| About Pages Проекты «Правмира» Raising Orthodox Children to Orthodox Adulthood The Daily Website on How to be an Orthodox Christian Today Twitter Telegram Parler RSS Donate Navigation Am I the First Among Sinners? Source: Anchor Priest Luke A. Veronis 04 February 2022 Why would Saint Paul call himself the “first among sinners” in today’s Epistle Reading? He was the greatest apostle who helped spread the Good News of Jesus Christ outside of the Jewish world and into the Greco-Roman world. Yet, despite all his accomplishments as an apostle to the nations, he writes to Timothy, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. And I am the foremost of sinners.” How could St. Paul consider himself the greatest among sinners? And if he was, what does that say about you and me? Saint John Chrysostom, the great Church Father who produced our Divine Liturgy with which we worship every Sunday, says in the Prayer that we all offer before Holy Communion, “I believe and confess, Lord, that You are truly the Christ, the Son of the Living God, who came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the first.” When St. John wrote this prayer, he was writing it for himself, not for everyone to recite, and he highlights that he is the first among sinners. How could St. John Chrysostom consider himself the greatest among sinners? And if he was, what does that say about you and me? Other great Church Fathers and saints highlighted this same spirit of looking at themselves as the first among all sinners. Was it hyperbole? What did they mean by this? How could they truly see themselves as the first among sinners? Did they truly think that they were worse sinners than so many others who surely didn’t live holy lives in Christ like these great saints? It wasn’t hyperbole but perspective. The closer we draw to God, the clearer we see ourselves as we truly are, as well as we see ourselves as we can become – as the first among sinners as well as beloved children of God. Imagine looking at an icon from a great distance; you are so far away you can barely see it. Maybe you can’t even see the icon at all because of the distance. Yet as you approach closer and closer, the icon comes into view and slowly it comes into focus. As you continue to draw nearer and nearer, you realize who the icon is of and even the little details of the icon now become crystal clear. |
| About Pages Проекты «Правмира» Raising Orthodox Children to Orthodox Adulthood The Daily Website on How to be an Orthodox Christian Today Twitter Telegram Parler RSS Donate Navigation How to Win the Virtues The season of Great Lent for us as Orthodox Christians is for one thing only, the “winning” of the virtues. These are the 40 days given to us, (the “tithe” of the year according to Dorotheus of Gaza,) in which we acquire the virtues that come through the grace of the Holy Spirit. Archpriest Paul Jannakos 19 February 2010 Source: St. Mary Magdalene Orthodox Church The season of Great Lent for us as Orthodox Christians is for one thing only, the “winning” of the virtues. These are the 40 days given to us, (the “tithe” of the year according to Dorotheus of Gaza,) in which we acquire the virtues that come through the grace of the Holy Spirit. For the sake of clarification, a virtue is a good habit or disposition that is gained through a wise and ordered way of life. According to the pagan classical tradition, to be “virtuous” meant to be manly. In the typically Roman sense, to be “manly” meant to have as a part of ones character the qualities of courage, discipline, duty, forthrightness, justice, tenacity, dignity, and the like. Classical literature abounds with discussion of the historical Roman and Greek gods and heroes who best exemplified these qualities. Nevertheless, with the appearance of Jesus Christ, something quite new enters into the picture in that the old Greco-Roman virtues not only changed, and changed quite dramatically at that, but were also seen to have as their source the person of Christ – instead of philosophy. No longer did one look to any one of a number of philosophical schools, to the school of Aristotle, or to the school of the Stoics to learn about virtue, but to the Jesus Christ Who is now the living embodiment of everything humanly good. In the person of the incarnate Son of God we encounter love, mercy, kindness, meekness, gentleness, justice, wisdom, purity, peace, and patience, all of which constitute that which is most beautiful in our humanity. This, too, is the most distinctive feature of Orthodox spirituality, the affirmation that the only true and lasting beauty there is lies in the shining forth of the virtues that belong to the humanity of Jesus Christ. As we sing during the Lamentations on Holy Friday, “Thou O my Christ art more beautiful than all the sons of men.” |
