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Forgiveness – Do We Know What We’re Doing? (Fr. Stephen Freeman)

Κατηγορίες: In English

By Fr Stephen Freeman The first service of Great Lent in the Orthodox Church is “Forgiveness Vespers,” served on the eve of Monday of the First Week. There is nothing unusual about the service itself – other than the “rite of forgiveness” appended to it. In this, the priest and the faithful ask forgiveness of one another. Often this is done with mutual prostrations. Each asks the forgiveness of the other. The rite can take time, depending on the number in attendance. When it is complete, the long labors of Lent can begin. Fasting without forgiveness would be a hollow activity. This is a meditation I shared with my parish this week as the Sunday of Forgiveness approaches: Perhaps the most generous ...

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Catechetical Homily at the opening of Holy and Great Lent (2020) (Bartholomew, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople)

Κατηγορίες: In English

+ BARTHOLOMEW BY GOD’S MERCY ARCHBISHOP OF CONSTANTINOPLE – NEW ROME AND ECUMENICAL PATRIARCH TO THE PLENITUDE OF THE CHURCH, MAY THE GRACE AND PEACE OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST, TOGETHER WITH OUR PRAYER, BLESSING AND FORGIVENESS BE WITH YOU ALL *** We offer hymns of thanks to the God of love as once again we enter Holy and Great Lent, the arena of ascetic struggle, fasting and abstinence, of vigilance and spiritual awareness, of guarding our senses and prayer, of humility and self-knowledge. We are commencing a new and blessed pilgrimage toward Holy Pascha, which has “opened for us the gates of paradise.” In Church and as Church, as we behold the Risen Lord of glory, we all journey together along the way of deification by grace ...

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