Resources

Many informative articles were published in our parish newsletters in the years prior to Covid. Email to the friends and faithful of Holy Cross has replaced our newsletters, but many of the articles are collected here. Use the indexes below to find the topic or author you’re interested in. (Once you click on a topic or author, scroll to the bottom of the page to see the search results.)

Also, have a look at the Recommended Readings on the OCA (Orthodox Church in America) website for a list of books covering a wide range of topics. Essential Orthodox Christian Beliefs: A Manual for Adult Instruction is also available for free download on the OCA’s website.

(Speaking of our parent jurisdiction, the OCA traces its origins to the arrival in Kodiak, Alaska in 1794 of eight Orthodox missionaries from the Valaamo Monastery in the northern Karelia region of Russia. Today, the OCA includes some 700 parishes, missions, communities, monasteries, and institutions throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico.)

We hope you’ll find these suggested readings to be both edifying and encouraging!

St Maximus the Confessor 11/15/25 St Maximus the Confessor 11/15/25

400 Texts on Love - St. Maximus - Part 1

It all begins with an idea.

Fr Artemy Vladimirov 11/15/25 Fr Artemy Vladimirov 11/15/25

A Homily on the Nativity Fast

It all begins with an idea.

Fr Stephen Freeman 11/15/25 Fr Stephen Freeman 11/15/25

Depression, Anxiety, the Soul, Body, and Brain

It all begins with an idea.

Metropolitan Jonah 11/14/25 Metropolitan Jonah 11/14/25

Human Personhood and the Value of Suffering

It all begins with an idea.

His Beatitude, Metropolitan JONAH

February 2011

What is man that Thou art mindful of him, or the son of man, that Thou dost care for him?... Therefore he had to be made like his brethren in every respect, For because he himself has suffered and been tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted.
(Hebrews 2:6, 17f)

Man is a great mystery. The human being is crowned with the glory and honor of being the very image of God. Every human being is an icon of God, a revelation of God, and filled with an infinite potential for growth in communion, for love.

God made man as the pinnacle of creation, and put all things in subjection to him. For man to bring all things into subjection, however, was a process. It was begun with Adam who named all creatures. Christ brought human nature and death under subjection by His Incarnation and Resurrection. That process is still under way, and will not be fulfilled until the Parousia, the Second Coming, when Christ will give over all things to the Father. What this means, however, is that all things are brought into synergy and communion, deified and fulfilled. Christ’s incarnation is the fulfillment of human nature, which in Him sits at the right hand of the Father.

Man, human being, was created good by God. We bear the image of God as the defining element of our humanity. Part of that image is the potential to grow to likeness to God by our will and actions. Sin disrupts the fulfillment of that potential; but we affirm that the potential is always there, that God’s image is indelible. We would thus reject the “total depravity” of man, held by some. Yet man’s own being as the created image of God is not fulfilled until it is brought into union with the Uncreated Image of God, the Son. This is the essential process of creation itself: to move from potential to fulfillment. In Jesus the created image and uncreated image of God come together, and God becomes man. Yet this process is itself incomplete: not only does Christ have to die and be resurrected, but the whole creation is fulfilled in Him at the Second Coming—“which groans until the revelation of the sons of God.” For us, the process of deification is the content of salvation, which begins now and is only ultimately fulfilled when we are resurrected from the dead. But in this world, as we grow into the likeness of God by our cooperation with His will, by love, we actualize that potential here and now and thus experience deification.

Jesus Christ is God become man. He is the revelation of the fulfillment of what it means to be a human being, both in his life by his words and deeds, and in his death by His Resurrection. He is the criterion of our knowledge of God, and of God’s relationship to the world. Jesus did not simply come and teach about God, but rather, He revealed God by becoming a human being. He revealed God’s love for us by his complete identification with us. He took on our humanity, “he emptied himself, taking on the form of a servant, and being made in the likeness of man” (Phil 2:7). Then he “humbled himself, and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.” (Phil 2:8). By taking on not only our humanity, but our suffering and death, Jesus, Who is the Incarnate Son and Word of God, shows God’s love for man. He became what we are that he might make us what He is.

“But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone. For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering.” (Hebr 2:9-10).

How can it be that Jesus needed “to be made perfect through suffering”? Jesus could not completely identify with us simply by assuming our humanity. He was not simply some kind of avatar, nor did he merely bear the semblance of a man. Rather, He had to become completely what we are, and share our life. He could not do that unless he shared also our suffering, and ultimately, our death. What a marvel that God would humble himself even to death, the most shameful death of the cross! Jesus suffered and died as we suffer and die. But He overcame death, and transformed it, so that we might no longer suffer from death. He assumed our whole life and death “that through death he might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage”(Hebr 2:14f).

The fear of death is the power of the devil, the source of much suffering, which holds mankind in bondage. Because of the fear of death, we avoid suffering for the sake of the other, even when compassion demands it of us. This avoidance of suffering is the root of temptation. Jesus overcame the fear of death, and thus, overcame temptation because He accepted to suffer for the sake of salvation of others. “For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted” (Hebr 2:18).

Jesus not only revealed God’s love for us by becoming man, and suffering and dying for us. As the Incarnate Son, He has become the human face of God who identifies with us in our suffering and temptations, having become like us in every respect. He revealed that God is not a simple abstract Being concealed in apophatic unapproachability. He became what we are, that He might make us what He is.

Christ has wrought salvation for us by identifying with us. We also have to work out our salvation by identifying with Him.

Our salvation, our deification, is not something that happens passively in this world. There is no such thing as instant salvation, no “eternal security” once we have made an affirmation that we accept Christ’s “atonement” for our sins. Salvation is a process of continually identifying with Christ, a dynamic process that is mutual and reciprocal. Jesus suffered that He might accompany us in our suffering. He was tempted that he might strengthen us when we are tempted. He overcame the fear of death that we might not longer be subject and in bondage to it. In this Jesus shows God’s love and respect for us, for our freedom, for the integrity of our lives. He does not live our life for us, but rather has enabled us to live our life in Him, insofar as we will it.

Jesus did not come to eliminate suffering. Rather, he transformed it. Jesus was tempted, but He did not fall and overcame the temptations, that He might strengthen us not to succumb to temptation. He showed that suffering does not mean abandonment by God, as even on the Cross he remained faithful to God, and was not left in the grave. He was faced with the temptation to reject his cross, and chose rather to suffer, that his own suffering might work salvation for the whole world. Jesus transformed suffering into communion, and overcame the power of temptation, so that we might have the strength to accept our suffering as our cross, and overcome temptation.

Jesus came and suffered out of His love and compassion for us, so that we may learn to bear suffering as He bore it—as an act of compassion. This is what gives suffering meaning and value—it breaks the bonds of our selfishness and isolation from one another, so that we may truly love one another in compassion. We co-suffer with those who are suffering, that their suffering might not lead them into despair and death.

Suffering is inescapable in this fallen world. We suffer because of our sins and those of others. We suffer because of death and grief, pain and separation, as victims and as perpetrators. We suffer as a result of our sinfulness because of our selfishness and because we don’t get our own way. This latter kind, suffering as a result of our own selfishness, is the first thing of which we need to be purified.

Temptation can be seen in terms of our willingness to suffer for the sake of the other, or to give in to our passions and selfishness and refuse to suffer with or for the other. Do we accept to suffer for the sake of helping someone, or do we let them be hurt? Do we accept to inconvenience ourselves for the sake of the other, deny ourselves for the sake of the other? Will we accept to be reviled and persecuted and slandered and abused, and turn the other cheek; or will we curse our abuser and give in to our anger, and thus fall into sin? Will we accept the pain that one who is suffering inflicts upon us in their frustration and distress, or will we cast them off to alleviate our own discomfort, or use drugs or alcohol to numb our conscience? Will we accept the burden of caring for the other who is suffering, or cast off the cross of love and compassion for the sake of an easy solution: drug them up, send them to a nursing home (and let someone else worry about him/her), or simply kill them (“euthanasia”). Will we accept the suffering of the shame of being an unwed mother, as did the Virgin Mary, or simply abort the life of the infant before it shows?

Temptation, on the deeper levels, is not about gratification of our passions. It is the temptation to cast off the cross, to refuse to suffer for the sake of the other, and to refuse the responsibility that love of neighbor demands. Jesus Himself was tempted in the desert by the devil (cf. Lk 4). He accepted to suffer hunger rather than turn stones to bread. He was tempted to settle for earthly glory and a temporal kingdom. Finally the devil tempted him to simply show his power as Messiah, and cast himself from the pinnacle of the temple and be instantly declared king, and thus refuse the way of the Cross to the eternal Kingdom. In the garden he was also tempted, and asked if the cup of suffering could pass him by, but ultimately surrendered Himself to the will of God.

Jesus helps us in our temptations by showing us that, by accepting to suffer for the sake of doing the will of God, by accepting our cross, our suffering is unto salvation. He stands by us and empowers us, energizes us by grace, to bear whatever cross we have been given. Suffering voluntarily by refusing to give in to temptation thus becomes an act of communion, and we become like Him.

Our secular materialist and hedonistic culture lives in denial of suffering. It sees it as essentially meaningless, as something to be alleviated as quickly and thoroughly as possible, and at all costs. Thus our medical establishment has not only found cures for innumerable disease and maladies, but has developed medications to anesthetize all kinds of psychic pain as well. On one hand, there is nothing wrong with this. But, and this is very important, what this has led to is an inability to cope with any kind of pain and suffering. We look for a quick solution in a pill or bottle, and alleviate the symptoms while leaving the underlying causes in tact. Hence the rampant substance abuse in our culture; hence the nursing homes and endless retirement facilities to which we banish our elders; hence abortion and euthanasia.

This inability to bear suffering only leads to greater suffering in the long run. We look for political solutions to social ills and injustices, and fail to exercise any kind of personal compassion. We would rather send a check. We justify our selfishness by claiming that our elders would be better cared for “by professionals.” We refuse to deal with the sufferings—age, disease, disability—of even our closest family members by institutionalizing them and forgetting their existence, while ignoring that the most important thing that they need is our love. Even death itself is vainly hidden in a grotesque masquerade by the commercial funeral industry, and denied.

The calling of Christians is to learn authentic love and compassion, literally “cosuffering.” We have to learn how to bear suffering so that we can identify ourselves with those who are suffering, and accompany them and raise them up. “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” By learning to co-suffer, to have compassion, to truly lay down our life for the other, we thus identify ourselves with Christ, and actualize the likeness to God that is the very fulfillment of our personhood. In other words, we learn to love unselfishly and unconditionally as He does.

“Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us” (Romans 5:3-5).

Suffering has meaning. It is the means by which we grow, by which we become authentically ourselves, by attaining likeness to Christ—Who suffered and died for us. By enduring suffering ourselves, we attain to perseverance, and character. We begin to understand our sins and temptations. We learn to take responsibility for our lives and our sins, neither blaming God nor our neighbor. We purify ourselves by refusing to give in to temptation, and strengthen our will so that we remain in communion with God. Suffering purifies us, if we let it, because it reveals our selfishness to us so that we can repent. We can either accept to suffer in compassion and bear our cross, or give in to our own selfishness. To suffer for the sake of compassion lets the energy of God’s grace and love be poured into our heart so that we enter into synergy with that grace through our actions. This kind of compassion is not simply human, but divine as well. This is the very process of deification. We are thus given the strength to raise up those who are suffering, because by our perseverance in co-suffering, we attain to hope.

When we allow our suffering to lead us into despair and desolation, we become so turned-in on ourselves that we reject God and reject the compassion of others. The Fathers of the Church see this as a kind of foretaste of hell. We torment ourselves by our rejection of our true self, which can only be fulfilled by communion in love with God and the Other. God’s love is not diminished, but we vainly refuse to accept it by refusing to forgive our self and other. Thus, the fire of the love of God burns us. Our self-torment feels like punishment, the wrath of God. But it is not God’s punishment, as we often think. Rather, it is the fruit of our own self-obsession, self-hatred, self-rejection. This kind of suffering is meaningless, leading nowhere. It is the essence of nihilism, of suicide.

Suffering takes on meaning when we accept to endure it and allow ourselves to be transformed by it. This seems an enormous task, especially for one in the grips of pain and depression. But the only way through it is to come out of ourselves and accept the compassion of others, who strengthen us by their co-suffering in love. First and foremost is the remembrance of Christ’s own co-suffering with us, by His enduring the Cross for us. He endured His Cross so that we can endure ours. By the power of His Cross we have hope—that our suffering will lead us to salvation.

Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh 11/14/25 Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh 11/14/25

Resurrection Victory

It all begins with an idea.

Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh

May 2011

In the 60s and 70s the visits of Metropolitan Anthony to Russia, where normal Church life was almost entirely suppressed, seemed like a breath of fresh air. Wherever he went, in parishes, in seminaries, he would preach the Gospel of Christ, and people would follow his progress, going from church to church as the ‘grapevine’ provided news of his movements.
Some of his many sermons were recorded on tape and are now being transcribed and published in Russia. The present text, a sermon delivered after the Vigil Service on Saturday, 29 May 1971, appeared in All-Conquering Love (Lubov Vsepobedaiushchaia), (St Petersburg: Satis 1994), pp. 68ff.

In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Every Sunday throughout the year, century after century, the Orthodox Church proclaims the Resurrection of Christ. Each Sunday we relive once again our joy that Christ is risen. And that joy is so deep, so profound, that it bears witness of itself: we rejoice not only because the Lord is risen, but because his Resurrection is for us the beginning of new, renewed life. In the Sermon of John Chrysostom which is read on the night of Christ’s Resurrection each year, it is said that ‘Christ is risen, and there is none dead in the tomb...’ And we ourselves continue to pass on this message from one century to the next. Yet is it true? Do we not see that death continues to reap its harvest around us? Are there not graves beside Christian churches as well? How can we say that ‘there is none dead in the tomb’, that Christ has conquered death by death?

We can say this because death has two completely different meanings, and the tombs are indeed empty. Until the coming of Christ, every human being, when he died - whether he was righteous or not - was deprived of the joy of meeting God. According to the Old Testament story of the primal sin of our ancestors, Adam and Eve, the whole human race was deprived of the radiance, the joy, the glory of God. Everyone who died thereafter entered into an abyss of horror, of separation from God and, as a result, of separation from those closest to him. And his death was twofold: not just an earthly death when the soul, separated from the body, flies upward towards God and worships at the throne of the Lord, who consoles it for its earthly sorrows. There was another death as well, a second separation. While someone lived on this earth, he could, in one way or another, with just the tip of his soul, touch at least the border of the Lord’s garment. But after death, any separation became final, definitive, dreadful. And age after age people waited for the Saviour, for the one who would unite heaven and earth, God and creation. But until the Lord came, our Saviour Jesus Christ, that separation remained dark and terrible.

And then the Lord came and died on the Cross the death of every man, having first shared in the dreadful loneliness and torment that precedes death. Remember the garden of Gethsemene: ‘O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me...’ He shared in the horror of that separation when he cried out to God from the Cross: ‘My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ And he descended into hell... into hell!

And hell opened wide with joy in the hope that now the enemy whom it had found invincible on earth had been overcome and taken prisoner. Hell opened up, as John Chrysostom says, to take in flesh - and opened itself to God. Hell opened to imprison the incarnate Son of God become man - and before him stood, into him entered the Living God who fills all things, entering hell and destroying it for ever. Hell was no longer that former terrible hell of separation, because in it was the living God.

The Prophet David in his mysterious vision said: ‘Whither shall I go then from thy presence? If I go up into heaven, thou art there: If I go down to hell, thou art there also’. For us this seems simple, because for us that eternal, hopeless hell of the absence of God no longer exists. But for the man of the Old Testament this was a puzzling statement: how can God be where God is not? How can he be in the place of separation from God? But David foresaw - and prophetically foretold - the coming of the Lord and the end of that final separation. Today death has become for us something else. Now it is a falling asleep. In the body we fall asleep to the anxieties of the earth, and peace descends upon our flesh. Our body now lies there like an icon of Christ lying in the grave on that mysterious, blessed Saturday when the Lord ceased from his works, from the work of saving mankind, from the labour of suffering, from the Cross, from crucifixion. Everyone who dies now, falls asleep in Christ, he falls asleep until the day his body rises at the last trumpet, on the day of the resurrection of the dead. ‘Blessed are they who die in the Lord’, as John the Theologian says in the Apocalypse.

This is why for the Christian, death is not something terrible. This is why someone who meant a great deal to me was able to say to me: ‘Wait for your death as a young man waits for his bride’. With the same kind of trembling, with the same rejoicing of soul we can say to death: ‘Come, open for me the doors of eternal life, so that my rebellious flesh may find peace, and my soul may soar up to the eternal dwelling place of God’. This is why we can say truly and rightfully proclaim that ‘there is not one dead in the tomb’. For the grave has ceased to be a prison, a place of final and terrible captivity. It has become a place where the body awaits resurrection while the soul grows, to the extent it can, into eternal life.

Yet death, the separation of death, is none the less still present on earth to a certain extent. It has been defeated even in its own kingdom, yet man himself continues, by cutting off others from the mystery of love, to prolong that separation on earth. Just look at our human society. There is no need to look far: just look at your family, at those closest to you, at your friends, your parish, at the Church. Can we really say that we are so linked together by love that death, that separation, that separation from God, that separation from one another doesn’t exist on earth? Sadly, God has conquered death everywhere, but in the heart of man it must be conquered by man himself.

Death and love are inseparable from one another. And it is because of this that it is such a fearsome thing to love. To love just a little, to love irresponsibly, to love in such a way that a relationship is begun and then allowed to end when it becomes painful or difficult or dangerous - we can all do this. But to love as the Lord loved - this we seem unable to do. The Apostle Paul says to us: ‘Accept one another, love one another as the Lord loved you...’ But do we realize how the Lord loved us? He loved us so much that he did not want to be a stranger to us and became one of us, one among many others - and not just temporarily, but for eternity, for ever - with all the pain, with all the horror of that union.

The glory of God was extinguished when the Word became Flesh. No one knew him. His victory appeared to be defeat. He became the one whom the Holy Scriptures declared would be ‘a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief ‘. He became one with us forever. Can we become one with each other in this way? Can we so love one another that we can say: ‘For ever! In sorrow and in joy, in horror and in exultation, whatever happens, I will stand by you for ever’? If this were the case, how marvellous our world would be, how marvellous our Church would be, what parishes we would have, what families, what friends! But our meetings are like two ships meeting on the sea: they meet and pass on. We haven’t enough depth, not enough faithfulness, not enough readiness to do what Christ did: to descend into hell, into the hell of suffering of someone whom we love, into the hell of his temptations, into the hell of his pain, into the hell of his destruction. Instead, we stand on the shore and call out: ‘Save yourself, swim over here to me - I will reach out my hand to you!’ But we ourselves do not enter that hell, and so it is terrible for us to talk about love, it is so difficult to love - because we should love only as the Lord has loved us. Death and love are bound up together because to love means to forget oneself until one doesn’t exist, not to remember oneself. The other becomes so dear to one that to think about oneself gets in the way. We need to say to ourselves what Christ said to Peter when he stood in front of him on the way to Golgotha: ‘Get behind me, Satan; you are thinking about earthly things, and not about heaven’. Can we forget about ourselves to that extent, can we love like that, can we die like that?

