5th Week

“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 …