| About Pages Проекты «Правмира» Raising Orthodox Children to Orthodox Adulthood The Daily Website on How to be an Orthodox Christian Today Twitter Telegram Parler RSS Donate Navigation Turks Erased Frescoes in Chora Church Pravmir.com team 29 October 2020 in.gr The Turkish government is rapidly converting the Chora Church into a mosque, shortly after the conversion into a mosque of another World Heritage Site, Hagia Sophia. They installed a drop ceiling, scratched everything out, put plasters on the walls, and painted them in order to cover the wonderful frescoes and mosaics of the church and to erase every Orthodox sign. In addition, the first Muslim prayer will take place on the 30th of October in the Chora Church, which will be used as a mosque. It is noteworthy that the Greco-Roman (Byzantine) monument was not used for religious reasons for 72 years. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoan will reportedly attend the first Muslim prayer. According to the Turkish news channel TRT HABER , the prayer was announced in a post on Twitter by the president of the Directorate of Religious Affairs, Ali Erba. In a post with a picture of the Chora Church, Ali Erba calls it “Kariye Mosque” and states that it was decided to reopen it for Muslim worship on Friday, the 30th of October. “May God (Allah) be pleased with the prayers from the minarets,” he added. In connection with this, the deputy head of the Synodal Department for External Church Relations, Archpriest Nikolay Balashov, expressed his shock over the change, “This is the Chora Monastery in Istanbul after it was ‘adjusted’ to be used as a mosque. This is what happened to it. The horror of modern-day barbarity. This is a disaster for Orthodox Christians. The survived vivid evidence of what Constantinople, Tsargrad, and the Mother of Cities used to be is being buried right in front of our eyes, vanishing into oblivion… Those who see shall perceive”. Tweet Donate Share Code for blog Turks Erased Frescoes in Chora Church |
| The notion of an incarnate deity was anathema to the pagan Greco-Romans (along with Gnostics and other “dualists” both ancient and modern), who believed all things material were inherently corrupt and illusory, and only the immaterial had any redeeming value. They practiced cremation as a means of liberating the good soul from the bad body. Cremation meant destroying the soul’s material prison, allowing it to escape. Early Christians and Jews, on the other hand, venerated the bodies of the dead as still reflecting the sacredness of God. For those who celebrated the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, cremation became unthinkable. They treated their dead like Christ, anointing them with fragrant spices, wrapping them in burial shrouds and laying them in the earth. The places of the dead, catacombs became the gathering places for worship. When they began suffering persecution, Christians carried away the bodies of their martyrs, kissing their bones and eventually making pilgrimages to their tombs. As church buildings appeared, martyrs’ shrines were incorporated into them by placing their bones in the altar tables, an Orthodox practice to this day. Few things seem more macabre to the enlightened mind than kissing the bones of the dead. Conversely, few things would have seemed more anathema to early Christians than burning a body, crushing its bones and scattering the ashes or keeping them in a jar. Cremation, outlawed as a pagan desecration by a fifth-century imperial edict, is becoming the preferred method of body “disposal” even among Christians. Although hardly deliberate, strands of the ancient dualism do permeate a modern death. I once had to inform a woman who already had her husband’s ashes in a box that I couldn’t bury him. She didn’t think a funeral was necessary anyway, since he was already partying in heaven. His soul was the “he,” while his body was now insignificant. As a seminary instructor of mine once quipped, “We live like hedonists and die like Platonists.” We live as though our body is the essence of our being, but suddenly it becomes nothing when we die. It’s not my intent to offend those who’ve had loved ones cremated, but to provoke thoughtful consideration of how we want to be treated when we die. Every method implies a belief about the meaning of the body, either that it is a divine icon or simply an empty shell. |
