2: Great Lent

The Church Fathers have much to say about how we should approach Great Lent and Holy Week in all its aspects – fasting, prayer, our actions. They recognise that simply going through the motions of abstaining from certain kinds of foods while not paying attention to how we live our lives amounts to following the letter of the law, not …

A SPIRITUAL CHECKLIST Orthodox Christians recite a prayer during Great Lent that is described by Fr. Alexander Schmemann as a “check list” for our spiritual lives. This prayer, given by St. Ephraim the Syrian in the fourth century, is commonly called the “Lenten Prayer:” O Lord and Master of my life! Take from me the spirit of sloth, faint-heartedness, lust …

Being disclosed in a Canon of the 5th week, the Gospel parable about the rich man and Lazarus serves as the subject of hymns also in the 6th week. The Holy Church calls us “to run from the cruelty and hatred of mankind of the rich man and to emulate the fortitude and long-suffering of Lazarus” and to beg the …

When a man leaves on a journey, he must know where he is going. Thus with Lent. Above all, Lent is a spiritual journey and its destination is Easter, “the Feast of Feasts.” It is the preparation for the “fulfillment of Pascha, the true Revelation.” We must begin, therefore, by trying to understand this connection between Lent and Easter, for …

In the Law, God laid down that the sons of Israel should each year give tithes of all they possessed, and if they did so they were blessed in all their works. The holy Apostles, knowing this to be for the help and advancement of our souls, resolved to fulfil it in a better and higher way, namely, for us …

“In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” This week, we began the journey of Prayer of the most beautiful period of the Liturgical year: Great Lent. Thus, with prayer and fasting, the bride – the Church – began the uphill way to follow the beloved bridegroom – Christ – on the steep …

“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, …