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!

Fr Lawrence Farley 10/30/25 Fr Lawrence Farley 10/30/25

Appreciating Vespers

It all begins with an idea.

Fr. Lawrence Farley

October 2016

The service of Vespers is, I think, dramatically under-appreciated today. The temptation for us busy people is to reduce our church-going to Sunday mornings only, and let everything else slide. Since we under-appreciate Vespers, it often tends to slide with other things we deem relatively unimportant. But Vespers warrants a second look, and a renewed appreciation.

The word “vespers” comes from the Greek ἑσπέρα (hespera) and the Latin vesper, both meaning “evening”, because it is the evening service of the Church. Christians are to pray to God not just on Sunday mornings, but constantly, sanctifying time by offering prayer throughout the day. In the eighth chapter of the Didache (or “teaching”), a church manual dating from about 100 A.D., believers are urged to stop and pray three times throughout the day, at least saying the Lord’s Prayer. Soon enough a certain pattern would become standard, with believers praying at the third hour, the sixth hour, and the ninth hour (that is, at 9.00 a.m., noon, and 3 p.m. respectively). Christians were encouraged to pray in the evening also, and the pious were even encouraged to rise at midnight and pray at home for a bit (easier to do then than now, since people then went to bed earlier).

In those days, the believers would say a prayer of thanksgiving when the evening lamp was brought in. Back then there was no electric light of course, and unless one lit a lamp for illumination, one sat in the dark. Accordingly, everybody kept the daily practice of lighting lamps when it began to get dark (that is, when each evening came), and bringing in the lamp to the place where everyone was. Because the Lord described Himself as “the light of the world” (see Jn. 9: 5), believers inevitably thought of Him when they saw the comforting lights of evening. Thus, one prayer that became standard when the Christians gave thanks to God for the light of the lamp referred to Jesus. We know it today as the hymn “Gladsome (or joyful) light”: “O gladsome light of the holy glory of the immortal Father: heavenly, holy, blessed Jesus Christ! Now that we have come to the setting of the sun, and behold the light of evening, we praise God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. At all times You are worthy of praise, O Son of God and Giver of life. Therefore the world glorifies You!” Believers would recite this prayer every evening when the lamp was brought in to provide light for the evening until everyone went to bed.

This practice became the daily experience of Christians. St. Gregory of Nyssa relates that when his sister Macrina was dying, the evening lamp was brought into her room at dusk as usual. Seeing it, she tried to utter the customary prayer, but her voice failed before she could finish the prayer. She lifted her hand to sign herself with the Cross, drew a final breath, and died, praying silently the thanksgiving prayer for the lamp. (No bad way to die.)

This domestic rite was preserved when the Christians met together corporately in church at evening time. When dusk came, the lamps were brought into the church just as they were at home, and the customary prayer sung. Thus the hymn “Gladsome Light” became an invariable part of the evening Vespers service. As Gregory and Macrina’s brother St. Basil wrote, “Our fathers thought that they should welcome the gift of evening light with something better than silence, so they gave thanks as soon as it appeared. We cannot say who composed these words of thanksgiving at the lighting of the lamps, but the people use these ancient words [of the hymn ‘Gladsome Light’]…” In St. Basil’s day, this prayer/hymn was already ancient.

In the church in Jerusalem, the light was brought in, not from the outside (the usual custom), but from the lamp that burned perpetually before the Lord’s Tomb. In Constantinople the more usual practice prevailed, and the lamps were brought in from outside and all the candles in the darkening church lit from them. Today when the hymn is sung, often no lamps are lit, but the hymn remains as a reminder and vestige of the practical lighting of the lamps in church for the purpose of illumination. Even today at the evening Presanctified Liturgy (which is essentially simply Lenten Vespers with a rite of Communion appended to it), the celebrant still brings forward a light with the words, “The light of Christ illumines all!” In Constantinople, these words were the signal for all the lamps in the church to be lit.

