and when his martyrdom occurred, because all information has been lost to the depredations of time and covered by the tombstone of oblivion. So everything related to the saint was unrevealed and unknown. But the following things have been made known concerning the glorious martyr Fanourios. During the 14th

On Sudden Death

08/26/2025

Archimandrite Ephraim, Abbot of the Vatopaidi Monastery Nowadays when science and technology are flying, when cultures converge and there is a crisis in values, even the word ‘death’ is avoided and anything reminiscent of it is ignored and discarded. Modern man views death as something negative and as a loss; we usually say for the departed: ‘We’ve lost him’. Whoever does not have the proper knowledge about this issue of death, he is trying to

Love and Freedom

08/25/2025

~By Father Stephen Freeman, August 29, 2018 The most difficult aspect of love is the freedom it inherently requires. Love, in its ultimate and proper form, only exists between equals. There can be a sort of benevolence and nobility towards another who is not equal, but never love. This makes it difficult to understand the God-who-is-love. It will quickly be said by most that God is not our equal, and that we can never be