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 Stephen Freeman 10/28/25 Fr Stephen Freeman 10/28/25

Saved in Weakness

It all begins with an idea.

Fr. Stephen Freeman

March 2015

We are not saved by our talents and gifts nor by our excellence – we are saved by our weakness and our failure. I have made this point in several ways in several articles over the recent past – and the question comes up – but what does that look like? How do I live like that? The question can be somewhat urgent for some because the message is so utterly contrary to cultural assumptions that have been drilled into our minds. We are consumers and producers in the modern world. If I am not producing then I am being consumed – and so we rush to find a way to produce whatever is demanded. Just tell me the demand so that I can produce it!

How frustrating it is to be told that weakness and failure are the fulcrum point of salvation. For though we are all experienced in failure and weakness (who is not?), we have learned both to downplay those deficits (even to hide them) and to get on with our success no matter what. Occasionally (and not so rarely), someone finds their failures and weaknesses to have overwhelmed their lives. We give them medical treatment (where appropriate) or sadly watch them pass into a dependent stage of life, and quietly thank God that our own lives are not like theirs. We may have deep compassion for them – but we absolutely do not care to share their lot.

It is absolutely essential, however, that we understand that Christ voluntarily chose to share their lot and announced it as the very pathway to salvation. The Cross is not a transaction that takes place apart from our lives. It is not a moment between Christ and the Father, the settling of an account that was owed by us: it is something that also takes place within our lives and in the most intimate and profound manner. Uncomfortably, we must say that Christ Crucified is only effective when He is crucified within us and when we are ourselves are crucified with Him. If Christ is not crucified in you and you in Him, then there is no salvation.

So what does this look like in our daily lives?

It begins within the Church with Holy Baptism. In Baptism we are united with Christ in His death. This is the heart of repentance. Acknowledging and confessing our sins is the recognition of death in our lives. A man/woman confesses their brokenness, their failures to live by the commandments, even their lack of desire to live by the commandments. This is sealed in Baptism and becomes the pattern by which we live. Repentance (confession and absolution) is called a “second Baptism” by the Fathers.

How do we confess? I include here a remarkable passage from The Way of A Pilgrim that describes a good sense of saving confession and repentance:

