Sheol Archives - Saint Sophia

The Third Thursday of Pascha. St. Melito and Pascha – Hell Is Not the Last Word

05/08/2025

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! ~By Stephen Freeman, April 29, 2025 Among the most powerful meditations on Pascha are the writings of Melito of Sardis (ca. 190 AD). His homily, On Pascha, is both a work of genius as poetry and a powerful work of theology. Its subject is the Lord’s Pascha – particularly as an interpretation of the Old Testament. It is a common example of early Church thought on Scripture and the Lord’s Pascha. I

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! The Second Wednesday of Pascha: Resurrection

05/15/2024

And He rose again from the dead on the third day, according to the Scriptures . . . Christ is risen from the dead! This is the main proclamation of the Christian faith. It forms the heart of the Church’s preaching, worship and spiritual life. “. . . if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” (1 Cor 15.14). In the first sermon ever preached in the history of

Ex nihilo (2)

09/07/2022

By Fr John Breck, March 1, 2008 In the prologue to his Gospel, the evangelist John takes up the account of creation given in the first chapter of Genesis, in order to illustrate the story of redemption accomplished by Jesus Christ, the eternal Son and Word of God. “In the beginning,” out of His infinite otherness, with God and as God, the Word comes forth, to create the world and to save it from death

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! The Sixth Tuesday of Pascha: From the Depths of Hell

05/31/2022

By Fr John Breck, April 1, 2009 The final Old Testament reading for Holy Saturday vespers—Daniel 3:1-57, the story of the three young men in the fiery furnace in Babylon—is composite, drawing upon both Aramaic and Greek (Septuagint) traditions. The latter modifies and amplifies a detail the Church’s patristic witnesses consider essential. That small detail is a typological image that announces the primary theme of Orthodox Pascha or Easter: the descent of Christ into the

The Holy and Great Saturday

04/27/2019

“I am the Resurrection and the Life” (Part III) The very death of the Incarnate reveals the resurrection of human nature (St. John of Damascus, De fide orth., 3.27; cf. Homil. in Magn. Sabbat., 29). “Today we keep the feast, for our Lord is nailed upon the Cross,” in the sharp phrase of St. John Chrysostom (In crucem et latronem, hom. 1). The death on the Cross is a victory over death not only because

The Fortieth Day of Christmas Advent. Christmas Eve.

12/24/2018

A WOMAN I KNOW, whose family owns a retail business in a small town, once commented, “Christmas is not a pleasant time at our house.” I found this a sad commentary on what Christmas has become for so many of us: a time of increased anxiety and stress and discord. We lash out at loved ones because we’re spending money we can’t afford to spend, or, as with this woman, because Christmas is what makes

The Gift of Silence III

07/19/2018

The Gift of Silence (III) From the time of Elijah through the period of classical prophecy, God continued to reveal Himself through His Word of blessing and judgment. At the same time, silence was increasingly perceived as something negative: the absence of God’s voice and thus of His presence. “The land of silence” became synonymous with Sheol, the place of the dead where, by definition, the life-giving God is not to be found (Ps 88:11-13;

Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen! Monday of the Second Week of Pascha: Through the Cross, Joy! (Part I)

04/16/2018

THE TWO MOST IMPORTANT antinomies or paradoxes of Christian faith are the incarnation of the Son of God and His resurrection from the dead. Both of these find their fulfillment in the celebration of Easter, known in Orthodox tradition as Holy Pascha: The Passover of our Lord from death to life. A resurrectional hymn sung at each eucharistic celebration reminds us that every such celebration commemorates and actualizes for us Christ’s victory over death. The

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

06/03/2016

By Father Thomas Hopko Jesus, Himself, is the very Lord from whose face the light and the glory of God shines. So the only people and creatures who experience hell, Gehenna, are those who experience the face of the Lord and hate it, and do not want it, and try to reject it, and try to flee from it. Then that face with that fire and that light becomes agony, and there is no way

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

05/30/2016

By Father Thomas Hopko And we do not ever want to imagine the dead as disincarnate souls. Some of the great teachers of Christianity do that, even Metropolitan of Nafpaktos, Hierotheos, he does that. I must say honestly say I do not agree with him when he does that. The dead are simply completely and totally dead. And then when you are alive, you are completely and totally alive. And I believe that when Christ

Archive

The Third Thursday of Pascha. St. Melito and Pascha – Hell Is Not the Last Word

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! The Second Wednesday of Pascha: Resurrection

Ex nihilo (2)

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! The Sixth Tuesday of Pascha: From the Depths of Hell

The Holy and Great Saturday

The Fortieth Day of Christmas Advent. Christmas Eve.

The Gift of Silence III

Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen! Monday of the Second Week of Pascha: Through the Cross, Joy! (Part I)

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

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

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