Pascha Archives - Saint Sophia

On the Icon of the Nativity of the Theotokos

09/08/2025

Sermon preached by Melissa Nassiff on Sunday, March 4, 2018 at St. Mary Orthodox Church in Cambridge, MA. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Good morning! Once again March is Antiochian Women’s month, and throughout the Archdiocese, women are serving their parishes in some of the more visible ways: taking the collection, taking part in the Great Procession, ushering, assisting with communion, and giving a homily. Last year,

Love and Freedom

08/25/2025

~By Father Stephen Freeman, August 29, 2018 The most difficult aspect of love is the freedom it inherently requires. Love, in its ultimate and proper form, only exists between equals. There can be a sort of benevolence and nobility towards another who is not equal, but never love. This makes it difficult to understand the God-who-is-love. It will quickly be said by most that God is not our equal, and that we can never be

Providence and the Music of All Creation

07/14/2025

~Father Stephen Freeman, June 20, 2018 God’s being and actions are one. This is essentially the teaching of the Church on the topic of the Divine Energies. When I read discussions about this – it seems to get lost in the twists and turns of medieval metaphysics or passes into the territory of seeing the “Uncreated Light.” Both approaches are unhelpful for me, and both obscure something that should be far more transparent. Some of

Pentecost and the Liturgy of Hades: Soul Saturdays

06/07/2025

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, June 21, 2021 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 Sixth Wednesday of Pascha. Eyes Wide Open

05/28/2025

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, May 24, 2020 All of us carry things that weigh us down: including beliefs and opinions, little “t” traditions that are unnecessary and burdensome, desires, sins, fears. I could name many others. We saw it in the Gospel of the Samaritan Woman last week. She held tightly to her Samaritan traditions as the Jews did to theirs. Worship here not there, there

The Sixth Tuesday of Pascha. When Miracles Ceased

05/27/2025

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! ~By Father Stephen Freeman, May 10, 2023 One of the stranger ideas that accompanied the Reformation, was the notion that miracles had ended at the time of the New Testament’s completion. Never stated as a doctrinal fact in the mainstream of Protestantism, it remained a quiet assumption, particularly when joined with an anti-Roman Catholicism in which the various visions, weeping statues, and saints’ lives were considered to be fabrications of

The Fifth Friday of Pascha. The Boundaries We Draw and the Boundaries God Draws

05/23/2025

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! ~By Stephen Freeman, May 1, 2008 I pushed the envelope a little in my last post, intentionally pressing against what I understand to be false boundaries created by an inadequate understanding of Scripture and a view of the world that establishes limits at places they need not be. I am not an enemy of boundaries – indeed – without them we would not exist – at least not as Persons.

The Fifth Thursday of Pascha. The Resurrection: An Affront to Reason

05/22/2025

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! ~Archimandrite Epiphanios Ekonomou It’s hardly surprising that the message of the Resurrection of Christ has raised a whole host of doubts and questions. Objections were registered immediately after the occurrence of the supernatural event on which the whole structure of the Christian Church is founded. For the Jews of Biblical Jerusalem, it was a blasphemy of the apostate Christians to claim that a crucified criminal could ever be the Messiah.

The Fifth Wednesday of Pascha. Memory of Emperor Constantine with his Mother Helen

05/21/2025

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! The Church calls Saint Constantine (306-337) “the Equal of the Apostles,” and historians call him “the Great.” He was the son of the Caesar Constantius Chlorus (305-306), who governed the lands of Gaul and Britain. His mother was Saint Helen, a Christian of humble birth. At this time the immense Roman Empire was divided into Western and Eastern halves, governed by two independent emperors and their corulers called “Caesars.” Constantius

The Fifth Tuesday of Pascha. The Temple of the Heart

05/20/2025

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, May 17, 2020 One of my teachers in seminary once told us that all preaching should be about the kingdom of God. I suppose it was because that was what Jesus talked about most during his three-year public ministry. In Matthew’s Gospel the Lord mentions “the kingdom of heaven” 32 times. In Luke and Mark, the phrase kingdom of God is preferred. The Gospel of the Samaritan

Archive

On the Icon of the Nativity of the Theotokos

Love and Freedom

Providence and the Music of All Creation

Pentecost and the Liturgy of Hades: Soul Saturdays

The Sixth Wednesday of Pascha. Eyes Wide Open

The Sixth Tuesday of Pascha. When Miracles Ceased

The Fifth Friday of Pascha. The Boundaries We Draw and the Boundaries God Draws

The Fifth Thursday of Pascha. The Resurrection: An Affront to Reason

The Fifth Wednesday of Pascha. Memory of Emperor Constantine with his Mother Helen

The Fifth Tuesday of Pascha. The Temple of the Heart

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