| Commemoration of the Holy Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council (787). The Holy Icons. The Seventh Ecumenical Council, convoked by the Empress Irene and met at Nicaea from September 24 to October 13, 787. Patriarch Tarasios (commemorated February 25) presided. The council ended almost fifty years of iconoclast persecution and established the veneration of the holy icons as basic to the belief and spirituality of Christ's Church. As the Synaxarion says, " It was not simply the veneration of the holy images that the Fathers defended in these terms but, in fact, the very reality of the Incarnation of the Son of God. " " The second Council of Nicaea is the seventh and last Ecumenical Council recognized by the Orthodox Church. This does not mean that there may not be ecumenical Councils in the future although, in holding the seventh place, the Council of Nicaea has taken to itself the symbol of perfection and completion represented by this number in Holy Scripture (e.g. Gen. 2:1-3). It closes the era of the great dogmatic disputes which enabled the Church to describe, in definitions excluding all ambiguity, the bounds of the holy Orthodox Faith. From that time, every heresy that appears can be related to one or other of the errors that the Church, assembled in universal Councils, has anathematized from the first until the seventh Council of Nicaea. " Synaxarion In Greek practice, the holy God-bearing Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council are commorated on October 11/21 (if it is a Sunday), or on the Sunday which follows October 11/21. According to the Slavic MENAION, however, if the eleventh falls on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday, the service is moved to the preceding Sunday. Holy Trinity Church On the Sunday that falls on or immediately after the eleventh of this month [N.S., 21st O.S.], we chant the Service to the 350 holy Fa thers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, which ga thered in Nicaea in 787 under the holy Patriarch Tarasius and during the reign of the Empress Irene and her son, Constantine Porphyrogenitus, to refute the Iconoclast heresy, which had received imperial support beginning with the Edict issued in 726 by Emperor Leo the Isaurian. Many of the holy Fa thers who condemned Iconoclasm at this holy Council later died as Confessors and Martyrs for the holy Icons during the second assult of Iconoclasm in the ninth century, especially during the reigns of Leo the Armenian and Theophilus |
| Patriarch Kirill: St. Sergius is the Embodiment of Holy Russia Holy Russia is what we call a meta-reality, that which lies beyond the boundaries of human reality. The annual celebration on July 18 of the finding of the sacred relics of St. Sergius, Abbot of Radonezh (1422), this year became the culmination of the feast dedicated to the 700th anniversary of this great Russian ascetic struggler. Following the Liturgy at the cathedral square of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, His Holiness, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia addressed the numerous pilgrims with the following sermon: Photo: http://www.patriarchia.ru Your Eminences and Graces! Revered Father, Mother Abbesses, Brothers and Sisters! Eminent state officials! I would like to greet you all cordially on this great feast for our entire historical Fatherland and all of Rus’: the feast day of our Holy and God-Bearing Father, Sergius, Abbot of Radonezh. Sergius, the Venerable God-Pleaser, is truly a luminary through his entire life and across all of history. As the flame on a candle concentrates all of its energy, so too did the personality of St. Sergius concentrate all the light and spiritual strength of Holy Russia. When we say “Holy Russia,” what do we have in mind? Some people think that this is just a mythologema, an idea that was typical of our people in the Middle Ages. Others try to find the embodiment of Holy Russia in one historical period or another and, pointing at one or another period, say: this was Holy Russia. But neither the one nor the other is correct. Holy Russia is not a myth and Holy Russia is not an historical reality. Holy Russia is what we call a meta-reality, that which is beyond the boundaries of human reality. But if we use the word “reality,” then that which is beyond it has a bearing on our everyday life. And it becomes clear that Holy Russia is the undying spiritual and moral ideal of our people, and that the expression of this idea, its dominant, is holiness. Surprisingly, if one asks a simple question: where else was holiness the basic, principal idea of people’s lives? Then we are talking neither about monasteries, nor about closed groups of people dedicated to the service of God, but about an enormous nation. Usually people have different ideals connected with earthly life: the ideals of wealth, power, and might. But the ideal of our nation was holiness; this was the national ideal, and therefore those who attained holiness, who realized this national ideal, became heroes: heroes of the spirit, ascetic strugglers, and luminaries. This applied to princes, boyars, rulers, military leaders, simple peasants, monks, and laypeople. And of all those who embodied the idea of Holy Russia, the Holy Venerable Sergius, Abbot of Radonezh, is in the first place. |
