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The Sixteenth Day of Christmas Advent. St. Andrew the First-called Apostle

Saint Andrew the Apostle (Greek: ‘Ανδρέας, Andreas; early first century—mid to late first century AD), called in the Orthodox tradition Protokletos, or the First-called, is the brother of Peter the Apostle. The name “Andrew” (from Greek: “ανδρεία”, Andreia, manhood, or valour), like other Greek names, appears to have been common among the Jews from the second or third century BC. No Hebrew or Aramaic name is recorded for him. The New Testament records that Andrew

Vulnerability–Even in God!

Paul’s encounter with the Eternal Christ on the Damascus Road must have sparked his new and revolutionary consciousness. He recognized that he had been chosen by God even “while breathing murderous threats” (Acts 9:1), and that the God who chose him was a crucified God and not an “Omnipotent” or an “Almighty” God. In fact, Paul only uses the word “Almighty” for God once (2 Corinthians 6:18), and then he is quoting the Hebrew Scriptures.

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

Mary the Contemplative (Part V)

THE PRAYER OF THE HEART St. Luke must have known Mary and her prayerfulness either by direct communication with Mary herself or from information given him by those who knew Mary intimately, especially St. John the beloved disciple to whom Mary was entrusted by Christ on the cross. Twice St. Luke indicates Mary’s contemplative spirit. At Bethlehem she reflects on the words of the shepherds. “As for Mary, she treasured all these things and pondered

Pentecost: The Descent of the Holy Spirit

Protopresbyter Thomas Hopko In the Old Testament, Pentecost was the feast which occurred fifty days after Passover. As the passover feast celebrated the exodus of the Israelites from the slavery of Egypt, so Pentecost celebrated God’s gift of the ten commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai. In the new covenant of the Messiah, the Passover event takes on its new meaning as the celebration of Christ’s death and resurrection, the “exodus” of men from this

Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen! The Fifth Tuesday of Pascha: The Descent of Jesus into Hades (Part VI)

By Father Thomas Hopko He came to them, but we must remember that those who were literally dead were also still somehow alive in the hands of God, even before the Messiah came. When, for example, the Sadducees, who did not believe in the resurrection of Christ, tried to catch Him in his words by saying that according to the Levite law of Moses, if a man had a wife, and he died, his brother

Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen! The Fourth Thursday of Pascha: The Descent of Jesus into Hades (Part III)

By Father Thomas Hopko Even on the Russian Orthodox crosses, by the way, there is a little inscription at the foot of Jesus’ feet on the cross, in four Slavonic letters, M, L, R, and B, in Slavonic, which translated means, “The place of the skull (or Golgotha) has become Paradise.” So the bosom of Abraham had to be transformed into Paradise, into a living reality again, with interrelationship with all of creation—the sun, the

Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen! The Fourth Monday of Pascha: The Descent of Jesus into Hades (Part I)

By Father Thomas Hopko The Paschal icon, the icon of the victory of Christ, God’s Messiah, over death, the last enemy, in the Orthodox Church is an icon of the live, glorious Christ, in the realm of the dead, smashing the gates of Sheol, or of Hades, and releasing, and freeing, and pulling from the tombs, the whole of humanity, symbolized in the persons of Adam and Eve. In that icon, of course, there are

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 Palm Sunday. In triumph and joy the Church bears witness