Prayer to St. Nicholas (Dec 6/19)
"You appeared to your flock as a rule of faith, an image of humility and a teacher of abstinence. Because of your lowliness heaven was opened to you, because of your poverty riches were granted to you. O holy Bishop Nicholas, pray to Christ our God to save our souls!"
The lampada in this photo is in the form of a boat with St. Nicholas inside burns continuously in the crypt of the Basilica of St. Nicholas in Bari, Italy.
"You appeared to your flock as a rule of faith, an image of humility and a teacher of abstinence. Because of your lowliness heaven was opened to you, because of your poverty riches were granted to you. O holy Bishop Nicholas, pray to Christ our God to save our souls!"
The lampada in this photo is in the form of a boat with St. Nicholas inside burns continuously in the crypt of the Basilica of St. Nicholas in Bari, Italy.
An imminent vote in the Rada of the Ukraine threatens to further legitimize and escalate the ongoing persecution of the Orthodox Church. Let us pray at this dark hour. Lord, have mercy!
Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev is asking the monks of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra (Kievan Caves Monastery), to fast and pray unceasingly in order to entreat the Lord to avert the threat of further confiscation of the lands, parishes, and monasteries of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church— and the arrest of hierachs, priests, monks and other clergy, already threatened and persecuted.
Let all the faithful pray!
Metropolitan Onuphry, preaching on the Sunday after the Nativity last year: “We must always be with Christ, even in days of tribulation and persecution.
We must be with Christ, not only when people are shouting ‘Hosanna!’, when we are praised, when they applaud us for it, but also when they cry, ‘Crucify.’ Being with Christ when Christ is under attack is the greatest gift man can offer to God.
Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev is asking the monks of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra (Kievan Caves Monastery), to fast and pray unceasingly in order to entreat the Lord to avert the threat of further confiscation of the lands, parishes, and monasteries of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church— and the arrest of hierachs, priests, monks and other clergy, already threatened and persecuted.
Let all the faithful pray!
Metropolitan Onuphry, preaching on the Sunday after the Nativity last year: “We must always be with Christ, even in days of tribulation and persecution.
We must be with Christ, not only when people are shouting ‘Hosanna!’, when we are praised, when they applaud us for it, but also when they cry, ‘Crucify.’ Being with Christ when Christ is under attack is the greatest gift man can offer to God.
May the Lord help us, dear brothers and sisters, to ever be with Christ—both in days of blessedness, and in days of tribulation and persecution, because Christ is unchanging, the unchanging Truth. And whoever is with Him always prevails.”
☦️ It happens also that we think very little of God's presence and do not realize that we should be as rays of grace.
☦️We believe but not with a living faith.
☦️And we are so alienated from spiritual life that even when we see it in others we imagine it as error and confusion. In this way we are dead in the spirit, alive but not in Christ and not in accordance with the conviction that what is born of the spirit should be spiritual.
☦️ St Gregory Palamas
☦️We believe but not with a living faith.
☦️And we are so alienated from spiritual life that even when we see it in others we imagine it as error and confusion. In this way we are dead in the spirit, alive but not in Christ and not in accordance with the conviction that what is born of the spirit should be spiritual.
☦️ St Gregory Palamas
Orthodox Christians celebrate the miraculous conception of Ss. Joachim and Anna's daughter Mary (Dec 9) -- miraculous because it was God's answer to the prayers of childless parents.
As a human being the Theotokos was made like us and we like her, born into a sinful world. Yet unlike us, she was uncorrupted by this world-- and deemed by God worthy, as a young virgin daughter, to give to God the Word. God made her his Holy Tabernacle-- "more honourable the Cherubim and more glorious beyond compare than the Seraphim."
We can attribute to the Theotokos all honour due to the Mother of our God without the need for an innovative dogma, specifically, the Roman Catholic doctrine of the “Immaculate Conception.” Even Roman Catholic champions of Mary— Bernard of Clairvaux and Thomas Aquinas— found no "theological justification” for the doctrine which would become dogmatized in the 19th century. (See Roman Catholic site http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/Saints/saint.aspx?id=1223)
As a human being the Theotokos was made like us and we like her, born into a sinful world. Yet unlike us, she was uncorrupted by this world-- and deemed by God worthy, as a young virgin daughter, to give to God the Word. God made her his Holy Tabernacle-- "more honourable the Cherubim and more glorious beyond compare than the Seraphim."
