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Grace and the Handbasket

02/04/2026

~By Father Stephen Freeman, July 4, 2023 A difficulty arises when making cultural observations – things rarely turn out as expected. The Roman Empire fell once upon a time, although the fall wasn’t nearly as clean and final as Gibbons imagined and it wasn’t really the Roman Empire that fell. But ever since the “Roman Empire fell” people have been rehearsing the lessons learned and expecting its repeat. Yet the empires (or whatever is expected to fall)

The Dormition Fast: Why Mary Has Always Been Honored

08/11/2025

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, August 13, 2018 This Wednesday (August 15) is the Feast of the Dormition, the Falling Asleep of the Virgin Mary. I offer this article as a reflection. The most difficult part of my Orthodox experience to discuss with the non-Orthodox is the place and role of the Mother of God in the Church and in my life. It is, on the one hand, deeply theological and even essential to a right understanding

The Second Monday of Pascha. Identity and the Resurrection of Christ

04/28/2025

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! ~By Father Stephen Freeman, April 20, 2023 There is a strange moment described in the gospels regarding the resurrection of Christ (in fact, there are several such moments). When Mary Magdalen first encounters the risen Lord, we are told that she “took Him for the gardener.” But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb. And she saw two angels in

The End of our Brokenness

01/24/2023

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, October 24, 2021. Jesus asked the man his name. He answered, “Legion.” Legion was not his real name; it was what had become of him. He was fragmented, shattered, traumatized. He had lost sight of who he really was. His true identity had been hidden away. No matter what has happened to us, or what we have become, Christianity has Good News for us. There is a

[Nativity of] John the Baptist and Forerunner of the Lord

06/24/2022

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, June 22, 2007  [Today is] the feast of the Nativity of the Forerunner of Christ – a feast noted around my household for also being the birthday of my wife (and of her brother). Thus we celebrate and are sometimes slightly distracted from the ecclesiastical meaning of the day. But a family cannot be faulted for the joy it takes in its mother, nor I in my spouse. But I want

The Tenth Day of Christmas Advent. “Born of a Woman.”

11/24/2021

By stating that Jesus is “born of woman”—this Mary (as both St. Matthew and St. Luke attest)—St. Paul insists that Jesus is most emphatically human, the “firstborn of all creation.” That this Mary is at the same time a virgin prevents the birth of Jesus from being reduced to what we know or can reproduce from our own experience. Life that is unmistakably human life is before us here, a real baby from an actual

The Dormition Fast: Why Mary Has Always Been Honored

08/04/2021

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, August 13, 2018 This Wednesday (August 15) is the Feast of the Dormition, the Falling Asleep of the Virgin Mary. I offer this article as a reflection. The most difficult part of my Orthodox experience to discuss with the non-Orthodox is the place and role of the Mother of God in the Church and in my life. It is, on the one hand, deeply theological and even essential to a right understanding

Why Mary Has Always Been Honored

08/14/2020

By Father Stephen Freeman, August 13, 2018 This Saturday (August 15) is the Feast of the Dormition, the Falling Asleep of the Virgin Mary. I offer this article as a reflection. The most difficult part of my Orthodox experience to discuss with the non-Orthodox is the place and role of the Mother of God in the Church and in my life. It is, on the one hand, deeply theological and even essential to a right understanding

Transfigured Life (Part I)

08/06/2019

The Gospel accounts of Jesus’ Transfiguration differ in some small but significant details. With typically colorful language, St Mark emphasizes Jesus’ garments, describing them as “glistening, intensely white, as no fuller on earth could bleach them.” St Luke adds that “the appearance of his countenance was altered”; and St Matthew declares, “his face shone like the sun.” Each of these narratives makes the point that Jesus manifests what came to be called the shekinah, a

The Ninth Day of Christmas Advent. “Born of a Woman.”

11/23/2018

By stating that Jesus is “born of woman”—this Mary (as both St. Matthew and St. Luke attest)—St. Paul insists that Jesus is most emphatically human, the “firstborn of all creation.” That this Mary is at the same time a virgin prevents the birth of Jesus from being reduced to what we know or can reproduce from our own experience. Life that is unmistakably human life is before us here, a real baby from an actual

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