| John Anthony McGuckin Holy Trinity ARISTOTLE PAPANIKOLAOU The Trinity is what Christians eventually came to refer to as the New Testament witnesses to a faith in Jesus as the Son of God, who as a result of his unique relation to the Father, reveals the Father and offers the eschatological gift of salvation by the power of the Holy Spirit. The New Testament itself does not give any definitive or creed-like statements about God as Trinity. What the earliest followers and interpreters of Jesus do is to continue to speak about Jesus and interpret his life, sayings, and deeds, together with the salvation he offers, in terms of Jesus’ relationship to the Father and the Spirit. Although there existed a variety of interpretations of Jesus in the earliest formulations of Christianity, two positions became predominant. The first consists of understanding Jesus as a divine mediator, but not generally seen as divine in the same degree as God the Father (often known as Pre-Nicene subordinationism); the second affirms Jesus as of equal divinity with the Father. It is important for the understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity to notice that these two positions share many common assumptions: (1) that Jesus is the Messiah and, as such, the one who fulfills the promise of salvation; (2) that this salvation consists in the bringing of creation into some form of renewed contact with the divine; and (3) as mediamediator of this contact between divinity and creation, Jesus is revealed as the divine Son of God. The core of the debates of the identity of Christ in the 2nd and 3rd centuries gravitated around the question of the degree and nature of divinity ascribed to Jesus by the church. These two parallel trajectories would ultimately culminate – and critically so – in the famous controversies of the 4th century between St. Athanasius of Alexandria and the Nicene theologians, and the so-called “Arians.” Athanasius would stand in continuity with Sts. Ignatius of Antioch and Irenaeus of Lyon in emphasizing salvation as humanity’s freedom from death and corruption, and that this freedom requires a conceptualizing of the God-world relation in terms of a communion between the created and the uncreated. The unequivocal declaration of the co-equal divinity of the Son with the Father occurs first in Athanasius, who argues that there is no freedom from death and corruption, and hence no eternal life, without a communion of the created with the full divinity as revealed in the person and work of Christ. |
| Michael Prokurat, Alexander Golitzin, Michael D. Peterson Скачать epub pdf TRINITY TRINITY. According to the understanding of the Orthodox Church, the confession of faith in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (q.v.) is as old as Christianity. It is not the product of human reasoning, but the articulation of divine revelation, and it is embedded in the earliest Christian documents. The Apostle Paul, for example, closes 2 Cor with a Trinitarian blessing sometime in the A.D. 50s, and it seems to be the case that he is himself but repeating a formula already employed in Christian worship. The Gospel of Matthew concludes with the Trinitarian formula for Baptism (q.v.) already in use in that community ca. A.D. 80. The “Last Supper” discourse in Jn 14–16 contains four passages on the Holy Spirit which make it clear that the Spirit is regarded as a distinct person, “another Comforter/Advocate,” together with the Son. While profession of the three persons is from the earliest Christian scriptural witnesses, the Church also inherited the confession of God (q.v.) as one from the Hebrews: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord” (Duet 6:4). There do not appear to have been any speculative attempts to square this circle earlier than the 2nd c. Father, Son, and Spirit were simply facts of primitive Christian experience; they were acknowledged as such in tandem with faith in the divine unity. The word, “trinity” (Greek trias and Latin trinitas), does not appear until Theophilus of Antioch (Greek) in the 180s and Tertullian (q.v.) (Latin) a decade or two later. The latter, together with Irenaeus of Lyons (q.v.), provide the first attempts at explaining the dual confession of God as one and three. Tertullian relies primarily on a Stoic model, the divine substance in three different and eternal modes of expression. Irenaeus uses the analogy of the human person, speaking on some occasions of Son and Spirit as the Father’s Word and Wisdom, and elsewhere as his “two hands.” In the 3rd c. Origen, borrowing from Platonism and the earlier work of Clement of Alexandria and Justin