We can attribute to the Theotokos all honour due to the Mother of our God without the need for an innovative dogma, specifically, the Roman Catholic doctrine of the “Immaculate Conception.” Even Roman Catholic champions of Mary— Bernard of Clairvaux and Thomas Aquinas— found no "theological justification” for the doctrine which would become dogmatized in the 19th century. (See Roman Catholic site http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/Saints/saint.aspx?id=1223)
We celebrate neither a "maculate" not "immaculate" conception. "Macula" means "stain" in Latin. As the late Orthodox scholar Fr Thomas Hopko has emphasized, a "maculate" conception would mean that Mary's conception was somehow stained. An "Immaculate Conception" would mean "that God had somehow to intervene at the moment of Mary's conception with a special action to remove the 'stain' of the original sin..." The Orthodox do not accept any such need for an intervention, because “we do not hold that such a 'stain' exists."
"Receive joy O Forefathers of old,
Beholding Christ the Messiah drawing near.
Rejoice Abraham, for you have been shown to be the great-grandfather of Christ."
Among the righteous ancestors of Christ commemorated on the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers (the Sunday that falls between Dec 11-17) are many women.
Abraham's wife Sarah is praised in the New Testament for her faith (Hebrews 11:11) and for her obedience (I Peter 3:6). The three men who visited Abraham at the oak of Mamre told Sarah that she would conceive and have a son (Genesis 18:10). She did not believe them at first, but God did as He had promised (Genesis 21:1-3).
Also among the women commemorated are the Righteous Miriam, sister of Moses and Aaron; the Righteous Rebecca, the Righteous Ruth; and the Righteous Mary, mother of St Anna, the grandmother of the Theotokos.
Beholding Christ the Messiah drawing near.
Rejoice Abraham, for you have been shown to be the great-grandfather of Christ."
Among the righteous ancestors of Christ commemorated on the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers (the Sunday that falls between Dec 11-17) are many women.
Abraham's wife Sarah is praised in the New Testament for her faith (Hebrews 11:11) and for her obedience (I Peter 3:6). The three men who visited Abraham at the oak of Mamre told Sarah that she would conceive and have a son (Genesis 18:10). She did not believe them at first, but God did as He had promised (Genesis 21:1-3).
Also among the women commemorated are the Righteous Miriam, sister of Moses and Aaron; the Righteous Rebecca, the Righteous Ruth; and the Righteous Mary, mother of St Anna, the grandmother of the Theotokos.
At the First Ecumenical Council in 325, St Nicholas the Wonderworker, fired with zeal for the Lord, assailed the heretic Arius not only with words. He also struck his face. For this action, the saint was deprived of the emblems of his episcopal rank and placed under guard. But several of the holy Fathers at the council had a vision of the Lord Himself and His Mother returning to St Nicholas the Gospel and omophorion. The Fathers of the Council agreed that the audacity of the saint was pleasing to God, and restored Nicholas to the office of bishop.
At First Ecumenical Council in 325, Saint Spyridon the Wonderworker, Bishop of Tremithus (Dec 12), disputed with a Greek philosopher who was defending Arianism. The power of Saint Spyridon’s plain, direct speech showed everyone the importance of God’s wisdom before human wisdom: “Listen, philosopher, to what I tell you. There is one God Who created man from dust. He has ordered all things, both visible and invisible, by His Word and His Spirit. The Word is the Son of God, Who came down upon the earth on account of our sins. […] We believe that He is one in essence (consubstantial) with the Father, and equal to Him in authority and honor. We believe this without any sly rationalizations, for it is impossible to grasp this mystery by human reason.”
After his conversation with Saint Spyridon, the philosopher turned to his companions and said, “Listen! Until now my rivals have presented their arguments, and I was able to refute their proofs with other proofs. But instead of proofs from reason, the words of this Elder are filled with some sort of special power, and no one can refute them, since it is impossible for man to oppose God. If any of you thinks as I do now, let him believe in Christ and join me in following this man, for God Himself speaks through his lips.”
As a result of their discussion, the opponent of Christianity became the saint’s zealous defender and later received holy baptism.
As a result of their discussion, the opponent of Christianity became the saint’s zealous defender and later received holy baptism.