The Doxastiko at Lauds on the 1st Sunday in Lent
Theodore Rokas When we commemorate the saints for the first Sunday in Lent, the Sunday of Orthodoxy (when we read the Synaxari), we see: on that day, the first Sunday of the Fast, we commemorate the memory of the restoration of the holy and venerable icons, effected by the...
Pre-requisites of Orthodoxy
Archimandrite Varnavas Lambropoulos Today’s Gospel certainly has nothing to say to those who embrace the modern ‘gospels’ of self-salvation, which derive from the demonic ‘gospel of the serpent’: ‘You can become gods without God’. The words of the reading will be heard with even greater indifference by those who...
Homily on the 1st Sunday in Lent (Part 2)
Archbishop Luke of Crimea (the Surgeon) And today, the heretics are telling us precisely the same thing. They have the nerve to call our icons idols and us idolaters. They have cheek for anything. Let me tell you about an incident that happened recently in a town in Siberia....
Homily on the 1st Sunday in Lent (Part 1)
Archbishop Luke of Crimea (the Surgeon) On the first Sunday of Great Lent, our Holy Church celebrates the triumph of Orthodoxy, the right belief, which trampled down all the heresies and has since become established for ever. This is why this Sunday is known as the Sunday of Orthodoxy....
Sermon on the Apostolic Reading of the Sunday of Orthodoxy (Hebrews 11, 24-26 & 32-40)
Metropolitan of Pisidia Sotirios The meaning of today’s great Feast of Orthodoxy is summarized in a hymn sung the Matins, at the Praises: “A day of jubilee and full of joy has been revealed today. Through the cheerfulness of the true doctrines, the Church of Christ shines brightly, adorned...
Come and See: A Christian is Supposed to Spread the Faith
Welcome to The Daily Prayer Team messages, each day includes a passage of scripture, a reflection and a prayer. Sponsored by Saint John Greek Orthodox Church in Tampa, FL. The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. And He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” Now Philip was from...
This Is the Faith of the Apostles
The noted American historian, Dr. Henry Glassie, once observed, “History is not the past. History is a story about the past, told in the present, and designed to be useful in creating the future.” On the Sunday of Orthodoxy, the First Sunday of Great Lent, we naturally look back at...
A Christian Must Have Faith
Welcome to The Daily Prayer Team messages, each day includes a passage of scripture, a reflection and a prayer. Sponsored by Saint John Greek Orthodox Church in Tampa, FL. By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to share ill-treatment with...
Sunday of Orthodoxy Celebrated Worldwide
Why do we celebrate the Sunday of Orthodoxy on the first Sunday of Lent, what are it’s implications for us today as it had for the 9th century Byzantine Empire? The defeat of Iconoclasm in 843 led to the veneration of icons, the restoration of Icons and the birth of...
The Gift of Iconography: How Beauty Will Save the World
In one of his most famous novels, The Idiot, the writer Fyodor Dostoevsky has the hero of the work, Prince Mishkin, tell the depressed and cynical character Hippolite, “Beauty will save the world.” Prince Mishkin, who, like Dostoevsky, had epilepsy, is a sort of Christ-figure who represents the values Dostoevsky...
