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The Twenty-Seventh Day of Christmas Advent. The Word Became Flesh: The Inexpressible Mystery of Salvation

12/11/2025

Saint Symeon the New Theologian When God, the Son of God, entered the womb of All-Holy Virgin and took flesh from her, He was born a perfect person and perfect God, without confusion. When has anything more important ever happened for us? We all believe in this Son of God and Son of the ever-virgin Mother of God, Mary, which is why we confidently accept this information about Him and this event. If we confess

Mary the Contemplative (Part II)

08/07/2024

MARY – THE PERFECT CHRISTIAN I would like to avoid such an approach and begin by basing our deeper devotion to Mary on the fact that God has given her to us as a realized type of the perfect Christian. Mary, in her continued process of growing into a greater fullness of grace, even in her glorified relationship to Jesus Christ, to the members of His Body, the Church, and to the whole created universe,

The Walls of Paradise – and the Fire of God

01/26/2024

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, December 14, 2020  I love walls. Perhaps the most charming aspect of medieval cities are their use of walls. Some surrounded the city and served as protection. Others surrounded smaller areas and prevented easy access and egress (perhaps understandable in a world with lots of animals present). There were other walls that signaled “higher” boundaries. In a medieval world, the “order” of things was thought important: kings and commoners, high-born and

The Seventeenth Day of Christmas Advent: You Are Not Alone – And Neither Is God

12/01/2023

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, November 16, 2021 I consider it both a strange mystery and a settled matter of the faith that God prefers not to do things alone. Repeatedly, He acts in a manner that involves the actions of others when it would seem, He could have acted alone. Why would God reveal His Word to the world through the agency of men? Why would He bother to use writing? Why not simply communicate

The Sixth Day of Christmas Advent: I Will Go into the Altar of God

11/20/2023

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, November 20, 2021  Most of my early Church memories center around Sunday School (I think that we did not “stay for preaching” very often). The small Baptist church that we attended was about a mile from our house and was conveniently connected by a railroad track, generally inactive on Sundays. My older brother and I often walked along the track on Sunday mornings when the weather was pleasant. The earliest Bible

The Dormition of the Mother of God

08/15/2021

Submitted by Abbot Tryphon, August 28, 2011  Today the Living Ladder is Assumed into Heaven How does He, who dwells in the splendor of His glory, descend into the Virgin’s womb without leaving the bosom of the Father? How is He conceived in the flesh, and does He spontaneously suffer, and suffer unto death, in that material body, gaining immortality through corruptibility? And, again, ascending to the Father, He drew His Mother, according to the

Dormition of the Mother of God. The Ever Virgin Mary.

08/11/2020

By Abbot Tryphon, August 28, 2011 Today the Living Ladder is Assumed into Heaven How does He, who dwells in the splendor of His glory, descend into the Virgin’s womb without leaving the bosom of the Father? How is He conceived in the flesh, and does He spontaneously suffer, and suffer unto death, in that material body, gaining immortality through corruptibility? And, again, ascending to the Father, He drew His Mother, according to the flesh,

Dormition or Assumption?

08/09/2019

In our Orthodox tradition we are usually very careful to distinguish between the “Dormition” of the Mother of God and her “Assumption” into heaven. The former, we feel, is properly Orthodox, while the latter strikes us as a purely Western designation, derived from a Roman Catholic “misunderstanding” of the meaning of this feast, celebrated universally on August 15. It is true that some very genuine yet misguided interpretations of Mary’s death and exaltation can be

Mary the Contemplative (Part II)

08/02/2016

MARY – THE PERFECT CHRISTIAN I would like to avoid such an approach and begin by basing our deeper devotion to Mary on the fact that God has given her to us as a realized type of the perfect Christian. Mary, in her continued process of growing into a greater fullness of grace, even in her glorified relationship to Jesus Christ, to the members of His Body, the Church, and to the whole created universe,

Thirty-First Day of Christmas Advent, COME EMMANUEL, GOD WITH US! (Part I)

12/15/2015

In more ways than one, we are waiting in darkness. Isaiah prophesied Jesus’ birth, saying, “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light” (Isaiah 9:2). Yet, the darkness will never totally go away. I’ve worked long enough in ministry to know that moral evil isn’t going to disappear, but the Gospel offers something much more subtle and helpful: “the light shines on the inside of the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome

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