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Commemoration of the Beheading of the Holy and Glorious Prophet, Forerunner and Baptist John

The divine Baptist, the Prophet born of a Prophet, the seal of all the Prophets and beginning of the Apostles, the mediator between the Old and New Covenants, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, the God-sent Messenger of the incarnate Messiah, the forerunner of Christ’s coming into the world (Isaiah 40:3; Mal. 3: 1); who by many miracles was both conceived and born; who was filled with the Holy Spirit while yet in

Love Lifts Me

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, May 18, 2025 Hafiz wrote:  I once asked a bird, how is it that you fly in this gravity of darkness. She responded, “Love lifts me.” The Samaritan Woman came to Jacob’s Well at noon when the day was hottest and the sun at its zenith, wrapped in a cloak of darkness. She did not want to be seen. And there she WAS seen by someone who we, in

Look Who’s Talking

~By Fr. Stephen Freeman, August 6, 2025 In the Transfiguration, Christ is seen speaking with Moses and Elijah on the top of a mountain, shimmering with a light of unbearable brightness. It is an event unlike anything else in the gospels, deserving the Great Feast that is associated with it. That Christ is seen speaking with Moses and Elijah is itself an affirmation that in Him, the whole of the Law and the Prophets find

The Way of the Cross is Different

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Palm Sunday, April 13, 2025 Jesus had done many miracles before raising Lazarus from the dead, but that last one made him a rock star in Jerusalem. The crowds gathered for many other reasons, but the raising of Lazarus excited the crowds to a fever pitch. The prophecies about the coming Messiah in the prophets added fuel to the fire. Still Jesus was not looking for adulation. He

Grant us the Eyes to See

Sermon preached by Dn. James Wilcox on Sunday, January 28, 2024 Luke 18:35-42; 1 Tim. 1:15-17 Alan Watts in his illuminating book, “Behold the Spirit,” writes the following: In this very moment we are looking straight at God, and he is so clear that for us complex human beings he is peculiarly hard to see. To know him we have to simplify ourselves, and the mind is so dominated by the complexity of pride that

My Brother is My Life

Sermon preached by Subdeacon JD Swartz on Sunday, August 4, 2024 at St. Mary Orthodox Church in Cambridge, MA “And behold, they brought to him a paralytic, lying on his bed; and when Jesus saw their faith he said to the paralytic, “Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven.” “And when Jesus saw their faith..,” not the faith of the one brought for healing, or at least not his faith alone, but their faith. Our interdependency is

The Sixth Tuesday of Pascha. After the Resurrection (2)

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! Archimandrite Elisaios, Abbot of the Holy Monastery of Simonos Petras Let us, then, have a look at this mystery and understand it from a single appearance of Christ after His resurrection: to two of His disciples who were on the road to Emmaus, a small town some 10 miles from Jerusalem. This appearance is related only by Luke and is one of the most beautiful and vivid scenes in his

Sunday of the Samaritan Woman (John 4:5-42)

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! ~Archimandrite Zacharias Zacharou This Gospel reading is exceptional, loaded with great and sublime truths which the Lord condescended to impart to a dissolute woman, a heretic who had led a reckless life and hailed from Samaria, an abomination for the Jews. The reconciliatory way that Christ relates with this woman gives an example for converse with our fellow men. In this passage, on the one hand, we behold the majesty

Lazarus Saturday

Saturday of the Holy and Righteous Friend of Christ, Lazarus Introduction On the Saturday before Holy Week, the Orthodox Church commemorates a major feast of the year, the miracle of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ when he raised Lazarus from the dead after he had lain in the grave four days. Here, at the end of Great Lent and the forty days of fasting and penitence, the Church combines this celebration with that of

God and Science

Saint Luke the Physician, Archbishop of the Crimea ‘When we examine modern science, as this has been created by scientists such as Lamarque and Darwin, we see the contrast and, I would say, the absolute dissonance which exists between science and religion in matters pertaining to the most basic problems of existence and knowledge. This is why a rational and enlightened mind cannot accept both simultaneously and must choose between religion and science’. These words