Martyr (qq.v.), arranges Father, Son, and Spirit in a descending hierarchy of hypostases (persons, or substances). His terminology was preserved in the Greek East during the great Trinitarian controversies of the 4th c. But his notes relating to subordination and hierarchy were rejected as a result of the ultimate victory of the Nicene Creed championed by Athanasius (qq.v.). It was the glory of the Cappadocian Fathers, especially Basil’s On the Holy Spirit, Gregory of Nazianzus’s Theological Orations, and Gregory of Nyssa’s (qq.v.) Against Eunomius and “On Not Three Gods,” to supply the language and concepts reconciling Origen’s terms with the Nicene homoousios (consubstantial) in such a way as to become the classical formulation of the Orthodox doctrine of the Trinity. |
| Is God’s grace received only by members of the Church or can there be grace outside the Church? Are only Orthodox Christians saved? Before we address these questions, let us explain briefly what grace is. “Grace is the Uncreated Divine energy or power of the Holy Trinity, given to us from God the Father, through God the Son, by God the Holy Spirit.” The Holy Trinity always acts in creation through a common action. Without God’s grace there is no salvation, no spiritual life, no eternal life. Although grace is simple and one, it bestows different gifts to those who partake of it, depending upon the need of each one, and upon one’s degree of receptivity. We partake of God’s grace primarily, though not exclusively, through the Holy Mysteries (Sacraments), especially through Baptism and Holy Communion, and through the ascetical life, primarily prayer. Grace is God’s gift to man, includes existence, life, intelligence and salvation. According to the teachings of Saint Gregory Palamas, the entire creation partakes of God’s Divine energies. Everything partakes of God’s Creative energy (inanimate objects). Certain beings partake also of God’s animating energies (living creatures). Furthermore certain beings partake of God’s reason-bestowing energies (intelligent beings, men and Angels). Finally “only those among the Angels who kept their rank, and those among men who returned to the supernatural dignity given above to the intelligent beings partake also of God’s deifying energy and grace” (Saints and Angels). This last grace is the grace of which we speak here. Is this saving, sanctifying and deifying grace found outside the Church? According to the teachings of the Orthodox Church we obtain God’s grace only in the Church, for outside the Church, the Body of Christ, there is no sanctifying grace, the grace through which we obtain salvation or union with God, is found only in the ark of salvation, the Holy Church, the theanthropic Body of Christ, because Christ is OUR Savior and our Salvation. The position of the Church has been stated once for all through Saint Cyprian of Carthage: |
| Jordanville, NY: Washington Parish’s 20th Annual Pilgrimage to Jose Muñoz-Cortes’ Grave Source: Eastern American Diocese, ROCOR In 2018, the children of the Church mark the 36th anniversary of the appearance of the myrrh-streaming Montreal-Iveron Icon of the Mother of God (November 24, 1982), the 21st anniversary of the martyric death of its guardian, Brother Jose Muñoz-Cortes (October 31, 1997), and the 11th anniversary of the appearance of the myrrh-streaming Hawaiian-Iveron Icon of the Mother of God (October 6, 2007). Preparations for the Washington Cathedral of St. John the Baptist’s 20th annual pilgrimage to Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, NY began long before that event. Registration opened after the parish’s patronal feast of the Beheading of St. John the Forerunner & Baptist of the Lord, and in a matter of days, all of the seats on the tour bus had been reserved. In preparation for the two-day visit to the “Diasporan Lavra,” provisions had to be purchased and food prepared for the many pilgrims and for the monastic brotherhood. From the very first of the pilgrimages, this had been the parish’s practice, so as not to excessively distract the monks from their vocation of prayer; it was a practice requested by the ever-memorable abbot of Holy Trinity Monastery and First Hierarch of ROCOR, Metropolitan Laurus (Skurla; +2008). One week before the Washington pilgrimage, on October 27/28, Archpriest Serge Lukianov brought a group of parishioners from the Diocesan Cathedral of St. Alexander Nevsky in Howell, NJ to the “Diasporan Lavra” to honor the memory of Jose Muñoz-Cortes. On Friday, November 2, the eve of the pilgrimage to Holy Trinity Monastery, pilgrims who lived far from Washington arrived in the nation’s capital to spend the night in the parish house, to go to Confession, and to join in preparations. The local group of pilgrims was joined by Orthodox Christians from the West Coast of the United States, other states, and Canada. The wonderworking, myrrh-streaming “Hawaiian” Iveron Icon of the Mother of God was brought from far-off Honolulu, and arrived at the cathedral at 8:00 PM on November 2. It was brought by Priest Athanasius Kone, the newly appointed rector of the Honolulu parish of the Hawaiian Iveron Icon of the Mother of God. The church was filled to capacity for a moleben and akathist to the Most Holy Theotokos. After the service, four priests of the cathedral heard pilgrims’ confessions. |