Vespers preserves other ancient features as well, including the offering of incense. The original sung Vespers service included three units each consisting of three psalms. One of these was Ps. 141, obviously chosen for the line “Let my prayer arise in Your sight as incense, and the lifting up of my hands as an evening sacrifice.” The reference to “evening” dictated the choice of psalm; the reference to incense made the offering of incense more liturgically relevant. As such, when this psalm is chanted as part of the remnants of the original three-psalm units (consisting now of Psalms 141, 142, 130 and 117), the deacon censes the church as these psalms are chanted. The current practice is not simply to chant the psalms, but also to insert brief hymns or stichs into the final verses of the psalms. This incense reminds us of the acceptability of our worship to God—through Christ, we now have access to the Father, and He accepts our praises since we offer them to Him as disciples of His Son. The fragrant incense we smell as these psalms and hymns are sung remind us of our exalted status in Christ.

There are other elements in the service as well, such as the chanting of psalms. The monks originally lived far from parish churches and did not have the ability to sing complicated musical services, such as those who lived in urban parishes did. They therefore concentrated more on psalmody than on church-composed hymns, more on the Psalter than on troparia and stichs and hymns. Their practice was to chant the entire Psalter from beginning to end, as often as possible. One system of chanting the Psalter involved incorporating all the Psalms into the daily services of Matins (in the morning) and Vespers (in the evening) in such a way as to go through the entire Psalter in one week. That is, they would incorporate two sizable “chunks” of the Psalter, in series, into each Matins service, and one “chunk” into Vespers. The Psalter was divided for this purpose into twenty “chunks”, each chunk called a “kathisma” or sitting—so-called because sitting was allowed the monks while the Psalter was read. On Saturday, the first “kathisma”, consisting of Psalms 1-8, was read at Vespers. Nowadays, this “chunk” is greatly abbreviated to a few verses, or even simply omitted. This is perhaps unfortunate, because it means we lack the exposure to the Psalter that the monks deemed essential to spiritual growth. But in many parishes the chanting of the Psalter is retained, even if only for a few short verses. The psalms of the first kathisma begin with the words “Blessed is the man”. Many think this is another hymn, like “Gladsome Light”. In fact it is the beginning of the first eight psalms, originally intended to be chanted in their entirety.

Thus, three main components of the Vespers service are the lamp-lighting prayer “Gladsome Light”, the offering of incense, and the chanting of Psalmody. The structure of the service has of course changed over the years. The original service with its three series of three psalm units has given place to our present collection of psalms strung together and chanted as the temple in censed. Also, Vespers previously began in the center of the temple with the exclamation “Blessed is the Kingdom…”, the clergy entering the altar area at the beginning of the second three-psalm unit. Also, the catechumens were prayed for at the end of Vespers, just as they are presently during the Divine Liturgy. Finally, Vespers concluded with processions to the sacristy (or skeuophylakion, the place where the vessels were stored) and to the baptistery, where special prayers were said.

Why these processions? They were modelled after processions and prayers of the church in Jerusalem located at the Holy Sepulchre. In that church, when evening came, the people realized that they were at the very place and at the very time where Christ was taken down from the cross and prepared for burial. It was natural for them to stop at that place and at that time to offer special prayers. Jerusalem soon became the pattern for churches everywhere, even though these other churches did not enjoy the same geographical and liturgical advantage of being located at the holy places where Christ suffered, was buried, and rose from the dead. So, these other churches adapted their worship to Jerusalem’s situation as best they could. The Jerusalem procession to the places where Christ was buried became processions to the places in their own churches which symbolically portrayed Christ’s death and burial—places such as the skeuophylakion (or “little altar”) and the baptistery, in which the candidates for baptism sacramentally participated in Christ’s death and resurrection (see Rom. 6).

So, though the structure of Vespers may have changed, its heart remains the same, and it still provides a good way to end the day. Vespers now opens with the chanting of Psalm 104. In this psalm we give thanks to God for creation, confessing that the whole world lies in His loving hands, and therefore we may commit ourselves into His hands as well. God made all that exists, and sustains it every day through His ceaseless care. As the Psalmist says, “He made the moon for the seasons; the sun knows its time for setting; You appoint darkness and it is night. How manifold are Your works, O Lord! In wisdom have You made them all.” We may lie down in peace and rest in confidence, knowing that God in His wisdom is in control.

