As our young people approach baptism, this is a time of learning about the mystery of repentance, and the Orthodox approach to confession.
We have examples of confessions left to us by different saints, and below is an adaptation from St Dimitri of Rostov.
We have probably shared this before, but gladly do so again, hoping that this will be of value to our parishioners in their preparation for confession.
I confess to the Lord my God and before you, venerable father, all my countless sins, committed by me unto this very day and hour, in deed, word, and thought.
I sin daily and hourly by my lack of gratitude toward God for His great and countless blessings and His constant watchfulness over me.
I have sinned through: idle talking, making fun of others, telling inappropriate jokes or laughing at those of others, speaking irreverently, cursing, swearing, slandering others, gossiping, and all other worthless speech.
I have overeaten, drunk too much, or have dwelt immoderately upon food or drink in my thoughts.
I have been proud, judged and criticised others, been stubborn, hardhearted, vainglorious, self-willed and disobedient. I have excused my sins while magnifying the sins of others, been ambitious, and thought too highly of myself.
I have sinned through anger, arguing with others (in my thoughts, on the internet, and in person), being contentious, irritable, impatient, quicker to speak than to listen, and remembering wrongs committed against myself or others.
I have sinned through lustful and impure thoughts, motivations, desires, glances, words, speech, and actions. (One may add any other related sin here)
I have envied others, greedily desired that which God has not given me, and lacked faith in God’s providential care for me.
I have been inattentive, indifferent, careless, rendered evil for evil, been embittered, light minded – not taking seriously the spiritual warfare that constantly surrounds me; I have tempted others and been dishonest.
I have allowed despondency to plague me, having negative or hopeless thoughts. I have doubted the love of God for me. I have thought or said inappropriate or blasphemous things about God, His Mother, the saints, or those within the Church.
I have been absent from divine services because of laziness and carelessness, absent- minded at prayer both in church and at home. I have skipped my prayer rule and the reading of Scriptures for dishonourable reasons. I have been lazy or procrastinated, not doing the work allotted for the day.
My merciful Lord, I have sinned in deed, word, and thought; in sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch and the rest of my mental and physical senses; of all my sins I repent and beg forgiveness.
(One should mention specifically any other sins, or elaborate on one of the sins above, if there is something burdening the soul.)
I also repent and ask forgiveness for all those sins that I have not confessed because of their multitude and my forgetfulness.
Forgive and absolve me, venerable father, and bless me to commune of the holy and life- creating Mysteries of Christ unto the remission of sins and life everlasting.
O Divine Holy Spirit, Who distributest gifts unto all men and doest all things by Thy will, inspire me with Thy luminous gift, that I may glorify Thee Who art one with the Father and the Son.
(Ode 1: the Canon to the Holy Spirit, by Theophanes)
Dear brothers and sisters, knowing that not all parishioners were able to be with us for Pentecost-Trinity, we send our greetings for this wonderful, salvific feast to our brothers and sisters wherever they are: to our students away for vacation; to parishioners on holiday with families; to those struggling under the pressure of work or studies; to those who are unwell.
We particularly pray for the newly-baptised, Macarius, and his baptismal companions who entered the holy font a little over a week ago, and for our catechumens who will soon receive Illumination.
On this Great Feast, we celebrate the sending of the Holy Spirit, not simply as a foundational, historic event in the life of the Church, but as the continuing gift of God’s Grace and Divine Power, ever-outpoured and ever-giving: in the transformative cleansing of Holy Baptism, as our catechumens are born again, through water and the Spirit; in the restorative Grace of confession trough the Mystery of Repentance; in the consecrating Divine Grace through which bread and wine become the Very Body and Blood of the Saviour, Who promised us the Comforter at His Ascension; in the Grace with which God blesses us in prayer and liturgy, in which come together to worship Him, in Spirit and in Truth.
The Church is the House which Wisdom, our Lord and Saviour, built, not only for Himself, but to the glory of His Unoriginate Father, and as the Temple of the Holy, Good, Life-Giving and Uncreated Spirit: the Temple in which the Comforter dwells, shining through the lives of the saints; revealing eternal Truth as the authoritative Voice of the Church; speaking through the holy and God-bearing fathers and Seven Ecumenical Councils; protecting and preserving the Church and her children through the holy canons and God-revealed wholeness of sacred Tradition, which is the abiding sign of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Church, from century to century, and from generation to generation.
