holy week Archives - Page 2 of 8

The Sixth Tuesday of Great Lent: The Awareness of Death

04/04/2023

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, April 5, 2020 at St. Mary Orthodox Church in Cambridge, MA. Through this Great Lent we are being forced to look at everything, including our faith, in deeper ways. For example, the crucifixion of Jesus has never been only about his death, but also ours. In Larry Rosenberg’s wonderful book LIVING IN THE LIGHT OF DEATH he says it like this: we are being asked “to come

The First Monday (Clean) of Great Lent

02/27/2023

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,

Entering Hell on Pentecost – With Prayer

06/10/2022

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

The Holy and Great Saturday: Knocking Down the Gates of Hell

04/23/2022

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, May 1, 2021 The Swedish Lutheran theologian, Gustav Aulen, published a seminal work on the types of atonement theory in 1930 (Christus Victor). Though time and critical studies have suggested many subtler treatments of the question, no one has really improved on his insight. Especially valuable was his description of the “Classic View” of the atonement. This imagery, very dominant in the writings of the early Fathers and in the liturgical

The Holy and Great Wednesday: “If this is how you see Christ, then Holy Week won’t mean a thing to you…”

04/20/2022

Published by Pemptousia Partnership, April 12, 2017 Archimandrite Vassilios Papavassiliou Holy Week is the heart of the Christian Orthodox Faith and the centre of the yearly cycle of Christian Feasts. Every year our churches are packed at Holy Week and, come the last three days, they are bursting at the seams with both people who attend church every Sunday and people who attend only on special occasions. Holy Week brings the pious and the not

The Holy and Great Monday: The Bridegroom and Judgment

04/18/2022

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, April 9, 2017 Behold, the Bridegroom comes at midnight, and blessed is the servant whom He shall find watching; and again, unworthy is the servant whom He shall find heedless. Beware, therefore, O my soul, do not be weighed down with sleep, lest you be given up to death and lest you be shut out of the Kingdom. But rouse yourself crying: Holy, holy, holy, art Thou, O our God. Through the Theotokos, have

The Sixth Friday of Great Lent: An Atonement of Shame – Orthodoxy and the Cross

04/15/2022

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, March 6, 2017 Some decades ago in my early (Anglican) priesthood, a parishioner brought a crucifix back from South America. The question for me as a priest was whether I would accept the crucifix as a gift and place it in the Church. I like crucifixes, my taste was always towards the Catholic direction. But, you have to bear in mind that Spanish/Latin crucifixes have a tendency to be, well, rather

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! The Third Monday of Pascha: A Letter from Butyrskaya Prison – Pascha 1928

05/17/2021

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, May 4, 2008 Serge Schmemann, son of Fr. Alexander Schmemann, in his wonderful little book, Echoes of a Native Land, records a letter written from one of his family members of an earlier generation, who spent several years in the prisons of the Soviets and died there. The letter, written on the night of Pascha in 1928 is to a family member, “Uncle Grishanchik” (This was Grigory Trubetskoi who had managed to

Great and Holy Thursday

04/29/2021

Introduction On Thursday of Holy Week four events are commemorated: the washing of the disciples’ feet, the institution of the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist at the Last Supper, the agony in the garden of Gethsemane, and the betrayal of Christ by Judas. Commemorations of Holy Thursday The Institution of the Eucharist At the Mystical Supper in the Upper Room Jesus gave a radically new meaning to the food and drink of the sacred meal.

The Sixth Wednesday of Great Lent: The Mystical Reality of Holy Week

04/21/2021

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, April 6, 2015 As we journey through Holy Week… For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable. (1Co 15:16-19 NKJ) Earlier this Spring, two

Tags

The Sixth Tuesday of Great Lent: The Awareness of Death

The First Monday (Clean) of Great Lent

Entering Hell on Pentecost – With Prayer

The Holy and Great Saturday: Knocking Down the Gates of Hell

The Holy and Great Wednesday: “If this is how you see Christ, then Holy Week won’t mean a thing to you…”

The Holy and Great Monday: The Bridegroom and Judgment

The Sixth Friday of Great Lent: An Atonement of Shame – Orthodoxy and the Cross

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! The Third Monday of Pascha: A Letter from Butyrskaya Prison – Pascha 1928

Great and Holy Thursday

The Sixth Wednesday of Great Lent: The Mystical Reality of Holy Week

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