After Psalm 104 is sung and prayers are said, other psalms are chanted and incense offered, as we sing “Let our prayer arise in Your sight as incense, and let the lifting up of my hands be an evening sacrifice.” Through the sacrifice of prayer and praise, we seek for and receive the forgiveness we need daily from God. The world can be a hard place, and we often stumble and fall, sinning against our good Lord. In these prayers we lift up our hands and hearts to God, asking for pardon for whatever we may have done amiss during the day.

Then the prayer of the lamplighting is sung (“Gladsome Light”), as well as the hymn “Grant us, O Lord, to keep us this evening without sin…” Through these hymns, prayers and litanies, we offer ourselves with our multitude of needs into God’s hands. God who provides food for the young lions which call to Him, and gives to all their food in due season (Ps. 104:21, 27), can be trusted to provide for us also. It is as St. Paul said: “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God, and the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, shall guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:6-7). Having made our evening requests, we may lie down in the peace of God.

The service of Vespers therefore provides a fit conclusion to the day. But it also prepares us to greet the coming day, since the day begins not with morning, but with evening. (We think of the Jewish reckoning of the Sabbath as beginning Friday evening, and of the order of creation: “There was evening and there was morning, one day” (Gen. 1:5). Note: evening comes first. The restful repose we receive from God is His gift to us to prepare us for the challenges of the coming day. It is also why the Church serves Saturday evening Vespers as a liturgical preparation for Sunday morning Liturgy. First comes the preparation, then the fulfillment. First the repose, then the rising. First the darkness, then the light. First the incense of Vesperal penitence, then the festal Eucharistic rejoicing. This sequence is why the Old Testament lessons are most appropriately read on Saturday evening, following the prokeimenon (which always functions to introduce a lesson)—for the Old Testament serves to prepare us for the New, and the Law gives way to the Gospel.

For many of us who do not live close to a church or monastery where Vespers is served every day, ending each day with Vespers is not possible. But certain of its prayers can still be offered at home privately. Rather than ending the day by watching the 11.00 news and then falling into bed fretting about all the evil we have seen reported, how much better to end the day by singing to God, by chanting one of the Vesperal psalms or hymns. Regardless of what the newscaster might suggest, God is still in control of His world: the sun knows its time for setting; He appoints darkness and it is night. How manifold are Your works, O Lord! In wisdom have You made them all.

From: https://oca.org/reflections/fr.-lawrence-farley/appreciating-vespers

Fr Stephen Freeman 10/30/25 Fr Stephen Freeman 10/30/25

Living with a Calendar

It all begins with an idea.

Fr. Stephen Freeman

January 2017

The human relationship with time is a strange thing. The upright stones of neolithic human communities stand as silent reminders of our long interest in seasons and the movement of the heavens. Today our light-polluted skies shield many of us from the brilliant display of the night sky and rob us of the stars. The modern world is not only shielded from the stars, but from many aspects of time itself. Artificial lighting has made the setting of the sun into an unremarkable event and extended daylight into whatever hour we might wish. And though the seasons are worth noting, it is primarily their effect on clothing choices that seem important – foods have become omni-seasonal (for a price).

With all of that, the Church’s calendar becomes an intrusion and a disruption, almost an antique artifact. On the secular calendar, days of the week are but markers for which television shows are showing, a fact which itself is increasingly irrelevant in the digital world of delivery-on-demand. Days and years have importance only for writing a check correctly (something that is itself disappearing). But the Church calendar colors days, marking some for fasting and others for feasting and makes of time a complication that demands attention.

The Church calendar was once described to me as the “sanctification of time.” In this part of the modern world I would describe it not only as the sanctification of time, but the insistence that there even be time.

