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The Third Tuesday of Pascha, Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen! Service of the Consecration of a Church (Part VI)

THE WASHING OF THE ALTAR TABLE Since the Altar Table represents the Tomb of Christ and His body lies therein. The Altar must undergo its own “Baptism” (washing) and “Chrismation” (anointing). Before washing and anointing the Altar Table the Bishop puts on a white linen garment called the Savanon. While the faithful kneel, the Bishop reads the prayer of Consecration. THE BISHOP: Blessed is our God always, now and ever and unto the ages of

Seeing the Forest for the Trees: The Meaning and Message of Forests and Trees in the Christian Tradition (Part II)

Characteristically, Scripture uses the image of trees and forests in three basic ways, plus a subsuming fourth, which represent respectively three kinds of the Scriptural tree, corresponding roughly to the Pauline trichotomy of body, soul and spirit, plus a transcending fourth, representing the presence of the Holy Spirit that is “everywhere present and fillest all things.” We may call these three types of tree usages the Natural Tree, the Metaphoric Tree and the Symbolic Tree.

Fifteenth Day of Christmas Advent: The Feast of Saint Andrew (November 30)

While the canon of the feast of the Nativity begins to be sung on the festival of the entrance of the Virgin Mary into the temple, the first prefeast hymns of Christmas are sung on the feast of “the all-praised and first-called apostle Andrew.”1 In the gospel according to Saint John, Philip calls his friend Nathanael to “come and see” Jesus, but it is Jesus Himself who invites Andrew to “come and see” where He