At the same time, so long as we cannot do this, we are touching only the border of the Lord’s garment, we are joined only to the outer edge of the light, the radiant light and brilliance of the Resurrection of Christ. To live the Resurrection is possible only for someone who has passed through death and is on the other side of death, not the death of this world, not material, bodily death, but the death which is also called love, when a person forgets about himself and loves so much that he lays down his life for his friend. Moses is called a ‘friend of God’ in the Scriptures, and what does he say? ‘Lord, if you do not forgive your people their sins, then strike out my name from the book of life. I do not wish to live, if others go to their death’. The Apostle Paul says that he would prefer, if possible, to be separated from Christ, rather than see the destruction of the people of Israel. These are nonsensical words - nonsensical in the sense that when a man experiences such love, he is already on the other side of death. But humanly speaking that is all we are able to say: ‘Yes, it is better that I should perish, than that I should be separated from anyone’. This is the standard shown us by the Cross - and by the Resurrection, for one is inseparable from the other. And so, from Sunday to Sunday, when you hear the news that Christ has risen, remember that we are all called to be, on this earth, people risen from the dead in love. But for this to take place, we must so love each other as to pass through the gates of death, to descend through the Cross into hell, to share through Love in the suffering of the other, to forget ourselves - and then suddenly discover that I am alive, alive with the life of Christ! Amen.

Fr John Hays 11/13/25 Fr John Hays 11/13/25

The Silence of Christmas

It all begins with an idea.

John Hays

November 2007

This article is adapted from a “reflection” on a class taught by Dr. Al Rossi at St. Vladimir’s Seminary. The class dealt with silence and prayer. The quotes in italics are one-liners by Dr. Rossi.

“For thus said the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, ‘In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.’”— Isaiah 30:15

One of my professors, Dr. Rossi, related how he would go to New Skete and be silent. The message: There is Someone in silence. This resonates with me somewhat because I visited those holy grounds myself a few Nativity seasons ago, with Fr. Chris. I must say, it impressed me. The monks, their way of life, how everything in the community worked—it all made quite the impression. And silence was definitely a part of the experience. You could sense that these folks had some firsthand experience with the stuff.

I especially remember how they would punctuate Scripture readings and other meditative readings with silence. That was powerful. They actually expected you to ponder what was just read! And, indeed, you could almost taste the silence in the air.

There is Someone in silence. I guess we were made for it, which may help explain why we so often respond in wonder or joy when it occasionally comes into our lives. And yes, God apparently uses silence to call to us, to stir our spirits, and this also may explain why many of us really do feel excited—as though we had received an invitation into something wondrously deep and enchanting— when a Bishop Kallistos or whoever speaks authentically about silence.

But there is someone else in silence.

I am in silence. And I am often unhappy, confused, perplexed, and unsettled. Ill at ease in my own skin and my own thoughts. And so I suspect that if I were to remain at New Skete for, say, two or three weeks or longer, I might not be so rosy about it. After the first few experiences of these still waters, I would grow bored and restless, and all the rest. And this is likely part of the reason why we have to struggle so hard to cultivate silence—passionately, sincerely, and consistently—in our lives! We like to hear about it, but we don’t necessarily want to pay the real price to attain it in earnest.

The essence of faith is knowing that I don’t know. Yes. Say what we will, on a deep level most of us really do freak out about things that are absolutely beyond our comprehension and control, at least if it is something we care about. And God— the meaning of life, our deepest purpose in life, and all the rest—is something that we profoundly yearn to grasp. And yet, we just don’t know. Silence, then, plunges us into these deep and cold waters of our own ignorance about that which we most care to know (Ecclesiastes: “He has set eternity in the hearts of men”). And presumably, this is meant to build our faith, as we learn to accept that we don’t know so many, many things and yet trust God to be God and to know what He is doing.

Silence is a choice. Clearly, we can choose to go for the abiding version of the experience of which we have from time to time caught a glimpse. Our Church traditions tell us so, and so do probably 97% of just about every other serious faith tradition out there, from Zen Buddhism to Islam (it’s what the name “Islam” more or less means—peace through submitting to God’s will; not to mention the Sufis and so on) to Judaism to animism, for crying out loud. And if the Son of God can’t give us peace, who can? Considering the prevalence of “peace” and its permutations throughout the New and Old Testaments, it’s safe to say that it is not God who has failed to offer and provide for our peace. We, then, are called to step up to the plate on this one! It’s really not rocket science, after all.

The thing I personally appreciate about these invitations to peaceful silence and their contrast with my own basic lack of silence and peace is that it forces me to look inside, face up to my inner noise and chaos, and ask myself how serious I am about being a genuinely peaceful person. And the older I get, the more important it appears to me to get with the program and not waste any more time in cultivating this gift. Life is too short, as they say.

And, Lord help us, just in case we had decided that inner peace and quiet are maybe not so important after all, here comes American Christmas—busting down our front door, cluttering our yards, walls, and roofs, and assaulting every one of our senses in a weeks-long, drawnout orgy of self-indulgence, noise, consumerism, goodwill, peace, depression, and various incarnations of chubby and magical “St. Nicholases” who have to do with just about everything—except fasting, prayer, and silence.

Through it all there is much beauty, to be sure. And genuine goodwill. And even glory to God in the highest. But it isn’t always easy to appreciate and hold on to these aspects of “The Holiday Season.” One thing is for certain, though: prayer, as we strive to cultivate silence in our hearts, can help us.

Writing in the second century, St. Ignatius of Antioch said: “Mary’s virginity was hidden from the prince of this world; so was her child-rearing, and so was the death of the Lord. All these three trumpet-tongued secrets were brought to pass in the deep silence of God.” If we want to penetrate and revel in these mysteries—of our Savior’s birth, childhood, and saving death—then we need to begin to enter into this “deep silence of God.” And lest we get caught up in mere externals and begin to bemoan the noise and chaos around us and despair of finding peace and quiet, we should recall that the silence we seek isn’t really dependent on our environment—it is within us. In fact, during the Nativity season, it’s even in the chaos and noise around us, if we only cultivate the ears to hear and the eyes to see.

One place to begin could be to read between the lines of our culture's typical versions of Christmas to note what we don’t proclaim about the season. The Evangelical author Philip Yancey, in The Jesus I Never Knew, writes insightfully of the silence our culture wraps around the Biblical Christmas stories. He notes that while we focus on the joy and the “good news,” which is there and should be celebrated, we are almost utterly silent about the more disturbing aspects of the story. Thus, we have no Christmas cards commemorating Herod’s slaughter of the Innocents. We prefer not to meditate on the implications of the fact that Mary’s being pregnant at so young an age would be labeled a “crisis pregnancy” in our time. Considering her unmarried status and “angelic visitations,” it is statistically unlikely that our Savior would have even been allowed to be brought to term in the first place. Nor does the fact that the Judea of that time was an occupied territory, politically, economically, and socially under Rome’s heel, seem to get much press. Finally, St. Symeon’s prophecy that a sword would pierce Mary’s soul because of her child, which he told her a mere forty days after Christ’s birth, is just as much a part of the Christmas story as is the story of the shepherds who were keeping watch over their flocks by night. Why, then, does our culture tend to overlook these facets of the Nativity story and only look at the “happy” and “uplifting” ones?

Let’s face it: Jesus Christ was born to die. Our concerns today—long life, “fulfilling one’s potential,” universal health coverage and a guaranteed education for all, an ideal balance of our physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual needs, a Christian and yet pluralistic society that is ideally tolerant of all that is not utterly evil in and of itself, etc.—just don’t help us much when we look at the story of Jesus. The King of Glory left heaven for our sakes; He “gave it all up,” so to speak. He was born into a backwater semi-country, grew up in obscurity among “marginalized” people and religious zealots, and died tragically young as some sort of political/religious quasi-revolutionary.

And yet—all of this is good news. At least when seen through the eyes of faith. Again, Jesus Christ was born to die—and to rise again. And He died to effect our own resurrection as well. The tragedy and loss in His life was part of God’s plan to redeem the human race. And the same is true today. We find Christ in the tragedy and loss that is around us and within us; we find His life in death. The Church never lets us forget this.

Recall our Nativity icon. Christ, “sweet baby Jesus,” is swaddled as though wrapped in His shroud for burial. He is, in fact, lying in a coffin-like tomb. This sweet little child is depicted as lying in a cave— precisely as He is to be buried in one. His birth is not something we can perceive or contemplate apart from His death and resurrection. Indeed, His coming to dwell among us—at His birth, during the Liturgy, in the mystery of Baptism, or during His Second Coming—is never something we can contemplate apart from His death and resurrection.

Maybe, then, our culture’s “corruption” of Christmas is not such a bad thing. As they say, the light only shines brighter the darker it gets. No one can “take the Christ out of Christmas.” Christmas, and thus Christ Himself, is in us, in our hearts, in the Church; in “the deep silence of God.” As Dr. Rossi reminds us: there is Someone in silence; the essence of faith is knowing that I don’t know; and silence is a choice. St. Ignatius confirms this, as does Theophan the Recluse, who writes, “The principle thing is to stand with the mind in the heart before God, and to go on standing before Him unceasingly day and night, until the end of life.” As Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you...” (John 14:27).

By prayer and fasting, then, now is the time to find and cultivate the silence within us, that we may sing with the whole Church, “Thy Nativity, O Christ our God, has shone to the world the light of wisdom!” (Festal Troparion).

Metropolitan Anthony Bloom 11/13/25 Metropolitan Anthony Bloom 11/13/25

Sermon on the Cross

It all begins with an idea.

+Metropolitan Anthony Bloom

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

We have been keeping these days the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross. There is a passage in the Gospel in which the Lord says to us, “No one has greater love than he who gives his life for his neighbor.” And these words resolve the antinomy between the horror of the Cross and the glory of it, between death and the resurrection. There is nothing more glorious, more awe-inspiring and wonderful than to love and to be loved. And to be loved of God with all the life, with all the death of the Only-Begotten Son, and to love one another (as well) at the cost of all our life and, if necessary, of our death, (this) is both tragedy but mainly victory. In the Canon (Anaphora) of the Liturgy we say:

“Holy art Thou and all-holy, Thou and Thine only-begotten Son and Thy Holy Spirit! Holy art Thou and all-holy, and magnificent is Thy glory! Who hast so loved Thy world as to give Thine only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life; who when He had come and had fulfilled all the dispensation for us, in the night in which He was given up — or rather, gave Himself up for the life of the world — took bread in His holy, pure, and blameless hands; and when He had given thanks and blessed it, and hallowed it, and broken it, He gave it to His holy disciples and apostles…..”

This is the divine love. At times one can give one’s own life more easily than offer unto death the person whom one loves beyond all; and this is what God our Father has done. But it does not make less the sacrifice of Him who is sent unto death for the salvation of one person or of the whole world.

And so when we think of the Cross we must think of this strangely inter-twined mystery of tragedy and of victory. The Cross, an instrument of infamous death, of punitive death to which criminals were doomed — because Christ’s death was that of an innocent, and because this death was a gift of self in an act of love — becomes victory.

This is why Saint Paul could say, “It is no longer I, it is Christ Who lives in me.” Divine love filled him to the brim, and therefore there was no room for any other thought or feeling, any other approach to anyone apart from love, a love that gave itself unreservedly: love sacrificial, love crucified, but love exulting in the joy of life.

And when we are told in today’s Gospel, “Turn away from yourself, take up your Cross, Follow Me” (Mark 8: 34) — we are not called to something dark and frightening; we are told by God: “Open yourself to love! Do not remain a prisoner of your own self-centeredness.” Do not be, in the words of Theophane the Recluse, “like a shaving of wood which is rolled around its own emptiness.” Open yourself up! Look — there is so much to love, there are so many to love! There is such an infinity of ways in which love can be experienced, and fulfilled and accomplished. Open yourself and love (others) — because this is the way of the Cross! Not the way which the two criminals trod together with Christ to be punished for their crimes; but the wonderful way in which giving oneself unreservedly, turning away from self, existing only for the other, loving with all one’s being so that one exists only for the sake of the other — this is the Cross and the glory of the Cross.

So, when we venerate the Cross, when we think of Christ’s crucifixion, when we hear the call of Christ to deny ourselves — and these words simply mean: turn away from yourself! Take up your cross! — we are called to open ourselves to the flood of Divine Love, love that is both death to ourselves and openness to God, as well as to each and to all.

In the beginning of the Gospel of Saint John we are told, “And the Word was with God”; in the Greek it says “Godwards.” The Word, the Son, had no other love, no other thought, no other movement but towards the Beloved One, giving Himself to Him Who gave Himself perfectly to Him.

Let us learn the glory of crucified Love, of this sacrificial Love which is, in the words of the Old Testament, “stronger than death, stronger than hell,” stronger than all things because it is Divine Life conquering us and poured through us onto all those who need to be loved in order to come to Life, to believe in Love, and themselves to become children of Love, children of Light, to inherit Life eternal. Amen.

From: https://www.saintbarbarafw.org/blog/sermon-on-the-cross

Bishop Gerasim (Eliel) 11/13/25 Bishop Gerasim (Eliel) 11/13/25

Building a Temple of God

It all begins with an idea.

Archimandrite Gerasim Eliel

May 2015

St. James Orthodox Church is a mission parish in Beaufort, SC. The mission will be 3 years old in July, has grown to about 20 members and up to 40 attendees at a service, and they have purchased land on which they plan to build a new church. On April 30 of this year, Archimandrite Gerasim Eliel, Administrator of the Diocese of the South, blessed the land for that purpose. The following article was adapted from his homily on that occasion.

Christ is risen!!!

God creates heaven and the earth for the sake of humankind. He places Adam and Eve in a garden of delight. The task of the first-created is to hear His word, to keep His commandment, and to obey His voice.

God chooses Abraham and commands him: "Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee" (Gen 12.1).

Isaac, the Son of Abraham, says to his son Jacob, "God Almighty bless thee, and make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, that thou mayest be a multitude of people; and give thee the blessing of Abraham, to thee, and to thy seed with thee; that thou mayest inherit the land wherein thou art a stranger, which God gave unto Abraham" (Gen 28.3–4).

The Lord instructs Moses to go in and possess the land, saying: "He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment. Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt" (Dt 10.18–19). Moses teaches the children of Israel that the Lord God "shall bless thee in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. The Lord shall establish thee an holy people unto himself, as he hath sworn unto thee, if thou shalt keep the commandments of the Lord thy God, and walk in his ways (Dt 28.8–9).

The prophets instruct the people of God that, if they remember the commandments of God, the Lord will keep them in the land that He has given them. Jeremiah declares the word of the Lord: “If ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt: then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, for ever and ever" (Jer 7.6–7).

As the people of Israel forget the commandments of God, they are led into captivity in Assyria, and afterwards the remnant in Judah and Jerusalem are taken captive into Babylon.

Ezekiel announces that the Lord will restore them to the land that He gave to their fathers:

I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. Ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God" (Ez 36.24–28).

Ezekiel goes on to foretell how the Lord will raise Israel, which resembles a valley of dry bones.

Isaiah also proclaims a restoration of the cities that have been laid waste and the places that have lain desolate for generations. Strangers will feed their flocks, and the sons of foreigners will be their plowmen and vinedressers. The people of God will be named priests of the Lord, ministers of God; they shall enjoy the riches of the Gentiles. They will possess double in their land and inherit everlasting joy (Is 61.4–7).

The ultimate reason God gives the land to His people is to provide a place for His people to keep His commandments. This is what we find in the creation narrative in Genesis. This is why He brings Noah through the flood and gives the rainbow as the sign of the renewal of His covenant. He leads Abraham out of Haran and into the land of Promise. He leads His people through the Red Sea and gives them His commandments to keep them. The Lord instructs Joshua to lead His people through the Jordan and into the land of promise. Through Joshua the Lord reinstitutes His covenant, beginning with the circumcision of the people of God (Joshua 5.3–7). Beneath Mount Ebal Joshua reenacts a renewal of the Covenant of God among the people, showing that God has given the land to His people as a place to keep this covenant (Joshua 8). While the description of the conquest of the Promised Land is marked by horrific events, God gives the land to His people for them to keep there His covenant.

Ultimately, the goal of the union of the Covenant and the Promised Land is expressed in the building of the Temple of God, which Moses first instructed the sons of Israel to do. Solomon, sitting on the throne of David, builds the Temple to accomplish the worship of God, as commanded by Moses. But the failure to worship God and to keep His commandments leads to the exile of the People of God in Assyria and Babylon and the destruction of the Temple.

The Prophet Jeremiah offers new hope by announcing a New Covenant:

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which covenant of mine they brake…. But this will be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people" (Jer 31.31–33).

Jeremiah tells the children of Israel that God will restore them to fellowship and place His law in their hearts.

Today through the blessing of this land, we ask the Lord to make this small piece of land a place where this New Covenant is proclaimed and practiced. We will utilize this land to build here a house of God in which human beings are united to God through the New Covenant of His Blood.

But the first step in building a temple of God here on this land depends on whether or not you keep the Law of God in regard to the poor, the orphan, the stranger, and the widow.

The next step in building the Temple of God is not fundraising, but how we gather as a Church community. The evidence of God’s favor is your daily and weekly fellowship. These will be the figurative stones that you are to use in building a temple of God in which the New Covenant is proclaimed.

The third step is the constant proclamation of the Gospel to the people of this area. You are to draw out of the waters of baptism pure stones that will fit perfectly together to form the edifice of the Church that is to be built here in Beaufort to the glory of God.

The fourth step consists in your personal life of prayer and devotion that takes place every day, 24/7 as we are now accustomed to say. The way that you prepare through prayer, fasting, and the study of your faith affects how you gather as a community. Your worship as a community will make this effort in building a temple truly pleasing to God.

Doing these things: your regard for the poor and needy, your proclamation of the Christian faith, your communal and private worship will cause the Blessing of the Land that we have offered today to bear fruit. By doing these things, the skills that you bring in design, engineering, decision-making as well as your tithes will be truly God-pleasing.

As you gather in Church the Sunday after next you will hear our Lord Jesus Christ tell the Samaritan Woman that the hour is coming and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth (Jn 4.23). Truly God the Father seeks such people to worship Him. You are the ones through whom this work will be accomplished here in Beaufort.

It is the will of the Lord that you serve as His Body, visible now to the world, to proclaim His Death and Resurrection until He comes again.

To our Lord Jesus Christ who is risen from the dead, be glory, honor, and worship together with His everlasting Father, and His All-holy Spirit forever!

Fr Christopher Foley 11/12/25 Fr Christopher Foley 11/12/25

Let us Exalt the Cross Today

It all begins with an idea.