This is a common pattern within Orthodox Christianity. To outsiders, the calendar may seem exotic – but it represents nothing more outlandish than an affirmation of what it means to be a human being. Our humanity is a tradition. I can only learn what it is to be a human being from another human being, someone who has successfully fulfilled that reality. Animals are no different. Birds do not suddenly fly – their flight is traditioned to them. Human beings learn to walk in a traditioned manner as well. Your computer or your phone will not teach you how to be a human being.

So many things that modern people see as strange or unusual within the traditional life of Orthodox Christianity are no more than the encounter with living memory of what it is to be human. And time in its traditional form is one of them.

What is time? Science describes time as a function of space. Space describes an expanse and time locates something within that expanse. And although this description of time is not “traditional,” it nevertheless works. Time helps us to locate ourselves. To be human includes time and space. I cannot be human everywhere – but only at a particular place and a particular time (which are the same thing). It is this aspect of our humanity that our jettisoning of time seeks to ignore.

As we entertain ourselves to death, we become more and more abstracted from both space and time. Wandering in a digital world we have forgotten how to return to ourselves and simply be present to a particular point. Tragically, that particular point is always (and only) the place where we meet God. The calendar is thus something like an “appointment device.” This feast, this day, this time in my life, if I will keep the appointment, I can meet God.

The feasts on the calendar are not appointments with memorials, the recollection of events long past. They are invitations to present tense moments in the liturgical life of the world. In those moments there is an intersection of the present and the eternal. They are theophanies into which we may enter.

The events in Christ’s ministry that are celebrated (to use one example) are of little importance if viewed in a merely historical manner. It is not enough to say and remember that Christ died. The Christian faith is that I must become a partaker of Christ’s death. Christ is Baptized, but I must be a partaker of His Baptism. This is true of all the feasts and is the reason for our liturgical celebrations. The Church is not a memorial society – it is the living presence of Christ in the world and the primary means by which we may share in His presence.

There is no time like the present for only in the present does time open its riches to us and bestow its gifts. Only at the present moment do the doors to eternity offer us union with what would otherwise seem lost.

For He says: “In an acceptable time I have heard you, And in the day of salvation I have helped you.” Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation. (2 Cor 6:2)

From http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/76286.htm

Fr John Breck 10/22/25 Fr John Breck 10/22/25

Bible & Liturgy

It all begins with an idea.

Very Rev. John Breck

October 2007

A defining characteristic of Orthodox Christianity is the intimate and inseparable relationship it preserves between Bible and Liturgy, between divine revelation as the canonical or normative source of our faith, and celebration of that faith in the worship of the Church. Faith, grounded in Scripture, determines the content of our worship; worship gives expression to our faith.

This principle, once again, is expressed most succinctly in the Latin phrase lex orandi lex est credendi; our rule of worship is nothing other than our rule of belief. Our prayer is shaped by and expresses our theology, just as our theology is illumined and deepened by our prayer.

In our liturgical services we praise, bless and adore the God from whom we receive saving grace and the gift of eternal life. Accordingly, our eucharistic Divine Liturgy concludes with a "Prayer before the ambon" -- in the midst of the people -- which begins, "O Lord, who blessest those who bless Thee, and sanctifiest those who place their trust in Thee: Save Thy people and bless Thine inheritance. Preserve the fullness of Thy Church...."

The deeper meaning of "faith" (pistis) is "trust," total and unwavering confidence in God's utter faithfulness towards us. In response to our trust, expressed through the worship by which we "bless" Him, God bestows upon us still further blessings. Our relationship with Him involves a reciprocal movement. Through worship we offer ourselves to Him, yet through that same worship He offers Himself to us. We "bless" Him by our thanksgiving, our adoration and our praise; and we are blessed by Him through the continual outpouring of His divine grace.

This mutual gesture of self-giving reaches its apex in the Divine Liturgy, when we offer to God the fruit of the earth that He has already bestowed upon us, "Thine own of Thine own...." In return we receive nourishment from His hand in the form of "communion," which enables us actually to participate in His life through partaking of the Body and Blood of His risen and glorified Son. In the eucharistic service, we experience the reality and fullness of the Gospel. There above all, we are made aware of the vital link, the virtual unity, that exists between Bible and Liturgy, between the written, canonical source of our faith, and the actualization of that faith in the prayer of the Church.

