The demons usually fight against us in a particular way, but this isn’t an absolute because they’re well aware that they can achieve our downfall by other means of attack. They usually fight with some sort of order, but this isn’t permanent. All they need is to see any opportunity at all, be it natural or acquired, or any crack that will give access for them to strike.
Then you can forgive others, as we said above. So you receive the remission of sins in prayer first and this is necessary so that you can go to your spiritual guide for confession and to receive forgiveness from the Church. Then you’ll also receive it from holy communion. In this way the remission of sins is completed: repentance in prayer, confession and holy communion You’ll receive it in prayer because you’re baptized and repent. Don’t we say: ‘I confess one baptism for the remission of sins?’ In confession you receive it from the priest and at holy communion you receive it from Christ, Who is united with you through His Body and Blood. The remission of sins is given with baptism, confession and holy ...
So long as we work for our bread, it doesn’t matter what our job is. Of Adam’s sons, one was a farmer the other a herdsman. All occupations are good, so long as we remain close to God. Saint Paul, in order not to eat bread without having earned it, worked with his hands. He made tents. And the great saints of our Church also worked. Christ Himself also worked in a carpenter’s shop. He was God and Human, but He still worked. Work is always a virtue for people.
The whole series can be read here: The Theology of Gender St. Basil the Great was indeed a great figure in the history of Christianity, a charismatic hierarch with significant contribution in various areas. With concern to our topic, we will examine the pastoral and canonical aspects of his multifarious work. The most important characteristic of his personality is that he had a tremendous education, rare for his time, and was an eloquent speaker. He was a master of oratory and law. His broad education makes his views on issues of law authoritative. Given, however, that St. Basil never wrote in order to satisfy his personal needs or to express abstract theories, but to offer pastoral guidance to his Christian flock ...
Every member of the Church isn’t just a guest, but is also an apostle of the Gospel of Christ.
There are some elaborate charts that tell you how you could read the Bible all the way through in one year -- which if you followed it, would be fine. However, I wonder how many people have ever followed such a chart all the way through, because it would require that you make regular reference to the chart, and remember where you were on the chart. On the other hand, many people simply open up the Bible at Genesis, and then get bogged down somewhere towards the end of Exodus and Leviticus, and then quit. One method I would suggest is much simpler to follow, and if you do, you not only will read the Bible all the way through in about ...
The whole series can be read here: The Theology of Gender Throughout the history of Christianity many voices from the Church rose to protest the established order of society. It is obvious in the patristic writings that the Fathers many times tried to defend the equality of man and woman, demonstrating that discrimination was a problem at all ages. St. Gregory the Theologian, in a revolutionary way, expressed his disapproval to the discriminatory laws against women, saying: “men were the lawmakers, therefore the legislation was against women.” Theodoretus of Cyrus, in the fifth century, stressed the inequality with which the human law treats transgressions of men and women: «for human law compels women to prudent behavior and punishes them when they ...
I was fortunate enough to know personally quite a few of the contemporary Saints and Elders at the time when I was exploring the way of the spiritual life. What, in practice, is the path to being cured of our sins and passions, so that we ask for love for God and our neighbour? I’d heard and read that, in order to love God with all our heart, we have to pass through the stages of purification, enlightenment and deification, as these are taught by the Gospels, the Fathers and the sacred Tradition of our Orthodox Church. I read many Lives of the saints, but really needed to be taught by the contemporary holy fathers who were well-known at that time: Saint Porfyrios, ...
Sin clipped the wings of Adam and his descendants and so all of us were separated from God. The very clay from which we were made blinded us. Christ was the first Adam and the first Human, the first-born of the whole of creation and He was also the first Who ascended into heaven on spiritual wings, to the throne of eternal glory and power. He walked the path towards heaven and opened every gate to all of the faithful who have spread their spiritual wings, just as the eagle shows eaglets how to fly, or the first swallow flies in front of the flock, both to show them the way and to reduce the wind resistance.
