~By Fr. Stephen Freeman, December 5, 2025 Call me a Boomer. Among the more surprising developments across my nearly seven decades of life is the now widespread practice of tattooing. As a child in the 50’s, the only tattoos I ever saw were on the occasional sailor, and we rarely saw many of them. Indeed, I don’t think there was a tattoo parlor anywhere in our city, and if there were, it would have been
~Fr. Andreas Agathokleous It’s natural to have feelings of guilt if we look at sin as a transgression against ‘the law of God’ rather than as a sickness we’ve inherited as children of the first Adam. Because if, over time, sin becomes second nature, it exercises authority in our soul making us do what we don’t want to, as Saint Paul says. As we all know, this brings its own pressure, peace is lost and
ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! ~Father Stavros N. Akrotirianakis Peter said, “Brethren, I may say to you confidently of the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants upon his throne, he foresaw and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that He was
ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! And He rose again from the dead on the third day, according to the Scriptures . . . Christ is risen from the dead! This is the main proclamation of the Christian faith. It forms the heart of the Church’s preaching, worship and spiritual life. “. . . if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” (1 Cor 15.14). In the first sermon ever
Introduction On Great and Holy Saturday, the Orthodox Church commemorates the burial of Christ and His descent into Hades. It is the day between the Crucifixion of our Lord and His Glorious Resurrection. The Matins of Holy Saturday is conducted on Friday evening, and while many elements of the service represent mourning at the death and burial of Christ, the service itself is one of watchful expectation. Commemoration of Holy Saturday On Great and Holy
Introduction On Great and Holy Friday, the Orthodox Church commemorates the death of Christ on the Cross. This is the culmination of the observance of His Passion by which our Lord suffered and died for our sins. This commemoration begins on Thursday evening with the Matins of Holy Friday and concludes with a Vespers on Friday afternoon that observes the unnailing of Christ from the Cross and the placement of His body in the tomb.
Protopresbyter Georgios Dorbarakis Having strengthened by the power of the cross my mind weakened by wicked attacks, direct me to your will, Lord. Raise me, Christ, who am sleeping on the bed of pleasures, slumbering in sloth, and show me to be a venerator of your Passion. Having burnished our souls with fasting, let us, now cleansed, hasten to Jerusalem to meet Christ, who is coming in the flesh. (Matins, ode 1 [3]). This first
~By Fr. Stephen Freeman, April 15, 2016 And here, as we approach Christ’s death on the Cross, it is appropriate to ask, “Why death?” There are many meditations on the death of Christ. Meditations that see Him as the Paschal Lamb sacrificed for us, as the “Serpent lifted in the wilderness,” and others. Here, temptation sets in and Christians seek to explain Christ’s death by comparing it to their own faulty understandings of lesser things.
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, April 15, 2016 Several years ago, someone wrote and asked, “Why did Christ have to die on the Cross?” It is the question that prompted this article. Recently, we have been having a discussion regarding the atonement within the comments section of the blog. I have pointed out that the notion of Christ being punished by the wrath of God for our sakes is not, in fact, found in the Scriptures. Sin
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, February 18, 2018 I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; (John17:20-21) The Elder Sophrony, together with St. Silouan, wrote about the “whole Adam.” By this, they meant all the human beings who have ever existed and those yet to come. For Silouan and Sophrony, this was something known in the present tense, a “hypostatic” knowledge of the fundamental unity of
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