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The First (Bright) Thursday of Pascha. And Into the Brightness

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! ~By Fr. Stephen Freeman, April 9, 2007 Bright Week – such a marvelous phrase – descriptive theologically and in many other ways of the time after Pascha. If we only knew, we all live in Bright Week – despite the fasting that we take up from season to season – despite the disasters that plague our earthly sojourn – still, we are all living in Bright Week. In Bright Week,

RENEWAL THURSDAY. CHRISTOS ANESTI! CHRIST IS RISEN! OF TIME AND ETERNITY: THE RESURRECTION (Part I)

Nothing about Jesus is so misunderstood, misrepresented, trivialized and falsified as the Resurrection. Everything in the Gospels has to be understood in light of the Resurrection. Christian faith takes its meaning from the Resurrection—every claim about Jesus, every notion of what it means to live in trusting hope, every view of the world, every take on reality. What the Christian knows of God—with “knowledge” that is qualitatively different from knowledge about anything or anyone else—comes

Renewal Thursday, Christ is Risen!

The Father accepts the Son’s sacrifice ” “by economy” (“po domostroitelstvu”): “man had to be sanctified by God’s humanity” (St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 45, On the Holy Pascha). Kenosis [God’s self-limitation, His Divine condescension, especially in taking on human nature in Christ] culminates and ends with Christ’s death, to sanctify the entire human condition, including death. Cur Deus homo? Not only because of our sins but also for our sanctification, to introduce all the