| John Anthony McGuckin St. Andrei Rublev (ca. 1360–1430) KONSTANTIN GAVRILKIN Little is known of the life of Russia’s greatest icon painter. The indirect evidence suggests that he was born around the 1360s and settled in the Trinity Monastery (later, the Troitse- Sergieva Lavra) near Moscow shortly after the death of its founder, St. Sergius of Radonezh (1392), presumably already as a monk. Rublev is first mentioned in the Chronicle of the Trinity Monastery under the year 1405, when he is said to have worked on the frescoes and icons of the Annunciation Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin together with Theophanes the Greek, a prominent Byzantine master who is believed to have been associated with the hesychast movement and who trained Andrei in icon painting. In this and other sources associated with the same monastery, Andrei is mentioned in later years as a man of holy life and master of remarkable talent who decorated churches in Moscow, Vladimir, and other places. The last place Rublev was known to be working was at the Moscow Andronikov Monastery, where he died around 1430. In the Soviet period this monastery was closed but has since reopened as the Andrei Rublev Museum of Early Russian Art, with a collection representing Russian works from the 15th to 17th centuries. Although the authority of Andrei Rublev as model icon painter was recognized by the Stoglav Council of 1551, which declared that iconographers should follow the ancient standards of Greek icon painters, Andrei Rublev, and other famous masters (Lazarev 1966: 75–8), the decline of Russian iconography after the late 16th century led to a gradual loss of that knowledge and skill associated with Rublev and his school. By the 19th century virtually only the Old Believers who treasured the liturgical and spiritual traditions of the Muscovite Rus remembered his name without, however, being able to identify his works. With the beginning of the scholarly study of early Russian iconography at the beginning of the 20th century, the only starting point for the recovery of Rublev’s legacy was the Icon of the Holy Trinity in the Trinity Cathedral of the Troitse-Sergieva Lavra, which, according to all the sources, was painted by Andrei Rublev alone. Cleaned in 1904, the icon provided iconologists with the stylistic and technical clues for further research. After a century-long study of his frescoes and icons, St. Andrei Rublev is recognized today as a great master of composition, light, and color, who was able to express through his works the peace and beauty of the world transformed by grace, the vision of the human being transformed by the Spirit into the true image and likeness of God. He was officially canonized as a saint by the Russian Church in 1988. |
| At their regular session here on May 29, 2015, the members of the Holy Assembly of Hierarchs of the Serbian Orthodox Church announced the glorification of two clerics who served in North America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries—Bishop Mardarije [Uskokovic] and Archimandrite Sebastian [Dabovich]. Both saints are being recognized as “preachers of the Gospel, God-pleasing servants of the holy life, and inspirers of many missionaries” for their pastoral labors in America and their homeland. The glorification came in response to a recommendation by the Episcopal Council of the Serbian Orthodox Church in North and South America. The annual commemorations of Saint Mardarije of Libertyville, Bishop of America-Canada, and Saint Sebastian of Jackson will be observed on November 29/December 12 and November 17/30 respectively. Saint Sebastian was born Jovan Dabovich in San Francisco, CA in 1863—in the midst of the US Civil war. His parents were Serbian immigrants from Sassovae. From his early youth he was devoted to the Church and spent much of his time at the city’s Holy Trinity Cathedral, where he later served as a reader and teacher. In 1884, he was assigned to assist at Archangel Michael Cathedral, Sitka, AK. Shortly thereafter, he was sent to Russia for training and formation as a missionary priest. After completing three years of studies at the Saint Petersburg and Kyiv Theological Academies, he was tonsured to monastic rank and ordained to the diaconate in 1887. Returning to San Francisco, he served as a deacon at the cathedral and taught in the newly established pastoral school. On August 16, 1892, he was ordained to the priesthood and assigned to pursue missionary work in California and Washington. The following year, he succeeded Father [now Saint] Alexis Toth as rector of Saint Mary Church, Minneapolis, MN and taught at the Missionary School. In 1894, Father Sebastian returned to California, where he established the first Serbian Orthodox parish in the US in Jackson, CA. Two years later, he was reassigned to San Francisco’s Holy Trinity Cathedral while continuing his missionary efforts in Jackson. In recognition of his abilities, Archbishop Tikhon assigned him as part of the North American Mission’s Administration. During this time he wrote a book titled The Ritual, Services and Sacraments of the Holy Orthodox Church . In 1902, he was transferred to Alaska, where he served as Dean of the Sitka Deanery. |
