SSCORRE! Saint Sophia Cathedral Online Resources for our Religious Edification Topic of the Week – Do Orthodox Christians celebrate Halloween? “…Where secular people may feel they have the option to divorce the spiritual realm from the physical and do one thing with their bodies while believing another in their minds, we Christian people do not. We know that the actions of our bodies, and the things we do with our lives, affect our hearts and are directly

SSCORRE! Saint Sophia Cathedral Online Resources for our Religious Edification Topic of the Week – Going Deeper Lecture – Part III “…the humble soul is always looking to do good. If you ever read… Elder Paisios’ discourses… You’ve heard the word ‘philotimo’ is there, it’s used very often. Philotimo is a good word to understand and to try to put into practice. What is it? It’s doing good for the sake of God. For no other

SSCORRE! Saint Sophia Cathedral Online Resources for our Religious Edification Topic of the Week – Going Deeper Lecture – Part II “…Look at what St. Paul says in his epistles when he’s talking about the antichrist, and the coming of the antichrist. And he says that ‘Many … will follow him because they have not the love of the truth.’ He doesn’t mean truth in ideas only or even mainly.  Truth in ideas would be… the learning

SSCORRE! Saint Sophia Cathedral Online Resources for our Religious Edification Topic of the Week – Going Deeper “…My goal here is to provoke you… to think deeply about your own spiritual walk; where you need to make some improvements, changes; questions and queries that you have, that will help you get further down the path to salvation, deification in Christ…. My role here is not one of lecturer and you, listener, but one of provoker or

SSCORRE! Saint Sophia Cathedral Online Resources for our Religious Edification Topic of the Week – On Prayer for Others “…You need to double down on prayer, double down on the whole ascetic life. It’s about quantity and quality of our prayer in our prayer corner. And remember, the Lord says that’s where He sees and rewards. So if your petition is for the sake of the salvation of your children or brother and sister, the reward will be

SSCORRE! Saint Sophia Cathedral Online Resources for our Religious Edification Topic of the Week – True Love is the Love for the Truth in Christ “Especially in our day when everything is considered relative, even in the ecclesiastical domain, persistence in the tradition of the Saints is the most substantial counteraction against the general decline, even if such a position is ridiculed as lacking love. True love is the love for the truth in Christ.” ‘’I Confess One

SSCORRE! Saint Sophia Cathedral Online Resources for our Religious Edification Topic of the Week – Anxiety Departs with Trust in God “People create their problems by having the wrong attitude before God… As you know from the fathers of the Orthodox Church, evil is the absence of good. Evil cannot exist in and of itself. It is the same with darkness. Darkness is the absence of light. Wherever there is light, it would be impossible for us to

SSCORRE! Saint Sophia Cathedral Online Resources for our Religious Edification Topic of the Week: Sent By God: the Life of Geronda Ephraim Saint Anthony’s Monastery is releasing a 5 volume set of books about the life of Geronda Ephraim: “In every generation God sends His chosen servants to help those who are searching for eternal life.In the last half century, there was a man who transformed more people’s lives than anyone else in the history of

SSCORRE! Saint Sophia Cathedral Online Resources for our Religious Edification Topic of the Week – An Incident from the Life of Blessed Xenia of Petersburg   “What do we know of the life and struggles of Blessed Xenia? Xenia Grigorievna was married to a court singer, Andrew Feodorovich Petrov who died quite unexpectedly and suddenly and, evidently, without the rites of the Church. His death changed, as quickly as lightning, the whole outlook and way

SSCORRE! Saint Sophia Cathedral Online Resources for our Religious Edification Topic of the Week – The Spirit of God and the Spirit of the World   “The Church is suffering today because divine illumination is missing and people understand things as it suits them. The human element gets involved; passions are aroused, and then, the devil comes and thrashes about. That is why people who are governed by their passions should not seek to govern others… [people