grace Archives - Saint Sophia

Love for Your Neighbor

08/25/2026

Published by Pemptousia Partnership on November 13, 2019 Saint Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia Love for your neighbor encourages love for God There’s one thing that’s required in this life, love and worship for Christ and love of our fellow human beings. We should all be one, with Christ as the head. This is the only way to acquire grace, heaven, eternal life. Love for your neighbor cultivates love for God. We’re happy when we love everyone else, mystically. Then

A Beautiful Heart – The Acquisition of Grace

06/02/2026

~By Fr. Stephen Freeman, July 19, 2025 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Phil 4:8 +++ Some people tell me that they are scandalized because they see many things wrong in the Church. I tell them that if you ask a fly, “Are there any flowers

Holy Pentecost

05/31/2026

In the Church’s annual liturgical cycle, Pentecost is “the last and great day.” It is the celebration by the Church of the coming of the Holy Spirit as the end—the achievement and fulfillment—of the entire history of salvation. For the same reason, however, it is also the celebration of the beginning: it is the “birthday” of the Church as the presence among us of the Holy Spirit, of the new life in Christ, of grace,

The Fifth Monday of Great Lent. The Ascetic Life (St. John of the Ladder)

03/23/2026

Bishop Agathangelos of Fanari For the secular people of today, focusing on an ascetic saint represents a problem. How can the ascetic figure of Saint John, the author of the Ladder, speak to us, when he acquired and preserved the Grace of God through tears, prayers, and spiritual asceticism? In Orthodox teaching, the ascetic life is nothing other than the transcendence of selfishness, the attempt, in Grace, to apply God’s commandments, to live the life

Grace and the Handbasket

02/04/2026

~By Father Stephen Freeman, July 4, 2023 A difficulty arises when making cultural observations – things rarely turn out as expected. The Roman Empire fell once upon a time, although the fall wasn’t nearly as clean and final as Gibbons imagined and it wasn’t really the Roman Empire that fell. But ever since the “Roman Empire fell” people have been rehearsing the lessons learned and expecting its repeat. Yet the empires (or whatever is expected to fall)

The Thirty-Second Day of Christmas Advent. The Manifestation of God’s Infinite Love

12/16/2025

Archimandrite Georgios Kapsanis, Abbot of the Holy Monastery of Gregoriou † Christmas, which by God’s Grace we’re celebrating again this year, gives us the opportunity to delve deeper into the mystery of God’s love. His gifts to us are manifold and priceless. The greatest of them, however, is the incarnation of His Only-Begotten Son, without which we would still be hopeless prisoners of the devil and of death. Saint Gregory Palamas says: ‘What depth of

The Dormition of Saint Anna

07/25/2025

Saint Anna (also Ann or Anne, from Hebrew Hannahחַנָּה, meaning “favor” or “grace”) of David’s house and line, was the mother of the Virgin Mary and grandmother of Jesus Christ according to Christian Tradition. St Anna is the Greek rendering of her Hebrew name Hannah. Mary’s mother is not named in the canonical gospels. Christian view: According to the Gospel of James, a document of the New Testament apocrypha, St Anna and her husband St

The Desert Struggle

06/20/2025

~By Father Stephen Freeman, April 10, 2022 One of the best-known sayings to have come from the Desert Fathers is: “Stay in your cell and your cell will teach you everything.” To a large degree the saying extols the virtue of stability. Moving from place to place never removes the problem – it only postpones the inevitable. Somewhere, sometime we have to face the heart of our struggle and by the grace of God overcome.

Sunday of the Samaritan Woman: The Sixth Hour

05/18/2025

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, May 14, 2023 When we are troubled, God draws nearer to us (if one can say God is ever not “near”) it can certainly seem that way. Actually, as Rebbe Barukh taught, “Faith and the abyss are next to one another.” Carl Jung added his two cents writing that mystics swim in the same water in which psychotics drown. Before the dialogue

The Sunday of St. Gregory Palamas: Unmediated Grace

03/16/2025

~By Stephen Freeman, March 30, 2013 This Sunday the Orthodox Calendar commemorates St. Gregory Palamas – perhaps the most significant theologian and teacher of the late Byzantine period. He particularly is important when considering the nature of the Christian experience of God. Orthodoxy believes that it is truly possible to know God though He remains unknowable. The mystery of this true knowledge constitutes the heart of St. Gregory’s work. I first encountered St. Gregory’s writings

Archive

Love for Your Neighbor

A Beautiful Heart – The Acquisition of Grace

Holy Pentecost

The Fifth Monday of Great Lent. The Ascetic Life (St. John of the Ladder)

Grace and the Handbasket

The Thirty-Second Day of Christmas Advent. The Manifestation of God’s Infinite Love

The Dormition of Saint Anna

The Desert Struggle

Sunday of the Samaritan Woman: The Sixth Hour

The Sunday of St. Gregory Palamas: Unmediated Grace

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