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The Second Tuesday of Great Lent: Let’s Stop Pointing Fingers and Examine Ourselves

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes at St. Mary Orthodox Church in Cambridge, MA on Sunday, October 18, 2020. The Reading is from Luke 10:16-21 I want to focus on the first verse of today’s Gospel reading from Luke. The Lord said to his disciples, “He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects him who sent me.” The bottom line is this. Our words

The Second Monday of Great Lent. The Mystery: Up-Borne, Fulfilled

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, March 31, 2017 Orthodoxy has a number of “favorite” words – all of which fall outside the bounds of normal speech. Though we commonly use the word “mystery” (for example), popular speech never uses it in the manner of the Church. I cannot remember using the word “fullness,” or even “fulfilled,” in normal speech. More contemporary words have come to replace these expressions. This doesn’t mean that an English speaker has

The First Friday of Great Lent: Getting to the Point

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, March 20, 2017  English is a great language, except when it isn’t. We have an incredible range of vocabulary, both as a legacy of the many languages that have invaded the homeland, as well as its incredible propensity to borrow words. The English vocabulary exceeds 200,000 words, the most of any language in the world (I am told). Thus, it is interesting when English doesn’t quite have a word for something.

The First Thursday of Great Lent: Depth Spirituality

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, October 25, 2020 Let me begin today by reading from Paul’s letter to the Galatians chapter 5, vs. 22-23: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” Let’s focus on self-control today since one of the hallmarks of what we call “possession” is the loss of it. Our Holy Fathers and Mothers were not acquainted as

The First Wednesday of Great Lent: Forgiveness and the Whole Adam

I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; (John17:20-21) The Elder Sophrony, together with St. Silouan, wrote about the “whole Adam.” By this, they meant all the human beings who have ever existed and those yet to come. For Silouan and Sophrony, this was something known in the present tense, a “hypostatic” knowledge of the fundamental unity of the human race. Sophrony described it as

The First Tuesday of Great Lent: Recommitting to the Gospel

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, December 6, 2020 In the year 313 AD an imperial edict proclaimed Christianity to be the preeminent religion of the empire. Something was lost in that moment. I am not the first to say it, nor will I be the last. What was largely lost was the prophetic voice of the Church. The Church was from the beginning a counter-cultural movement. It became an arm of the

The First Monday (Clean) of Great Lent

By Fr. Stavros Akrotirianakis, Clean Monday, March 2, 2020 The Journey to the Cross and Resurrection of Christ Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. Psalm 51:10 Today the Orthodox Church begins the journey of Great Lent. Today is known as Clean Monday. The reason why Lent begins on Monday is that we have a forty day fast PLUS Holy Week. In the Orthodox Church,

Saint Euthymius the Great

Born to pious parents after long years of childless marriage, his parents heard in a vision a voice saying “be of good cheer! God will grant you a son, who will bring joy to the church.” Thus, the child was named Euthymius (good cheer). And because of his ascetic life and firm confession of the Orthodox Faith, he’s called ‘the Great’. Devoted to church since a young age, St. Euthymius was eventually entrusted with the

The Dormition Fast

Published by Pemptousia Partnership, August 1, 2021 From the 1st to the 14th of August we fast in honor of Our Most Holy Lady, the Mother of God. It’s a strict fast, with fish eaten only on the feast of the Transfiguration of the Savior (6 August). If 15 August falls on a Wednesday or Friday, there is a dispensation only for fish. Fasting is a commandment from God. The first. The oldest of all.

Entering Hell on Pentecost – With Prayer

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, June 16, 2019  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