Fr. Christopher Foley

September 2009

"The knowledge of the cross is concealed in the suffering of the cross." - St. Isaac the Syrian
"For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." - St. Paul

We bow down before the cross of our Lord at this joyous feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross because of what Christ accomplished on this wood. The victory has been won. We have been healed from the sinful affliction of the soul. Death has been swallowed up in this victory. What was killed on the Cross was not so much Christ as it was death itself for Life could not be killed. Death was the result of the sinful condition. "For the wages of sin is death" as St. Paul reminds us. What is so joyous about this feast is that we remember and enter into the salvation that Christ has offered unto us. This is why we have all manner of names for the Cross that we sing at this feast. Here is a sampling of what we call the Cross:

the glory of the faithful
confirmation of sufferers
protection of the righteous
salvation of the saints
driver away of demons
invincible banner of godliness
gate of paradise
protection of the faithful
might of the church
invincible weapon of peace
sign of true joy
strength of the faithful
power of righteous men
majesty of priests
rod of strength
weapon of peace
physician of the sick
resurrection of the dead
hope of Christians
guide of those gone astray
haven of the storm-tossed
victory in warfare
firm foundation of the Earth
life-giving tree
glory of the faithful
beauty of the Church
support of the faithful
glory of angels
wounder of demons
undefiled wood
marvelous wonder

As we can see, there are many aspects of the Cross that we focus on during this feast.

One particular dimension of the Cross is that it is the "confirmation of sufferers." We glorify the Cross of our Lord for it is through the suffering of Christ's voluntary passion that our own suffering in this life makes sense. We refer all of our life to God in praise and thanksgiving. This means the good as well as the bad. This is what St. Paul means when he says, "God forbid that I glory except in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Gal. 6:14). It is through our own taking up the Cross that we become co-sufferers with Christ. We say in the hymns, "through the Cross joy has come into all the world." Do we believe this? This is the joy of the Cross. What the evil one means for harm becomes transformed into that very place where death and sin are destroyed. This is why "the message of the Cross is foolishness to those who are perishing." Then the Cross makes no sense. Why, if God wanted to manifest His power, why would He not deliver Christ from having to endure the scourging and torturous death on the Cross. The power of God was made more manifest through the death of Christ on that Tree of Life. For, through it, death has been killed. Mankind has been set free from sin and death. The hymns say, "the passions of the passionless God has destroyed the passions of the condemned," and "Today the death that came to mankind through the eating of the tree, is made of no effect through the Cross."

It is through the transformation of suffering that the power of God is made manifest. Then one is totally free from the results of the sickness of sin. ". . . but for us who are being saved, it (Cross) is the power of God." This is what St. Isaac means when he says that the "knowledge of the Cross is concealed in the suffering of the Cross." Let us rejoice and be exceedingly glad for this Life- Giving Wood of the Cross upon which Christ was killed for us men and for our salvation in order to be resurrected and bring life to the fallen!

Fr John Shimchick 11/12/25 Fr John Shimchick 11/12/25

Matushka Olga Michael

It all begins with an idea.

Fr. John Shimchick

November 2011

Come, O assembly of the Orthodox, and with love let us praise the holy women, men, and children, those known to us and those known only to God, and let us cry out to them: Rejoice, All Saints of North America, and pray to God for us.
(The Commemoration of All Saints of North America)

“Saints of North America - known and unknown.” While all of the canonized Saints of North America have so far been men, over the past few years an Orthodox woman, native of North America, has slowly become known to more and more people, particularly other Orthodox women.

Matushka Olga Michael, wife of the departed Archpriest Nikolai O. Michael from the village of Kwethluk on the Kuskokwim River in Alaska, as described in Fr. Michael Oleksa’s book, Orthodox Alaska, was neither a “physically impressive or imposing figure.” She raised eight children to maturity, giving birth to several of them without a midwife. While her husband was away taking care of many other parishes, she kept busy raising her family and doing many things for other people. One is reminded of the story of Tabitha in the book of Acts (9:36-ff) when hearing that “[i]n addition to sewing Father Nikolai’s vestments in the early years and crafting beautiful parkas, boots and mittens for her children, she was constantly sewing or knitting socks or fur outerwear for others. Hardly a friend or neighbor was without something Matushka had made for them. Parishes hundreds of miles away received unsolicited gifts, traditional Eskimo winter boots (‘mukluks’) to sell or raffle for their building fund. All the clergy of the deanery wore gloves or woolen socks ...[which she] had made for them” (p. 203). While fulfilling many of the other tasks (like preparing the eucharistic bread) that are often assumed by other priests’ wives, she also knew the hymns of many feast days, including Palm Sunday, Holy Week and Pascha in Yup’ik (her Eskimo language) by heart. After, miraculously surviving an initial bout with cancer when it seemed that nothing could be done, she eventually succumbed to a return of the disease, preparing herself for death which took place on November 8, 1979 with great courage and faith.

It appeared that the normal snow and river ice of that time of the year would prevent many people from attending her funeral. But, the weather uncharacteristically changed and a southerly wind helped to melt the ice and snow allowing parishioners from the neighboring villages to make the journey to Kwethluk. “Hundreds of friends...filled the newly-consecrated church on the extraordinary spring-like day of the funeral. Upon exiting the church, the procession was joined by a flock of birds, although by that time of year, all birds have long since flown south. The birds circled overhead, and accompanied the coffin to the grave site. The usually frozen soil had been easy to dig because of the unprecedented thaw. That night, after the memorial meal, the wind began to blow again, the ground refroze, ice covered the river, winter returned. It was as if the earth itself had opened to receive this woman. The cosmos still cooperates and participates in the worship the Real People [i.e. the name native people give to themselves] offer to God” (p. 205) .

However, it is not just her story, that has been so special and life changing to others, but the actual encounter with her presence that has taken place in remarkable ways. One woman, originally from Kwethluk but now living in Arizona, had a dream in which Matushka Olga appeared, assuring her that her mother would be alright because she was coming to join her in a bright and joyful place. This woman did not know her mother was sick at the time, that she had been rushed to Anchorage, and that she would soon die. But the next day she received news of her mother’s emergency evacuation and rushed from Arizona to Alaska, comforting her mother with the news Matushka Olga had brought her about her eternal destiny. The woman died in peace and with her daughter without the shock and grief that would have certainly ensued if the dream had not reassured her.

Another woman, after viewing a picture of Matushka Olga, experienced a “compassionate, loving, gentle, and very real - very accessible presence.”

The most detailed account comes from an Orthodox woman who, as in the previous example, had suffered for many years from the consequences of severe sexual abuse experienced as a child. This is her testimony of meeting Matushka Olga:

One day I was deeply at prayer and awake. I had remembered an event that was very scary. My prayer began with my asking the Holy Theotokos for help and mercy. Gradually I was aware of standing in the woods feeling still a little scared. Soon a gentle wave of tenderness began to sweep through the woods followed by a fresh garden scent. I saw the Virgin Mary, dressed as she is in an icon, but more natural looking and brighter, walking toward me. As she came closer I was aware of someone walking behind her. She stepped aside and gestured to a short, wise looking woman. I asked her, “Who are you?” And the Virgin Mary answered, “St. Olga.”
St. Olga gestured for me to follow her. We walked a long way until there weren’t many trees. We came to a little hill that had a door cut into the side. She gestured for me to sit and she went inside. After a little while some smoke came out of the top of the hill. St. Olga came out with some herbal tea. We both sat in silence drinking our tea and feeling the warmth of the sun of our faces. I began to get a pain in my belly and she led me inside. The door was so low I had to duck like bowing in prayer.
Inside the hill was dry and warm and very quiet. The light was very soft coming from a shallow bowl and from the open hole on the top of the hill. Everything around me felt gentle, especially Mother Olga. The little hill house smelled like wild thyme and white pine in the sun with roses and violets mixed in. Mother Olga helped me up on a kind of platform bed like a driftwood box filled with moss and grasses. It was soft and smelled like the earth and the sea. I was exhausted and lay back. St. Olga went over to the lamp and warmed up something which she rubbed on my belly. I looked five months pregnant. (I was not pregnant for real at that time.) I started to labor. I was a little scared. Mother Olga climbed up beside me and gently holding by arm, she pretended to labor with me, showing me what to do and how to breath. She still hadn’t said anything. She helped me push out some stuff like afterbirth which kind of soaked into dried moss on the box bed. I was very tired and crying a little from relief when it was over.
Up until this she hadn’t spoken, but her eyes spoke with great tenderness and understanding. We both got up and had some tea. As we were drinking it, Holy Mother Olga gradually became the light in the room. Her face looked like there was a strong light bulb or the sun shining under her skin. But I think the whole of her glowed. I was just so connected to her loving gaze that I didn’t pay much attention to anything else. It was the kind of loving gaze from a mother to an infant that connects and welcomes a baby to life. She seemed to pour tenderness into me through her eyes. This wasn’t scary even though, at that time, I didn’t know about people who literally shone with the love of God. (It made more sense after I read about St. Seraphim). I know now that some very deep wounds were being healed at that time. She gave me back by own life which had been stolen, a life that is now defined by the beauty and love of God for me, the restored work of His Hands.
After some time I felt like I was filled with wellness and a sense of quiet entered my soul, as if my soul had been crying like a grief-stricken abandoned infant and now had finally been comforted. Even now as I write . . . the miracle of the peacefulness, and also the zest for life which wellness has brought, causes me to cry with joy and awe.
Only after this did Holy Mother Olga speak. She spoke about God and people who choose to do evil things. She said the people who hurt me thought they could make me carry their evil inside of me by rape. She was very firm when she said, “That’s a lie. Only God can carry evil away. The only thing they could put inside you was the seed of life which is a creation of God and cannot pollute anyone.” I was never polluted. It just felt that way because of the evil intentions of the people near me. What I had held inside me was the pain, terror, shame, and helplessness I felt. We had labored together and that was all out of me now. She burned some grass over the little flame and the smoke went straight up to God who is both the judge and the forgiver. I understood by the “incense” that it wasn’t my job to carry the sins of people against me either. It was God’s, and what an ever-unfolding richness this taste of salvation is. At the end of this healing time we went outside together. It was not dark in the visioning prayer. There were so many stars stretching to infinity. The sky was all shimmer with a moving veil of light. (I had seen photos of the northern light but didn’t know that they move.) Either Matushka Olga said, or we both heard in our hearts -- I can’t remember which -- that the moving curtain of light was to be for us a promise that God can create great beauty from complete desolation and nothingness. For me it was like proof of the healing -- great beauty where there had been nothing before but despair hidden by shame and great effort.

What is one to make of these accounts? If nothing else, for now, one can acknowledge the special place that Matushka Olga has had in the lives of certain native people and a growing number of contemporary women. But it is in the slow and gradually expanding process of knowledge which moves from local veneration to broader awareness that God reveals how He can be “wonderful in His Saints.” Matushka Olga was herself a midwife and may have also known from personal experience the traumas of being abused earlier in her life. Perhaps it is in this role as an advocate for those who have been abused, particularly sexually, that God will continue to use Matushka Olga in drawing “straight with crooked lines”, His work of “creating beauty from complete desolation and nothingness.”

If God wills, may it also one day be possible to exclaim: “O Blessed Mother Olga, pray to God for us!”

[Special thanks from the author to Fr. Michael Oleksa, and to Fr. John and Lyn Breck for their support and help in providing the source materials for this article.]

Article used with permission, from Jacob’s Well, publication of the Diocese of New York and New Jersey, Orthodox Church in America: http://www.jacwell.org/articles/1997-SPRING-Matushka_olga.htm

Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev 11/12/25 Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev 11/12/25

Christ the Conqueror of Hell

It all begins with an idea.

Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev

March 2016

The Descent of Christ into Hades in Eastern and Western Theological Traditions

A lecture delivered at St Mary’s Cathedral, Minneapolis, USA, on 5 November 2002

The Byzantine and old Russian icons of the Resurrection of Christ never depict the resurrection itself, i.e., Christ coming out of the grave. They rather depict ‘the descent of Christ into Hades’, or to be more precise, the rising of Christ out of hell. Christ, sometimes with a cross in his hand, is represented as raising Adam, Eve and other personages of the biblical history from hell. Under the Saviour’s feet is the black abyss of the nether world; against its background are castles, locks and debris of the gates which once barred the way of the dead to resurrection. Though other motifs have also been used in creating the image of the Resurrection of Christ in the last several centuries[1], the above-described iconographic type is considered to be canonical, as it reflects the traditional teaching on the descent of Christ to hell, His victory over death, His raising of the dead and delivering them from hell where they were imprisoned before His Resurrection. It is to this teaching as an integral part of the dogmatic and liturgical tradition of the Christian Church that this paper is devoted.

The descent of Christ into Hades is one of the most mysterious, enigmatic and inexplicable events in New Testament history. In today’s Christian world, this event is understood differently. Liberal Western theology rejects altogether any possibility for speaking of the descent of Christ into Hades literally, arguing that the scriptural texts on this theme should be understood metaphorically. The traditional Catholic doctrine insists that after His death on the cross Christ descended to hell only to deliver the Old Testament righteous from it. A similar understanding is quite widespread among Orthodox Christians.

On the other hand, the New Testament speaks of the preaching of Christ in hell as addressed to the unrepentant sinners: ‘For Christ also died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit; in which he went and preached to the spirit in prison, who formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited’[2]. However, many Church Fathers and liturgical texts of the Orthodox Church repeatedly underline that having descended to hell, Christ opened the way to salvation for all people, not only the Old Testament righteous. The descent of Christ into Hades is perceived as an event of cosmic significance involving all people without exception. They also speak about the victory of Christ over death, the full devastation of hell and that after the descent of Christ into Hades there was nobody left there except for the devil and demons.

How can these two points of view be reconciled? What was the original faith of the Church? What do early Christian sources tell us about the descent into Hades? And what is the soteriological significance of the descent of Christ into Hades?

1. Eastern theological tradition

We come across references to the descent of Christ into Hades and His raising the dead in the works of Eastern Christian authors of the 2nd and 3rd centuries, such as Polycarp of Smyrna, Ignatius of Antioch, Hermas, Justin, Melito of Sardes, Hyppolitus of Rome, Irenaeus of Lyons, Clement of Alexandria and Origen. In the 4th century, the descent to hell was discussed by Athanasius, Basil the Great, Gregory Nazianzen, John Chrysostom, as well as such Syrian authors as Jacob Aphrahat and Ephrem the Syrian. Noteworthy among later authors who wrote on this theme are Cyril of Alexandria, Maximus the Confessor and John Damascene.

Let us look at the most vivid interpretations given to our theme in Eastern Christian theology.

The teaching on the descent of Christ into Hades was expounded quite fully by Clement of Alexandria in his ‘Stromateis’[3]. He argued that Christ preached in hell not only to the Old Testament righteous, but also to the Gentiles who lived outside the true faith. Commenting on 1 Pet. 3:18, Clement expresses the conviction that the preaching of Christ was addressed to all those in hell who were able to believe in Christ:

Do not [the Scriptures] show that the Lord preached the Gospel to those that perished in the flood, or rather had been chained, and to those kept ‘in ward and guard’?… And, as I think, the Saviour also exerts His might because it is His work to save; which accordingly He also did by drawing to salvation those who became willing, by the preaching [of the Gospel], to believe on Him, wherever they were. If, then, the Lord descended to Hades for no other end but to preach the Gospel, as He did descend, it was either to preach the Gospel to all or to the Hebrews only. If, accordingly, to all, then all who believe shall be saved[4], although they may be of the Gentiles, on making their profession there…[5]

Clement emphasises that there are righteous people among both those who have the true faith and the Gentiles and that it is possible to turn to God for those who did not believe in Him while living. It is their virtuous life that made them capable of accepting the preaching of Christ and the apostles in hell:

...A righteous man, then, differs not, as righteous, from another righteous man, whether he be of the Law [Jew] or a Greek. For God is not only Lord of the Jews, but of all men[6]... So I think it is demonstrated that God, being good, and the Lord powerful, save with a righteousness and equality which extend to all that turn to Him, whether here or elsewhere[7].

According to Clement, righteousness is of value not only for those who live in true faith, but also for those who are outside faith. It is evident from his words that Christ preached in hell to all, but saved only those who came to believe in Him. Anyway, Clement assumes that this preaching proved salutory not for all to whom Christ preached in hell: ‘Did not the same dispensation obtain in Hades, so that even there, all the souls, on hearing the proclamation, might either exhibit repentance, or confess that their punishment was just, because they believed not?’[8] According to Clement, there were those in hell who heard the preaching of Christ but did not believe in Him and did not follow Him.

In Clement’s works we find the notion that punishments sent from God to sinners are aimed at their reformation, not at retribution, and that the souls released from their corporal shells are better able to understand the meaning of punishment[9]. In these words lies the nucleus of the teaching on the purifying and saving nature of the torment of hell developed by some later authors[10] . We will come back to the question of whether the pains of hell can be salutory when considering the teaching of Maximus the Confessor on the descent of Christ into Hades. An exhaustive discussion on this question, though, is beyond the scope of this paper.

Gregory of Nyssa entwines the theme of the descent in hell with the theory of ‘divine deception’. On the latter he builds his teaching on the Redemption. According to this theory, Christ, being God incarnate, deliberately concealed His divine nature from the devil so that he, mistaking Him for an ordinary man, would not be terrified at the sight of an overwhelming power approaching him. When Christ descended in hell, the devil supposed Him to be a human being, but this was a divine ‘hook’ disguised under a human ‘bait’ that the devil swallowed[11] . By admitting God incarnate into his domain, the devil himself signed his own death warrant: incapable of enduring the divine presence, he was overcome and defeated, and hell was destroyed.

This is precisely the idea that Gregory of Nyssa developed in one of his Easter sermons on ‘The Three-Day Period of the Resurrection of Christ’. Judging by its contents, this homily was intended for Holy Saturday[12], and in it Gregory poses the question of why Christ spent three days ‘in the heart of the earth’[13]. This period was necessary and sufficient, he argues, for Christ to ‘expose the foolishness’ (moranai) of the devil[14], i.e, to outwit, ridicule and deceive him[15]. How did Christ manage to ‘outwit’ the devil? Gregory gives the following reply to this question:

As the ruler of darkness could not approach the presence of the Light unimpeded, had he not seen in Him something of flesh, then, as soon as he saw the God-bearing flesh and saw the miracle performed through it by the Deity, he hoped that if he came to take hold of the flesh through death, then he would take hold of all the power contained in it. Therefore, having swallowed the bait of the flesh, he was pierced by the hook of the Deity and thus the dragon was transfixed by the hook.[16]

A very original approach to the theme of the descent to Hades is found in a book entitled ‘Spiritual Homilies’ which has survived under the name of Macarius of Egypt. There, the liberation of Adam by Christ, Who descended into Hades, is seen as the prototype of the mystical resurrection which the soul experiences in its encounter with the Lord:

When you hear that the Lord in the old days delivered souls from hell and prison and that He descended into hell and performed a glorious deed, do not think that all these events are far from your soul… So the Lord comes into the souls that seek Him, into the depth of the heart’s hell, and there commands death, saying: ‘Release the imprisoned souls which have sought Me and which you hold by force’. And He shatters the heavy stones weighing on the soul, opens graves, raises the true dead from death, brings the imprisoned soul from the dark prison… Is it difficult for God to enter death and, even more, into the depth of the heart and to call out dead Adam from there?… If the sun, being created, passes everywhere through windows and doors, even to the caves of lions and the holes of creeping creatures, and comes out without any harm, the more so does God and the Lord of everything enter caves and abodes in which death has settled, and also souls, and, having released Adam from there, [remains] unfettered by death. Similarly, rain coming down from the sky reaches the nethermost parts of the earth, moistens and renews the roots there and gives birth to new shoots[17].

