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Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen! The Sixth Monday of Pascha: Holy Pascha: The Blast of a Trumpet

By Father Lawrence Farley From the prophecies of Isaiah: “It will come about also in that day that a great trumpet will be blown, and those who were perishing in the land of Assyria and who were scattered in the land of Egypt will come and worship the Lord in the holy mountain at Jerusalem” (Isaiah 27:13).  The prophet here surveys the world around him, and sees how the people of God were languishing in

You Were Presented in the Temple

By Father Stanley Harakas On February 2, our Orthodox Church celebrates a beautiful moment in the life of Christ – The Presentation of Christ at the Temple. According to the Jewish practice at that time, the first-born son of a family was to be brought forty days after his birth to the Temple in Jerusalem for sacrifices to be made. Since the coming Messiah was expected to be a first-born son, it was done in

Christmas Advent: The Twelfth Day

FOR ALL OF RECORDED HISTORY there seem to have been people who didn’t quite fit, either because of poverty, or disability, or nationality, or age—those so beaten down by abuse, or struggle, or scorn that they seem paralyzed, without the will to change or be changed. We have come to think of them as outsiders—the hopeless homeless, the alcoholics, the aged, the single mothers, the chronically ill or crippled, whole families dying of famine on