The Confession of an Interior Man Leading to Humility
Turning my gaze at myself and attentively observing the course of my interior life I am convinced, through experience, that I love neither God nor my neighbor, that I have no faith, and that I am full of pride and sensuality. This realization is the result of careful examination of my feelings and actions.
1. I do not love God. For if I loved Him, then I would be constantly thinking of Him with heartfelt satisfaction; every thought of God would fill me with joy and delight. On the contrary, I think more and with greater eagerness about worldly things, while thoughts of God present difficulty and aridity. If I loved Him, then my prayerful communion with Him would nourish, delight, and lead me to uninterrupted union with Him. But on the contrary, not only do I not find my delight in prayer but I find it difficult to pray; I struggle unwillingly, I am weakened by slothfulness and am most willing to do anything insignificant only to shorten or end my prayer. In useless occupations I pay no attention to time; but when I am thinking about God, when I place myself in His presence, every hour seems like a year. When a person loves another, he spends the entire day unceasingly thinking about his beloved, imagining being with him, and worrying about him; no matter what he is occupied with, the beloved does not leave his thoughts. And I in the course of the day barely take one hour to immerse myself deeply in meditation about God and enkindle within myself love for Him, but for twenty-three hours with eagerness I bring fervent sacrifices to the idols of my passions! I greatly enjoy conversations about vain subjects which degrade the spirit, but in conversations about God I am dry, bored, and lazy. And if unwillingly I am drawn into a conversation about spiritual matters, I quickly change the subject to something which flatters my passions. I have avid curiosity about secular news and political events; I seek satisfaction for my love of knowledge in worldly studies, in science, art, and methods of acquiring possessions. But the study of the law of the Lord, knowledge of God, and religion does not impress me, does not nourish my soul. I judge this to be an unessential activity of a Christian, a rather supplementary subject with which I should occupy myself in my leisure time. In short, if love of God can be recognized by the keeping of His commandments—“If anyone loves me he will keep my word,” says the Lord Jesus Christ (John 14:23), and I not only do not keep His commandments but I make no attempt to do so—then in very truth I should conclude that I do not love God. St. Basil the Great confirms this when he says, “The evidence that man does not love God and His Christ is that he does not keep His commandments.”
2. I do not love my neighbor. Not only because I am not ready to lay down my life for the good of my neighbor, according to the Gospel, but I will not even sacrifice my peace and my happiness for his good. If I loved my neighbor as myself, as the Gospel commands, then his misfortune would grieve me also and his prosperity would bring me great joy. But, on the contrary, I listen with curiosity to accounts of my neighbor’s misfortune and I am not grieved but indifferent to them and, what is more, I seem to find satisfaction in them. I do not sympathize with the failings of my brother but I judge them and publicize them. My neighbor’s welfare, honor, and happiness do not delight me as my own; I am either completely indifferent to them or I am jealous or envious.
3. I do not have faith in spiritual realities. I believe neither in immortality nor in the Gospel. If I were firmly convinced and believed without a doubt in eternal life and in the consequences for our earthly actions, then I would be constantly thinking about this; the very thought of immortality would inspire me with wonder and awe and I would live my life as an alien who is getting ready to enter his native land. On the contrary, I don’t even think of eternity and I consider the end of this life as the limit of my existence. I nurture a secret thought within and wonder, “Who knows what will happen after death?” Even when I say that I believe in immortality, it is only from natural reasoning, for down deep in my heart I am not convinced of it and my actions and preoccupations with earthly cares prove this. If I accepted the Holy Gospel with faith into my heart as the word of God, then I would be constantly occupied with it; I would study it, would delight in it, and with deep reverence would immerse myself in it. Wisdom, mercy, and love hidden within it would lead me to ecstasy, and day and night I would delight in the lessons contained in the law of God. They would be my daily spiritual bread and I would earnestly strive to fulfill them; nothing on earth would be strong enough to keep me from this. But on the contrary, even if I sometimes read or listen to the word of God, it is either out of necessity or curiosity; I do not delve deeply into it but feel dryness and indifference to it and I receive no greater benefit from it than I do from secular reading. Further, I am eager to give it up promptly and go to worldly reading, in which I have greater interest and from which I get more satisfaction. I am full of pride and self-love. All my actions confirm this. When I see something good in myself, then I wish to display it or brag about it to others, or interiorly I am full of self-love even when outwardly I feign humility. I ascribe everything to my own ability and I consider myself more perfect than others, or at least not worse. If I notice a vice in myself, then I try to excuse it or justify it; I pretend to be innocent or I claim that I couldn’t help it. I am impatient with those who do not show me respect and I consider them incapable of judging character. I am vain about my talents and cannot accept any failure in my actions. I grumble and I am glad to see the misfortune of my enemies, and my intention in doing anything good is either praise, self-interest, or earthly comfort. In a word, I continuously make an idol out of myself, to whom I give unceasing service as I seek sensual delights and try to nourish my carnal desires.

This is a 19th century Russian expression of such a confession but represents the character of our self-examination and repentance. It is an acknowledgement on a deep level of our weakness and failure.

When we come to such a realization – in a deep manner – our instinct is shame. It is an appropriate instinct. We feel vulnerable and we want to run from such an admission as soon as possible. We want to know what we can do to change – and change quickly. Worse yet, we may want to excuse ourselves and make explanations for why we are as we are. But our weakness has to begin with our own patient acceptance of what is true of ourselves.

And it is at that point of truth, the point of our failure, that we “bear a little shame,” in the words of the Elder Sophrony. If we will accept that little shame, we will meet the Crucified Christ at that very point, for it is He who bears our shame. It is not in our strengths and wonderful qualities that we meet Christ. Our egos are so impregnable at those points that such a union is impossible.

But the vulnerable point of shame is the place where the ego can give way and break and where it can admit the presence of another. This, too, is difficult because the instinct of shame is to cover itself and hide. Thus, we are asked to “bear a little.”

