One of the ways that we can prepare for the upcoming feast of our Lord’s Nativity is through pondering the hymns of the feast. When we look at these hymns, particularly those of the forefeast (the days leading up to the Nativity), we discover something very interesting: the hymnographers who composed these hymns took their inspiration from the hymns of Holy Week, the services of our Lord’s Passion. In fact, in many instances they modeled their compositions directly on those o

Friends, the following is from a homily of St Gregory Palamas on the feast ofthe Entry of the Theotokos into the Temple, which we celebrate Monday. Thehomily in its entirety can be found at the OCA website. ~Fr John Now, when Righteous Joachim and Anna saw that they had been granted their wish, and that the divine promise to them was realized in fact, then they on their part, as true lovers of God, hastened to fulfill their vow given to God as soon as the child had been weane

Friends, in the spirit of the season, I am reposting this piece from a previous O3 as a preparation for the beginning of the Nativity Fast, which begins this Tuesday. ~Fr John With the Nativity Fast beginning November 15, I would like to ask you to consider it, for a moment, in the light of the icon of the Nativity. It is a very “busy” icon, meaning that there is a lot going on in it: angels proclaiming, shepherds searching, magi traveling, midwives washing, Joseph and the de

In the Orthodoxy 101 class over the next few weeks we will be discussing the saints. The following words are from an Introduction to the Lives of the Saints by one of the great theologians and fathers of the 20th c., St Justin Popovich. What are Christians? Christians are Christ-bearers, and by virtue of this bearers and possessors of eternal life, and this according to the measure of faith and according to the measure of holiness which is from faith. The Saints are the mo