Gregory of Nyssa Archives

The Personality of Saint Mary Magdalene Equal to the Apostles

07/22/2025

Saint Mary Magdalene is the most outstanding person in the circle of Christ’s women disciples, and, indeed, the most significant female figure in the Christian Church, after the Mother of God. Her importance for the Church is expressed in the lengthy references to her in the Lives of the Saints. We have very little information concerning her life. She was born in Magdala, a town to the west of the Lake of Gennesaret and south

The Second Friday of Pascha. Sacred Remembering

05/02/2025

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, May 3, 2020 A question came up at Subdeacon James’ Adult education class last Thursday about remembrance, like when we say, “May her memory be eternal,” and “Remember us, O Lord, when you come into your kingdom.” That got me thinking. We have done a lot of remembering over the past few weeks and what have we gained from it? If Holy

The Eighth Day of Christmas. The Circumcision of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Basil the Great, Archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia

01/01/2025

On the eighth day after His Nativity, our Lord Jesus Christ was circumcised in accordance with the Old Testament Law. All male infants underwent circumcision as a sign of God’s Covenant with the holy Forefather Abraham and his descendants (Gen. 17:10-14, Lev. 12:3). After this ritual the Divine Infant was given the name Jesus, as the Archangel Gabriel declared on the day of the Annunciation to the Most Holy Theotokos (Luke 1:31-33, 2:21). The Fathers

Persons in Communion: From Individual to Person (Part II)

08/21/2024

The power of love has perhaps been best described by Gregory of Nyssa. He was undoubtedly forced to it by the Origenists, whose Christian belief, though profound, was still permeated with the cyclical outlook of the ancient world. According to the Origenists, souls were in the beginning filled with God and with one another, but were surfeited by the experience. Desiring a change, they then chose a state of separation, cold isolation and opposition. A

Persons in Communion: Singular and plural (Part II)

07/25/2024

The idea of a truly trinitarian anthropology is chiefly associated with St Gregory of Nyssa, the most speculative of the Cappadocians. In little tracts dismissed rather hastily by his detractors as works of philology he attacks the ‘erroneous custom’ whereby Man is spoken of in the plural and God in the singular; in both cases personal plurality is quite consistent with unity of essence. We ought to say that in Christ, the new Adam, ‘Man

Persons in Communion: Singular and plural (Part I)

07/24/2024

Personal existence has a ‘vertical’ dimension, a desire to be plunged into the fullness of God. And this fullness is not a solitude but an ocean already alive with the movement of infinite love. The depth is not unrelieved gloom; it contains reciprocal activity, interchange, the presence of the other, while duality is avoided in the communion of the Three in One. The depth itself suggests the inexhaustible character of the Persons and of their

The Eighth Day of Christmas: Saint Basil the Great, Archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia. The Circumcision of Christ. St. Telemachus, Peacemaker

01/01/2024

On January 1 the Greek Orthodox church commemorates Saint Basil the Great, Archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia. Saint Basil was born in the year 330 in Caesarea, to a family renowned for their learning and holiness. His mother, Emilia (commemorated on July 19) and his grandmother Macrina (commemorated on June 14) are Saints of the Church, together with his brothers and sisters: Macrina, his elder sister (July 19), Gregory of Nyssa (January 10), Peter of Sebastia (January 9), and

The Personality of Saint Mary Magdalene, Equal to the Apostles

07/22/2023

Published by Pemptousia Partnership on July 24, 2021 Georgios Zaravelas, Theologian Saint Mary Magdalene is the most outstanding person in the circle of Christ’s women disciples, and, indeed, the most significant female figure in the Christian Church, after the Mother of God. Her importance for the Church is expressed in the lengthy references to her in the Lives of the Saints. We have very little information concerning her life. She was born in Magdala, a town to the

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! The Third Thursday of Pascha: Sacred Remembering

05/04/2023

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, May 3, 2020 at St. Mary Orthodox Church in Cambridge, MA. A question came up at Subdeacon James’ Adult education class last Thursday about remembrance, like when we say, “May her memory be eternal,” and “Remember us, O Lord, when you come into your kingdom.” That got me thinking. We have done a lot of remembering over the past few weeks and what have we gained from

The Eighth Day of Christmas. The Feast Day of Saint Basil the Great

01/01/2023

To the pen of St. Basil the Great belong commentaries on Sacred Scripture, a treatise on the Holy Spirit, epistles, sermons and rules for monastic life. He did much for the establishment of the order of the Liturgy, and wrote numerous prayers. The Church reveres him as a fighter for the purity of the faith, a great hierarch and theologian, calling him a “universal teacher.” Only on two other saints – John Chrysostom and Gregory

Archive

The Personality of Saint Mary Magdalene Equal to the Apostles

The Second Friday of Pascha. Sacred Remembering

The Eighth Day of Christmas. The Circumcision of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Basil the Great, Archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia

Persons in Communion: From Individual to Person (Part II)

Persons in Communion: Singular and plural (Part II)

Persons in Communion: Singular and plural (Part I)

The Eighth Day of Christmas: Saint Basil the Great, Archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia. The Circumcision of Christ. St. Telemachus, Peacemaker

The Personality of Saint Mary Magdalene, Equal to the Apostles

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! The Third Thursday of Pascha: Sacred Remembering

The Eighth Day of Christmas. The Feast Day of Saint Basil the Great

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