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The First (Bright) Tuesday of Pascha. Relative to Pascha

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! ~By Fr. Stephen Freeman, April 20, 2009 If you have attended Pascha services, or served them, it is quite possible to suffer some of the “natural consequences,” which for me means that after a somewhat disordered sleep I am sitting, having coffee and writing at 3:30 in the morning, wide-awake. I have no complaints. I generally like to be up by around 5 or so, so I am only off

The First (Bright) Monday of Pascha. Renewal Week, the Brightest and Most Resurrectional of the Year

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! ~Protopresbyter Antonios Christou My dear readers, CHRIST HAS RISEN!  After Great Lent, we entered Holy Week, and after Easter Sunday (the evening of Great Saturday) we’re now into the ‘Rose’ Triodio, that is the period of the Pentikostario (the book of Pentecost). This is the preeminent time of the resurrection in the Church and lasts until the Sunday of All Souls. The first week of the Pentikostario, that is the

The Great and Holy Monday. Services of the Bridegroom

Introduction Beginning on the evening of Palm Sunday and continuing through the evening of Holy Tuesday, the Orthodox Church observes a special service known as the Service of the Bridegroom. Each evening service is the Matins or Orthros service of the following day (e.g. the service held on Sunday evening is the Orthros service for Holy Monday). The name of the service is from the figure of the Bridegroom in the parable of the Ten

Lazarus Saturday

~By Father Stephen Freeman, April 16, 2022 Largely ignored by much of Christendom, the Orthodox mark the day before Palm Sunday as “Lazarus Saturday” in something of a prequel to the following weekend’s Pascha. It is, indeed a little Pascha just before the greater one. And this, of course, was arranged by Christ Himself, who raised His friend Lazarus from the dead as something of a last action before entering Jerusalem and beginning His slow

The Sixth Monday of Great Lent: The Awareness of Death

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 Fifth Monday of Great Lent. By the Rivers of Babylon: Inconsolable Home-Sickness

Mihaïl Koutsos Psalm 136. By Jeremiah to David, on captivity 1 By the rivers of Babylon there we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion. 2 We hung our instruments on the willows, 3 for there our captors asked us for songs, and our abductors asked for mirth, saying, ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion’. 4 How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land? 5 If I forget you,

The Third Friday of Great Lent: The Eternal Cross-How Is the Lamb Slain from the Foundation of the World?

~By Father Stephen Freeman, April 20, 2022 Among the many striking images in the book of Revelation, there is one that stands out in particular. In Chapter 13, vs 8, we read: “All who dwell on the earth will worship him [the beast], whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” The passage is not unlike that in 1 Peter: “knowing that you

The First Tuesday of Great Lent: Saint Andrew, Archbishop of Crete

Saint Andrew, Archbishop of Crete, was born in the city of Damascus into a pious Christian family. Up until seven years of age the boy was mute and did not talk. However, after communing the Holy Mysteries of Christ he found the gift of speech and began to speak. And from that time the lad began earnestly to study Holy Scripture and the discipline of theology. At fourteen years of age he went off to

Forgiveness Sunday – Do We Know What We’re Doing?

~By Fr Stephen Freeman, March 13, 2016 This is a meditation I shared with my parish this week as the Sunday of Forgiveness approaches: Perhaps the most generous words spoken by Christ are those we hear from the Cross: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Taken at face value, the words make little sense. Surely, those who crucified Christ knew that they were killing a man. Surely they were

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

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