| Thus, we look at Christ, we see how far short we fall of the ideal, of the perfect man. By looking at Jesus alone, we will confess, “ I am the first among sinners.” Yet, when we look at Christ, we also will see how great and unfathomable His love for us is. His mercy and grace give us hope to believe in ourselves, to believe in the image and likeness in which we were created, to believe in the divine potential we possess. After the Apostle Paul confesses that he is “ the foremost of sinners,” he then states, “ but I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost of sinners, Jesus Christ might display His perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in Him for eternal life.” So, God took the foremost of sinners and turned him into an example for the rest of the world. If God can transform the life of Paul, the foremost sinner, He can do it with us also. When we have the humility to see ourselves as we truly are, we won’t despair. Yes, we are the first among sinners. But we will also say, “Yes, but God’s mercy and love is greater than my sin.” Viewing ourselves with humility will teach us to discover the divine potential that God has given to every human being. In some ways, this is the meaning of Saint Silouan’s famous saying, “ Keep your mind in hell but do not despair.” We keep our mind in hell because we are deserving of hell, the first among sinners. We never despair, however, because God’s mercy and grace far exceed our own sinfulness. How could St. Paul and St John Chrysostom consider themselves the greatest among sinners, and what does that say about you and me? It reminds us that we also are the first among sinners, but we are also sinners redeemed by God’s grace. Tweet Donate Share Code for blog Am I the First Among Sinners? Priest Luke A. Veronis Why would Saint Paul call himself the “first among sinners” in today’s Epistle Reading? He was the greatest apostle who helped spread the Good News of Jesus Christ outside of the Jewish world and into the Greco-Roman world. Yet, despite all his accomplishments as an apostle to the nations, he ... |
| In elevating Gene Robinson—a man who divorced his wife and married another man—to bishopric, the Episcopal Church set his conduct as an example for believers to follow, apparently disregarding the admonition that “a bishop must be above reproach, married only once.” The Church’s History with Gay Marriage Humans have been walking this earth for quite a long time by any account, and yet each and every one of us has to learn to take his or her first step. Brilliant writers have been composing masterpieces in poetry and prose for at least a few thousand years, and yet each one of us had to learn a first word. In fact, most of us have to spend the first couple of decades of our lives learning to do things for the first time that the rest of humanity has been doing for millennia. This is essential to becoming human and making sense of the world, as long as we don’t over-do it by attempting to re-invent the wheel or choosing to ignore the experience of those who have come before us. So, it may seem to us that we are the first generation of Christians who have had to grapple with the issue of same-gender marriage. In fact, the first decree prohibiting same-gender marriage was issued by Christian Roman emperors in 342 AD. This particular law not only condemned male-male sexual acts, but also condemned those engaging in such acts to death. The death penalty for “acting the part of a woman” was confirmed again by the emperors Valentinian II, Theodosius I, and Arcadius in 390 AD. Religious authorities condemned homosexual acts with equal vigor, punishing those engaging in them with lengthy excommunications. To the ancient Church, homosexual acts, including marriage or some semblance of it, were not a theoretical construct. Male-male intercourse—often in the form of pederasty, but also between free men and their slaves, and sometimes, apparently, between free men—was a reality in the Greco-Roman world. At least thirteen of the first fourteen Roman emperors engaged in homosexual acts; and at least two of them—Nero and Elagabalus—held lavish public ceremonies to marry their male “brides” and grooms. |
| In the Conversation of a seeker and a believer concerning the truth of the Eastern Greco-Russian Church (1832), by Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow, we find the considered opinion on the basic ecumenical question of one who had been through the experiences of the age of revival, and yet was deeply rooted in the Catholic tradition. The immediate purpose of this dialogue was to give guidance to those Russians who were at that time troubled by Roman Catholic propaganda. But Philaret sets forth the problem of Church unity in all its width. He begins with the definition of the Church as the Body of Christ. The full measure and inner composition of the Body is known to Christ alone, who is its Head. The visible Church, the Church in history, is but an external manifestation of the glorious Church invisible, which cannot be «seen» distinctly, but only discerned and apprehended by faith. The visible Church includes weak members also. The main criterion here is that of Christological belief: «Mark you, I do not presume to call false any Church which believes that Jesus is Christ. The Christian Church can only be either purely true, confessing the true and saving divine teaching without the false admixtures and pernicious opinions of men, or not purely true, mixing with the true and saving teaching of faith in Christ the false and pernicious opinions of men.» Christendom is visibly divided. Authority in the Church belongs to the common consent of the Church Universal, based on the Word of God. Ultimately separated from the Church are only those who do not confess that Jesus is Son of God, God Incarnate, and Redeemer. The Eastern Church has ever been faithful to the original deposit of faith, it has kept the pure doctrine. In this sense it is the only true Church. But Philaret would not «judge» or condemn the other Christian bodies. Even the «impure» Churches somehow belong to the mystery of Christian unity. The ultimate judgement belongs to the Head of the Church. The destiny of Christendom is one, and in the history of schisms and divisions one may recognize a secret action of the divine Providence, which heals the wounds and chastises the deviations, that ultimately it may bring the glorious Body of Christ to unity and perfection. |
| Arhiva Continu pregtirea ctre desfurarea în Grecia a forumului greco-rus ortodox de tineret 1 august 2014 12:38 В конце июля 2014 года в Паломническом центре Московского Патриархата состоялась встреча по обсуждению вопросов подготовки молодежного форума в Греции в 2015 году, решение о проведении которого было принято в мае с.г. во время посещения Греции представителями Синодального отдела по делам молодежи и Всероссийского православного молодежного движения (ВПМД). Во встрече приняли участие директор Паломнического центра Московского Патриархата иеродиакон Сергий (Туркеев), директор по развитию Паломнического центра Елена Стрельцова, руководитель секретариата Синодального отдела по делам молодежи иеродиакон Никита (Ефремов), сотрудник Синодального отдела по делам молодежи, заместитель председателя Всероссийского православного молодежного движения Константин Беремеш. Также на встречу были приглашены представители туристических организаций: генеральный директор компании «Музенидис Трэвел» Александр Цандекиди, директор греческого православного паломнического центра «Солунь» Алексей Петричко, руководитель образовательного центра «Альфа-Мега» Роман Сарбаш, руководитель филиала «Музенидис Трэвел» в Казани Светлана Прокопцова, руководитель Межрегионального консорциума вузов, заместитель председателя Татарстанского отделения ВПМД Оксана Артеменко. Предстоящий форум призван стимулировать православный молодежный обмен между Россией и Грецией, в том числе для участия в совместных молодежных мероприятиях. К его проведению будут разработаны программы по организации массовых паломнических поездок российской молодежи на Афон, а также в южную Грецию, на острова Киклады. Важным результатом встречи стало официальное знакомство представителей Синодального отдела по делам молодежи и туристических организаций с иеродиаконом Сергием (Туркеевым), недавно назначенным на должность директора Паломнического Центра Московского Патриархата. В ходе встречи была создана рабочая группа по организации намеченных мероприятий. Синодальный отдел по делам молодежи /Патриархия. ru Календарь ← 6 martie 2022 19 aprilie 2020 |
| Podskalsky. I teologi greco–cattolici e greco–ortodossi della Turcocrazia (XV–XVIII sec.) et l’esicasmo palamitico//Amore del bello… 121–134). 375 С большой любовью он пишет о преп. Никодиме Святогорце в своей книге о греческом богословии периода туркократии; всего через 4 года выйдет книга «православного» Х. Яннараса (см. выше, прим. 8), в которой на этого же святого будет возведена всевозможная хула. Поневоле задумываешься, кто к Православию ближе… 376 Lison. L’Esprit repandu… (Ср. также развернутое авторское резюме: J. Lison. L’Esprit de la Pentecote selon Gregoire Palamas//L’Eglise canadienne. 1994. 27. 179–182). Кроме монографии, вышли рецензии и следующие статьи: J. Lison. L’energie des trois hypostases divines selon Gregoire Palamas//Science et Esprit. 1992. 44. 67–77; La divinisation selon Gregoire Palamas. Un sommet de la theologie orthodoxe//Irenikon. 1994. 67. 59–70. Все эти работы написаны еще при жизни о. А. де Аллё. Анонимная рец. в: La Lumiere du Thabor. 1996. N 47–48. 161–164, особ. 163 (международный богословский журнал «Свет Фавора» издается парижским православным Братством св. Григория Паламы, находящимся в юрисдикции Свящ. Синода Истинно–православных христиан Греции, возглавлявшегося преосв. архиеп. Афинским Авксентием; братство было основано выдающимся подвижником и исихастом, к прославлению которого сейчас собираются материалы, — архим. Амвросием Fontrier (1917–1992)). В рецензии, кроме того, высказан справедливый упрек в непонимании автором учения св. Григория Паламы в той части, которая относится, по терминологии автора, к «горизонтальному» измерению действия благодати — т. е. екклисиологическому. Ср.: «Что же касается ‘горизонтального’ распространения благодати, то приходится констатировать, что ей почти не отводится места у нашего автора [св. Григория Паламы]. Он придает значение, главным образом, восхождению личностей к чистой молитве и, следовательно, индивидуальной концепции спасения… Упор на опыт, на значение духовных отцов, ‘харизматическая’ тенденция нашего автора — все это ставит нас в преимущественно ‘вертикальные’ отношения с Богом» (Lison. |
| Conclusione Tale il cammino autentico del matrimonio, e tale il suo posto nell’antropologia cristiana. Il matrimonio – istituzione antica, connaturata alla natura umana fin dalia sua origine – nella Chiesa cessa di essere determinante l’essere umano e, in prospettiva escatologica, cessa di esserlo del tutto. Tuttavia, diventando sacramento, il matrimonio riceve la benedizione divina. E attraverso la fatica dei coniugi, fatica che si invera in una attività ascetica, la carità e la vita donata ai figli, esso diventa un cammino regale, che conduce tutta la famiglia – piccola Chiesa – alla salvezza, e in questo modo si toma alla prospettiva escatologica. Così le corone simboliche del sacramento si trasfigurano in corone di salvezza per i giusti di Dio. «Accogli le loro corone nel tuo regno, senza macchia, irreprensibili, e risplendano per sempre nei secoli dei secoli. Amen» (sesta preghiera di matrimonio). 3 La medesima immagine viene utilizzata anche nell’Apocalisse di san Giovanni; cfr. Ap. 19:7; 21:9. 4 In greco συζυγα (congiunzione, unità indissolubile; ad esempio, dei rami da un tronco d’albero) vale «unione carnale» (negli animali), «combinazione» (di parole in una frase). 5 Tutte le traduzioni sono state realizzate direttamente dal testo originale dell’autore greco. In slavo ecclesiastico la preghiera suona così: «Dio Altissimo, e creatore di tutto il creato, dalla costola del progenitore Adamo per il Tuo amore hai dato forma alla donna, li hai benedetti e hai detto: Diffondetevi e moltiplicatevi, popolate la terra e rendetela un unico giardino attraverso la vostra unione (δι τς συζυγας): in vista di ciò l’uomo lascerà suo padre e sua madre e si unirà a sua moglie e saranno una sola carne: non divida l’uomo ciò che Dio ha unito...» Читать далее Источник: Gesu Cristo e il nuovo umanesimo. Lumanesimo cristiano di fronte alle nuove sfide del mondo contemporaneo/Publisher Societa Biblica Americana, 2010. - 576./Lantropologia cristiana del matrimonio nella tradizione liturgica della Chiesa Ortodossa. Traduzione a cura di Marta Panciera. 375-386. Поделиться ссылкой на выделенное |
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