Shame is the ego’s deepest instinct (and the first recorded reaction of man after the Fall). It is the fear of being seen for who we truly are rather than who we want to be or pretend to be. But there is a self that is deeper than the shame – and it can be found if we are patient and dare to stay put for a short time. This is hesychia and nepsis, stillness and sobriety.

This self is also described as the “place of the heart,” and in some places as the “deep heart.” In that place we cease to judge, to critique, to measure, to compare. We are aware and observe but in a manner that doesn’t separate the self from other people or other things. It is a place where we will find union with God and the ability to pray. It is also the place where the tears of repentance can be shed.

All of this is the patient inner journey of repentance and the gateway into the Kingdom of God. The bearing of a little shame is our own crucifixion. It unites us with Christ’s bearing of the whole Adam’s shame (the shame of the whole of humanity), which is His crucifixion.

I encourage anyone who undertakes such repentance to be moderate in their approach (a “little shame” is enough at any time). It is good to do this before an icon of Christ and His Cross. This helps us to hold ourselves together with Him rather than be consumed in our ego. If you “fail,” then don’t despair. Use that failure and its “little shame” instead.

All of this is better undertaken with a good spiritual father and his encouragement and help. A requirement in this way of things is safety. If you do not feel safe sharing such shame with your spiritual father, then it shouldn’t be pushed. I will add a note of caution to priests who hear confessions. It is incumbent upon priests to be a reliable place of safety. There is no call for berating or controlling or causing shame in a penitent. Generally, such behaviors in a priest constitute spiritual abuse.

I will both lie down in peace, and sleep; For You alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety.
(Psa 4:8)

Hesychia requires a measure of safety.

The practice of such regular repentance strengthens us for spiritual warfare, for it teaches us a way of life that is deeper than the ego and promotes true humility. In time, we become “unassailable” by the hostile powers. They “find no place in us.”

I pray these thoughts will be found useful.

From Fr. Stephen’s Blog, Glory to God for All Things: http://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/2015/01/21/saved-weakness/

Fr John Breck 9/20/25 Fr John Breck 9/20/25

From the Depths of Hell

It all begins with an idea.

Very Rev. John Breck

April 2009

The final Old Testament reading for Holy Saturday vespers -- Daniel 3:1-57, the story of the three young men in the fiery furnace in Babylon -- is composite, drawing upon both Aramaic and Greek (Septuagint) traditions. The latter modifies and amplifies a detail the Church's patristic witnesses consider essential. That small detail is a typological image that announces the primary theme of Orthodox Pascha or Easter: the descent of Christ into the depths of hell, to liberate humanity from the powers of sin, death and corruption.

According to the Aramaic version, King Nebuchadnezzar -- for unspecified reasons (the Greek declares it was because he heard the three young men singing from the midst of the flames) -- asks his advisors, "Did we not cast three bound men into the furnace?" Then he adds, "Yet I see four men, unbound, walking in the midst of the fire -- and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods!" That descriptive phrase, "like a son of the gods," is a Semitism, signifying an angelic being. The Septuagint replaces it with the assertion, "An angel of the Lord came down into the furnace… and drove out the fiery flame."

In the view of the Church Fathers and Orthodox tradition generally, the angelic being who appears in the midst of the flames is a prophetic image of both the means and the meaning of our salvation. That powerful image points forward to and is fulfilled by the crucifixion, the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

One of the most significant differences between Western (Latin) and Eastern (Orthodox) theology concerns the means by which we are redeemed from the consequences of sin -- our rebellion against the person and will of God -- and granted access to the blessed, transfigured existence termed by Scripture "eternal life." The Latin view -- focusing on the "original sin" of the first man Adam, transmitted to successive generations like a genetic flaw -- stresses the payment or obligation we have to offer to God, whether of Christ's sacrifice (Anselm's theory of "satisfaction") or of our good deeds (the notion of accumulated "merits"). These medieval themes have been significantly modified by modern Western theologians, but they continue to shape Catholic popular piety, and even that of certain Protestant confessions (the Lutheran "theologia crucis," for example: a "theology of the cross" that places primary emphasis on Christ's crucifixion, while not neglecting the resurrection). An indirect consequence of this accent is the paschal image of the risen Christ in Western tradition. There the Saviour, bearing the marks of crucifixion, is usually depicted rising victorious from his tomb or sepulchre, while the guards are asleep at his feet.