This text is significant first of all in that the author regards the descent of Christ into Hades as a commonly accepted and undisputed dogma, which he uses as a solid foundation on which to build his mystical and typological construction. The use of the images of the sun rising over both the evil and the good, and rain sent upon both the righteous and the unrighteous[18], indicates that the author of the ‘Homilies’ perceives the descent into Hades as a reality affecting not only the Old Testament righteous, but also entire humanity. Moreover, it affects every person and inner processes which take place in the human soul. For the author of the ‘Homilies’, the doctrine of the descent into Hades is not an abstract truth, nor is it an event which occurred in the days of old and which affected only those who lived at that time, but it is an event which has not lost its relevance. It is not just one of the fundamental Christian doctrines, not just a subject of faith and confession, but a mystery associated with the mystical life of the Christian, a mystery which one should experience in the depth of one’s heart.

The doctrine of the descent of Christ into Hades occupies an essential place in the works of Cyril of Alexandria. In his ‘Paschal Homilies’, he repeatedly mentions that as a consequence of the descent of Christ into Hades, the devil was left all alone, while hell was devastated: ‘For having destroyed hell and opened the impassable gates for the departed spirits, He left the devil there abandoned and lonely’[19].

In his ‘Festive Letters’, Cyril of Alexandria elaborates on the theme of the preaching of Christ in Hades, popular in the Alexandrian tradition since Clement. He views the preaching of Christ in hell as the accomplishment of the ‘history of salvation’, which began with the Incarnation:

…He showed the way to salvation not only to us, but also to the spirits in hell; having descended, He preached to those once disobedient, as Peter says[20]. For it did not befit for love of man to be partial, but the manifestation of [this] gift should have been extended to all nature… Having preached to the spirits in hell and having said ‘go forth’ to the prisoners, and ‘show yourselves’[21] to those in prison on the third day, He resurrected His temple and again opens up to our nature the ascent to heaven, bringing Himself to the Father as the beginning of humanity, pledging to those on earth the grace of communion of the Spirit[22].

As we can see, Cyril emphasises the universality of the salvation given by Christ to humanity, perceiving the descent of Christ into Hades as salvific for the entire human race. He is not inclined to limit salvation to a particular part of humanity, such as the Old Testament righteous. Salvation is likened to rain sent by God on both the just and the unjust[23]. Putting emphasis on the universality of the saving feat of Christ, Cyril follows in the steps of other Alexandrian theologians, beginning with Clement, Origen, and Athanasius the Great[24]. The descent of Christ into Hades, according to Cyril’s teaching, signified victory over that which previously appeared unconquerable and ensured the salvation of all humanity:

Death unwilling to be defeated is defeated; corruption is transformed; unconquerable passion is destroyed. While hell, diseased with excessive insatiability and never satisfied with the dead, is taught, even if against its will, that which it could not learn previously. For it not only ceases to claim those who are still to fall [in the future], but also lets free those already captured, being subjected to splendid devastation by the power of our Saviour... Having preached to the spirits in hell, once disobedient, He came out as conqueror by resurrecting His temple like a beginning of our hope and by showing to [our] nature the manner of the raising from the dead, and giving us along with it other blessings as well[25].

Clearly, Cyril perceived the victory of Christ over hell and death as complete and definitive. According to Cyril, hell loses authority both over those who were in its power and those who are to become its prey in the future. Thus, the descent into Hades, a single and unique action, is perceived as a timeless event. The raised body of Christ becomes the guarantee of universal salvation, the beginning of way leading human nature to ultimate deification.

An elaborate teaching of the descent of Christ into Hades is found in Maximus the Confessor. In his analysis, Maximus takes as a starting point the words of St. Peter: ‘For this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit’[26]. In Maximus’s view, St. Peter does not speak about the Old Testament righteous, but about those sinners who, back in their lifetime, were punished for their evil deeds:

Some say that Scriptures call ‘dead’ those who died before the coming of Christ, for instance, those who were at the time of the flood, at Babel, in Sodom, in Egypt, as well as others who in various times and in various ways received various punishments and the terrible misfortune of divine damnation. These people were punished not so much for their ignorance of God as for the offences they imposed on one another. It was to them, according to [St Peter] that the great message of salvation was preached when they were already damned as men in the flesh, that is, when they received, through life in the flesh, punishment for crimes against one another, so that they could live according to God by the spirit, that is, being in hell, they accepted the preaching of the knowledge of God, believing in the Saviour who descended into hell to save the dead. So, in order to understand [this] passage in [Holy Scriptures] let us take it in this way: the dead, damned in the human flesh, were preached to precisely for the purpose that they may live according to God by the spirit[27].

Thus, according to Maximus’s teaching, punishments suffered by sinners ‘in the human flesh’ were necessary so that they may live ‘according to God by the spirit’. Therefore, these punishments, whether troubles and misfortunes in their lifetime or pains in hell, had pedagogical and reforming significance. Moreover, Maximus stresses that in damning them, God used not so much a religious as a moral criterion, for people were punished ‘not so much for their ignorance of God as for the offences they imposed on one another’. In other words, the religious or ideological convictions of a particular person were not decisive, but his actions with regard to his neighbours.

In John Damascene we find lines which sum up the development of the theme of the descent of Christ into Hades in Eastern patristic writings of the 2nd-8th centuries:

The soul [of Christ] when it is deified descended into Hades, in order that, just as the Sun of Righteousness rose for those upon the earth, so likewise He might bring light[28] to those who sit under the earth in darkness and the shadow of death: in order that just as he brought the message of peace to those upon the earth, and of release to the prisoners, and of sight to the blind[29], and became to those who believed the Author of everlasting salvation and to those who did not believe, a denunciation of their unbelief, so He might become the same to those in Hades: That every knee should bow to Him, of things in heaven, and things in earth and things under the earth[30]. And thus after He had freed those who has been bound for ages, straightway He rose again from the dead, showing us the way of resurrection[31].

According to John Damascene, Christ preached to all those who were in hell, but His preaching did not prove salutary for all, as not all were capable of responding to it. For some it could become only ‘a denunciation of their disbelief’, not the cause of salvation. In this judgement, Damascene actually repeats the teaching on salvation articulated not long before him by Maximus the Confessor. According to Maximus, human history will be accomplished when all without exception will unite with God and God will become ‘all in all’[32]. For some, however, this unity will mean eternal bliss, while for others it will become the source of suffering and torment, as each will be united with God ‘according to the quality of his disposition’ towards God[33]. In other words, all will be united with God, but each will have his own, subjective, feeling of this unity, according to the measure of the closeness to God he has achieved. Along a similar line, John Damascene understands also the teaching on the descent to Hades: Christ opens the way to paradise to all and calls all to salvation, but the response to Christ’s call may lie in either consent to follow Him or voluntary rejection of salvation. Ultimately it depends on a person, on his free choice. God does not save anybody by force, but calls everybody to salvation: ‘Behold, I stand at the door, and knock; if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him’[34]. God knocks at the door of the human heart rather than breaks into it.

In the history of Christianity an idea has repeatedly arisen that God predestines some people for salvation and others to perdition. This idea, based as it is on the literary understanding of the words of St. Paul about predestination, calling and justification[35], became the corner-stone of the theological system of the Reformation, preached with particular consistency by John Calvin[36]. Eleven centuries before Calvin, the Eastern Christian tradition in the person of John Chrysostom expressed its view of predestination and calling. ‘Why are not all saved?’ Chrysostom asks. ‘Because… not only the call [of God] but also the will of those called is the cause of their salvation. This call is not coercive or forcible. Every one was called, but not all followed the call’[37]. Later Fathers, including Maximus and John Damascene, spoke in the same spirit. According to their teaching, it is not God who saves some while ruining others, but some people follow the call of God to salvation while others do not. It is not God who leads some from hell while leaving others behind, but some people wish while others do not wish to believe in Him.

The teaching of the Eastern Church Fathers on the descent of Christ into Hades can be summed up in the following points:

the doctrine of the descent of Christ into Hades was commonly accepted and indisputable;
the descent into Hades was perceived as an event of universal significance, though some authors limited the range of those saved by Christ to a particular category of the dead;
the descent of Christ into Hades and His resurrection were viewed as the accomplishment of the ‘economy’ of Christ the Saviour, as the crown and outcome of the feat He performed for the salvation of people;
the teaching on the victory of Christ over the devil, hell and death was finally articulated and asserted;
the theme of the descent into Hades began to be viewed in its mystical dimension, as the prototype of the resurrection of the human soul.

2. Western theological tradition

To what degree did the approach to this theme of the Fathers and Doctors of the Western Church differ from that of the Eastern Fathers? In order to answer this question, let us look at the works of the two most significant theologians of the Christian West, Augustine and Thomas Aquinas.

The Augustinian teaching on the descent of Christ into Hades is expounded in the fullest way in one of his letters addressed to Evodius. This letter contains a comprehensive interpretation of 1 Pet. ¾21. It follows from Evodius’ questions that the teaching on the evacuation of all in hell and the complete devastation of hell by the risen Christ was widespread in his time. Augustine begins with the question of whether Christ preached only to those who perished in the days of Noah or to all the imprisoned. In answering it, Augustine begins by refuting the opinion that Christ descended to Hades in the flesh[38] and argues that this teaching contradicts scriptural testimony[39].

Augustine continues by setting forth the view that Christ led from hell all those who were there, as, indeed, among them were ‘some who are intimately known to us by their literary labours, whose eloquence and talent we admire, ¾ not only the poets and orators who in many parts of their writings have held up to contempt and ridicule these same false gods of the nations, and have even occasionally confessed the one true God…, but also those who have uttered the same, not in poetry or rhetoric, but as philosophers’[40]. The notion of the salvation of heathen poets, orators and philosophers was quite popular. In Eastern patristic tradition it was most vividly expressed by Clement of Alexandria. According to Augustine, however, any of the positive qualities of the ancient poets, orators and philosophers originated not from ‘sober and authentic devotion, but pride, vanity and [the desire] of people’s praise’. Therefore they ‘did not bring any fruit’. Thus, the idea that pagan poets, orators and philosophers could be saved, though not refuted by Augustine, still is not fully approved, since ‘human judgement’ differs from ‘the justice of the Creator’[41].

Augustine neither rejects nor accepts unconditionally the opinion concerning the salvation of all those in hell. Though very careful in his judgement, it is clear that the possibility of salvation for all in hell is blocked in his perception by his own teaching on predestination[42], as well as by his understanding of divine mercy and justice:

For the words of Scripture, that ‘the pains of hell were loosed’[43] by the death of Christ, do not establish this, seeing that this statement may be understood as referring to Himself, and meaning that he so far loosed (that is, made ineffectual) the pains of hell that He Himself was not held by them, especially since it is added that it was ‘impossible for Him to be holden of them’[44]. Or if any one [objecting to this interpretation] asks why He chose to descend into hell, where those pains were which could not possibly hold Him… the words that ‘the pains were loosed’ may be understood as referring not to the case of all, but only some whom He judged worthy of that deliverance; so that neither He supposed to have descended thither in vain, without the purpose of bringing benefit to any of those who were there held in prison, nor is it a necessary inference that divine mercy and justice granted to some must be supposed to have been granted to all[45].

While Augustine also considers the traditional teaching that Christ delivered from hell the forefather Adam, as well as Abel, Seth, Noah and his family, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob ‘and the other patriarchs and prophets’, he does not agree to it entirely, since he does not believe ‘Abraham’s bosom’ to be a part of hell. Those who were in the bosom of Abraham were not deprived of the gracious presence of the divinity of Christ, and therefore Christ, on the very day of His death immediately before descending to hell, promises to the wise thief that he will be in paradise with him[46]. ‘Most certainly, therefore, He was, before that time, both in paradise and the bosom of Abraham in His beatific wisdom (beatificante sapientia), and in hell in His condemning power (judicante potentia)’, concludes Augustine[47].

The opinion that through the death of Christ on the cross the righteous receive that promised incorruption which people are to achieve after the end of time is also refuted by Augustine. If it were so, then St. Peter would not have said about David that ‘his sepulchre is with us to this day’[48] unless David was still undisturbed in the sepulchre[49].

As for the teaching on Christ’s preaching in hell contained in 1 Pet. 3:18¾21, Augustine rejects its traditional and commonly accepted understanding. First, he is not certain that it implies those who really departed his life, but rather those that are spiritually dead and did not believe in Christ. Secondly, he offers the quite novel idea that after Christ ascended from hell His recollection did not survive there. Therefore, the descent in Hades was a ‘one-time’ event relevant only to those who were in hell at that time. Thirdly and finally, Augustine rejects altogether any possibility for those who did not believe in Christ while on earth to come to believe in him while in hell, calling this idea ‘absurd’[50].

Augustine is not inclined to see in 1 Pet. 3:18¾21 an indication of the descent into Hades. He believes that this text should be understood allegorically, i. e., ‘the spirits’ mentioned by Peter are essentially those who are clothed in body and imprisoned in ignorance. Christ did not come down to earth in the flesh in the days of Noah, but often came down to people in the spirit either to rebuke those who did not believe or to justify those who did. What happened in the days of Noah is a type of what happens today, and the flood was the precursor of baptism. Those who believe in our days are like whose who believed in the days of Noah: they are saved through baptism, just as Noah was saved through water. Those who do not believe are like those who did not believe in the days of Noah: the flood is the prototype of their destruciton[51].

Augustine is the first Latin author who gave so much close attention to the theme of the descent of Christ into Hades. However, he did not clarify the question of who was the object of Christ’s preaching in hell and whom Christ delivered from it. Augustine expressed many doubts about particular interpretations of 1 Pet. 3:18¾21, but did not offer any convincing interpretation of his own. Nevertheless, the ideas expressed by him were developed by Western Church authors of the later period. Thomas Aquinas, in particular, makes continuous references to Augustine in his chapter devoted to the descent of Christ into Hades[52]. During the Reformation, many Augustinian ideas were criticised by theologians of the Protestant tradition. The teaching that the recollection of Christ did not survive in hell after His ascent was rejected by Lutheran theologians who insisted on the reverse[53].

Thomas Aquinas was the 13th-century theologian who brought to completion the Latin teaching on the descent of Christ into Hades. In his ‘Summa Theologiae’, he divides hell into four parts: 1) purgatory (purgatorium), where sinners experience penal suffering; 2) the hell of the patriarchs (infernum patrum), the abode of the Old Testament righteous before the coming of Christ; 3) the hell of unbaptized children (infernum puerorum); and 4) the hell of the damned (infernum damnatorum). In response to the question, exactly which was the hell that Christ descended to, Thomas Aquinas admits two possibilities: Christ descended either into all parts of hell or only to that in which the righteous were imprisoned, whom He was to deliver. In the first case, ‘for going down into the hell of the lost He wrought this effect, that by descending thither He put them to shame for their unbelief and wickedness: but to them who were detained in Purgatory He gave hope of attaining to glory: while upon the holy Fathers detained in hell solely on account of original sin (pro solo peccato originali detinebantur in inferno), He shed the light of glory everlasting’. In the second case, the soul of Christ ‘descended only to the place where the righteous were detained’ (descendit solum ad locum inferni in quo justi detinebantur), but the action of His presence there was felt in some way in the other parts of hell as well[54].

According to Thomistic teaching, Christ delivered from hell not only the Old Testament righteous who were imprisoned in hell because of original sin[55]. As far as sinners are concerned, those who were detained in ‘the hell of the lost’, since they either had no faith or had faith but no conformity with the virtue of the suffering Christ, could not be cleansed from their sins, and Christ’s descent brought them no deliverance from the pains of hell[56]. Nor were children who had died in the state of original sin delivered from hell, since only ‘by baptism children are delivered from original sin and from hell, but not by Christ’s descent into hell’, since baptism can be received only in earthly life, not after death[57]. Finally, Christ did not deliver those who were in purgatory, for their suffering was caused by personal defects (defectus personali), whereas ‘exclusion from glory’ was a common defect (defectus generalis) of all human nature after the fall. The descent of Christ into Hades recovered the glory of God to those who were excluded from it by virtue of the common defect of nature, but did not deliver anybody from the pains of purgatory caused by people’s personal defects[58].

This scholastic understanding of the descent of Christ into Hades, formulated by Thomas Aquinas, was the official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church for many centuries. During the Reformation, this understanding was severely criticised by Protestant theologians. Many of today’s Catholic theologians are also very sceptical about this teaching[59]. There is no need to discuss how far the teaching of Thomas Aquinas on the descent of Christ into Hades is from that of Eastern Christianity. No Father of the Eastern Church ever permitted himself to clarify who was left in hell after Christ descent; no Eastern Father ever spoke of unbaptized infants left in hell[60]. The division of hell into four parts and the teaching on purgatory are alien to Eastern patristics. Finally, this very scholastic approach whereby the most mysterious events of history are subjected to detailed analysis and rational interpretation is unacceptable for Eastern Christian theology. For the theologians, poets and mystics of the Eastern Church, the descent of Christ into Hades remained first of all a mystery which could be praised in hymns, and about which various assumptions could be made, but of which nothing definite and final could be said.

The general conclusion can now be drawn from a comparative analysis of Eastern and Western understandings of the descent into Hades. In the first three centuries of the Christian Church, there was considerable similarity between the interpretation of this doctrine by theologians in East and West. However, already by the 4th—5th centuries, substantial differences can be identified. In the West, a juridical understanding of the doctrine prevailed. It gave increasingly more weight to notions of predestination (Christ delivered from hell those who were predestined for salvation from the beginning) and original sin (salvation given by Christ was deliverance from the general original sin, not from the ‘personal’ sins of individuals). The range of those to whom the saving action of the descent into hell is extended becomes ever more narrow. First, it excludes sinners doomed to eternal torment, then those in purgatory and finally unbaptized infants. This kind of legalism was alien to the Orthodox East, where the descent into Hades continued to be perceived in the spirit in which it is expressed in the liturgical texts of Great Friday and Easter, i.e. as an event significant not only for all people, but also for the entire cosmos, for all created life.

