Greek Archives - Saint Sophia

The First (Bright) Friday of Pascha. St. Mark the Apostle, the Founder of the Coptic Church

04/25/2025

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! The Coptic Church or the Church of Alexandria is called “Sees of St. Mark”; one of the earliest four sees: Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, and Rome. St. Mark, The Founder The Copts are proud of the apostolicity of their Church, whose founder is St. Mark; one of the seventy Apostles (Mk 10:10), and one of the four Evangelists. He is regarded by the Coptic hierarchy as the first of their unbroken

The Thirty-Fifth Day of Christmas Advent. The Genealogy of Jesus

12/19/2024

By Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, December 21, 2014 We read …the genealogy of Jesus from St. Matthew’s Gospel. It is different from St. Luke’s genealogy and there are reasons for this which we do not time to talk about this morning. I would rather spend time on the point of this Gospel and that is, God became man to save everyone and everything. It is as Thomas Merton speaks of this using the metaphor

The Twenty-Seventh Day of Christmas Advent. Accepting the Lord’s invitation

12/11/2024

By Fr. Steven Kostoff Within the Orthodox Church, the Sunday between December 11-17 is called, simply enough, the “Second Sunday Before the Nativity of the Lord,” and more specifically, the “Sunday of the Forefathers.” This liturgical preparation for the Feast of our Lord’s Nativity—something of a build-up—is a conscious echo of the lengthy time of preparation, determined by God and embodied in the history of Israel, before the sending of His only-begotten Son into the

The Slow Road to Heaven – Why the Spiritual Life Doesn’t “Work”

06/17/2024

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, January 30, 2018 We live in a world of practicality, a fact that has produced the marvels of technology that power us along and connect the world in its web. I have a nearly two-year-old grandson who has grasped some of this connection for many months now. He loves buttons – not the ones on your shirt – but the ones on any device. If there is a button in reach,

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! The Fifth Monday of Pascha: Stumbling Toward Salvation

06/03/2024

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, May 14, 2021 On occasion I have written on topics that seem to scandalize readers, or certainly cause difficulty for many. Some of those topics have been articles on the wrath of God; the radical forgiveness of everyone for everything; the commonality of our life and our salvation; and various posts on giving thanks always for all things (there are others as well). I am not intentionally contrarian – I do

Saint Anthony the Great

01/17/2024

Adapted from Thomas Merton’s book The Wisdom of the Desert In the 4th century AD the deserts of Egypt, Palestine, Arabia and Persia were settled by people who left behind them a strange reputation. They were the first Christian hermits, who abandoned the cities of the ancient Roman world to live in the solitude and silence of the desert. Why did they do this? The reasons were many and various, but they can all be summed

Healing the Heart

01/12/2024

Fr. Stephen Freeman, September 21, 2021 The heart itself is but a small vessel, yet dragons are there, and there are also lions; there are poisonous beasts and all the treasures of evil. But there too is God, the angels, the life and the kingdom, the light and the apostles, the heavenly cities and the treasuries of grace—all things are there. (H.43.7) St. Macarius If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it

The Twenty-Seventh Day of Christmas Advent: Descent is Ascent

12/11/2023

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, September 8, 2019 at St. Mary Orthodox Church There are a number of characteristics that mark Christian spirituality. One of them is this: The Christian path is a first a way of descent. Most other spiritual traditions are about making an ascent. To be sure, St. Paul writes about ascending “from glory to glory.” But first there must be a descent, for example, from the mind to

Get Your Soul Back

09/29/2023

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, July 24, 2017 When was the last time you heard someone express concern for their soul? When was the last time you listened earnestly as a friend lamented a psychological or emotional struggle? The reason for the difference is simple: we have become a “soul-less” psychologized society. The classical concern for the soul has been replaced by an overwhelming interest in psychological and emotional “health.” We are becoming a “well-adjusted” society. The soul

St. Joseph the Hesychast (1857-1959)

08/16/2023

Glorified by the Ecumenical Patriarchate on October 20, 2019 [The Patriarchate established the feast of St. Joseph as August 16/29 so as not to coincide with the feast of the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos on which he reposed in 1959]. Francis Kottis (Saint Joseph’s name before his monastic tonsure) was born in Paros1 on February 12, 1897, the fourth of seven children to the simple but pious couple George and Maria Kottis. Because of

Archive

The First (Bright) Friday of Pascha. St. Mark the Apostle, the Founder of the Coptic Church

The Thirty-Fifth Day of Christmas Advent. The Genealogy of Jesus

The Twenty-Seventh Day of Christmas Advent. Accepting the Lord’s invitation

The Slow Road to Heaven – Why the Spiritual Life Doesn’t “Work”

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! The Fifth Monday of Pascha: Stumbling Toward Salvation

Saint Anthony the Great

Healing the Heart

The Twenty-Seventh Day of Christmas Advent: Descent is Ascent

Get Your Soul Back

St. Joseph the Hesychast (1857-1959)

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