In Orthodox tradition, that saving victory over death is depicted much differently. Here the themes of incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection and exaltation merge in the motif of Christ's "Descent into Hell," more properly termed his "Descent into Sheol," the realm of the departed righteous who await the Saviour's coming.

If the eternal Son of God, second Person of the Holy Trinity, deigned to become a man, a human being of flesh and blood, it was not in the first instance to assume the consequences of Adam's guilt through a vicarious sacrificial self-offering. He "took flesh," rather, to assume our fallen, sin-scarred "nature" -- what makes us essentially human -- in order to redeem and glorify that nature. This he accomplished by his sinless life and innocent death, fulfilled by his rising from the dead and his ascension or exaltation into heaven, the fullness of the presence of God. In that movement of glorification, he remained the "God-man," bearing in himself both his eternal divinity and his human nature, restored and renewed to its original perfection and beauty. If the Son of God became (a) man, patristic tradition declares, it was to offer to us the possibility of theôsis or "deification," meaning a full participation in God's very life and a sharing with him in a communion of boundless, inexhaustible love.

In this perspective, it is not we who strive to reconcile ourselves to God by appeasing his righteous wrath. It is God who seeks to reconcile himself us to through the gift of his Son, the righteous innocent one, who breaks down the wall of our sin and unrighteousness, in order to unite us through himself to the Father. "God was in Christ," the apostle Paul declares, "reconciling the world to himself."

This is the theme so beautifully and poignantly depicted in iconography of the Resurrection or Descent into Sheol. The Crucified One, lying in the tomb on the day that will become known and celebrated as Holy Saturday, "descends" into the lower reaches of the created world, into the realm of the dead. Here he reaches out to meet and seize the outstretched hands of Adam and Eve, representatives of all humanity. The flow of Christ's robes and the position of his body make it appear that he is both descending and ascending. Enveloped in a resplendent aureole, he stands victoriously above the pit of hell, a dark hole in which Satan and Hades, symbols of sin and death, are bound fast. Death is overcome, and for those who long for eternal communion with God, salvation is at hand. It is enough to reach out and seize the hand that's offered.

As the angel descended into the fiery furnace to protect and save the three young men, so Christ descends into the farthest reaches of hell, to bring reconciliation and life to all those who seek them. In the same way, he descends into our own realm of torment and death, to enfold us in the mantle of his boundless compassion and love. We may provoke our own alienation from ultimate truth and value. We may reject the gift of life and fashion our own hell, a place of living death. Or that hell may take the form of unrelieved suffering, within ourselves or in the lives of those closest to us. Still, the metaphor holds. Into that place of darkness and pain, even into the fiery furnace of our tortured imagination, Christ descends again and again. He comes not only to release us from our suffering; he comes to bear that suffering with us and for us. He comes as Light into our darkness and as Life into our sickness and death. He comes, as he came to the three young men and to the righteous departed of the paschal icon, with outstretched hands, to embrace us, to raise us up, and to exalt us with himself into a place, into a communion, of ineffable glory and joy.

This sacred image of Christ's paschal victory reveals the mystery, the sacramental blessing, of our salvation. And in that mystery lies our most fervent hope, and with it, the object of our deepest longing.

Fr Christopher Foley 8/31/25 Fr Christopher Foley 8/31/25

Confession: Hospital or Courtroom?

It all begins with an idea.

Fr. Christopher Foley

November 2006

“Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.”
James 5:16

“Receive the Holy Spirit! If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven. If you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
John 20:22-23

Much has been said about the need for confession of sins in the Church and the need to be reconciled to God. There is a tendency to think of confession in some type of legalistic way - where one recounts their trespasses and gets the due punishment and forgiveness and goes on their way. There has also been a tendency to see confession as a type of yearly obligation in order to have a "pass" to come to communion. Unfortunately, these views of confession have done great damage to this "sacrament of reconciliation." So, what is confession exactly? Is it a legal transaction that takes place in a "courtroom?" For the Orthodox Church, confession has always been understood more in terms of hospital language, rather than a courtroom.

