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

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 Thirty-Sixth Day of Christmas Advent: The Spirit of Christmas

Published by Pemptousia Partnership on December 27, 2021 Archimandrite Iakovos Kanakis At this time of year, people often talk about the ‘spirit of Christmas’. But are we all talking about the same thing? I think not. It seems to me that if the ‘spirit of Christmas’ is only the presents, shopping in general, family meals, gatherings and relaxation, then Christmas, especially these days, must be very depressing for a lot of people. It causes depression, because many of

The Thirtieth Day of Christmas Advent: A Burning Passion for Humanity

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, December 19, 2021 The primary reason for making our way through Matthew’s Genealogy is to affirm that the Word and Son of God has a human face and human ancestry. A “human face” so that we can look upon him and a human history to confirm that the Son of God became truly one of us. This Gospel reading is a resounding proclamation of our belief in

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

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

The Twenty-Third Day of Christmas Advent: The Power of Mystery

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, December 24, 2021 There are estimated to be 10s of billions of galaxies in our solar system. 100 billion stars are thought to inhabit each galaxy. 200 billion trillion stars are thought to be in the universe. It is estimated that 100 billion stars are in our galaxy alone. And planet earth is an insignificant ball of dust in a small solar system in the Milky Way

The Seventeenth Day of Christmas Advent: You Are Not Alone – And Neither Is God

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, November 16, 2021 I consider it both a strange mystery and a settled matter of the faith that God prefers not to do things alone. Repeatedly, He acts in a manner that involves the actions of others when it would seem, He could have acted alone. Why would God reveal His Word to the world through the agency of men? Why would He bother to use writing? Why not simply communicate

The Fourteenth Day of Christmas Advent: Embracing Indestructible Joy

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, December 13, 2020  The Parable of the Great Banquet is a call to joy. We are all invited to it. In fact, the Banquet can be seen as a metaphor for the Eucharist, the Great Thanksgiving. Of course, not everyone comes when invited. Still God invites. He calls even those he knows will reject him. The verse “many are called but few are chosen” can be confusing.

Choices

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, November 7, 2021. Our faith teaches us to take the foundational moment of Christian history seriously. By this I mean the Incarnation. Since we are approaching the season of the Nativity Fast, I’ve been reflecting on it. We have a very broad, inclusive and cosmic view in the Orthodox Church. Let’s think about it for a few moments. I begin by offering this insight from St. Theresa

The Invitation

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, December 11, 2016 Salvation is about relationship. We cannot be saved alone. It starts at the very beginning when God says, “Let us make humanity in our own image.” The Hebrew writer gloriously uses the plural: God speaking to God. And gradually the mysterious mutuality of God in Trinity is revealed from the opening verses of Genesis, to the Oak of Mamre, to the Incarnation, the Baptism,

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! The Second Wednesday of Pascha: What Does It Mean to Become a Cyrenian?

Published by Pemptousia Partnership on January 20, 2022 Fr. Andreas Agathokleous No one has gone through life without ever being worried, hurt, or driven to tears. As children of Adam, all of us, young and old, have to live with the consequences of the fall of our forefather, precisely because that forefather is each one of us. There’s no need to find support for this view of the human condition, since life itself is evidence of the difficulty,