In English

There are some elaborate charts that tell you how you could read the Bible all the way through in one year -- which if you followed it, would be fine. However, I wonder how many people have ever followed such a chart all the way through, because it would require that you make regular reference to the chart, and remember where you were on the chart. On the other hand, many people simply open up the Bible at Genesis, and then get bogged down somewhere towards the end of Exodus and Leviticus, and then quit. One method I would suggest is much simpler to follow, and if you do, you not only will read the Bible all the way through in about ...

The whole series can be read here: The Theology of Gender Throughout the history of Christianity many voices from the Church rose to protest the established order of society. It is obvious in the patristic writings that the Fathers many times tried to defend the equality of man and woman, demonstrating that discrimination was a problem at all ages. St. Gregory the Theologian, in a revolutionary way, expressed his disapproval to the discriminatory laws against women, saying: “men were the lawmakers, therefore the legislation was against women.” Theodoretus of Cyrus, in the fifth century, stressed the inequality with which the human law treats transgressions of men and women: «for human law compels women to prudent behavior and punishes them when they ...

I was fortunate enough to know personally quite a few of the contemporary Saints and Elders at the time when I was exploring the way of the spiritual life. What, in practice, is the path to being cured of our sins and passions, so that we ask for love for God and our neighbour? I’d heard and read that, in order to love God with all our heart, we have to pass through the stages of purification, enlightenment and deification, as these are taught by the Gospels, the Fathers and the sacred Tradition of our Orthodox Church. I read many Lives of the saints, but really needed to be taught by the contemporary holy fathers who were well-known at that time: Saint Porfyrios, ...

Sin clipped the wings of Adam and his descendants and so all of us were separated from God. The very clay from which we were made blinded us. Christ was the first Adam and the first Human, the first-born of the whole of creation and He was also the first Who ascended into heaven on spiritual wings, to the throne of eternal glory and power. He walked the path towards heaven and opened every gate to all of the faithful who have spread their spiritual wings, just as the eagle shows eaglets how to fly, or the first swallow flies in front of the flock, both to show them the way and to reduce the wind resistance.

The first time I visited the sacristy of the Wren Chapel at the College of William and Mary, where the chapel’s brass cross now resides out of sight of the visitor, I waited there, dressed in black, sweaty palmed, being reminded to breathe, sequestered till the arrival of my bride at the west end of the chapel. On cue, I departed the colonial room and followed the priest, along with my three groomsmen, to the small but unmistakably English altar, which still faces ad orientem, one reminder of the age of the chapel. For the second visit, a few years later, I was also dressed in black, though this time under my festal white vestments. I was the celebrant of someone ...

St Augustine, Archbishop of Canterbury (+605) is the founder of the Church in southern England, which at that time was almost entirely pagan, though Christianity thrived in the Celtic lands of Ireland, Wales and parts of Scotland. Augustine, a monk at the monastery of St Andrew inRome, was chosen by Pope Gregory I to lead a mission to England… He and a party of about forty monks landed in England in 597; they were received warmly by King Aethelbert, who was baptised by Augustine and thus became the first Christian king of the Anglo-Saxon people. In 601 Pope Gregory made Augustine Archbishop of Britain, and he established his cathedral at Canterbury, where he also established a monastery. Saint Augustine worked unsuccessfully to ...

Managing grief Through their experiences, children gradually learn to deal with death in a more normal and healthy manner. But when children find themselves faced with the death of a loved one, whether they’ve been prepared for such an event or not, they experience one of the most stressful states in their lives. The loss of a person who’s important to and loved by them, to whom they’re attached (parent, sibling, grandparent, teacher or friend) is an occasion for children to grieve. This mourning has just as many problems and needs as adult grief does. But children’s grief is often not recognized. On the one hand, parents and grown-ups often try to protect children from the harsh reality of death and loss ...

The more you try to hide a sin behind another sin, the more you broadcast it. You can’t hide a sin behind another one. You get rid of it only through repentance and confession. When we want to hide a sin behind another sin, we’re like little children playing hide and seek.

DOSTOEVSKY Language, Faith, and Fiction Rowan Williams BaylorUniversityPress, $24.95, 290 pp.   One off the problems with Dostoevsky is that too many readers have read into his novels the ideas they wanted to find there, so that for secular readers he was an early existentialist who argued for an anguished agnosticism, while for many believers he was a kind of Christian apologist. Neither reading does him the courtesy of seeing that he was above all a novelist—a believer, yes, but one who wanted to explore in depth the consequences of unbelief, in a way that someone who wanted to make an apologetic argument would find uncomfortable. Rowan Williams insists that we see Dostoevsky first of all as a novelist, one whose religious faith and profound moral ...

