grace Archives - Saint Sophia

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

A Single Moment

02/21/2025

By Father Stephen Freeman, May 19, 2018 Grushenka, a character in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, relates a now-famous fable about an old woman: Once upon a time there was a woman, and she was wicked as wicked could be, and she died. And not one good deed was left behind her. The devils took her and threw her into the lake of fire. And her guardian angel stood thinking: what good deed of hers can I

The Twelfth Day of Christmas Advent. Saint Stylianos, The Protector of Children

11/26/2024

Saint Stylianos was born in Paphlagonia, Asia Minor, between 400 and 500. He was blessed even from his mother’s womb. As he grew up, by the grace of God he increasingly became a dwelling-place of the Holy Spirit. From childhood he displayed the rare qualities of his blessed life. When he was young and still an adolescent, although, of course, he was of the flesh, he never allowed desires to pollute his spirit and soul.

The Fourth Thursday of Great Lent: God Tells Us a Story

04/11/2024

Sermon Preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, April 3, 2016 The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Mark. (8:34-9:1) Human beings love stories. We need them. Our lives are populated with them. Christianity is built on them. If they are in the New Testament we call them parables. Raised as a Southern Baptist child in the hills of Eastern Tennessee, we learned and memorized the stories of Adam and Eve, Moses and

The Third Wednesday of Great Lent: Saint Silouan, the Great Spiritual Figure of the 20th Century

04/03/2024

Published by Pemptousia Partnership on September 25, 2021 Alexandros Christodoulou Saint Silouan the Athonite Saint Siouan- Symeon Ivanovich Antonov, before his tonsure- was born in 1866 into a peasant family in the Tambov region of Russia. From the age of four he began wondering: ‘Where is this God? When I grow up, I’ll travel the whole world looking for Him’. When he was a little bit older he heard about the life of a holy

The Third Tuesday of Great Lent: Ego and Humility

04/02/2024

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, September 3, 2017 at St. Mary Orthodox Church in Cambridge, MA The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew. (21:33-42) The Lord spoke this parable: “There was a householder who planted a vineyard, and set a hedge around it, and dug a wine press in it, and built a tower, and let it out to tenants, and went into another country. When the season of

Fear: Cause and Cure

03/06/2024

Published by Pemptousia Partnership on July 25, 2021 Protopresbyter Georgios Dorbarakis The Christian faith doesn’t doubt the existence of fear in people’s lives. It accepts it as a reality and interprets it. Fear is the product of our Fall into sin- that which opened the gates for every kind of fear to enter our life, and therefore the tragedy of our time on earth. But with Christ’s coming, we found our true path again and once more felt the

Saint Porphyrios Kavskokalyvitis (Part I)

02/27/2024

Published by Pemptousia Partnership on December 2, 2021 George Arvanitis ‘Now you must be thinking, from what I’ve told you, that – well, I don’t know – I’m quite something. Well, I’m nothing, although I do try and am just beginning, it seems, to get a taste of the things that I talk about. I try to, I want to, and I actually do feel love for others, although I don’t want to force myself. But very often

His Name is Compassion

02/13/2024

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, August 7, 2016 The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew. (9:27-35) The two blind men said to him, “Have mercy on us, Son of David.” Whether from desperation or from the well-spring of faith and deep understanding, they call him “Son of David,” in other words, Messiah. And they pray for mercy for the healing of their eyes. Still, mercy is like a virus.

The True Christian

01/31/2024

Published by Pemptousia Partnership on July 18, 2021 Metropolitan Nikolaos (Hatzinikolaou) of Mesogaia and Lavreotiki In the Gospel readings, we often come across the Apostles invoking the authenticity of their personal witness in order to be convincing: ‘which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have touched’ (1 Jn. 1, 1). ‘We know that his witness is true’ (Jn. 21, 24). The Samaritans [1] and the Honorable Forerunner also

Archive

The Sunday of St. Gregory Palamas: Unmediated Grace

A Single Moment

The Twelfth Day of Christmas Advent. Saint Stylianos, The Protector of Children

The Fourth Thursday of Great Lent: God Tells Us a Story

The Third Wednesday of Great Lent: Saint Silouan, the Great Spiritual Figure of the 20th Century

The Third Tuesday of Great Lent: Ego and Humility

Fear: Cause and Cure

Saint Porphyrios Kavskokalyvitis (Part I)

His Name is Compassion

The True Christian

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