Our beloved father, St Seraphim of Sarov, teaches us that the acquisition of the Holy Spirit, is the central and essential meaning of our Christian life, and as we celebrate this feast of the Trinity and the Sending of the Comforter, each of us is called to actively seek the life of the Holy Spirit in both the life of the Church and our individual lives, by active engagement, involvement and spiritual-labour.
Our personal pursuit of the Holy Spirit is a life ceaselessly seeking Divine Grace, in tireless, continual labour and spiritual activity – by prayer, fasting and noetic struggle.
We cannot pray, “Come and dwell in us, cleanse us of every impurity, and save our souls, O Good One…” unless we struggle to unite and align our weak and fragile human will with God’s Will, so that through His promised Comforter, we may be bandaged, healed and made whole.
For this process of healing and restoration, we must each be active in seeking the power of the Holy Spirit; active in living the Christian life; active in trying to sweep out the filth and detritus of our fallen lives, as we try to make ourselves dwellings and vessels worthy of the Holy Spirit.
But, in these life-giving days of Pentecost, let us be active in pursuing the power and life of the Holy Spirit not simply for ourselves, but for the life, healing and salvation of the world.
Let us immerse ourselves in continual, persistent, humble and repentant prayer, praying the canons and akathist to the Holy Spirit, calling and longing for the sanctifying power of the Comforter to purify us and restore the Divine Image and Likeness in which we created, heeding St Seraphim’s words, “… every good deed done for Christ’s sake gives us the grace of the Holy Spirit, but prayer gives us this grace most of all, for it is always at hand, as an instrument for acquiring the grace of the Spirit.”
Let us understand Pentecost as the continuing indwelling of the Comforter, day by day, week by week, year by year, only possible through conscious, deliberate, determined searching, seeking and labour, if the Holy Spirit is to be an abiding and continued presence in our lives, and let us weigh and ponder every word and phrase of the invocation with which we once more begin our prayers:
O Heavenly King, Comforter, Spirit of Truth, Who art everywhere present and fillest all things, Treasury of good things and Giver of life: Come and dwell in us, and cleanse us of all impurity, and save our souls, O Good One.
In the days ahead, let us continually return to this prayer, with compunction, concentration, and with awe at that as vessels of clay, the Saviour nevertheless vouchsafes us the seal, gift and indwelling of the Holy Spirit, with Whom He and the Father dwells in unoriginate and everlasting glory.
On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”
Dear fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, Christ is Risen! Христос Воскресе!
After the excitement and hustle and bustle of celebrating and triumphantly proclaiming the Lord’s Saving Resurrection, we now enter a quieter time of contemplative reflection on the risen Saviour and the empty Tomb.
As we read in the Lord’s appearing to the disciples, His first act was to exchange the “shlama”: “Peace with you.”
It is in this peace of Christ, without the chanting of the choir, without the enthusiastic Resurrection exclamations of the clergy with incense, cross and candles, and without the animation and excited joy of the community, that each of us must now prayerfully contemplate and reflect upon the world-changing, history-changing, cosmic reality of the words, “Christ is Risen! Христос Воскресе!”
What do these revolutionary words mean for each us, not simply as a statement of fact, but in relation to the way we live our lives?
It is not enough to have unflinching, cast iron faith in the Lord’s Resurrection, unless the events of that first Pascha have a spiritual and moral impetus for us, and challenge us to live and spiritually struggle in the light and power of Christ’s Resurrection.
Not only are we baptised in the power and image of the events of the resurrection, descending into and rising from the baptismal font, mirroring the Lord’s descent into death and rising from the depths of Sheol (Hades), but we are each called to continually be “rising” from the old fallen person, to resurrectional lives of changed, transformed personhood in Christ.
From the moment each of us rose from the waters of baptism, our spiritual struggle should have been, and should continue to be one of divine ascent, led heavenwards by the Risen Lord, Who in our baptism took hold of each of us, just as He grasps the wrists of Adam and Eve in the Paschal icon of the Harrowing of Hades, as He raises their souls from death to life and from Hades to heaven.
In the letter to the Hebrews, which speaks of the Saviour as our Passover and High Priest, the Apostle Paul writes that “The blood of Christ . . . will purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God” (Hebrews 9:14), and in the Paschal canon, we sing of Pascha (the new Passover) as “a Pascha of purification”.
We will only understand Pascha and the Mystery of the Resurrection if we struggle to serve the Living Lord, as those who have been purchased and cleansed by Christ’s Blood, and heed the call of the Paschal Canon:
“Let us purify our senses, and we shall behold Christ, radiant with the unapproachable light of the Resurrection, and we shall clearly hear Him say, Rejoice! as we sing the hymn of victory.”