At the same time, both Eastern and Western traditions suggest that Christ delivered from hell the Old Testament righteous led by Adam. Yet if in the West this is perceived restrictively (Christ delivered only the Old Testament righteous, while leaving all the rest in hell to eternal torment), in the East, Adam is viewed as a symbol of the entire human race leading humanity redeemed by Christ (those who followed Christ were first the Old Testament righteous led by Adam and then the rest who responded to the preaching of Christ in hell).

3. The doctrine of the descent into Hades and theodicy

Let us move now to the theological significance of the doctrine of the descent of Christ into Hades. This doctrine, in our view, has great significance for theodicy, the justification of God in the face of the accusing human mind[61]. Why does God permit suffering and evil? Why does He condemn people to the pains of hell? To what extent is God responsible for what happens on earth? Why in the Bible does God appear as a cruel and unmerciful Judge ‘repenting’ of His actions and punishing people for mistakes which He knew beforehand and which He could have prevented? These and other similar questions have been posed throughout history.

First of all, we should say that the doctrine of the descent of Christ into Hades raises the veil over the mystery that envelops the relationship between God and the devil. The history of this relationship goes back to the time of the creation. According to common church teaching, the devil was created as a good and perfect creature, but he fell away from God because of his pride. The drama of the personal relationship between God and the devil did not end here. Since his falling away, the devil began to oppose divine goodness and love by every means and to do all he can to prevent the salvation of people. The devil is not all-powerful, however; his powers are restricted by God and he can operate only within the limits permitted by God. This last affirmation is confirmed by the opening lines of the Book of Job where the devil appears as a creature having, first, personal relations with God and, secondly, being fully subjected to God.

By creating human beings and putting them in a situation where they choose between good and evil, God assumed the responsibility for their further destiny. God did not leave man face to face with the devil, but Himself entered into the struggle for humanity’s spiritual survival. To this end, He sent prophets and teachers and then He Himself became man, suffered on the cross and died, descended into Hades and was raised from the dead in order to share human fate. By descending into Hades, Christ did not destroy the devil as a personal, living creature, but ‘abolished the power of the devil’, that is, deprived the devil of authority and power stolen by him from God. When he rebelled against God, the devil set himself the task to create his own autonomous kingdom where he would be master and where he would win back from God a space where God’s presence could be in no way felt. In Old Testament understanding, this place was sheol. After Christ, sheol became a place of divine presence.

This presence is felt by all those in paradise as a source of joy and bliss, but for those in hell it is a source of suffering. Hell, after Christ, is no longer the place where the devil reigns and people suffer, but first and foremost it is the prison for the devil himself as well as for those who voluntarily decided to stay with him and share his fate. The sting of death was abolished by Christ and the walls of hell were destroyed. But ‘death even without its sting is still powerful for us... Hell with its walls destroyed and its gates abolished is still filled with those who, having left the narrow royal path of the cross leading to paradise, follow the broad way all their lives’[62] .

Christ descended into hell not as another victim of the devil, but as Conqueror. He descended in order to ‘bind up the powerful’ and to ‘plunder his vessels’. According to patristic teaching, the devil did not recognize in Christ the incarnate God. He took Him for an ordinary man and, rising to the ‘bait’ of the flesh, swallowed the ‘hook’ of the Deity (the image used by Gregory of Nyssa). However, the presence of Christ in hell constituted the poison which began gradually to ruin hell from within (this image was used by the 4th-century Syrian author Jacob Aphrahat[63]). The final destruction of hell and the ultimate victory over the devil will happen during the Second Coming of Christ when ‘the last enemy to be destroyed is death’, when everything will be subjected to Christ and God will become ‘all in all’[64].

The doctrine of the descent of Christ into Hades is important for an understanding of God’s action in human history, as reflected in the Old Testament. The biblical account of the flood, which destroyed all humanity, is a stumbling block for many who wish to believe in a merciful God but cannot reconcile themselves with a God who ‘repents’ of his own deed. The teaching on the descent into hell, as set forth in 1 Pet. 3:18—21, however, brings an entirely new perspective into our understanding of the mystery of salvation. It turns out that the death sentence passed by God to interrupt human life does not mean that human beings are deprived of hope for salvation, because, failing to turn to God during their lifetime, people could turn to Him in the afterlife having heard Christ’s preaching in the prison of hell. While committing those He created to death, God did not destroy them, but merely transferred them to a different state in which they could hear the preaching of Christ, to believe and to follow Him.

4. The soteriological implications of the doctrine of the descent into Hades

The doctrine on the descent of Christ into Hades is an integral part of Orthodox soteriology. Its soteriological implications, however, depend in many ways on the way in which we understanding the preaching of Christ in hell and its salutory impact on people[65]. If the preaching was addressed only to the Old Testament righteous, then the soteriological implications of the doctrine is minimal, but if it was addressed to all those in hell, its significance is considerably increased. It seems that we have enough grounds to argue, following the Greek Orthodox theologian, I. Karmiris, that ‘according to the teaching of almost all the Eastern Fathers, the preaching of the Saviour was extended to all without exception and salvation was offered to all the souls who passed away from the beginning of time, whether Jews or Greek, righteous or unrighteous’[66]. At the same time, the preaching of Christ in hell was good and joyful news of deliverance and salvation, not only for the righteous but also the unrighteous. It was not the preaching ‘to condemn for unbelief and wickedness’, as it seemed to Thomas Aquinas. The entire text of the First Letter of St. Peter relating to the preaching of Christ in hell speaks against its understanding in terms of accusation and damnation’[67].

Whether all or only some responded to the call of Christ and were delivered from hell remains an open question. If we accept the point of view of those Western church writers who maintain that Christ delivered from hell only the Old Testament righteous, then Christ’s salutory action is reduced merely to the restoration of justice. The Old Testament righteous suffered in hell undeservedly, not for their personal sins but because of the general sinfulness of human nature and because their deliverance from hell was a ‘duty’ which God was obliged to undertake with respect to them. But such an act could scarcely constitute a miracle that made the angels tremble or one to be praised in church hymns.

Unlike the West, Christian consciousness in the East admits the opportunity to be saved not only for those who believe during their lifetime, but also those who were not given to believe yet pleased God with their good works. The idea that salvation was not only for those who in life confessed the right faith, not only for the Old Testament righteous, but also those heathens who distinguished themselves by a lofty morality, is developed in one of the hymns of John Damascene:

Some say that [Christ delivered from hell] only those who believed[68],

such as fathers and prophets,

judges and together with them kings, local rulers

and some others from the Hebrew people,

not numerous and known to all.

But we shall reply to those who think so

that there is nothing undeserved,

nothing miraculous and nothing strange

in that Christ should save those who believed[69],

for He remains only the fair Judge,

and every one who believes in Him will not perish.

So they all ought to have been saved

and delivered from the bonds of hell

by the descent of God and Master —

that same happened by His Disposition.

Whereas those who were saved only through [God’s] love of men

were, as I think, all those

who had the purest life

and did all kinds of good works,

living in modesty, temperance and virtue,

but the pure and divine faith

they did not conceive because they were not instructed in it

and remained altogether unlearnt.

They were those whom the Steward and Master of all

drew, captured in the divine nets

and persuaded to believe in Him,

illuminating them with the divine rays

and showing them the true light[70] .

This approach renders the descent into Hades exceptional in its soteriological implications. According to Damascene, those who were not taught the true faith during their lifetime can come to believe when in hell. By their good works, abstention and chastity they prepared themselves for the encounter with Christ. These are that same people about whom St. Paul says that having no law they ‘do by nature things contained in the law’, for ‘the work of the law is written in their hearts’[71]. Those who live by the law of natural morality but do not share the true faith can hope by virtue of their righteousness that in a face-to-face encounter with God they will recognize in Him the One they ‘ignorantly worshipped’[72].

Has this anything to do with those who died outside Christian faith after the descent of Christ into Hades? No, if we accept the Western teaching that the descent into Hades was a ‘one-time’ event and that the recollection of Christ did not survive in hell. Yes, if we proceed from the assumption that after Christ hell was no longer like the Old Testament sheol, but it became a place of the divine presence. In addition, as Archpriest Serge Bulgakov writes, ‘all events in the life of Christ, which happen in time, have timeless, abiding significance. Therefore,

the so-called ‘preaching in hell’, which is the faith of the Church, is a revelation of Christ to those who in their earthly life could not see or know Christ. There are no grounds for limiting this event… to the Old Testament saints alone, as Catholic theology does. Rather, the power of this preaching should be extended to all time for those who during their life on earth did not and could not know Christ but meet Him in the afterlife[73].

According to the teaching of the Orthodox Church, all the dead, whether believers or non-believers, appear before God. Therefore, even for those who did not believe during their lifetime, there is hope that they will recognize God as their Saviour and Redeemer if their previous life on earth led them to this recognition.

The above hymn of John Damascene clearly states that the virtuous heathens were not ‘taught’ the true faith. This is a clear allusion to the words of Christ: ‘Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost’[74]; and ‘He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but that believeth not shall be damned’[75]. The damnation is extended only to those who were taught Christian faith but did not believe. But if a person was not taught, if he in his real life did not encounter the preaching of the gospel and did not have an opportunity to respond to it, can he be damned for it? We come back to the question that had disturbed such ancient authors as Clement of Alexandria.

Is it possible at all that the fate of a person can be changed after his death? Is death that border beyond which some unchangeable static existence comes? Does the development of the human person not stop after death?

On the one hand, it is impossible for one to actively repent in hell; it is impossible to rectify the evil deeds one committed by appropriate good works. However, it may be possible for one to repent through a ‘change of heart’, a review of one’s values. One of the testimonies to this is the rich man of the Gospel we have already mentioned. He realized the gravity of his situation as soon as found himself in hell. Indeed, if in his lifetime he was focused on earthly pursuits and forgot God, once in hell he realized that his only hope for salvation was God[76] . Besides, according to the teaching of the Orthodox Church, the fate of a person after death can be changed through the prayer of the Church. Thus, existence after death has its own dynamics. On the basis of what has been said above, we may say that after death the development of the human person does not cease, for existence after death is not a transfer from a dynamic into a static being, but rather continuation on a new level of that road which a person followed in his lifetime.

* * *

As the last stage in the divine descent (katabasis) and self-emptying (kenosis), the descent of Christ into Hades became at the same time the starting point of the ascent of humanity towards deification (theosis)[77]. Since this descent the path to paradise is opened for both the living and the dead, which was followed by those whom Christ delivered from hell. The destination point for all humanity and every individual is the fullness of deification in which God becomes ‘all in all’[78] . It is for this deification that God first created man and then, when ‘the time had fully come’ (Gal. 4:4), Himself became man, suffered, died, descended to Hades and was raised from the dead.

We do not know if every one followed Christ when He rose from hell. Nor do we know if every one will follow Him to the eschatological Heavenly Kingdom when He will become ‘all in all’. But we do know that since the descent of Christ into Hades the way to resurrection has been opened for ‘all flesh’, salvation has been granted to every human being, and the gates of paradise have been opened for all those who wish to enter through them. This is the faith of the Early Church inherited from the first generation of Christians and cherished by Orthodox Tradition. This is the never-extinguished hope of all those who believe in Christ Who once and for all conquered death, destroyed hell and granted resurrection to the entire human race.

Translated from the Russian

from: http://orthodoxeurope.org/page/11/1/5.aspx

Footnotes:

[1] In particular, the image of the risen Christ coming out of the grave and holding a victory banner, borrowed from the Western tradition.

[2] 1 Pet. 3:18—21.

[3] The critical edition of ‘Stromateis’: Clemens Alexandrinus. Band II: Stromateis I—VI. Hrsg. von O. Stählin, L. Früchtel, U. Treu. Berlin—Leipzig 1960; Band III: Stromateis VII—VIII. Hrsg. von O. Stählin. GCS 17. Berlin—Leipzig, 1970. S. 3-102.

[4] That is those who came to believe while in hell.

[5] Stromateis 6, 6.

[6] Rom. 3:29; 10:12.

[7]" Stromateis 6, 6.

[8] Stromateis 6, 6.

[9] Stromateis 6, 6.

[10] In the East it was developed by Gregory of Nyssa and Isaac the Syrian. In the West it gradually led to the formation of the doctrine on purgatory.

[11] The Great Catechetical Oration 23¾24.

[12] The Homily on the Three-Day Period (pp. 444¾446). The text of the sermon in: Gregoriou Nyssis hapanta ta erga. T. 10. Hellenes pateres tes ekklesias 103. Thessalonike, 1990. Sel. 444—487. Since in this edition the text is not divided into chapters, we indicate page numbers.

[13] Cf. Mt. 12:40.

[14] Lit. ‘to make a fool of somebody’ (from moros—fool)

[15] The Homily on the Three-Day Period (pp. 452¾454).

[16] The Homily on the Three-Day Period (pp. 452¾454). Cf. 1 Cor. 15:26.

[17] Spiritual Homilies 11, 11¾13.

[18] Cf. Mt. 5:45.

[19] 7th Paschal Homily 2 (PG 77, 552 A).

[20] Cf. 1 Pet. 3:19¾20.

[21] Is. 49:9.

[22] 2nd Festive Letter 8, 52¾89 (SC 372, 228¾232)

[23] Cf. Mt. 5:45. See the same comparison in ‘Spiritual Homilies’ by Macarius of Egypt.

[24] See above quotations from these authors

[25] 5th Festive Letter 1, 29¾40 (SC 732, 284).

[26] 1 Pet. 4:6.

[27] Questions-answers to Thalassius 7.

[28] Is. 9:2.

[29] Lk. 4:18¾19; Cf. Is. 61:1¾2.

[30] Phil. 2:10.

[31] The Exact Exposition of Orthodox Faith 3, 29.

[32] 1 Cor. 15:28.

[33] Maximus the Confessor, Questions-answers to Thalassius 59. More on this teaching see in J. C. Larchet, La divinisation de l’homme selon Maxime le Confesseur (Paris, 1996), pp. 647¾652.

[34] Rev. 3:20.

[35] Rom. 8:29¾30.

[36] See John Calvin, Instruction in Christian Faith, V. II, Book III (‘Concerning the pre-eternal election whereby God predestined some for salvation while others for condemnation’).

[37] 16th Discourse on the Epistle to the Romans.

[38] Concerning the teaching on the descent of Christ into Hades in the flesh, see: I. N. Karmires, ‘He Christologike heterodidaskalia tou 16 aionos kai eis hadou kathodos tou Christou’, Nea Sion 30 (1935). Sel. 11—26, 65—81, 154—165. See also: S. Der Nersessian. ‘An Armenian Version of the Homilies on the Harrowing of Hell’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 8 (1954), pp. 201¾224.

[39] Letter 164, II, 3 (PL 33, 709).

[40] Letter 164, II, 3 (PL 33, 710).

[41] Letter 164, II, 3 (PL 33, 710).

[42] Cf. J. A. MacCulloch, The Harrowing of Hell (Edinburgh, 1930), p. 123.

[43] Cf. Acts 2:24.

[44] That is, the pains of hell.

[45] Letter 164, II, 5 (PL 33, 710¾711).

[46] Lk. 23:43.

[47] Letter 164, III, 7¾8 (PL 33, 710¾711).

[48] Acts 2:29.

[49] Letter 164, III, 7¾8 (PL 33, 711).

[50] Letter 164, III, 10¾13 (PL 33, 713¾714). Elsewhere Augustine describes as heresy the teaching that non-believers could come to believe in hell and that Christ led everybody out of hell: See, On Heresies 79 (PL 42, 4).

[51] Letter 164, IV, 15¾16 (PL 33, 715).

[52] See below.

[53] See details in: F. Loofs. ‘Descent to Hades’, Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics (New York, 1912), vol. IV, p. 658.

[54] Summa theologiae IIIa, 52, 2 (St Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae. Latin text with English translation. London — New York, 1965. Vol. 54. P. 158).

[55] Summa theologiae IIIa, 52, 5 (Summa theologiae. Vol. 54, pp. 166¾170).

[56] Summa theologiae IIIa, 52, 6 (Summa theologiae. Vol. 54, pp. 170¾1720).

[57] Summa theologiae IIIa, 52, 7 (Summa theologiae. Vol. 54, pp. 174¾176).

[58] Summa theologiae IIIa, 52, 8 (Summa theologiae. Vol. 54, pp. 176¾178).

[59] See for instance: H. U. von Balthasar et A. Grillmeier, Le mystère pascal (Paris , 1972), p. 170 (where the Thomistic understanding of the descent to Hades is described as ‘bad theology’).

[60] The teaching on the fate of unbaptized infants, contained in the work ‘Concerning Infants Who Have Died Prematurely’ by Gregory Palamas, is opposite to the teaching of Thomas Aquinas.

[61] The term ‘theodocy’ (literally ‘the justification of God’) was invented by Leibnitz in the early 18th century.

[62] Innocent, Archbishop of Cherson and Tauria, Works, vol. V (St-Petersburg—Moscow, 1870), p. 289 (Homily at Holy Saturday).

[63] Demonstration 22, 4—5 in The Homilies of Aphraates, the Persian Sage, ed. by W. Wright (London—Edinburgh, 1869), pp. 420—421.

[64] 1 Cor. 15:26—28.

[65] Cf. I. N. Karmires, He eis hadou kathodos Iesou Christou (Athenai, 1939), sel. 107.

[66] Ibid., p. 119.

[67] Bishop Gregory (Yaroshevsky), An Interpretation of the Most Difficult Passages in the First Letter of St Peter (Simferopol , 1902), p. 10.

[68] That is those who believed in their lifetime.

[69] That is those who believed during their life on earth.

[70] Concerning Those Who Died in Faith (PG 95, 257 AC).

[71] Rom. ¾15.

[72] Acts .

[73] Serge Bulgakov, Agnets Bozhiy [The Lamb of God] (Moscow , 2000), p. 394.

[74] Mt. 28:19.

[75] Mk. 16:16.

[76] Lk. 16:20—31.

[77] Cf. J. Daniélou, The Theology of Jewish Christianity (London , s.a.), p. 233—234.

[78] 1 Cor. 15:28.

St Luke of Simferopol 11/12/25 St Luke of Simferopol 11/12/25

On the Entry of the Most Holy Theotokos into the Temple

It all begins with an idea.

St. Luke (Voyno-Yasenetsky) Of Simferopol

November 2017

All of you, fathers and mothers, have heard the astounding question of the Apostle Paul: “Know ye not that ye are the temples of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16). Do you not know that you and your children are intended to serve God in spirit and truth, in works of love and righteousness?

The life of the All-Holy, All-Pure, and All-Blessed Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary, who was the All-Pure Temple of the Savior, who was higher than all the Cherubim and Seraphim, could not have begun as does the life of an ordinary person: it needed to have been marked by a glorious beginning to her life. And the Lord God placed into the hearts of her holy parents, Joachim and Anna, the presentiment that their All-Pure Child, their only daughter, was being prepared by God for an extraordinary path, a path enormously loftier than people’s ordinary paths. And guided by this presentiment, they dedicated the All-Holy Virgin Mary to God even before her nativity: they made a vow to God that she would serve Him.

But how? In what form could she serve God?

