Adam Archives - Saint Sophia

Ancestral Versus Original Sin: An Overview with Implications for Psychotherapy (Part III)

09/24/2026

By V. Rev. Antony Hughes, M.Div., St. Mary Antiochian Orthodox Church, Cambridge, Massachusetts The image of an angry, vengeful God haunts the West where a basic insecurity and guilt seem to exist. Many appear to hold that sickness, suffering and death are God’s will. Why? I suspect one reason is that down deep the belief persists that God is still angry and must be appeased. Yes, sickness, suffering and death come and when they do

Ancestral Versus Original Sin: An Overview with Implications for Psychotherapy (Part II)

09/23/2026

By V. Rev. Antony Hughes, M.Div., St. Mary Antiochian Orthodox Church, Cambridge, Massachusetts It is important to note that salvation as deification is not pantheism because the Orthodox Fathers insist on the doctrine of creation ex nihilo (Athanasius, 1981). Human beings, along with all created things, have come into being from nothing. Created beings will always remain created and God will always remain Uncreated. The Son of God in the Incarnation crossed the unbridgeable chasm between them. Orthodox

Ancestral Versus Original Sin: An Overview with Implications for Psychotherapy (Part I)

09/22/2026

By V. Rev. Antony Hughes, M.Div., St. Mary Antiochian Orthodox Church, Cambridge, Massachusetts A young man called me recently to discuss his family’s movement toward the Orthodox Church. He told me a priceless story about how his seven-year old daughter helped him and his wife understand an Orthodox practice that is often a hindrance to inquirers. Although the family had icons in their home they could not grasp the reason for the practice of venerating

The Abyss of Non-Being – And a Cup of Tea

09/18/2026

~By Fr. Stephen Freeman, March 17, 2025 “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” John 10:10 “Stand on the edge of the abyss and when you feel that it is beyond your strength, break off and have a cup of tea.” St. Sophrony of Athos/Essex ________ A group of people take a

From the Cross – To the Cross – By the Cross (Elevation of the Holy Cross)

09/14/2026

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, September 13, 2025 The mystery of the Cross begins in eternity, “in the sanctuary of the Holy Trinity, unapproachable for creatures.” And the transcendent mystery of God’s wisdom and love is revealed and fulfilled in history. Hence Christ is spoken of as the Lamb, “who was foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world” (Peter 1:19), and even “that hath been slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8). “The Cross of Jesus,

Love Never Fails

09/03/2026

Published by Pemptousia Partnership on December 15, 2019 Fr. Andreas Agathokleous It can be readily understood that, when we get to know a person and our hearts combine, we are enthused at this and overjoyed. It’s the practical implementation of our reason for being, which consists in the image with which God has endowed us. This means that we can unite among ourselves in the same manner as the Triune God, Who is a communion of Persons, which

Love Lifts Me

08/19/2026

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, May 18, 2025 Hafiz wrote: I once asked a bird, how is it that you fly in this gravity of darkness. She responded, “Love lifts me.” The Samaritan Woman came to Jacob’s Well at noon when the day was hottest and the sun at its zenith, wrapped in a cloak of darkness. She did not want to be seen. And there she WAS seen by someone who we, in

Mother of Us All

08/14/2026

~By Fr. Stephen Freeman, August 12, 2024 A young friend recently lost his mother. It has been an occasion of reflection for me, thinking about the emptiness created by such a loss. Despite all of the confusion and conundrums in our contemporary culture surrounding gender issues – they only serve to underscore the fact that male-and-female, on the most fundamental level of the human psyche, are core realities – subject to debate, but not subject to dismissal.

God’s Tattoos

07/10/2026

~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

Sin as a Sickness

05/26/2026

~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

Archive

Ancestral Versus Original Sin: An Overview with Implications for Psychotherapy (Part III)

Ancestral Versus Original Sin: An Overview with Implications for Psychotherapy (Part II)

Ancestral Versus Original Sin: An Overview with Implications for Psychotherapy (Part I)

The Abyss of Non-Being – And a Cup of Tea

From the Cross – To the Cross – By the Cross (Elevation of the Holy Cross)

Love Never Fails

Love Lifts Me

Mother of Us All

God’s Tattoos

Sin as a Sickness

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