Struggling for this purification, and confessing and repenting when we fall, are the means by which the Resurrection will have an abiding and continuing reality in our lives, and is the only path by which we can hope to be partakers and behold Christ the Conqueror of death.
Now, in the quiet of Holy and Bright Monday, and in the days of the Paschal Season that lie before us, we must contemplate, evaluate, and struggle for this purification, as day-by-day, we sing the Paschal hymns, so that Christ’s victory may trample down all that is fallen and sinful within us, and that He may raise us up, even in this earthly life, to renewed life in Him.
As we sing the Paschal Canon, which is profitable every day in this holy season, we should reflect upon the chains and snares which hold us captive: our bad habits, habitual sins, the recurring temptations, and, perhaps passions which hold us as slaves, not to life, but to a living-death and to the evil one.
We must turn to the Lord, asking Him to grant us freedom from the chains of our sins, just as He freed the righteous in Hades from the captivity of death, knowing that this liberation must come by our fulfilling His will in struggling for purity and fighting temptation, seeking to make each day a day of resurrection.
As much as in the Great Fast, this is a time for struggle – a resurrectional struggle for the freedom which the Lord’s glorious Rising brings: a season for positive, affirmative action in which the joy of the resurrection is reflected in every aspect of our lives.
With St John Chrysostom, we face hell and death knowing that, the great final victory is already won, but that the stealer of souls will do everything to rob us and our brothers and sisters of the new life that the risen Lord brings.
Preserving humility and knowing our weakness, we must find our strength in the risen and victorious Lord, and armed with the cry of victory – “Christ is Risen!” – we must be bold and courageous knowing what Christ has gained for us, and boldly and confidently say,
“O death, where is thy sting?
O hades, where is thy victory?
Christ is risen, and thou art cast down.
Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen.
Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice.
Christ is risen, and life flourisheth.
Christ is risen, and there is none dead in the tombs.
For Christ, being risen from the dead, is become the first-fruits of them that have fallen asleep.”
Let us unite ourselves to the Lord’s victory and third-day rising from the Tomb, and recognise the Resurrection as a constant living reality and not a just future event: as our birthright and calling by the Lord of Life, in Whom all things are made new.
May Christ our true God, Who rose from the dead, and trampled down death by death and upon those in the tombs bestowed life, through the intercessions of His most pure Mother, of the holy and glorious Apostles, of our holy and God-bearing fathers, David, Dyfrig and Teilo, and of all the saints, have mercy upon us and save us, for He is good and He loveth mankind. Amen!
Dear brothers and sisters, good strength as we begin the first day of the Nativity Fast!
Our winter Lent is not reduced to the twenty four chocolate-promise days of the consumerist, western Advent calendar, but forty days of fasting and prayer, not of treats and commercial predation; forty days in which we should endeavour to eat and cook less, and pray and spend more time on ‘food’ for the soul through scriptures and spiritual reading; forty days of fasting rather than seasonal fare; forty days of seeking to maximise silence and look for seclusion, rather than succumbing to and immersing ourselves in seasonal entertainment and noise.
Mirroring the days of Great Lent, these days are the Church’s period of preparation for the Nativity, but unlike Great Lent, we have no dedicated book of hymns and services, as we do in the Lenten Triodion. With its canons and hymns providing for the special Sundays of the Great Fast, the Triodion gives a great sense of direction for the Great Fast, concentrating on repentance and holding up great teachers of the spiritual life: St Gregory Palamas, St John of the Ladder, St Mary of Egypt.
The Nativity Fast, has no such provision other than the Sundays of the Holy Fathers and Forefathers preceding the Nativity, so that there a temptation and risk for us to lose the impetus and inner-unity of this winter fast unless we make the conscious effort to ensure that we maintain and concentrate on keeping its momentum, ensuring that we have a firm rule of prayer and spiritual reading.
Pray before the icon of the Mother of God of the Sign, with the Christ-child within the womb of the Mother of God – the advent of His coming in the flesh.
Have time away from television, limit news consumption, and try to keep surroundings quiet, using time away from entertainment for daily spiritual reading, whether on paper or online… but ensure that on-line time is only for specified reading and not a safari of distraction and tangents.
Cut down on trips to cafés and pubs, reduce socialising and give more time to the Lord!
Stick to only one cooked meal a day and avoid snacking and treats – though mindful that halva, dried fruits and some sweet things can be useful in the fast re: sugar levels and energy.
