‘To be restored to life we needed a God incarnate and put to death’ (St Gregory Nazianzen). In the face of all the accusations brought against God – or caricatures of God – by modem atheism, the only possible answer that Christians can give is the Innocent one, crucified by all the evil devised by human beings, who thus offers us resurrection. In the Risen Christ, in his glorified body, in the very opening of
‘Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death! And to those in the tombs he has given life’: this is the constant theme, in the Eastern Church, of the Easter celebration, the ‘feast of feasts’. ‘The day of Resurrection! The Passover, the Passover of the Lord! From death to life … Christ our God has brought us over… Now, all is filled with light, heaven and earth and the places under the
The Descent of the Holy Spirit By Bishop Alexander (Mileant) The descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles on the day of Pentecost is described by the Evangelist Luke in the initial chapters of his book “Acts of the Holy Apostles.” It was God’s will to make this event a turning point in the world’s history. Pentecost, celebrated on the fiftieth day after the Jewish Passover, was one of the three major holidays of
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
By Evangeline Hopkins, Proskynitria …those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. 1 Corinthians 1:24 How is Christ the Power and Wisdom of God? God’s power allowed Him to become human in a way that flummoxed nature. He did this to rescue us from the grips of death, both in Hades and in sin, and to restore the human relationship with God that Adam
Introduction On the Sunday before the Feast of Great and Holy Pascha and at the beginning of Holy Week, the Orthodox Church celebrates one of its most joyous feasts of the year. Palm Sunday is the commemoration of the Entrance of our Lord into Jerusalem following His glorious miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead. Having anticipated His arrival and having heard of the miracle, the people when out to meet the Lord and welcomed
By Father Thomas Hopko, March 13, 2008 In Orthodox Church tradition, the season of Great Lent is called, in the liturgical books, the “tithe of the year.” We know that in the Bible the believers were obliged to give ten percent of their possessions, their time, their crop, their money to the Lord, to the temple. And the rule of the tithe wasn’t at all because ninety percent of our possessions are our own and
The Transfiguration of Christ is one of the central events recorded in the gospels. Immediately after the Lord was recognized by his apostles as “the Christ [Messiah], the Son of the Living God,” he told them that “he must go up to Jerusalem and suffer many things … and be killed and on the third day be raised” (Mt 16). The announcement of Christ’s approaching passion and death was met with indignation by the disciples. And then,
By Father 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
The fifty days following Pascha until the Feast of Pentecost are known as the period of the Pentecostarion in the Orthodox Church. At the mid-point between these great feasts of Pascha and Pentecost, on the twenty-fifth day which is always a Wedneday, is one of the most beloved feasts for the most devout Orthodox Christians known quit simply as Mid-Pentecost. Mid-Pentecost is to the Pentecostarion what the Third Sunday of Great Lent which honors the
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