| Archive Theological consultations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Coptic Church begin at the Moscow Theological Academy 18 October 2023 year 20:09 On 17th October the second round of theological consultations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Coptic Church began at the Moscow Theological Academy, reports the press service of the MTA. The conversations are being held with the blessing of His Holiness the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill in accordance with the agreements he reached with the primate of the Coptic Church His Holiness Patriarch Tawadros II. As part of the work of the commission on bilateral cooperation between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Coptic Church there was set up in 2020 a special working group for the development of theological conversations. The members of the working group are: for the Russian Orthodox Church the secretary at the Department for External Church Relations for inter-Christian ties hieromonk Stephan (Igumnov), the deputy rector of study at the MTA Father Pavel Lizgunov and the director of the department of Oriental studies at the MTA deacon Sergei Panteleyev; for the Coptic Church the auxiliary bishop of the Los Angeles metropolitanate bishop Cyrilos and the rector of the Ss. Cyril and Athanasius of Alexandria Coptic Theological Academy Father Macarius Rephel and the representative of the Coptic Church in Russia hieromonk Daoud el-Antoni. Offering their expertise at the second round of theological conversations for the Moscow Theological Academy were honorary lecturer at the department of theology hegumen Adrian (Pashin) and senior teacher at the department of philology hieromonk Theodore (Yulaev). At the beginning of the meeting Father Pavel Lizgunov read aloud greetings from the rector of the Moscow Theological Academy and the vicar abbot of the Holy Trinity and Saint Sergius Monastery the bishop of Sergiev Posad and Dmitrov Cyril: “We are glad to see you at the grace-filled and blessed land of the Holy Trinity which is the Holy Trinity and Saint Sergius Monastery and the Moscow Theological Academy. |
| “Orthodoxy Has a Great Future in Guatemala” Conversation with Abbess Ines, head of the Holy Trinity Monastery in Guatemala Abbess Ines (Ayau Garcia) – Abbess Ines is the head of the only Orthodox parish in Guatemala – the Monastery of the Holy and Life-Giving Trinity, the “Lavra of Mambre”, under the Patriarchate of Antioch. She comes from an influential and well known family in Guatemala which has produced many outstanding individuals. When [then Catholic] Sister Ines was 36 years old, she made an extreme change in her life, leaving a Catholic monastic order and becoming an Orthodox nun. Holy Trinity Monastery was founded by Mother Ines and Sister Maria Amistoso in April of 1986. In 1989, the engineer Federico Bauer donated a piece of land on the shores of Lake Amatitlan, not far from Guatemala City, to the monastery. The land is 1188 meters [about 3900 feet] above sea level and is located near Pacaya, one of the most active volcanoes in Central America. On the day of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in 1995, the “Act of Creating an Orthodox Church in Guatemala” was signed by Bishop (now Metropolitan) Antonio Chedraoui of Mexico, Venezuela, Central America and the Caribbean (of the Antiochian Patriarchate), and also by the head of the monastery, Mother Ines and her nuns, and 25 parishioners. Buildings rose on the site donated by Federico Bauer and the consecration of the monastery took place in November, 2007, with 18 participating clerics, who came to Guatemala especially for this occasion. The iconography in the Monastery church is being done by Russian masters from the International School of Icon Painting, based both in the town of Kostroma in Russia and in the USA. In 1996, the government of Guatemala gave the monastery control of an orphanage built to house 800 children, the “House of Rafael Ayau” in the country’s capital, Guatemala City. At present they have just over 100 boys and girls – from newborn babies to 16 year old adolescents. The workers at the orphanage give the children a high-school education and familiarize them with basic Orthodox concepts. They also give them professional skills. Soon, the orphanage will be moved to the monastery. |
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