You know that the ministers of God were chosen by command of God Himself only from the tribe of Levi and, of course, they were all men; women could not be ministers of God.

Nonetheless, the All-Holy Theotokos was designated by God Himself for the very loftiest form of ministry to Him.

When the little Mary grew to the age of three, her parents, the holy and blessed Joachim and Anna, decided to bring her to the Temple in Jerusalem, in order to raise her under the shadow of this Temple.

They gave a vow, and it was necessary to fulfill it. And they led her, accompanied by a choir of young girls carrying burning candles, to Jerusalem, to the Lord’s Temple. And in an astonishing manner, when they approached the Temple, the three-year old babe Mary escaped from the hands of those holding her fast and quickly, quickly ran up all the high steps to the Temple.

The great high priest Zacharias took her into his arms and performed something extraordinary, something that had never before been done: he not only led her into God’s Temple, but led her into the Holy of Holies, where there once had stood the Ark of the Covenant and into which only the high priest, and no one else, had the right to enter once a year. The blessed Zacharias led the babe Mary into the Holy of Holies and gave her permission, when she wanted to, even if every day, to enter here to pray.

Thus was the childhood of her, who would become the All-Pure Temple of the Savior, observed. Let us leave her, the Holiest of the Holy, to pray in the Lord’s Temple… Let us turn our thoughts to our own children.

All of you, fathers and mothers, have heard the astounding question of the Apostle Paul: “Know ye not that ye are the temples of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16). Do you not know that you and your children are intended to serve God in spirit and truth, in works of love and righteousness?

If so, if all are intended to become living temples of God, then does not that require all of us to dedicate ourselves to God from our very earliest years of childhood and youth? Oh yes, oh yes – it goes without saying that this is required. But how can we fulfill this requirement?

This is an extremely difficult question, and I would like, if not to explain it to you, then at least to turn your attention to the importance and difficulty of this essential deed.

All of us receive sanctification in God’s Temple; we are sanctified in it by great and glorious Mysteries that bring us close to God, to the Lord Jesus Christ, making us even into temples of the Holy Spirit.

In God’s Temple, at the divine services, we hear the great words of the Mystery of the Bloodless Sacrifice; we hear the chanting and reading of the Church, and receive great, very important, and very profound sanctification.

But without the sanctification of the Mysteries of the divine services of the Church, can we become temples of the Spirit of God?

But you know that, by God’s allowance, this has become impossible for many Christians, for the divine services have ceased in many churches; for many people, especially peasants, live far, far away from churches in which the divine services and Mysteries continue to be celebrated.

This is very, very hard for us, especially for those who do not have the opportunity to hear the divine services, to be sanctified by the great mysteries of the Church.

This is very hard, but do we really need to give in to hopelessness? Do we really have no opportunity to raise our children in such a way that they would become temples of God and abodes of the Holy Spirit? No, God has not abandoned us, for we know from Holy Scripture that we can raise our children in our own house churches, about which the Apostle Paul speaks at length in his great epistles.

I should like to draw your attention to these words “house churches.” Completing his First Epistle to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul conveys greetings from his friends Aquila and Priscilla and their house churches. They had their own house church.

In the Epistle to Philemon, the Apostle greets him with “the church in thy house” and their friends (Philemon 1:2). He also had a house church. Similar greetings to “house churches” are found in the epistles of the great Apostle to the Romans and the Colossians. They also had house churches.

What is a “house church” and what did the Apostle himself understand by these words? A “house church” is a strong Christian family.

I will first say what a “house church” was in ancient times, and will allow you to ponder deeply over what, at least to a small extent, a house church could be in our times.

He understood the very profound significance of the Christian family; he understood that the family, not only in a Christian state, but also in all other states far from Christianity, was of very great significance. He understood that the family is the primary unit that lies at the foundation of everything that takes places in the state and in society. Society itself and the state itself depend in great part on how individual families live, and on the goals that they have in their life.

If this primary unit is perfect, if it is pure, if it places before itself important and profound moral and spiritual goals, then society and the state will reflect these qualities of its primary unit: the family.

What was the house church in the times of the Apostle Paul, in these ancient times?

It was built along the lines of our dioceses, which are predominated, led, and guided by the bishop, who is called to the great mystery of the priesthood.

He directs the entire spiritual life of his diocese, taking care that the great commandments of our Lord Jesus Christ be realized and implemented in his diocese.

In ancient times, the meaning and significance of the father of the family was similar to the role the bishop was to play in his diocese.

He was to direct the entire spiritual life of his family; he was, to whatever small degree, to fulfill the duties that the bishop fulfilled in his diocese; he was, to a greater or lesser extent, to be the bishop of his family.

The mother of the family was to be like the ancient deaconesses. These were deeply devout women who were assigned by bishops to prepare women for the Mystery of Baptism. By frequent and long conversations, they prepared women for the Mystery of Baptism; they explained the profound and great significance of this Mystery; and served at its performance over women. Moreover, they took care of feeding the hungry and strangers and of clothing the needy. They served everyone who was in need of deeds of mercy; they were the directors and first performers of these deeds.

Thus, all mothers and wives were to have been like the deaconesses in the house churches. Upon them lay the extremely important responsibility of teaching the Law of God and the commandments of Christ to their children and to all members of their family.

Today the state schools, as you know, do not teach the Law of God.

May all mothers today remember their most important and primary responsibility of enlightening their children with the light of Christ’s truth.

If the All-Holy and All-Pure Mother of God, already from the age of three, was dedicated to God; if she always breathed the incense of the people’s prayers in the Temple of Jerusalem; if she breathed the incense of the censer, then would not our children always be in need of this?

Do not our children need to breathe the incense of the censer, the incense of the people’s prayers?

In the ancient years of the Russian Church, the whole people understood this well, and children were brought up in a Christian and ecclesial spirit. Russian children, like the little All-Holy Theotokos, also breathed the incense of the people’s prayers and the smoke of the censer.

Thus it was, but thus it is no longer. Where is all this now? Do you now know how today the majority of Russian people have left all this behind, how they do not want to know anything about this, how they have no need of the Church, and have no need of the aroma of the censer’s incense?

Nonetheless, the Lord God has preserved a remnant, a considerable remnant: the churches are full of worshippers; and you, the small flock of Christ entrusted to me by God, eagerly listen to the word of God, and you fill our holy church. That means that not all is lost; that means that what the Apostle Paul says about house churches remains in force for us.

And you, too, and not only the ancient Christians, can perform the tasks that lay on the house churches.

I know, I know, how busy you are; how burdened you all are with social work, with working in factories, with jobs – not only husbands are busy, but so too are wives, the mothers of families. I know how difficult it is for them to fulfill their job responsibilities, and their family responsibilities, and their responsibilities akin to the ancient deaconesses: the responsibilities of mothers raising their children. I know, I know – and you know.

But if this work is difficult, then do we really need to conclude that one need not strive to fulfill it?!

Before all other deeds, remember about this great deed: that your children, innocent and pure children, take into their pure hearts the Law of God, the commandments of Christ, at least from the small amount of instruction that they can receive from you.

You have not yet forgotten the Law of God, so teach, teach your children, and then your family will become your house church. And the light of Christ from this house church will spread invisibly for you beyond the boundaries of your family.

The Light of Christ, His Divine Truth, will invisibly flow into the hearts and minds of all those who have dealings with you. It could be that the influence of your house church will go beyond its boundaries.

Then the eternal blessing of our Lord and God Jesus Christ, His Beginningless Father, and the All-Holy Spirit will be upon you.

Amen.

(1957. Translated from the Russian.)

Fr Alexis Trader 11/12/25 Fr Alexis Trader 11/12/25

Impulsivity, Addiction, and the Passions

It all begins with an idea.

Hieromonk Alexis

October 2015

(Hieromonk Alexis (Trader) from Mt. Athos discusses impulse and addiction in patristic terms, and shows patristic parallels in the twelve step program.)

It should come as no surprise to those familiar with individuals struggling with addiction that impulsivity is a core issue. In technical terms, there is a certain fundamental correlation between addiction and impulsivity. People who are impulsive are more vulnerable to developing addictive behavior, because they give little regard to adverse consequences (Impulse Control Disorders and Co-Occurring Disorders, Potenza, p. 51) or to be more precise, they prefer immediate reinforcers to delayed ones, instant gratification to long-term satisfaction. Being impulsive means acting without forethought. And although those struggling to be free of an addiction know full well that not acting on impulse is in the long run more beneficial than giving in, when temptation arises, forethought that motivates becomes a nigh impossible task and impulsivity takes over, impulsivity that in its pathological form can be defined as “a failure to regulate, monitor, or control behavior and emotional expression” (Impulsivity in Neurobehavioral Disorders, Holmes, Johnson, Roedel, p. 309).

The first step in all the many 12 step-groups begins with “we admitted that we were powerless over _______ that our lives had become unmanageable.” This certainly fits the above definition for pathological impulsivity and clearly expresses the strong link between addiction and impulsivity. And the impulsive life can certainly become unmanageable. In fact, left unchecked, impulsive behavior will eventually take on the characteristics of infantile behavior without any of the innocence of childhood (Gratifying Impulses, Toch & Adams, p. 145) becoming increasingly destructive and even potentially violent. Toch and Adams note the danger in gratifying the impulses: “Gratifying impulses is by definition a destructive enterprise, because other people become objects of need satisfaction. Less obviously, impulse gratification can be self-destructive, because the reactions the person invites compound his or her problems and can escalate into ugly, no-win confrontations.”

In the ascetic literature, the closest notions to that of impulses are provocations (προσβολη) and momentary disturbances (παραρριπισμος). These particular thoughts or λογισμοι assail human beings from the outside and call forth, if not demand, a response. They are temptations, which if repeatedly acted on, become passions that automatically direct hapless souls down crooked paths away from God. The ascetic struggles of the Church fathers have been directed at recognizing and rooting out the passions in all of their manifestations. And though provocations or impulses still come, the soul remains steadfast in cleaving to God and fulfilling His holy will. Whether the problem be addiction, impulsivity, the passions or some combination of the three, the starting point for healing is always rigorous honesty, “a searching and fearless moral inventory.” Thus, Saint Mark the Ascetic writes, “Do not say, ‘I don’t want it, but it happens.’ For even though you may not want the thing itself, you welcome what causes it” (On the Spiritual law, 142). The welcoming of impulses is the real problem that needs to be addressed.

Whether the problem be impulses, addiction, or the passions, real change requires a new way of life, a new way of engaging with the world, of relating to others, and of relying on God. The Fathers, in their ascetic works, describe in detail this life in which one need not be at the mercy of impulses. Early on in his The Ladder of Divine Ascent, Saint John Climacus writes, “At the gate of your heart place strict unsleeping guards. Restrain actions and movements of your limbs, practice noetic (intellectual) stillness. And, most paradoxical of all, in the midst of commotion, be unmoved in soul. Curb your tongue which rages to leap into arguments (4:37).” Guards are aware that burglars may try to enter and know precisely what to do if they appear. This kind of awareness then is the first treatment for impulsivity. The second is paying strict attention to your hands and legs and not allowing them to move according to the dictates of impulses. Though difficult this is certainly possible. If this battle is won, one can find stillness by turning again and again to Christ. Finally, what applies to the limbs can apply also to one’s tongue. Saint John of Climacus continues, “Stillness of the body is knowledge and composure of the habits and feelings. And stillness of soul is the knowledge of one’s thoughts and an inviolable mind. (27:2); Bring out the staff of patience, and the dogs will soon stop their insolence” (27:70). Again watchfulness over what one does and how one feels as well as watchfulness over the thoughts, with patience, can make us less impulsive.

In combating the manifestation of impulsivity in a particular destructive behavior or passion as the fathers call it, the holy fathers have a specific strategy to combat each behavior/passion. For example, Saint John Climacus counsels those who have a problem with anger by first describing it, “An angry person is a willing epileptic, who due to an involuntary tendency keeps convulsing and falling down.” (8:11) and then offering a healing strategy, “The beginning of freedom from anger is silence of the lips when the heart is agitated; the middle is silence of the thoughts when there is a mere disturbance of the soul; and the end is an imperturbable calm under the breath of unclean winds” (8:4). The description is meant to wake the reader up to the reality of the negative consequences of the passion. The healing strategy is meant to offer tools that can be used at the time of the struggle.

Rather than focusing on the passion, the fathers often counsel their spiritual children to focus on the corresponding virtue to the passion that assails them. In the case of anger, Saint John counsels the cultivation of meekness by keeping the tongue silent, the mind undisturbed (by not focusing on the object of the anger), and finally calm in spite of the circumstances. Of course, no virtue is achieved on one’s own but only through synergy with the grace of God, which is something 12 Step Groups struggling for recovery from addiction acknowledge when they say “we turn our will and our lives over to the care of God.” With God’s help, with wise watchfulness, with control over our limbs, and with much patience, the addicted, the impulsive, and the passionate can all hope to say, as once did Saint Paul: “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Phillipians 4:13).

This article is from http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/81923.htm

St John Chrysostom 11/11/25 St John Chrysostom 11/11/25

The Nativity Sermon of St. John Chrysostom

It all begins with an idea.

St. John Chrysostom

December 2015

Behold a new and wondrous mystery.

My ears resound to the Shepherd’s song, piping no soft melody, but chanting full forth a heavenly hymn. The Angels sing. The Archangels blend their voice in harmony. The Cherubim hymn their joyful praise. The Seraphim exalt His glory. All join to praise this holy feast, beholding the Godhead here on earth, and man in heaven. He Who is above, now for our redemption dwells here below; and he that was lowly is by divine mercy raised.

Bethlehem this day resembles heaven; hearing from the stars the singing of angelic voices; and in place of the sun, enfolds within itself on every side, the Sun of justice. And ask not how: for where God wills, the order of nature yields. For He willed; He had the power; He descended; He redeemed; all things yielded in obedience to God. This day He Who is, is Born; and He Who is, becomes what He was not. For when He was God, He became man; yet not departing from the Godhead that is His. Nor yet by any loss of divinity became He man, nor through increase became He God from man; but being the Word He became flesh, His nature, because of impassability, remaining unchanged.

And so the kings have come, and they have seen the heavenly King that has come upon the earth, not bringing with Him Angels, nor Archangels, nor Thrones, nor Dominations, nor Powers, nor Principalities, but, treading a new and solitary path, He has come forth from a spotless womb.

Since this heavenly birth cannot be described, neither does His coming amongst us in these days permit of too curious scrutiny. Though I know that a Virgin this day gave birth, and I believe that God was begotten before all time, yet the manner of this generation I have learned to venerate in silence and I accept that this is not to be probed too curiously with wordy speech.

For with God we look not for the order of nature, but rest our faith in the power of Him who works.

What shall I say to you; what shall I tell you? I behold a Mother who has brought forth; I see a Child come to this light by birth. The manner of His conception I cannot comprehend.

Nature here rested, while the Will of God labored. O ineffable grace! The Only Begotten, Who is before all ages, Who cannot be touched or be perceived, Who is simple, without body, has now put on my body, that is visible and liable to corruption. For what reason? That coming amongst us he may teach us, and teaching, lead us by the hand to the things that men cannot see. For since men believe that the eyes are more trustworthy than the ears, they doubt of that which they do not see, and so He has deigned to show Himself in bodily presence, that He may remove all doubt.

Christ, finding the holy body and soul of the Virgin, builds for Himself a living temple, and as He had willed, formed there a man from the Virgin; and, putting Him on, this day came forth; unashamed of the lowliness of our nature.

For it was to Him no lowering to put on what He Himself had made. Let that handiwork be forever glorified, which became the cloak of its own Creator. For as in the first creation of flesh, man could not be made before the clay had come into His hand, so neither could this corruptible body be glorified, until it had first become the garment of its Maker.

What shall I say! And how shall I describe this Birth to you? For this wonder fills me with astonishment. The Ancient of days has become an infant. He Who sits upon the sublime and heavenly Throne, now lies in a manger. And He Who cannot be touched, Who is simple, without complexity, and incorporeal, now lies subject to the hands of men. He Who has broken the bonds of sinners, is now bound by an infants bands. But He has decreed that ignominy shall become honor, infamy be clothed with glory, and total humiliation the measure of His Goodness.

For this He assumed my body, that I may become capable of His Word; taking my flesh, He gives me His spirit; and so He bestowing and I receiving, He prepares for me the treasure of Life. He takes my flesh, to sanctify me; He gives me His Spirit that He may save me.

Come, then, let us observe the Feast. Truly wondrous is the whole chronicle of the Nativity. For this day the ancient slavery is ended, the devil confounded, the demons take to flight, the power of death is broken, paradise is unlocked, the curse is taken away, sin is removed from us, error driven out, truth has been brought back, the speech of kindliness diffused, and spreads on every side, a heavenly way of life has been planted on the earth, angels communicate with men without fear, and men now hold speech with angels.

Why is this? Because God is now on earth, and man in heaven; on every side all things commingle. He became Flesh. He did not become God. He was God. Wherefore He became flesh, so that He Whom heaven did not contain, a manger would this day receive. He was placed in a manger, so that He, by whom all things are nourished, may receive an infants food from His Virgin Mother. So, the Father of all ages, as an infant at the breast, nestles in the virginal arms, that the Magi may more easily see Him. Since this day the Magi too have come, and made a beginning of withstanding tyranny; and the heavens give glory, as the Lord is revealed by a star.

To Him, then, Who out of confusion has wrought a clear path, to Christ, to the Father, and to the Holy Spirit, we offer all praise, now and forever. Amen.

St Gregory Palamas 11/11/25 St Gregory Palamas 11/11/25

Of the Entry of Our Most Pure Lady Theotokos into the Holy Of Holies

It all begins with an idea.

Saint Gregory Palamas, Archbishop of Thessalonica

November 2010

If a tree is known by its fruit, and a good tree bears good fruit (Mt. 7:17; Luke 6:44), then is not the Mother of Goodness Itself, She who bore the Eternal Beauty, incomparably more excellent than every good, whether in this world or the world above? Therefore, the coeternal and identical Image of goodness, Preeternal, transcending all being, He Who is the preexisting and good Word of the Father, moved by His unutterable love for mankind and compassion for us, put on our image, that He might reclaim for Himself our nature which had been dragged down to uttermost Hades, so as to renew this corrupted nature and raise it to the heights of Heaven. For this purpose, He had to assume a flesh that was both new and ours, that He might refashion us from out of ourselves. Now He finds a Handmaiden perfectly suited to these needs, the supplier of Her own unsullied nature, the Ever-Virgin now hymned by us, and Whose miraculous Entrance into the Temple, into the Holy of Holies, we now celebrate. God predestined Her before the ages for the salvation and reclaiming of our kind. She was chosen, not just from the crowd, but from the ranks of the chosen of all ages, renowned for piety and understanding, and for their God-pleasing words and deeds.

In the beginning, there was one who rose up against us: the author of evil, the serpent, who dragged us into the abyss. Many reasons impelled him to rise up against us, and there are many ways by which he enslaved our nature: envy, rivalry, hatred, injustice, treachery, slyness, etc. In addition to all this, he also has within him the power of bringing death, which he himself engendered, being the first to fall away from true life.

