“It is good to hide the secret of a king, but it is glorious to reveal and preach the works of God.” (Tobit 12:7) So said the Archangel Raphael to Tobit when he performed the wonderful healing of his blindness. Actually, not to keep the secret of a king is perilous and a terrible risk, but to be silent about …

CATECHESIS 68 That we must be renewed for what is ahead through endurance of the trials that fall upon us, both visible and invisible. [On the 5th Sunday.] Brethren and fathers, because winter has passed and spring has arrived, we see creation flourishing again; the plants are flowering, the earth is growing green, the birds are singing and everything else …

By Elder Epiphanios Theodoropoulos This Saturday (Saturday of the fifth week of the Great Lent) we chant the Akathist Hymn during Matins. In our days however this does not happen except in the holy monasteries, since in the parishes it is chanted the evening before, on Friday during the Small Compline. The Akathist Hymn is a “Kontakion”. In olden times …

The Akathistos is the most famous of all surviving Byzantine kontakia. This work, which celebrates the annunciation of the Virgin and the nativity of Christ, consists of two prooemia (introductory hymns) and 24 strophes bound by an alphabetic acrostic. The Akathistos (Greek: “not seated”) was, and still is, performed while the congregation stands. The even-numbered stanzas carry an alleluia refrain, …

The end is at hand, my soul, is at hand! But you neither care nor prepare. The time is growing short. Arise! The Judge is at the door! Like a dream, like a flower, the time of this life passes. Why do we bustle about in vain? (Fourth ode of the Canon of Saint Andrew) The central theme of Lent …

INTRODUCTORY NOTE The place of these two catechesis in the numbering suggests that they may have been given during the 4th week of Lent. CATECHESIS 66 That this Pascha is a type of the future and eternal Pascha; and about endurance and courage. Brethren and fathers, Lent is already galloping past and the soul rejoices at the imminence of Pascha, because …

INTRODUCTION Catechesis 60 contains a number of interesting details. Who, for example, if the ‘holy father and teacher’ referred to in the opening sentence? If the Short Catecheses were given during St Theodore’s exile to the Propontis in 820, it cannot be St Platon, who had died in 812. The most likely person is St Nikephoros, the Patriarch. The latter, …

By Blessed Theophylact, Archbishop of Ochrid and Bulgaria From The Explanation of the Gospel of St. Mark 34-37. And when He had called the people unto Him with His disciples also, He said unto them, Whosoever desireth to follow after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whosoever desireth to save his life, …

On guarding the soul from destructive passions. Brethren and fathers, now that we have fasted for the first week we appear to each other somewhat different to what we were, leaner and paler. But even if our outward nature is wasting away, as the Apostle says, the inner is being renewed day by day. For what it is to see …

The Holy Church calls the second Sunday of Great Lent the Sunday of the Light-Creating Fasts. In its Divine services, in line with the destruction of the sinful condition of man, it is descriptively and touchingly represented in the church hymns, which explains the Gospel parable about the Prodigal son, and praises the fast as a means to the beneficial …