The first time I visited the sacristy of the Wren Chapel at the College of William and Mary, where the chapel’s brass cross now resides out of sight of the visitor, I waited there, dressed in black, sweaty palmed, being reminded to breathe, sequestered till the arrival of my bride at the west end of the chapel. On cue, I departed the colonial room and followed the priest, along with my three groomsmen, to the small but unmistakably English altar, which still faces ad orientem, one reminder of the age of the chapel. For the second visit, a few years later, I was also dressed in black, though this time under my festal white vestments. I was the celebrant of someone ...
St Augustine, Archbishop of Canterbury (+605) is the founder of the Church in southern England, which at that time was almost entirely pagan, though Christianity thrived in the Celtic lands of Ireland, Wales and parts of Scotland. Augustine, a monk at the monastery of St Andrew inRome, was chosen by Pope Gregory I to lead a mission to England… He and a party of about forty monks landed in England in 597; they were received warmly by King Aethelbert, who was baptised by Augustine and thus became the first Christian king of the Anglo-Saxon people. In 601 Pope Gregory made Augustine Archbishop of Britain, and he established his cathedral at Canterbury, where he also established a monastery. Saint Augustine worked unsuccessfully to ...
Managing grief Through their experiences, children gradually learn to deal with death in a more normal and healthy manner. But when children find themselves faced with the death of a loved one, whether they’ve been prepared for such an event or not, they experience one of the most stressful states in their lives. The loss of a person who’s important to and loved by them, to whom they’re attached (parent, sibling, grandparent, teacher or friend) is an occasion for children to grieve. This mourning has just as many problems and needs as adult grief does. But children’s grief is often not recognized. On the one hand, parents and grown-ups often try to protect children from the harsh reality of death and loss ...
The more you try to hide a sin behind another sin, the more you broadcast it. You can’t hide a sin behind another one. You get rid of it only through repentance and confession. When we want to hide a sin behind another sin, we’re like little children playing hide and seek.
DOSTOEVSKY Language, Faith, and Fiction Rowan Williams BaylorUniversityPress, $24.95, 290 pp. One off the problems with Dostoevsky is that too many readers have read into his novels the ideas they wanted to find there, so that for secular readers he was an early existentialist who argued for an anguished agnosticism, while for many believers he was a kind of Christian apologist. Neither reading does him the courtesy of seeing that he was above all a novelist—a believer, yes, but one who wanted to explore in depth the consequences of unbelief, in a way that someone who wanted to make an apologetic argument would find uncomfortable. Rowan Williams insists that we see Dostoevsky first of all as a novelist, one whose religious faith and profound moral ...
Deep in the heart of a typical American city there is a magnificent old Orthodox church. The community housed here was founded about a hundred years ago, a gathering of families who had emigrated fromGreece,Russia,Syria, or some other ethnically-Orthodox land. These newcomers foundAmericavast, confusing, and intimidating. They banded together and formed a congregation, then called a priest from the “old country.” The growing parish was an island of familiarity, a place where they could not only worship in the language they longed all week to hear, but also share news from home, enjoy the foods and dancing that eased homesickness, and choose mates for their growing children. Time passed. The parishioners saved up and bought a church building from a Protestant congregation. ...
It seems like it was just the other day that our 40 Day Challenge disembarked for the harbour of Holy Week. We can now see the Lighthouse; our Journey to Pascha will be more vividly before us as we commemorate the Raising of the Four-day Dead Lazarus next Saturday and Christ’s Triumphant Entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. Before then, however, there is one more week remaining in the 40-day Fast. Today, the Fifth Sunday of Great Lent, we celebrated Saint Mary of Egypt – one of the greatest saints of our Holy Orthodox Church. St. Mary is a shining example of our theme this week: Prayer and Repentance. Beginning in her youth St. Mary lived a profligate life, lustfully and without ...