The author of evil was jealous of Adam, when he saw him being led from earth to Heaven, from which he was justly cast down. Filled with envy, he pounced upon Adam with a terrible ferocity, and even wished to clothe him with the garb of death. Envy is not only the begetter of hatred, but also of murder, which this truly man-hating serpent brought about in us. For he wanted to be master over the earth-born for the ruin of that which was created in the image and likeness of God. Since he was not bold enough to make a face to face attack, he resorted to cunning and deceit. This truly terrible and malicious plotter pretended to be a friend and useful adviser by assuming the physical form of a serpent, and stealthily took their position. By his God-opposing advice, he instills in man his own death-bearing power, like a venomous poison.

If Adam had been sufficiently strong to keep the divine commandment, then he would have shown himself the vanquisher of his enemy, and withstood his deathly attack. But since he voluntarily gave in to sin, he was defeated and was made a sinner. Since he is the root of our race, he has produced us as death-bearing shoots. So, it was necessary for us, if he were to fight back against his defeat and to claim victory, to rid himself of the death-bearing venomous poison in his soul and body, and to absorb life, eternal and indestructible life.

It was necessary for us to have a new root for our race, a new Adam, not just one Who would be sinless and invincible, but one Who also would be able to forgive sins and set free from punishment those subject to it. And not only would He have life in Himself, but also the capacity to restore to life, so that He could grant to those who cleave to Him and are related to Him by race both life and the forgiveness of their sins, restoring to life not only those who came after Him, but also those who already had died before Him. Therefore, St Paul, that great trumpet of the Holy Spirit, exclaims, “the first man Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam was made a quickening spirit” (1 Cor. 15:45).

Except for God, there is no one who is without sin, or life-creating, or able to remit sin. Therefore, the new Adam must be not only Man, but also God. He is at the same time life, wisdom, truth, love, and mercy, and every other good thing, so that He might renew the old Adam and restore him to life through mercy, wisdom and righteousness. These are the opposites of the things which the author of evil used to bring about our aging and death.

As the slayer of mankind raised himself against us with envy and hatred, so the Source of life was lifted up [on the Cross] because of His immeasurable goodness and love for mankind. He intensely desired the salvation of His creature, i.e., that His creature would be restored by Himself. In contrast to this, the author of evil wanted to bring God’s creature to ruin, and thereby put mankind under his own power, and tyrannically to afflict us. And just as he achieved the conquest and the fall of mankind by means of injustice and cunning, by deceit and his trickery, so has the Liberator brought about the defeat of the author of evil, and the restoration of His own creature with truth, justice and wisdom.

It was a deed of perfect justice that our nature, which was voluntarily enslaved and struck down, should again enter the struggle for victory and cast off its voluntary enslavement. Therefore, God deigned to receive our nature from us, hypostatically uniting with it in a marvelous way. But it was impossible to unite that Most High Nature, Whose purity is incomprehensible for human reason, to a sinful nature before it had been purified. Therefore, for the conception and birth of the Bestower of purity, a perfectly spotless and Most Pure Virgin was required.

Today we celebrate the memory of those things that contributed, if only once, to the Incarnation. He Who is God by nature, the Co-unoriginate and Coeternal Word and Son of the Transcendent Father, becomes the Son of Man, the Son of the Ever-Virgin. “Jesus Christ the same yesterday and today, and forever” (Heb. 13:8), immutable in His divinity and blameless in His humanity, He alone, as the Prophet Isaiah prophesied, “practiced no iniquity, nor deceit with His lips” (Is. 53: 9). He alone was not brought forth in iniquity, nor was He conceived in sin, in contrast to what the Prophet David says concerning himself and every other man (Ps. 50/51: 5). Even in what He assumes, He is perfectly pure and has no need to be cleansed Himself. But for our sake, He accepted purification, suffering, death and resurrection, that He might transmit them to us.

God is born of the spotless and Holy Virgin, or better to say, of the Most Pure and All-Holy Virgin. She is above every fleshly defilement, and even above every impure thought. Her conceiving resulted not from fleshly lust, but by the overshadowing of the Most Holy Spirit. Such desire being utterly alien to Her, it is through prayer and spiritual readiness that She declared to the angel: “Behold the handmaiden of the Lord; be it unto Me according to thy word” (Luke 1:38), and that She conceived and gave birth. So, in order to render the Virgin worthy of this sublime purpose, God marked this ever-virgin Daughter now praised by us, from before the ages, and from eternity, choosing Her from out of His elect.

Turn your attention then, to where this choice began. From the sons of Adam God chose the wondrous Seth, who showed himself a living heaven through his becoming behavior, and through the beauty of his virtues. That is why he was chosen, and from whom the Virgin would blossom as the divinely fitting chariot of God. She was needed to give birth and to summon the earth-born to heavenly sonship. For this reason also all the lineage of Seth were called “sons of God,” because from this lineage a son of man would be born the Son of God. The name Seth signifies a rising or resurrection, or more specifically, it signifies the Lord, Who promises and gives immortal life to all who believe in Him.

And how precisely exact is this parallel! Seth was born of Eve, as she herself said, in place of Abel, whom Cain killed through jealousy (Gen. 4:25); and Christ, the Son of the Virgin, was born for us in place of Adam, whom the author of evil also killed through jealousy. But Seth did not resurrect Abel, since he was only a type of the resurrection. But our Lord Jesus Christ resurrected Adam, since He is the very Life and the Resurrection of the earth-born, for whose sake the descendents of Seth are granted divine adoption through hope, and are called the children of God. It was because of this hope that they were called sons of God, as is evident from the one who was first called so, the successor in the choice. This was Enos, the son of Seth, who as Moses wrote, first hoped to call on the Name of the Lord (Gen. 4:26).

In this manner, the choice of the future Mother of God, beginning with the very sons of Adam and proceeding through all the generations of time, through the Providence of God, passes to the Prophet-king David and the successors of his kingdom and lineage. When the chosen time had come, then from the house and posterity of David, Joachim and Anna are chosen by God. Though they were childless, they were by their virtuous life and good disposition the finest of all those descended from the line of David. And when in prayer they besought God to deliver them from their childlessness, and promised to dedicate their child to God from its infancy. By God Himself, the Mother of God was proclaimed and given to them as a child, so that from such virtuous parents the all-virtuous child would be raised. So in this manner, chastity joined with prayer came to fruition by producing the Mother of virginity, giving birth in the flesh to Him Who was born of God the Father before the ages.

Now, when Righteous Joachim and Anna saw that they had been granted their wish, and that the divine promise to them was realized in fact, then they on their part, as true lovers of God, hastened to fulfill their vow given to God as soon as the child had been weaned from milk. They have now led this truly sanctified child of God, now the Mother of God, this Virgin into the Temple of God. And She, being filled with Divine gifts even at such a tender age, ... She, rather than others, determined what was being done over Her. In Her manner She showed that She was not so much presented into the Temple, but that She Herself entered into the service of God of her own accord, as if she had wings, striving towards this sacred and divine love. She considered it desirable and fitting that she should enter into the Temple and dwell in the Holy of Holies.

Therefore, the High Priest, seeing that this child, more than anyone else, had divine grace within Her, wished to set Her within the Holy of Holies. He convinced everyone present to welcome this, since God had advanced it and approved it. Through His angel, God assisted the Virgin and sent Her mystical food, with which She was strengthened in nature, while in body She was brought to maturity and was made purer and more exalted than the angels, having the Heavenly spirits as servants. She was led into the Holy of Holies not just once, but was accepted by God to dwell there with Him during Her youth, so that through Her, the Heavenly Abodes might be opened and given for an eternal habitation to those who believe in Her miraculous birthgiving.

So it is, and this is why She, from the beginning of time, was chosen from among the chosen. She Who is manifest as the Holy of Holies, Who has a body even purer than the spirits purified by virtue, is capable of receiving ... the Hypostatic Word of the Unoriginate Father. Today the Ever-Virgin Mary, like a Treasure of God, is stored in the Holy of Holies, so that in due time, (as it later came to pass) She would serve for the enrichment of, and an ornament for, all the world. Therefore, Christ God also glorifies His Mother, both before, and also after His birth.

We who understand the salvation begun for our sake through the Most Holy Virgin, give Her thanks and praise according to our ability. And truly, if the grateful woman (of whom the Gospel tells us), after hearing the saving words of the Lord, blessed and thanked His Mother, raising her voice above the din of the crowd and saying to Christ, “Blessed is the womb that bore Thee, and the paps Thou hast sucked” (Luke 11:27), then we who have the words of eternal life written out for us, and not only the words, but also the miracles and the Passion, and the raising of our nature from death, and its ascent from earth to Heaven, and the promise of immortal life and unfailing salvation, then how shall we not unceasingly hymn and bless the Mother of the Author of our Salvation and the Giver of Life, celebrating Her conception and birth, and now Her Entry into the Holy of Holies?

Now, brethren, let us remove ourselves from earthly to celestial things. Let us change our path from the flesh to the spirit. Let us change our desire from temporal things to those that endure. Let us scorn fleshly delights, which serve as allurements for the soul and soon pass away. Let us desire spiritual gifts, which remain undiminished. Let us turn our reason and our attention from earthly concerns and raise them to the inaccessible places of Heaven, to the Holy of Holies, where the Mother of God now resides.

Therefore, in such manner our songs and prayers to Her will gain entry, and thus through her mediation, we shall be heirs of the everlasting blessings to come, through the grace and love for mankind of Him Who was born of Her for our sake, our Lord Jesus Christ, to Whom be glory, honor and worship, together with His Unoriginate Father and His Coeternal and Life-Creating Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.

Fr Michael Oleksa 11/11/25 Fr Michael Oleksa 11/11/25

The Holy Martyr St. Basil Martysz of Osceola Mills

It all begins with an idea.

by Jaroslaw Charkiewicz
Translated and Edited by V. Rev. Michael Oleksa

May 2010

The holy New-Martyr Archpriest Vasily Martysz was born on February 20, 1874 in Tertyn, in the Hrubieszow region of southeastern Poland. His father Alexander was a judge in Molczyce near Pinsk. After his retirement, he was ordained a priest and became rector of a local parish.

Fr. Vasily, in his early years of priesthood, served in Alaska where long distances and severe climate presented extremely difficult circumstances and thus required many sacrifices. Often he would leave home for several weeks, in order to celebrate the services, to confess, baptize, marry the living, and to bury the dead, while traveling in a specially constructed kayak. He taught in the parish school and worked in two church homes for the poor. After serving nearly twelve years in America, Fr. Martysz left the New World and returned to Europe in 1912. Father Vasily served as chief of Orthodox chaplains for the next twenty-five years. Within the Ministry of the Interior, he had his own cabinet and was directly responsible to the Minister himself. He celebrated the Divine Liturgy in their language at Ukrainian internment camps for over 5,000 prisoners. The Polish Secretary of the Army, Lucjan Zeligowski sent a congratulatory letter to Father Vasily on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of his ordination, December 7, 1925, stating "The virtues of this remarkably talented, conscientious and diligent servant, completely devoted to the Polish nation, expressed in his receiving a high distinction, the Order of Polonia Restituta, which is conferred upon him for his efforts in securing the Autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in Poland."

Education

In 1884, at the age of ten, Vasily made a brief trip to New York with his father. His beautiful singing during a church service attracted the attention of Bishop Vladimir. The hierarch prophesied that young Vasily would become a priest, and promised that he would invite him to his diocese in America once he was ordained. After returning to his country, he remembered the bishop's words, and decided to follow in his father's footsteps and become a priest. He began his theological education at the seminary in Chelm, where the rector was Bishop Tikhon (Belavin), the future Patriarch of Moscow. Immediately after graduating in July 1899, Vasily married Olga Nowik, and was ordained a deacon. On December 10, 1900 he was ordained a priest. That same month he left Breman for America. The young couple expected to be assigned to a parish in New York, but instead he was appointed to a parish in Alaska. Together with the newly-appointed Bishop Tikhon, he began his missionary service in the land of St. Herman.

America

Orthodoxy had arrived in Alaska with the coming of the monastic mission from Valaam in 1794. At the start of the twentieth century, climatic and social conditions in this vast territory remained difficult. In his pastoral work, Fr. Vasily met Russian settlers and indigenous inhabitants of the region, Eskimos and Aleuts. He also encountered gold rush pioneers quite often.

Father Vasily's first parish was extensive. He was headquartered on Afognak, but he was also responsible for the people on Spruce and Woody Islands near Kodiak. There were several small 645 Greensboro Rd., High Point, NC Volume 4, Number 9 wooden chapels scattered on these islands. In 1901, as a result of his efforts, the church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Virgin was built at Afognak (Although the village was completely destroyed in the earthquake and tidal wave of 1964, the church building survives to this day).

Because of the long distances and severe climate, Fr. Vasily's priestly work was extremely difficult and required many sacrifices. Often he would leave home for several weeks, in order to celebrate the services, to confess, baptize, marry the living, and to bury the dead, while traveling in a specially constructed kayak. Even when he was at home, Fr Vasily had very little time to devote to his dear family. Besides celebrating the services in church and serving the needs of his parishioners, he taught in the parish school and worked in two church homes for the poor. His family bore the arduous conditions, especially the climate, with difficulty. His wife Olga, who had given birth to two daughters, stayed home. The older daughter, Vera, was born at Afognak in 1902. Their second daughter was born two years later, after they had moved to Kodiak.

During his missionary service in Alaska, Fr. Vasily kept a diary. It has survived to this day as one of the few records of his personal life. Fragments have been translated from Russian and published in Polish. Because of the severe Alaskan climate, which especially affected Matushka Olga, and out of concern for the education of their children, the Martysz family transferred to the continental United States in 1906. As a farewell statement from Alaska that year, Fr. Vasily wrote an article for the Russian Orthodox American Messenger, "The Voice from Alaska," in which he appealed to Orthodox faithful across the USA to support the building of Orthodox churches in Alaska.

The family settled in Osceola Mills in central Pennsylvania. Their first son, Vasily, was born that same year, and their youngest child Helen was born in 1908, soon after they moved to Old Forge, PA. Fr Vasily's work took him to Waterbury, CT, to West Troy, NY, and finally to Canada. He was assigned to Edmonton and then to Vostok, where he became Dean of the provinces of Alberta and Manitoba. In 1910, he celebrated his tenth anniversary in the priesthood. His prolific and loving pastoral activity endeared him to his flock. Church authorities considered him a very effective, devoted and talented priest, while the faithful loved him sincerely, valuing his modesty and kindness.

Despite their comfortable lifestyle and the relatively large Orthodox community they served in western Canada, the couple longed for their homeland. They feared the loss of their ancestral identity and requested permission to return to Poland. After serving nearly twelve years in America, Fr. Martysz left the New World and returned to Europe in 1912.

Return

Initially, Fr. Vasily and his family lived with relatives in Sosnowiec, where he eventually became rector of the parish and instructor in Religious Education at the local girls' high school. The peaceful life they enjoyed there lasted barely one year, since the outbreak of the First World war disrupted the lives of thousands. Clergy were considered civil servants who were ordered to evacuate their homes, and move to safety inside Russia. At this critical time, Bishop Vladimir, their Archpastor and friend from Alaska, offered the Martysz family refuge in a small apartment within the St Andronicus Monastery in Moscow. From here, Fr. Vasily commuted daily to the distant parish at Valdai, where he taught religious education classes. When the Bolsheviks seized power, he lost this job and was forced to earn a living unloading railroad cars. His own life was endangered because Red Army soldiers often treated clergy with distinct brutality.

In 1919, at the end of the war, Polish refugees were granted permission to return to their former residences. Father Vasily and his family took this opportunity to return to Sosnowiec. They moved back into their former apartment, which had survived the devastation of the war. They did not remain long, however, for that September Fr. Vasily was assigned to a position in the newly organized Polish Army, in charge of Orthodox Affairs in the Religious Ministry of the War Department. The whole family relocated to Warsaw. Father Vasily started the wearisome but important work of forming an Orthodox military chaplaincy. In 1921, he was promoted to the rank of colonel, and assumed responsibility as the head of the Orthodox military chaplaincy. At this time, the church elevated him to the rank of Archpriest. Father Vasily served as chief of Orthodox chaplains for the next twenty-five years. Within the Ministry of the Interior, he had his own cabinet, and was directly responsible to the Minister himself.

Autocephaly

Father Vasily was also a chief advisor and close colleague of Metropolitan George (Jaroszewski) of Warsaw and all Poland. He participated in preparing all the meetings of the Holy Synod, and assisted Metropolitan George in his effort to obtain autocephaly for the Polish Orthodox Church. He accompanied the Metropolitan on the tragic day of February 8, 1923, when he was assassinated. The assassin had also planned to kill Fr. Vasily as well, but he was captured before he could succeed. Fr. Vasily remained under police protection for some time, but attended to all the details of the Metropolitan's funeral, in which the First Regiment of the Szwolezers Regiment participated under orders from Marshal Jozef Pilsudski.

Father Vasily zealously participated in the subsequent process of obtaining autocephaly {autonomy} for the Orthodox Church in Poland, which was granted during the tenure of Metropolitan Dionysius (Walednski) in 1925. Fr. Vasily became the Metropolitan's closest advisor and confidant. He often accompanied the Metropolitan and acted as liaison with the Polish Head of State, Marshal Pilsudski. He was often invited to attend cabinet meetings at Belvedere, the Royal Castle, where he regularly signed the guest book on holidays.

In addition to his work as chief military chaplain, Fr. Vasily devoted much time to organizing pastoral ministry in the Ukrainian internment camps. In February 1921, Fr. Vasily appointed Fr. Peter Biton as chaplain for the camp in Aleksandrow Kujawski. He visited the Ukrainian internees himself and helped arrange camp churches. On July 8, 1921, he celebrated the Divine Liturgy in the Ukrainian language for over 5,000 prisoners, while visiting this camp. His sermon, delivered in Ukrainian, greatly improved their morale. He also assisted in organizing chaplains' training courses in other Ukrainian army camps.

The Polish Secretary of the Army, Lucjan Zeligowski sent a congratulatory letter to Father Vasily on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of his ordination, December 7, 1925, stating "The virtues of this remarkably talented, conscientious and diligent servant, completely devoted to the Polish nation, expressed in his receiving a high distinction, the Order of Polonia Restituta, which is conferred upon him for his efforts in securing the Autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in Poland."

Father Vasily retired from his government position in 1936. The couple decided to leave Warsaw and return to their home region, Hrubieszowszczna. They built two houses in Teratyn, one for themselves and another for their widowed mothers. They did not enjoy this peaceful life for very long, because in 1939 the German Army invaded Poland. The village gradually declined. Both of their mothers died. Matushka herself did not live to see the end of the war, but died in 1943. Then Father Vasily's youngest daughter, Helen, moved into his house with her husband and daughter in order to support him.

