On Saturday of the second week of Lent, a teaching of St. John Chrysostom on Holy Communion. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He has visited and redeemed His people. He could not bear to see mankind enslaved to sin, but in His mercy, He sent His Son to earth. The Son, being…
“The cell of the monk is a ceaseless intercessor in prayer…” — with these words opens the book Order of Canons (Canon Rule). According to pious custom, in addition to the prescribed services of the Ustav, monks in their private cell rule daily read four canons: one to the Sweetest Jesus, the Akathist to the God-bearer, the Lesser…
The Church welcomes a newborn child and—as soon as the child gains a little strength—invites him to the temple for baptism. Baptism is a spiritual birth. From that moment, the person no longer walks through life alone but together with Christ, whose path ends in eternity. Among the seven Church sacraments, baptism is the first…
The 50th Apostolic Canon prescribes deposing a bishop or priest who does not perform the Sacrament of Baptism with three full immersions. The New Testament provides several examples of baptism, all of which were performed in bodies of water: John the Forerunner baptized in the Jordan; the Ethiopian eunuch was baptized in a river; and…
“What dangers might a person face during the catechumenate period or immediately after baptism? Sometimes, especially during the process of becoming churched, a person sees or experiences “scary things” from demons. How can this be explained, and how can one protect themselves from such attacks?” The venerable Abba Dorotheus, in his book Spiritual Instructions, writes that…
Partaking of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ is the most important sacrament in the life of a Christian. Before His crucifixion, the Lord Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to His disciples. He also blessed a cup of wine, gave it to them to drink, and declared…
To deliver man from loneliness, to grant him the joy of communion, to teach him to share the warmth of his soul and to rejoice in the warmth received in return, God created man and woman. By helping one another, living for each other, yielding and sacrificing, husband and wife attain that perfect love to…
The beginning of a family is the sacrament of marriage. After the prayers of the wedding rite are completed, the priest reads to the newlyweds an instruction on how a husband ought to care for his wife, a wife to honor her husband, to keep marital fidelity, to do works of mercy, to seek the…
The most important and solemn moments in a Christian’s life are inextricably bound with the church. It is there, in the sacrament of baptism, that the Christian is born spiritually. It is there that he is renewed again and again in the sacraments of confession and communion. And one day, he comes to the church…
Marriage was established by God at the creation of the first humans, Adam and Eve, even before their fall into sin. In marriage, man and woman become “one flesh” (Gen. 2:24), and therefore, according to God’s design for humanity, the dissolution of marriage is impossible and the marital union is indissoluble. However, after the fall,…