Sin as Sickness

It is important, first of all, to remember that sin is not the breaking of a moral code of conduct. Sin means literally, to "miss the mark," like an arrow that is shot and misses its intended target. The target here is man being what he was intended to be - created in the image and likeness of God. When we sin, we cease to be fully what God intended for us to be. It is we who break communion with God through our sin. We all sin and "fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). There is a story from the desert fathers about a disciple who came to a certain elder one day and said, "Father, I have fallen!" The elder said to him, "Get up!" Again and again he came to the elder and said, "I have fallen!" And invariably the elder responded, "Get up!" The disciple then asked, "When will I have to stop getting up?" "Not until the day you give your soul up to God," the elder replied. Thus it is not a matter of if we sin, but when we sin, what are we going to do about it? In the First Epistle of St. John we read, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." So the first step in confession is the acknowledgment of our sins. In hospital language, sin is a parasitic sickness or wound that needs to be cleaned out. Before it can be healed, one must acknowledge that there is a wound in the first place. Christ, as the Divine Physician, came to heal the sick. Christ Himself said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick ... For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners."

Confession as Surgery

Confession is primarily naming and taking responsibility of the illness in order for the spiritual hospital (the Church) to prescribe a remedy to aid in the healing process. This is just one of many metaphors that the Fathers of the Church have used to speak of confession and reconciliation. In the charge that the priest says prior to the confession of sins we find a strong injunction about not hiding anything, "lest you depart from the Physician unhealed." Confession of sins is the rooting out of the infected wound. It is surgery that prepares the wound for the healing balm of penance and Holy Communion. This medicine of the Church comes from the same root as pharmacy (pharmakon). This medicine is given so that healing would continue to take place within the wound and not become infected again. This is how a penance is understood. It is not a punishment or an earning of forgiveness, but a prescription from the doctor for the sake of healing and restoration. Fr. John Romanides, a well-known 20th century Orthodox theologian says, "Having faith in Christ without undergoing healing in Christ is not faith at all. Here is the same contradiction that we find when a sick person who has great confidence in his doctor never carries out the treatment which he recommends."

Recovery

It is impossible to be saved on our own. It is only when we are able to admit our complete powerlessness over sin that we can be open to Christ's healing in our lives. We need the Church in order to root out this sickness. Think of how silly it would be for a surgeon to operate on himself. A Father of the Church has said, "he who sees his owns sins is a greater miracle than raising the dead." This means that it is a miracle when we are truly willing to see ourself as we really are, to see the infection, and be willing to submit to the "knife" of the Church for the sake of true healing and restoration. Fr. Alexander Schmemann said, "It is when man is challenged with the real 'contents' of the Gospel, with its divine depth and wisdom, beauty and all-embracing meaning, that he becomes 'capable of repentance,' for the true repentance is precisely the discovery by man of the abyss that separates him from God and from his real offer to man. It is when the man sees the bridal chamber adorned that he realizes he has no wedding garment for entering it." This recalls the story from Matthew 25 about the virgins who had prepared their lamps with oil for the meeting of the bridegroom and how he came at midnight to claim those who were prepared. The bridegroom is Christ and the bridal chamber is the Kingdom of Heaven. This is what we sing during Holy Week on the first three days at Bridegroom Matins, "Thy bridal chamber I see adorned, O my Savior, but I have no wedding garment that I may enter. O Giver of Light, enlighten the vesture of my soul, and save me." Let us be ever open to a vision of Christ who desires that all men be saved and come to the knowledge of Thy Truth. He has given us His Holy Church as a place for recovery - that intensive care unit for our sinful souls where we are given medicine to aid us in our healing.

Note: See also "Preparation for Holy Communion" by Fr. Thomas Hopko, an article from Orthodox Education Day Book October 7, 2000