Great Lent Archives - Saint Sophia

His Appearing in the Liturgy

09/04/2026

~By Fr. Stephen Freeman, January 20, 2025 Standing in the Church, listening to the choir or chanter sing while priest censes the icons, words swirl with the rising smoke and connections and associations multiply as words evoke images and images evoke thoughts: participation, coinherence, incarnation, mystery, timeless form and formless time, fullness and emptiness, fulfillment and… And then the thought comes, full-formed or teasing, but it arrives. Not as a result of logic or reason,

Saturday of Souls. Pentecost and the Liturgy of Hades

05/30/2026

~By Father Stephen Freeman Pascha (Easter) comes with a great note of joy in the Christian world. Christ is risen from the dead and our hearts rejoice. That joy begins to wane as the days pass. Our lives settle back down to the mundane tasks at hand. After 40 days, the Church marks the Feast of the Ascension, often attended by only a handful of the faithful (Rome has more-or-less moved the Ascension to a

The Fourth Friday of Pascha. When Death Dies (II)

05/08/2026

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! By Fr. Stephen Freeman, February 22, 2022 One of my earliest experiences within my present parish was the sudden death of a beloved parishioner. She died in a car crash only three days after her Chrismation at Pascha. As the Church staggered through the days of our mourning and her burial, each day seemed to exactly parallel the events of Holy Week which we had just completed. Indeed, when someone

The Fourth Thursday of Pascha. When Death Dies (I)

05/07/2026

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! By Fr. Stephen Freeman, February 22, 2022 Christianity is not reconciliation with death. It is the revelation of death, and it reveals death because it is the revelation of Life. Christ is this Life. And only if Christ is Life is death what Christianity proclaims it to be, namely the enemy to be destroyed, and not a “mystery” to be explained. Religion and secularism, by explaining death, give it a

The Fourth Wednesday of Pascha. Mid-Pentecost

05/06/2026

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! Archimandrite Zacharias Zacharou ‘I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely’ [1]. During Great Lent, to a certain degree, we taste of Christ’s death. In the middle of this period, the Church institutes the Veneration of the Precious Cross, to quicken inspiration and strengthen us in our struggle to be vouchsafed to enter into the life-giving presence of the Risen Lord.

The Second Wednesday of Pascha. Pascha in Orthodoxy: Why We Celebrate the Holy Season (Part II)

04/22/2026

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! ~By Orthodoxy Christianity 101 The Theological Meaning of Pascha Pascha vs. Western Easter: Understanding the Differences While both Pascha and Western Easter celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, there are distinct variations that set them apart. As an Orthodox Christian, I’ve observed that the calculation of the date is one of the most significant differences. Pascha often falls on a different Sunday because it’s determined by the Julian calendar, whereas Western Easter uses

The Sixth Friday of Great Lent. The Raising of Four-Day Dead Saint Lazarus- A Symbol of the General Resurrection

04/03/2026

Hierodeacon Rafael Misiaoulis, Theologian Great Lent has been completed and ends with two splendid festal days. These are Lazarus Saturday, on which we commemorate the raising of Christ’s bosom friend, Lazarus; the other is Palm Sunday, when we celebrate Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem six days before he was betrayed and suffered death on the Cross. Today we see the raising of Lazarus, a miracle performed by the Lord before he entered the city of

The Sixth Thursday of Great Lent. The Cross and the Resurrection

04/02/2026

Protopresbyter Vasileios Kalliakmanis The Cross leads to the Resurrection, Great Friday bears fruit on the bright Sunday of Easter. Sorrow, listlessness and despair make way for the joy and peace of the Resurrection. Without the Cross, the Resurrection is inconceivable and without the Resurrection the Cross has no point. It might be better to say that the Resurrection is concealed within the Cross. This is why orthodox Easter is both the Cross and the Resurrection.

The Sixth Wednesday of Great Lent. Wednesday before Palm Sunday

04/01/2026

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

The Sixth Tuesday of Great Lent. The Death of God, my Death and the Resurrection

03/31/2026

Sister Parakliti, Holy Skete of Saint Mary Magdalene, in Liti The grandeur of Great Friday and Great Saturday lies in the fact that human reason is incapable of comprehending that the Son of God died. In a war, for example, we can evaluate how tragic the situation is by the extent of the destruction. In some way, the same is true here. In order to stop the mighty catastrophe of human history, God died. So

Archive

His Appearing in the Liturgy

Saturday of Souls. Pentecost and the Liturgy of Hades

The Fourth Friday of Pascha. When Death Dies (II)

The Fourth Thursday of Pascha. When Death Dies (I)

The Fourth Wednesday of Pascha. Mid-Pentecost

The Second Wednesday of Pascha. Pascha in Orthodoxy: Why We Celebrate the Holy Season (Part II)

The Sixth Friday of Great Lent. The Raising of Four-Day Dead Saint Lazarus- A Symbol of the General Resurrection

The Sixth Thursday of Great Lent. The Cross and the Resurrection

The Sixth Wednesday of Great Lent. Wednesday before Palm Sunday

The Sixth Tuesday of Great Lent. The Death of God, my Death and the Resurrection

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