tomb Archives - Saint Sophia

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! The Great and Holy Pascha. Irene the Great Martyr.

05/05/2024

Introduction On the Great and Holy Feast of Pascha, Orthodox Christians celebrate the life-giving Resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. This feast of feasts is the most significant day in the life of the Church. It is a celebration of the defeat of death, as neither death itself nor the power of the grave could hold our Savior captive. In this victory that came through the Cross, Christ broke the bondage of sin,

The Great and Holy Friday

05/03/2024

Introduction On Great and Holy Friday, the Orthodox Church commemorates the death of Christ on the Cross. This is the culmination of the observance of His Passion by which our Lord suffered and died for our sins. This commemoration begins on Thursday evening with the Matins of Holy Friday and concludes with a Vespers on Friday afternoon that observes the unnailing of Christ from the Cross and the placement of His body in the tomb.

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! BRIGHT THURSDAY: The Healing of Thomas

04/20/2023

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes at St. Mary Orthodox Church of Cambridge, MA on Sunday, April 15, 2018 In reading and interpreting Holy Scripture we must always remember to do so in the light of Christ whose preeminent message was, “Be compassionate as your Father in heaven is compassionate.” As the God-Man he sees our deepest needs and understands from his own incarnate experience exactly what cure to apply when, how, and where. Thomas

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! Christ is our Pascha, the Resurrection of All!

04/16/2023

As we celebrate Pascha, we confess in Church that the Kingdom of God “has been already inaugurated, but not yet fulfilled.” In the light of the Resurrection, earthly things assume new significance, because they are already transformed and transfigured. Nothing is simply “given.” “Everything lies in motion toward eschatological perfection”, notes the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew in his Easter message. The Ecumenical Patriarch also stresses that “Holy Pascha is not merely a religious feast, albeit the

The Great and Holy Thursday: The Heart that is Open

04/13/2023

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, April 9, 2017 Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ, Glory to Jesus Christ! It is important to remember as we celebrate Holy Week that it is not about recreating the past. It is about taking the time at this particular moment to open our hearts and minds to Jesus as his Passion is remembered. Few of us take the time to open our hearts and minds to

The Sixth Tuesday of Great Lent: The Awareness of Death

04/04/2023

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, April 5, 2020 at St. Mary Orthodox Church in Cambridge, MA. Through this Great Lent we are being forced to look at everything, including our faith, in deeper ways. For example, the crucifixion of Jesus has never been only about his death, but also ours. In Larry Rosenberg’s wonderful book LIVING IN THE LIGHT OF DEATH he says it like this: we are being asked “to come

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

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! The Second Friday of Pascha: Ecstatic Wonder

05/06/2022

By Fr John Breck, April 2, 2004 On the eve of the Sunday of the Holy Myrrh-bearing Women, the Matins service includes Christ’s resurrection appearances as they are recounted at the close of St Mark’s Gospel. If Biblical scholars are correct, these last verses, Mark 16:9-20, did not originally belong to the Gospel narrative. This series of appearances of the risen Lord was apparently gathered together by the early Church for catechetical purposes and was

The Mystery of Death. Preparing for our Death.

10/14/2021

Death can be a mystery precisely because the triumph over death is not a mystery By Abbot Tryphon, December 16, 2019 As a priest and monk of the Russian Orthodox Church, I am comfortable with the mystery of death, as all Christians should be. Death can be a mystery precisely because the triumph over death is not a mystery. As the Orthodox theologian Alexander Schmemann wrote, “in essence, Christianity is not concerned with coming to

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! Bright Monday! And into the Brightness

05/03/2021

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, the Bridegroom has come, and

Archive

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! The Great and Holy Pascha. Irene the Great Martyr.

The Great and Holy Friday

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! BRIGHT THURSDAY: The Healing of Thomas

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! Christ is our Pascha, the Resurrection of All!

The Great and Holy Thursday: The Heart that is Open

The Sixth Tuesday of Great Lent: The Awareness of Death

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

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! The Second Friday of Pascha: Ecstatic Wonder

The Mystery of Death. Preparing for our Death.

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! Bright Monday! And into the Brightness

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