This intimate relation between Bible and Liturgy is evident in the Holy Scriptures themselves. The Hebrew Bible, our Old Testament, is filled with liturgical hymns, the most familiar of which are the Psalms. The intertestamental period gave rise to an abundant hymnography, incorporated into canonical and non-canonical writings, including the Song of Azariah and the three young men (Dan 3 in the Septuagint version), the Prayer of Manasseh, the Hodayot or Hymn Scroll and the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice from Qumran, and the first century Psalms of Solomon.

In the New Testament we find fragments or portions of text that were adapted from early Christian hymns, such as the songs of Mary, Zachariah and Simeon in St Luke's narratives of Jesus' birth and infancy (Lk 1-2). St Paul refers to "psalms, hymns and spiritual songs," difficult to identify but which clearly denote liturgical elements familiar to early Christians. Hymnic fragments seem present as well in passages such as 1 Corinthians 15:54-55, Ephesians 5:14, Hebrews 1:1-4, 1 Timothy 3:16, 1 Peter 2:22-24, and throughout the book of Revelation.

Confessional or creedal hymns very likely appear in the well-known passages Philippians 2:5-11 and Colossians 2:15-19(20). And some reputable biblical scholars hold that the Prologue to St John's Gospel (1:1-18) was adapted from an early Christian hymn. However, since these are structured according to the literary pattern known as "chiasmus," it is difficult to say whether their rhythm is actually "hymnic," meaning that their original form was sung in liturgical services (many scholars hold that Phil 2, for example, was sung antiphonally in the worship of certain Pauline communities), or whether that rhythm derives from the poetic balance resulting from concentric parallelism. In either case, lying behind these biblical passages are very likely elements of the early Church's communal worship, some sung, others recited as confessions of faith.

It is essential for us to recognize and preserve this close relationship that exists between the Church's canon and its liturgical tradition. What we confess with our lips in the form of creedal statements, what we sing in the form of antiphons and prokeimena (derived from the Psalter), stichera (e.g., verses from the Octoechos on the Lucernarium ["Lord I Call"] and Aposticha of Vespers), and similar liturgical elements, all express the deepest convictions of the heart. And those convictions derive directly from God's self-revelation in Holy Scripture.

If other Christian confessions today often find themselves in a state of crisis, it is largely due to the fact that in their historical tradition this vital link between Bible and Liturgy has been severed. When this occurs, the inevitable result is to produce biblical studies that are little more than exercises in text criticism or literary analysis, and worship services that are practically devoid of authentic spiritual content. The logical outcome of this break between the Church's Scriptures and its worship is phenomena such as the Jesus Seminar on the one hand and the jazz mass on the other. A hermeneutic that is not grounded in worship will inevitably limit its field of interest to the "literal sense" of biblical passages; just as worship that does not proclaim the Gospel will inevitably degenerate into pious noise, void of serious content, or simply aim to provide a psychological "uplift," equally devoid of spiritual depth and transcendent purpose.

It would be easy to fault Protestant and Catholic Christians for allowing this separation to develop over the years within their respective traditions. That would be to overlook the fact, however, that the intimate and reciprocal relationship between Bible and Liturgy, faith and worship, has been preserved in Orthodoxy not by our own doing but as a gift of sheer grace -- without which the Orthodox Church itself would have long ago disappeared under pressures of persecution and martyrdom. If "Orthodoxy" is truly "right worship" and "right belief," it is because it has been sustained as such through the ages by the Holy Spirit.

Our task as Orthodox Christians is not to criticize and condemn those who have lost a sense for the vital unity that should exist between the Gospel and worship. It is rather to celebrate, with joy and humble gratitude, the gift of the God who blesses and sanctifies those who place their trust in Him. It is to acknowledge in the words of the apostle James, also taken up in the Prayer before the ambon, that "every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of Lights," including faith born of the Gospel. Our task, then, is to express this biblical faith through the liturgy of the Church, and thereby to "ascribe glory, thanksgiving and worship: to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages."