| On Thursday evening, the Matins service of Holy Friday is served. This service is also called the Service of the Twelve Gospels, because there are twelve Gospel passages relating to the Lord’s passion and crucifixion. In the Russian tradition, the candles held lit during this service are taken home, the flame used to light the icon lamps as a blessing. On Friday morning The Great [Royal] Hours are served. Icon of the Crucifixion About the Icon: The Crucifixion of Our Lord Christ is nailed to the Cross; His right side is pierced and the wound flows with blood and water. The Theotokos is depicted on the left with a halo. The three women depicted together with the Theotokos are Saint Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of Zebedee's children (Matthew 27:56) Saint John the Beloved Disciple is on the immediate right of the cross. Saint Longinus the Centurion is on the extreme right; he is the Roman centurion mentioned in Saint Mark's Gospel account of the Crucifixion (Mark 15:39). The Inscription on the top bar of the Cross is the inscription I.N.B.I., the initials of the Greek words meaning " Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. " The Skull at the foot of the Cross. “Golgotha”, the Mount of the Crucifixion, means “the place of the skull. " Tradition relates that the Cross of Christ stood directly above the grave of Adam. Crucifixion of Our Lord. References: First Hour: Zechariah 11:10-13 Galatians 6:14-18 Matthew (27:1-56) Third Hour: Isaiah 50:4-11 Romans 5:6-10 Mark 15:16-41 Sixth Hour: Isaiah 52:13-15, 54:1-12 Hebrews 2:11-18 Luke 23:32-49 Ninth Hour: Jeremiah 11:18-23, 12:1-5, 9:11, 14-15 Hebrews 10:19-31 John 19:23-37 Explanation of the Service: Each of the four Hours bears a numerical name, derived from one of the major daylight hours or intervals of the day as they were known in antiquity: the First (corresponding to sunrise); the Third (midmorning or 9 a.m.); the Sixth (noonday); and the Ninth (mid-afternoon or 3 p.m.). Each Hour has a particular theme, and sometimes even a sub-theme, based upon some aspects of the Christ-event and salvation history. The general themes of the Hours are the coming of Christ, the true light (First); the descent of the Holy Spirit (Third); the passion and crucifixion of Christ (Sixth); the death and burial of Christ (Ninth). |
| In the Prophet Hosea, we find this definition of God: “I am God, and not man.” If God, Who has reason and will, as is clearly reflected in the Bible (3 Kings Kings] 3:28; Job 12:13, 16; Proverbs 3:19-20; Sirach 1:1, 5; 15:18, 42:21; Esaias [Isaiah] 11:2; 28:29; Luke 11:49; Romans 11:33; 14:26; 1 Corinthians 1: 21, 24; 2:7. Will of God: Psalm 106 11; Wisdom 6:4; Mark 3:35; Luke 7:30; Acts 20:27; 1 Peter 2:15; 3:17; 4:2, 19; 1 John 2:17; Romans 1:10; 8:27; 12:2; 1 Corinthians 1:1; 2 Corinthians 8:5; Ephesians 5:17; 6:6; 1 Thessalonians 4:3; 5:18; Hebrews 10:36; Revelation 17:17), is not man, this means that He is a being of another order, located by His nature beyond our world. He, as philosophers and theologians say, is transcendent with respect to the world. This transcendence – that is, God’s natural distinction from the physical world – is described in the Bible by the word “Spirit.” “God is a spirit” (John 4:24. Cf., Genesis 1:2; 6:3; 41:38; Exodus 15:10; 31:3. Numbers 11:29; 23:6; 24:2; Judges 3:10; 6:34; 11:29; 13:25; 14:6, 19; 15:14; 1 Kings Samuel] 10:6, 10; 11:6; 16:13; 19:20, 23; 2 Kings Samuel] 23:2; 3 Kings Kings] 18:12; 1 Paralipomena Chronicles] 15:1; 2 Paralipomena Chronicles] 15:1; 20: 14; 24:20; Neemias [Nehemiah] 9:20; Judith 16:14; Job 4:9; 26: 13; 33:4; Psalms 32 50 103 138 142 Wisdom of Solomon 1:7; 9:17; 12:1; Esaias [Isaiah] 11:2; 32:15; 34:16; 42:1; 44:3; 48:16; 61:1; 63:10–14. Ezekiel 11:1, 5; Aggeus [Haggai] 2:5; Zacharias 4:6; 7:12; 2 Esdras 6:37; Matthew 1:20; 3:16; 4:1; 10:20; 12:31–32; 28:19. Mark 1:10, 12; 3:29; 13:11; Luke 1:35, 67; 2:26; 3:22; 4:1, 18; 11:13; 12:10, 12; John 1:32–33; 3:5–6, 8, 34; 6:63; 7:39; 14:17, 26; 15:26; 16:13; 20:22; Acts 1:2, 5, 8, 16; 2:4, 17–18, 33, 38; 5:3, 9; 7:51; 8:29; 9:31; 10:19; 11:12, 28; 13:2, 4; 15:28; 16:6–7; 19:6; 20:22–23, 28; 21:11; 28:25. 1 Peter 1:2, 11–12, 22; 5:5; 8:9, 11, 14–16, 23, 26–27; 11:8; 14:17; 15:13, 16, 19, 30; 1 Corinthians 2:10–14; 3:16; 6:11, 19; 12: 3–4, 8–11, 13; 15:45; 2 Corinthians 1:22; 3:3, 17–18; 5:5; Galatians 3:5, 14; 4: 6; Ephesians 1:13, 17; 2:18. 22; 3:5, 16; 4:30; 5:9; Philippians 1:19; 1 Thessalonians 1:5–6; 4:8; 2 Thessalonians 2:8, 13; 1 Timothy 3:16; 4:1; 2 Timomhy 1:14; Titus 3:5; Hebrews 2:4; 3:7; 6:4; 9:8, 14; 10:15, 29; Revelation 2:7, 11, 17, 29; 3:6, 13, 22; 14:13; 22:17). |
| Beginning of Great Lent 2012. Archpastoral Message of His Beatitude, Metropolitan Jonah Monday, February 27, 2012 The First Day of Great Lent Beginning of Great Lent 2012 To the Very Reverend and Reverend Clergy, the Venerable Monastics, and the Christ-loving Faithful of the Orthodox Church in America. Beloved in Christ: “Enter again into Paradise!” So the Holy Church sings in the kontakion at Lent’s mid-point. At a time of year that coincides with college students’ “spring break” – an occasion for riotous and prodigal indulgence in the pigpen of the passions – the Church offers us a very different image of paradise. Fasting, vigil, silence and prayer, denial of self and generosity to others: these are the labors by which we are invited and commanded to regain our true, paradisal home. In the three weeks that have led us to this great and solemn first day of the Fast, the Church has set before our spiritual eyes themes of exile. When our ancestors in the faith were led to captivity in Babylon, they wept; they hung up their lyres and said, “How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither” (Psalm 136:4–5). The Prodigal Son, at the eleventh hour, was given the grace not to forget his father’s house, and so he set his feet on the path of return. Our father Adam and our mother Eve chose exile and hardship for themselves and all their descendants through their disobedience, and yet they – and we with them – are shown the way home: we see the doors of repentance thrown open, and our loving Father in heaven keeping watch for our return with open arms. In Holy Scripture, Jerusalem, the heart of the Promised Land and seat of the Temple, typifies the dwelling place of God among men. When the time came for our Savior to be received up, “He set His face to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51). Making his way to the earthly Jerusalem, He was advancing toward suffering and ignominious death. Yet, “for the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2). Cast out of the city, suffering outside the gate, He sanctified the people through His own blood. Therefore, the Apostle tells us, we also must “go forth to him outside the camp, bearing His reproach. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the one to come” (Hebrews 13:12–14). |
| Скачать epub pdf [Translated by Andrew Eastbourne] 1. It would perhaps not be inappropriate here again to discuss the Pascha, which was handed down long ago 1 to the children of the Hebrews as an image. Now then, when the Hebrews, performing «shadows of things to come,» 2 first used to celebrate the festival of Phasek, 3 they would take for themselves a young domestic animal (this was a lamb or a sheep 4 ). Next, they would sacrifice this animal themselves; and then, with the blood, everyone would first anoint the lintels and door-posts of their own homes, bloodying the thresholds and houses to ward off the destroyer. 5 The flesh of the lamb, on the other hand, they would use for food; and girding up their loins with a belt, partaking of the nourishment of unleavened bread, and serving themselves bitter herbs, they would «pass over» from one place to another – [meaning,] the [journey] from the land of Egypt to the wilderness. 6 It had been enjoined by Law that they do this, along with the slaughter and eating of the lamb. Hence, the passing over out of Egypt produced 7 for them the name of the «Passover.» 8 But these things happened to them by way of a type; and they were written down for our sake. 9 Indeed, Paul [implicitly] gives this interpretation, revealing the truth of the ancient symbols, when he says, «For indeed, Christ our Pascha has been sacrificed.» 10 And the reason for his being sacrificed is presented by the Baptist, when he says, «Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.» 11 The Savior " s body, 12 you see, was handed over to death as a sacrificial victim to ward off all evils: In the manner of a purificatory ritual, it took away the sin of the whole world. That is why Isaiah cried out clearly, «This one bears our sins, and suffers pain on our behalf.» 13 2. When we are nourished by the rational 14 flesh of this sacrificial Savior, 15 who rescued the entire human race by his own blood – that is, when we are nourished by his teachings and discourses, which announce the kingdom of heaven – then we are rightly luxuriating with the luxury 16 that is in accordance with God. But in addition to this, when we mark the houses of our souls, that is, our bodies, by faith in his blood, which he gave as a ransom in exchange for our salvation, we drive away from ourselves every kind of treacherous demon. And when we celebrate the «Passover» festival, we are training ourselves to pass over to divine things, just as in ancient times they passed over out of Egypt into the desert. Indeed, in this way, we too are setting out on a kind of path that is untraversed and left deserted by the many, putting out of our souls the ancient «leaven» of godless error; and we serve ourselves «bitter herbs» by means of a bitter and painful way of life. |
| Concerning Patience Sometimes we wish for our prayers and requests to be immediately fulfilled, not thinking about the fact that God knows better than we do what is good for us, and when to give us consolation. We weep and groan, calling ourselves unhappy, as if we have innocently suffered for our entire lives, forgetting the declaration of the Apostle Paul: " Whome the Lord loves He chastens; for He scourges every son whom He receives. (Hebrews 12:6) Through the bearing of afflictions and bodily sufferings, the Lord heals our souls, preparing them for the life to come. Archimandrite Kirill (Pavlov) 15 May 2011 Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ! The Gospel which we read today tells us about the great miracle of the healing of the paralytic, which our Lord performed, and of His mercy to suffering humanity. This Gospel pertains to each of us quite specifically, and can bring us great edification and comfort. The Gospel tells us that, not far from the temple in Jerusalem, there was a sheep’s pool. An angel of the Lord used to come down to this pool and stir up the water, thus imparting to it a healing power, and whoever first went into the water after it was stirred by the angel would receive healing of any sort of disease that might be afflicting him. This healing power drew may sick people to the water. Among them was a certain man who had born a grievous sickness for thirty-eight years; but nevertheless he did not lose hope of healing. Archimandrite Kirill (Pavlov) On the occassion of the feast-day, our Lord Jesus Christ came to Jerusalem and visited the sheep’s pool. Turning His attention to the paralytic, who had patiently awaited the mercy of God, the Lord asked him: Do you wish to be made whole? The sick man answered, “Indeed, Lord. But I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into pool. While I am still coming, someone gets there before me.” Then the Lord said, “Arise, take up your bed, and walk.” (John 5:6-8) And – O! the wonder! The Lord healed the sick man instantaneously by His Divine Power alone. The man who has born a grievous illness for thirty-eight years became well right then, picked up his bed and went his way. But this was one the Sabbath, and the Jews said that it was not permitted to carry one’s bed on the Sabbath. Then the healed man said, “The one who healed me said to me, ‘Take up your bed and walk. " ” (John 5:11) Jesus Christ was not there. He had hidden himself among the people. But then, when the Lord met the healed man in the temple, He added this saying: “Behold, you are healed. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you.” (John 5:14) |
| Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete (As chanted on Monday of the first Week) On Monday of the First Week of Lent, during Great Compline, after Psalm 69, the Canon is sung. The Eirmosi are sung twice, at the beginning and end of each Song. Before each Troparion we make the sign of the Cross and bow three times. On Monday of the First Week of Lent, during Great Compline, after Psalm 69, the Canon is sung. The Eirmosi are sung twice, at the beginning and end of each Song. Before each Troparion we make the sign of the Cross and bow three times. Song 1 . Tone 6 Eirmos: He is my Helper and Protector, and has become my salvation. This is my God and I will glorify Him. My father’s God and I will exalt Him. For gloriously has He been glorified. (Exodus 15:2,1; Psalm 117:14) Refrain: Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me. Troparia: Where shall I begin to lament the deeds of my wretched life? What first-fruit shall I offer, O Christ, for my present lamentation? But in Thy compassion grant me release from my falls. Come, wretched soul, with your flesh, confess to the Creator of all. In future refrain from your former brutishness, and offer to God tears in repentance. Having rivaled the first-created Adam by my transgression, I realize that I am stripped naked of God and of the everlasting kingdom and bliss through my sins. (Genesis 3) Alas, wretched soul! Why are you like the first Eve? For you have wickedly looked and been bitterly wounded, and you have touched the tree and rashly tasted the forbidden food. The place of bodily Eve has been taken for me by the Eve of my mind in the shape of a passionate thought in the flesh, showing me sweet things, yet ever making me taste and swallow bitter things. Adam was rightly exiled from Eden for not keeping Thy one commandment, O Savior. But what shall I suffer who am always rejecting Thy living words? (Hebrews 12:25; Genesis 3:23) Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: To The Trinity: Superessential Trinity, adored in Unity, take from me the heavy yoke of sin, and in Thy compassion grant me tears of compunction. |
| Living in Apocalyptic Times Source: Remembering Sion If the signs of the coming apocalypse fill us primarily with anxiety or with anger, then we must recognize that we have lost something precious of the authentic Christian vision of life. Hieromonk Gabriel 13 January 2021 There is no question that we live in troubling times. The 20th century witnessed an unparalleled persecution of Christianity across the entire world – primarily through revolutionary violence in the East, but primarily through worldly seduction in the West (if you doubt that the two are comparable, I will simply point to the witness of Alexander Solzhenitsyn who had ample occasion to experience both for himself). Such persecution was prophesied to us by our Lord: “Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for My name’s sake” (Matthew 24:9). And before this He had warned of the rise of false prophets, of wars and rumors of wars, of plagues and famines and troubles of many kinds – none of which are by any means far from our contemporary experience. And now that the year 2020 – with all its multitude of tragedies and temptations – has drawn to a close, more and more Christians are coming to the conclusion that the times in which we live are not merely troubling, but are apocalyptic. What are we to make of this as Orthodox Christians? On the one hand we cannot agree with the dispensationalist systems of some Protestants, nor can we encourage a fixation on determining “the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in His own power” and which Christ declared are simply not for us to know (cf. Acts 1:7). Yet at the same time we are certainly commanded to “discern the signs of the times” (Luke 12:56), and above all we are called to a ceaseless vigilance in anticipation of the coming of our Lord: “And what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch” (Mark 13:37). And theologically speaking, there can be no doubt that we are indeed living in the end times – for according to the teaching of the Orthodox Church, we have been living in the end times ever since the Day of Pentecost. Even in the first years of Christianity, the Apostle Paul already spoke of himself and his fellow believers as those “upon whom the ends of the world are come” (1 Corinthians 10:11). Indeed, so expectant were the early Christians of the imminent return of Christ that St. Paul at one point even had to assure the church in Thessalonica in the strongest terms that the Day itself had not already arrived (cf. 2 Thessalonians 2). For the early Christians, it was only too clear that “here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come” (Hebrews 13:14). That we Christians today have lost the immediacy of such eschatological vision is, I think, greatly to our hurt. |
| On the Church and Eternity “The Church is without beginning, without end, and eternal, just as its founder, the Trinitarian God, is without beginning, without end, and eternal. The Church is uncreated, just as God is uncreated. It existed before the ages, before the angels, before the creation of the world…” Thus began the article, “On the Church,” by Archimandrite Porphirios the Kapsokalivite (Bairaktaris + 1991), one of the most authoritative Greek spiritual fathers, in our last issue. We asked Bishop Atanasije, a well-known theologian of the Serbian Church, to give a theological commentary on this assertion. All Creation Rejoices in Thee That the Church is eternal and that its being will never end requires no demonstration. The Apostle Paul, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, tells us: But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel (Heb 12:22-24). This is our homeland (cf., Heb 11:14) and our city, the founder of which is Christ (cf., I Cor 3:11; Eph 2:20, Heb 11:10). But we can also speak of the eternity of the Church from the beginning. The Holy Trinity is the prototype of the Church. Saint Photius, in one of his sermons, said the Holy Trinity was “en-churched” (ekklisiasasa) and created the world, that is, gathered in Council and was manifest as the Church. The Church, as a design of Divine oikonomia [dispensation], is without beginning. St Gregory of Nyssa spoke about this: “kosmou ktisis ekklisias kataskeui” “the creation of the world is already the foundation of the Church” (cf., Heb 4:3). At the Pre-eternal Council God decreed to create the world, and decreed the Incarnation would be accomplished for the intimate union between God and His creation. This unity arises in the Son of God; and, loving His Son, God loves us. One may say that the entire history of the world is the history of the Church. |
| Shadows, Icons, and the Age to Come Source: Glory to God for All Things Archpriest Stephen Freeman 14 April 2022 Photo: Sergei Vlasov/ foto.patriarchia.ru What will heaven be like? It is not an unusual question. Sometimes it is asked with all the freshness of a child, other times with the anxiety of the old. It is not a question that admits of easy answers, nor a question for which language is sufficient. The cynic says, “Nobody knows.” That attitude falls short of the fullness of human experience. There are stories. There are also things that point and make suggestions. There is, also, a pattern of reasoning and seeing that stands beside the various witnesses that have come down to us. A pattern of particular note is the statement that “the Old Testament is shadow, and the New Testament is the icon of the age to come.” This idea is stated plainly in both St. Maximus the Confessor (East) and St. Ambrose of Milan (West). It represents part of the primitive consensus of the Church, a foundational way of seeing the world and the nature of our spiritual life. The notion is simple: the age to come (heaven) is the true Reality, towards which everything else can only point. This does not deny that what we now know is “real.” Instead, it says that it lacks something in its reality. It’s real, but not completely so. Putting this into words is nearly impossible. However, it gets put into stories, and the stories have enough commonality to suggest that they share a common experience. Consider these passages: At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken… Hebrews 12:26-28 The earth (the created universe as we know it) is such that it can be “shaken.” |
| The Role of Suffering in the Salvation of Humankind Source: The Morning Offerings Abbot Tryphon 10 April 2020 Photo: mpda.ru Elder Ambrose of Optina Monastery said, “We should not forget that in our age of ‘sophistication’ even little children are spiritually harmed by what they see and hear. As a result, purification is required….You must understand that Paradisal bliss is granted to no one without suffering.” A person walks on the path to salvation not only by his good deeds, but also by his patient suffering of various griefs, illnesses, misfortunes, and failures (Luke 16:19-31, Mark 8:31-38, Romans 6:3-11, Hebrews 12:1-3, and Galatians 6:14). Jesus Christ gives us the power which is needed for transformation, and prepares us to live with a strength under the most difficult conditions, preparing us for the peace that is eternal, and He comes and stands next to us in our suffering. Without suffering we can not join ourselves to the cross, and when we do take up our cross in suffering, it is with our Co-Suffering Saviour. Sickness and suffering are not given to us by a wrathful and punitive God because we have sinned, but rather allowed by this loving God who co-suffers with us. It is Western juridical misconceptions concerning sin which has tended to distort a proper recognition of suffering and its connection to sin. During this Covid 19 Pandemic, we are all experiencing separation from our friends and family. Additionally, many are experiencing job loss, compounded by the added financial worry that has come with the loss of income. I, like most priests I know, am also heartbroken that I can not receive pilgrims to the monastery, many of whom are like family to me. Yet I know in my heart that this suffering is salvific, not only for myself, but for all those I love and care about. This is a call from the Lord to repentance, and is therefore a gift from the Lord Most High. We now have an opportunity to go inward, where we can deepen our prayer life, and enter into the Silence where God is speaking to each of us. These are indeed difficult times, yet if we look deeply at what is happening, we can also see that they can be the best of times. |
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