Father Martysz spent the difficult war years in Teratyn. On May 4, 1945 (Great and Holy Friday), a few days before the surrender of Nazi Germany, his house was attacked. A female acquaintance warned him of the danger, but he replied, "I have done no harm to anyone and I will not run away from anyone. Christ did not run away." Father Vasily did not fear and did not flee from his tormentors. He faced them bravely, in a Christ-like way, accepting the crown of martyrdom. The villains, seeking gold and money, had no respect for his uniform as a colonel in the Polish Army, nor for his priestly vestments.

Martyrdom

The bandits broke into the house by breaking a window. With callous cruelty they tortured Father Vasily though his only crime was that he was an Orthodox priest. They beat his pregnant daughter Helen, causing her to miscarry. They beat Father Vasily for four hours, reviving him by throwing water on him when he lost consciousness. Horribly tortured, he was finally murdered by a gun shot. The criminals threatened to shoot Helen as well, When she knelt before the icon of Christ and began to pray, the executioner's aim and resolve weakened. They left, threatening to return and kill her as well.

On Great and Holy Saturday, Father John Lewczuk celebrated the burial rites for Father Vasily in Chelm. He was buried at the local cemetery in Teratyn.

In October 1963, the earthly remains of Father Vasily Martysz were brought to Warsaw and solemnly reinterred in the Orthodox cemetery in the Wola district, next to his wife and mother-in-law. At the beginning of 2003, his holy relics were uncovered and placed in the church of St John Climacus in Warsaw. The Holy Synod of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Poland promulgated the official Act of Canonization on March 20, 2003, and the rites glorifying St. Vasily Martysz were celebrated in Chelm on June 7-8.

Orthodox Christians in the Polish Army have taken St. Vasily Martysz as their heavenly patron. The martyrdom of St. Vasily was the crowning accomplishment of his pious and dedicated life, a testimony to his amazing courage. He carried his cross to the end without complaint, accepting the crown of martyrdom as he had dedicated his life to Christ and the Holy Orthodox Faith.

Taken from the website of St. Michael's Orthodox Church Valley Forge, PA from: http://www.stmof.org/St._Basil_Martysz.html

Fr Christopher Foley 11/1/25 Fr Christopher Foley 11/1/25

Be Here Now: Stability as Virtue

It all begins with an idea.

Fr. Christopher Foley

February 2008

" A tree which is often transplanted does not bear fruit."
St. Euthymius the Great

As we begin this month our journey towards Great Lent let us take some time to contemplate the importance of stability. This crazy, technologically advanced world we live and participate in presents us many choices. We are barraged constantly with choices and options. It has become a virtue to change often. Whether it be something as simple as brands, stores or any consumer product, or as serious as job, church, city, religion, political party or sexual orientation. We can recreate ourselves every day and this is seen as a good thing. As holistic beings, we can not help but be affected by all of this. As consumers we get to choose whatever we want, when we want it and can have it immediately. This is innocent enough, but when it comes to more important things like relationships, vocation and religion this can be a very serious matter. The most serious side effect of this is how we approach our spiritual life, and this is where we must give our attention.

We must begin by stating emphatically the conviction that the spiritual life is lived right in front of us, right here, right now. It is not lived in some other distant, remote place. We can so easily make excuses, "if only I lived in such and such a city or time, then things would be easier", or "if only I didn't have to work here, I could live a more peaceful life." We make many excuses as to why we don't simply take up our cross and embrace the present as the reality that our Lord has given to us for our salvation and healing. Within the various writings of the Fathers and Mothers of our Church, we can find many that deal with the issue of stability, vigilance, steadfastness as a virtue of the spiritual life as a Christian. There is the monastic adage that says, "stay where you are until you are compelled by the Spirit to go elsewhere" and "stay where you are and don't easily leave it." Obviously this has real meaning for one who has dedicated his or her life to the monastic life, but this has meaning for us as well. St. Euthymius the Great once said,

We must never admit evil thoughts that fill us with sorrow and hatred for the place in which we live, and suggest that we go somewhere else. If someone tries to do something good in the place where he lives but fails to complete it, he should not think that he will accomplish it elsewhere. It is not the place that produces success, but faith and a firm will. A tree which is often transplanted does not bear fruit.

This is the essence of stability - faith and a firm will in the presence of God here and now, and in this place. We can often be tempted to be elsewhere - another church, another family, a different job, etc. We pray often to our Lord God "who is present everywhere and fillest all things." Do we really have this as a conviction? As we mature in Christ we begin to realize that Christ came to smash all idols especially the ones that tell us that the spiritual life is lived elsewhere or that it looks the way we expect.

If we look at a thesaurus for synonyms for stability we find words such as adherence, assurance, backbone, balance, cohesion, constancy, dependability, determination, durability, endurance, firmness, maturity, permanence, security and steadfastness. Should not these be words that describe a mature Christian who takes his faith seriously and who is actively and intentionally engaging and actualizing this faith into his or her life? This is done primarily through seeing God in the midst of all of our circumstances.

In our thirst for holiness we must realize that God is here present with us in the present moment. There is a classic book by Jean-Pierre de Caussade where he speaks of the value of the "sacrament of the present moment." He says that if we truly desire and thirst for holiness we must actively engage God's will right in front of us. He says, "If we are thirsty we must not worry about books which explain what thirst is. If we waste time seeking an explanation about thirst, all that will happen is that we shall get thirstier." He says that it is the same with holiness and doing the will of God and that we should accept what God presents to us with child-like faith. "What God arranges for us to experience at each moment is the best and holiest thing that could happen to us." This acceptance of God's will in the present creates a strong foundation of stability upon which to build the house of our life in Christ which is experienced in active participation in the life of the Body of Christ, the Church. Let us, as we approach Great Lent, be mindful of these things and, with St. Herman of Alaska, " all make a vow: at least from this day, this hour, this very minute, we should strive to love God above all else and do His will!"

O Lord our God , help us to realize that our true life is only in Thee. Help us to do Thy will in all things and to be ever mindful of Thy glorious presence in all things. Help us to find our true stability in Thee alone. Amen.

Fr Joseph Allen 11/1/25 Fr Joseph Allen 11/1/25

What is So Orthodox at Thanksgiving?

It all begins with an idea.

Fr. Joseph Allen

November 2009

There is no "feast" that seems more "American" than Thanksgiving. Many of us Orthodox also recognize this holiday in some sort of way. Usually we say that it is a day in which "they" remember that the Pilgrims landed in this country. Of course, the "they" that we use in such a sentence refers to any of the non-Orthodox Americans that we live with.

And yet, this is real chance for us – it may be one of the few "American" things that we can truly make Orthodox. We will never be able to totally interpret the secular things of America in an Orthodox way – such as hot dogs and beer, or Rock and Roll Masses. But here on Thanksgiving Day is exactly where it should be done. This is so because if you think about and are especially aware of the words and feeling of our Divine Liturgy, there is nothing more Orthodox than giving thanks or "thanksgiving."

It is, therefore, on Thanksgiving Day that we have a chance to help America look deeper into itself – by looking at this "typical" American holiday of Thanksgiving from an Orthodox point of view. We know that to be Orthodox, if we really know about Orthodoxy, implies that "deeper look." But what is meant by looking deeper?

To begin with, if we as Americans, both Orthodox and non-Orthodox, fail to see the greater lesson of what "Thanksgiving" means, if it is just the remembering of an historical event, it will remain only a memory and not something that we call a Holiday, or better yet, a Holy Day. This is so because just the memory is not enough. Memory may be helpful, but it does not guarantee holiness. Why do we say Holy Day? When we answer this question, we will have taken that "deeper look."

Surely those that landed in America understood why the day was "holy." They were not only celebrating their historic landing as holy, as we do today in this shallow way; they looked deeper and when they did, they gave thanks together in a real communion with each other and with God for all the bountiful gifts with which they were blessed. Perhaps they understood, even better than we do, what it means when we sing in our Liturgy: "for the abundance of the fruits of the earth and for peaceful times…." That's it! That's the deeper look; men standing together before God in thankfulness. Men bound by common problems. Men bound by common goals.

Orthodoxy, therefore, has the great opportunity to be able to dissect the word "Thanksgiving," to show this fullness. In fact, we are constantly showing what it really means at every Liturgy, for it is here that thanksgiving is not only a memory, not only a day; it is a "state" or a "position" that we are in. What is that "state" which is holy? It is a standing together – no, it begins earlier – it begins with the procession of each of us from the bed of our homes to the place where we will stand, to be together, even as those pilgrims were, to give thanks. The height of this thanksgiving is when we offer up the gifts of bread and wine – "Thine own of Thine own, we offer unto thee, in behalf of all and for all" – while we are offered life in return from God.

Can we take America back to that original meaning, to that deeper look? The pilgrims had it, but we have preserved it! Perhaps now we can say "we" instead of "they" to show that Thanksgiving is not only for non- Orthodox. Certainly, it is at the Divine Liturgy where "we" should begin this Day of Thanksgiving. Is there less that we can do?

What's so Orthodox about Thanksgiving? Orthodoxy.

Anonymous 10/31/25 Anonymous 10/31/25

The Holy Supper at Nativity

It all begins with an idea.

Anonymous

December 2010

Christians of the Orthodox Faith have developed many meaningful customs which are associated with the feasts and fasts of the Church Year. These are especially recognizable during the feast of the Nativity of Jesus Christ.

One of the most prominent of these customs among the people who emigrated from the Carpathian mountain region is the Holy Night Supper. Each village retains its own variations regarding the actual ritual, but all the customs in general enrich the Christmas Eve Supper. Many of these customs have been handed·down by word of mouth. Others have been forgotten. Many are perpetuated here in America by the second and third generation of Orthodox Christians. Though it is traditionally served at home it has become customary in some Orthodox churches to preserve this family tradition where parishioners bring their favorite Nativity Lenten food and share it with all present. This family tradition is in danger of being lost since families no longer live close together and few have the time to cook the necessary dishes. The priest who is the father of the church family performs the prayer ritual.

The entire drama of events, associated with the “Birth of Christ” at Christmas is re·enacted through the customs at the “Holy Night Supper.” The Advent season does not conclude until the feast of Christmas. The Lenten rule of abstinence from meat and dairy products is strictly observed. Therefore, the Holy Night Supper consists of lenten foods.

Traditionally, the entire family prepares for the Holy Supper on the vigil of Christmas by washing themselves. The clean body is reflective of an unblemished soul and reminds us of the special state of grace, the result of having received the Holy Eucharist in Church during the Advent season.

The Supper begins at about the time the first star appears in the sky. The entire family assembles in the dining room. The star represents the star of Bethlehem. The “gazda” or master of the home proceeds to feed the animals with a generous portion of food. This custom reminds us of the animals present In the stable at the birth of Christ. The father spreads hay or straw in the dining room. As he does this, special prayers are recited. He greets the family with the words: “Christ is Born,” to which all reply, “Glorify Him!”

The dining room represents the cave and manger of Bethlehem, the humble surroundings of the Lord’s birth. The four legs of the table are tied with rope or chain by the father. This represents the asking of blessings and protection from all corners of the world. The chain symbolizes the unity of love which prevails among the members of the family.

The mother of the house sprinkles all present with holy water. She also sprinkles all the livestock In the barn and the animals in the home. She gives each of the animals some sugar or salt and plenty of feed. Candles are lighted on the table, as well as on the Christmas tree. The tree represents that one from which Adam and Eve had eaten. The candles remind us of Christ the “light of the World” at the time of His Birth. A candle is placed in the window as a Sign of welcome to any stranger or traveler who seeks shelter.

A clean white linen cloth is placed on the table. The linen represents the swaddling clothes with which the Mother of God clothed the Infant Child. Four candles are placed on the table symbolizing Christ and the three wise men. A manger scene is also placed on the table.

During the initial prayers by the father, blessed incense is burned on hot coals or charcoal. It reminds us of the gift of frankincense and myrrh. The smoke symbolically elevates the prayers to the throne of God. An empty chair is set at, the table in memory of deceased family members. It also reminds us of those family members who are unable to be present at the Supper. Members of the family who are absent, represent those people who were not present at the birth of Christ.

According to the custom, the father or the eldest son leads the family in prayer, in a kneeling position. This reminds us of the adoration of the Christ Child by the shepherds and wise men. The prayer expresses gratitude of God for His blessings during the past year. Included in the prayer are special petitions for health, happiness, longevity, peace and love. The father then blesses the food with holy water.

The father offers the traditional Christmas toast with a drink of sweet wine or brandy. All members of the family drink the toast, including the children. The mother gives a tooth of garlic, dipped in honey, to each member. She makes the sign of the cross on the forehead of the father, and on each of the other members of the family according seniority. The honey is symbolic of the sweetness of life, while the garlic represents the bitterness. The Trinity is invoked to fortify all family members against the tribulations of life in the coming year.

The father takes the home-made bread, blesses it, and distributes a piece to everyone. The sign of the cross is made with the bread, before it is consumed. Customarily, twelve traditional foods are served, representing the twelve Apostles. The food is served from a common bowl, from which all eat, as it is passed-around. This is symbolical of the family unity. The following lenten foods are served at the Supper. They may vary according to each village, county, and even from each household: (Only 12 of the following foods are served)

Bread
Vegetables
Honey
Fish
Garlic
Prunes
“Bobalky” (small biscuits)
Prune Soup
“Pirohy”
Stuffed Cabbage
Mushrooms
Sauerkraut
Mushroom Soup
Tea
Pea Soup
“Kolachy” (cakes)
Nuts
Borsch (beet soup)

Sounds like a feast instead of a fast, doesn’t it? Only a small portion of the food is consumed.

After dinner, the father reads the narrative of Christ’s Birth from the Scripture. A prayer of thanksgiving is recited, including thanks for the most precious gift of all, the only begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ. Carols are sung as the children eagerly hunt for pennies and small toys hidden in the straw, or in some secluded place of the home. Later, gifts are exchanged.During this time many carols are sung reminding the family of the birth of our Savior in the cave in Bethlehem. Then after the singing of the carols the family, like the shepherds, hasten to attend worship services.

Bethlehem has Opened Eden:

Come, and let us see!
Bethlehem has opened Eden: come, and let us see! We have found joy hidden! Come, and let us take possession of the paradise within the cave.
There the unwatered stem has appeared, from which forgiveness blossoms forth! There is found the undug well from which David longed to drink of old, and there the Virgin has borne a child, and at once the thirst of Adam and David is made to cease.
Therefore let us hasten to this place where for our sake the eternal God was born as a little child!
Ikos from Nativity Matins

A Note from Fr. Christopher

We have begun to incorporate this into our Nativity celebration at Holy Cross between the Vesperal Liturgy and the Nativity Vigil on Christmas Eve. This is a great way to solemnize this lenten meal together as a parish family. If there are any other Nativity customs from the various Orthodox traditions that you come from, please do not hesitate to let me know as it would be great to incorporate more of “our” traditions into our Holy Cross celebration of Nativity.

This article was taken and adapted from a short article called “Holy Night Supper Customs” and from the following website:
http://www.lenten-season.com/article-index.php?ID=3

Fr Basil Biberdorf 10/31/25 Fr Basil Biberdorf 10/31/25

Orthodoxy and Politics

It all begins with an idea.

Rev. Priest Basil Biberdorf

October 2012

Our American political season is reaching a fever pitch in this final month before election day. We can expect to be bombarded with robo-calls and television advertisements, each candidate vilifying the other and attempting to make gold from the base metal of his own career, all in an attempt to sway our votes. We will not be able to open a newspaper without hearing of the daily ebbs, flows, and floods of the campaign.

What perhaps makes this more difficult for us is the desire of many candidates to present their positions as uniquely Christian. America has a long history of organizations arising to defend particular positions as “Christian,” in matters of slavery, alcohol, arms control, tax policy, sexual behavior, and free speech, to name just a few. Consider some of the organizations interested in these causes: the Moral Majority, the Christian Left, Focus on the Family, the Manhattan Declaration, and the Evangelical Climate Initiative.

From an Orthodox perspective, some of these make their cases better than others, articulating points in agreement with Christian belief and our moral tradition. Nonetheless, the reality we face is that the political realm operates according to the rules of a fallen world. It is a world where scarcity prevails and not everyone can have everything, where one wins and another loses, where motives are impure, and where the worst aspects of the fallen human nature—preeminently greed, lust for power, and pride—corrupt the best intentions of many candidates.

The political process itself, in whatever form, is a manifestation of sin in the world. After all, God established the judges to govern ancient Israel, only to see them rejected by his people in favor of kings and princes, with tragic results. “And you will cry out in that day because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, and the Lord will not hear you in that day” (1 Samuel 8:18; read the entire chapter). Indeed the kings of Israel are divided into good and bad, with the bad far outnumbering the good.

The Christian encounters this fallen world and must engage it and seek to transform it through the softening of the hearts of men and their return to God. Nonetheless, the Christian must never forget that his own world has little to do with this one. As Christ tells Pilate before his crucifixion: “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36). We confuse Christ’s kingdom (of which we are a part) with the world’s at our peril.

In the first place, there is the risk that we confuse the message of the Gospel: God became man, submitted to death, and overcame death in order for all men to live. What can the political process do about this? Surely we must remain free to speak openly and pointedly about sin and redemption. We should fight the political battle to do so. We must also seek to end gross injustice, and the loss of human lives, each one bearing the image of Christ, through willful violence. Yet the Gospel endures in spite of persecution by the state, just as it endured the Jews, Roman emperors, Islam, and the Communists.

We must also not allow an interest in politics to corrupt our mission. Our aim as Christians is not the transformation of the state into some kind of imagined “Christian realm,” but the salvation of souls by uniting them with Christ and his Church. Many contemporary denominations attract members by promoting their political biases using important code words: “We believe in the Bible,” or “God is still speaking.” Orthodox Christians do not “recruit” on the basis of political affinity, but rather guide men, women, and children to pursue and cling to Christ, receiving the life and love that flows from him alone. We must always present ourselves not as conservative or liberal Christians, but as authentic Christians.

Authentic Christians cannot transfer their obligations to the state. If it is our obligation to care for our neighbor (“When did we see you hungry...?” Matthew 25:31ff), it does no good to transfer our responsibility to politicians and bureaucrats. It is our calling, not someone else’s, especially if “someone else” isn’t a Christian at all.

Authentic Christians also cannot focus on one issue at the expense of another, as often happens with matters of abortion and war, where a given candidate supports one and deplores the other. Unjustified killing is unjustified killing, after all.

Finally, as authentic Christians, we must be careful not to despise our neighbor on the basis of his political beliefs. While some positions are quite clearly wrong (e.g., abortion), Christ says to “love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). Our political discourse often leads us to dehumanizing our opponents, thinking less of them, or considering them stupid. The Gospel ultimately relates to a world restored in Christ rather than one run by politicians. Our Christian calling does not mean we must be politically apathetic, but it limits our expectations, reminding us “put not your trust in princes, in sons of men, in whom there is no salvation” (Psalm 146). For that, we can give thanks.