Deep in the heart of a typical American city there is a magnificent old Orthodox church. The community housed here was founded about a hundred years ago, a gathering of families who had emigrated fromGreece,Russia,Syria, or some other ethnically-Orthodox land. These newcomers foundAmericavast, confusing, and intimidating. They banded together and formed a congregation, then called a priest from the “old country.” The growing parish was an island of familiarity, a place where they could not only worship in the language they longed all week to hear, but also share news from home, enjoy the foods and dancing that eased homesickness, and choose mates for their growing children. Time passed. The parishioners saved up and bought a church building from a Protestant congregation. ...

It seems like it was just the other day that our 40 Day Challenge disembarked for the harbour of Holy Week. We can now see the Lighthouse; our Journey to Pascha will be more vividly before us as we commemorate the Raising of the Four-day Dead Lazarus next Saturday and Christ’s Triumphant Entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. Before then, however, there is one more week remaining in the 40-day Fast. Today, the Fifth Sunday of Great Lent, we celebrated Saint Mary of Egypt – one of the greatest saints of our Holy Orthodox Church. St. Mary is a shining example of our theme this week: Prayer and Repentance. Beginning in her youth St. Mary lived a profligate life, lustfully and without ...

The grace of God has gathered us together today at the heart of Great Lent in order to express to the Lord our longing for His salvation, for the acquisition of the spirit of wisdom and for understanding of His commandments. Holy Scripture, however, warns us: ‘It is impossible for a heartless man to purchase wisdom.’ What is the ‘heart’ for us as Christians, and what kind of man can be called ‘heartless’? The heart of every man is fashioned by God in a special and unique manner. It is unrepeatable and makes up the core of the human hypostasis. Man becomes truly great when he draws near to God with his ‘deep heart’, because there, within him, is ‘the place of ...

Faith is a spiritual mouth. The wider it’s open, the greater the river of the divine waters that can flow into it. Don’t allow doubt and lack of faith to seal your lips, because then the treasures of God’s blessings will be denied to you.

With the vocal resonance which is his hallmark, Archon Maestro of the Great Church of Christ, Grigorios Daravanoglou sings ‘My soul, my soul’ the famous kontakion of Great Lent and the Great Canon. It is one of the most moving troparia of the time of Great Lent, a period of purification and exaltation for all those who desire to be carried along, crucified and raised with Jesus Christ. My soul, my soul, arise. Why do you slumber? The end is nigh and soon you will be troubled. Be vigilant, then, that Christ your God may spare you, for He is everywhere present and fills all things. %audio%

On the fifth Sunday in Lent, the Church brings to our attention an exceptional female ascetic: Saint Mary the Egyptian. She’s someone for us to imitate and has a great deal to teach us. Her Life was preserved for us by Saint Zosimas and written down by Saint Sofronios, Patriarch of Jerusalem (commemorated on 11 March). Saint Mary lived at the time of the Emperor Justinian, in the sixth century, in Egypt. At the age of twelve she began to live a dissolute life, enjoying and satisfying the pleasures of the flesh. This lasted for twelve years, until she ‘came to her senses’ and realized the error of her ways. While she lived this life, she took no money, but merely ...

The whole series can be read here: The Theology of Gender Byzantine society was a dynamic union of different cultural elements based on Greek civilization and the Christian faith. Although Christianity was the decisive element in the formation of Byzantium, the practical application of the Christian ethos as a way of life met with the resistance of the old cultural principles that were deeply rooted in the consciousness of the people. Accordingly, the theology of gender as expressed before faced two opposing extremes: the chauvinism of the Roman civilization, which pushed women into the background, on the one hand, and the pagan liberality that was a danger for the social ethos, on the other. For this society, it is reasonable to say ...

The follow tips assume that you have a limited budget, and so cannot afford to buy everything at once.  If this is not true in your case, there are some books you could skip, but they are good to have on hand in any case. The most basic liturgical text every Orthodox Christian should have is a good prayer book.  You can read about several suggested texts in the following article: Recommended Prayer Books These prayer books can be ordered from, Holy Ascension Monastery, Light and Life Publishing, or from St. Nectarios Press.  Of the prayer books in that article, the one I would recommend the most is the Jordanville Prayer book. Another very useful text mentioned in that article that I would ...

If you want to get your own back on somebody who’s done you harm, do them a good deed!

Atheists with Signs “A fool says in his heart, ‘there is no God’.” Today I wore a “Billboard for Hell”, the self-professing atheist told me in the produce section of Costco.  I had turned from my cart for a small container of strawberries, and spinning around, I nearly opened them upon him, as he stepped between ‘me and mine’. “Terribly sorry—I didn’t expect anyo---,” I was saying as he interrupted me. “Well I suppose we’re all human—or at least you’d say so. And we all make mistakes, but here you are, wearing a billboard for Hell.  I am an atheist.  Do you want to debate me?” “No, but I will be glad to sit down and have a cup of coffee with you.”  I ...