“The Prayer Team” is a daily devotion written by Fr. Stavros N. Akrotirianakis, written every day since February 2015. Fr. Stavros is the Parish Priest at St. John the Baptist Greek Orthodox Church in Tampa, Florida. It began in February 2015 as an opportunity to write more on the subject of prayer and now has branched into other subjects.
I want you to know, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same supernatural food and all drank the same supernatural drink. For they drank Read more…
Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented Him, saying, “I need to be baptized by You, and do You come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for thus it is fitting for us Read more…
For the grace of God has appeared for the salvation of all men, training us to renounce irreligion and worldly passions, and to live sober, upright, and godly lives in this world, awaiting our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who Read more…
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, in the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God Read more…
For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all, that I might win the more. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews; to those under the law I became as one under the law—though not being myself Read more…
And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them. And at the end of eight days, when He was circumcised, He was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before He was conceived in the womb. And Read more…
Brethren, see to it that no one makes a prey of you by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ. For in Him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have come to fullness of Read more…
But as for me and my house, we will SERVE the Lord. Joshua 24:15 As we discussed in yesterday’s reflection, most New Year’s resolutions are not only not kept, but are quickly forgotten. Ask someone today if they kept their resolution from 12 months ago and most people won’t even Read more…
As each has received a gift, employ it for one another, as good stewards of God’s grace. I Peter 4:10 For the past several years in the parish where I’ve served, we’ve encouraged parishioners to choose a word to define their year. Instead of making New Years’ resolutions that most Read more…
Thanks be to God for His inexpressible gift! II Corinthians 9:15 Two points to make today. First, at some point in the next 10 days or so, we will take our Christmas decorations down. In our house, we leave them up until Epiphany and sometimes even a little beyond that. But at Read more…
In those days, Stephen, full of grace and power, did great wonders and signs among the people. Then some of those who belonged to the synagogue of the Freedmen (as it was called) and of the Cyrenians, and of the Alexandrians, and of those from Cilicia and Asia; arose and disputed Read more…
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory. John 1:14 The Gospel accounts of the Nativity are limited to a mere forty verses. In the Gospel of Matthew, there are 19 verses about the Nativity. The Gospel of Luke has 20. The Gospel of Read more…