Eat simple foods and do NOT think that forty days of expensive meat and dairy substitutes are an honest fast.
Ensure that charitable alms giving is part of the forty days, which should save money that can help others.
Remember that wilfully rejecting the Fast is to reject the Lord Himself and to trample on the lives and teachings of the saints, the Holy Councils and the Sacred Tradition which the Holy Spirit has established as the life of the Church. If there are issues speak to the clergy!
Pray the the troparion of the Forefeast as you begin and end each day, reminding yourself that this is our spiritual journey to Bethlehem to adore and worship the Word Made Flesh.
Troparion of the Forefeast, Tone IV: Make ready, O Bethlehem!/ Open unto all, O Eden!/ Adorn thyself, O Ephratha!/ For the Tree of life hath blossomed forth from the Virgin in the cave./ Her womb is shown to be a noetic paradise,/ wherein lieth a divine garden,/ eating from whence we live,/ not dying like Adam.// Christ is born to raise up His image which before was fallen.
Предпразднство Рождества Христова. Тропарь, глас 4: Гото́вися, Вифлее́ме,/ отве́рзися всем, Еде́ме,/ красу́йся, Евфра́фо,/ я́ко дре́во живота́ в верте́пе процвете́ от Де́вы:/ рай бо Óноя чре́во яви́ся мы́сленный,/ в не́мже Боже́ственный сад,/ от него́же я́дше, жи́ви бу́дем,/ не я́коже Áдам у́мрем./ Христо́с ражда́ется пре́жде па́дший возста́вити о́браз.
“It is the day of Resurrection, let us be radiant, O ye peoples; Pascha the Pascha of the Lord; for Christ God hath brought us from death to life, and from earth to heaven, as we sing the triumphal hymn.”
Dear brothers and sisters, Christ is Risen! Христосъ воскресе! Hristos a înviat! Χριστός ἀνέστη!
Having celebrated the radiant night of Pascha, our labour is now to preserve the grace and joy of the feast, with the Resurrection as the centre of our lives, and our inheritance through Holy Baptism.
As Christians, we are children of the Light and of the Resurrection, no matter how dark and threatening the world is.
In fact, the darker the world and life, the brighter the Light of Christ may shine in the darkness of suffering, pain, confusion and every trial that humanity faces, but for that to happen, our focus must be on Christ, the Light of the World, not on the deepening darkness.
How perverse it is that we are often so focussed on the darkness that we turn our faces away from the Risen Lord, our Light and Life.
The Saviour was arrested in the darkness of the garden of Gethsemane and was brought to Pilate by night. The world was plunged into darkness in the moment of His death on Golgotha, and His body rested in darkness of the tomb… yet all of this was but a brief moment before the radiant glory of the Resurrection, and even as the world was in darkness the Saviour, “the Light that knows no evening”, descended into the realm of death and harrowed Hades, bringing light and life to the righteous of the Old Covenant, raising them in His own Rising.
We must not fear darkness: the darkness of illness, of death, of wars and revolutions, of insecurity, of anxiety, of the degenerate darkening “progress” of the world… for Christ has overcome darkness, even entered the depths of sheol, trampling down death by death, bringing light, life and hope, and above all the promise given to the repentant thief upon the cross, “Truly, I say to you. Today, you will be with me in paradise.”
The world is the world – fallen and still falling in its rebellion and lawlessness – yet, within it the faithful walk in the Light of Christ, sharing it with those in darkness and offering hope, but ultimately that hope is not in an earthly utopia, but in the fullness of the resurrectional life the Kingdom of God in the age to come.
This joyful celebration of the Lord’s Pascha is the sign and foretaste of this future life of the Eighth Day in the midst of our fragile and temporary earthly sojourn, whose meaning is to be found in the journey of St Dismas from the cross on the Saviour’s right hand to His right side in the Heavenly Kingdom.
This journey is one of repentance, (and enduring pain and darkness) and faith, with Christ as it’s meaning and His Resurrection as it’s calling and promise.
Let us now keep the feast with gladness, guarding its holiness and joy like a candle lit from the Holy Fire at the Lord’s Sepulchre, sharing the Eternal Joy and hope in the words of the angel at the sepulchre – “He is not here. He is risen!” – and no matter how frightening and dark the world and life becomes, remember the Saviour’s first words to the disciples, “Peace be with you all!”
This peace is not the world’s peace, but the peace from above, which may abide in our lives, no matter how troubled or painful they are, precisely because Christ has already gained the victory, despoiling hell and death and is truly risen!
“O great and most sacred Pascha, Christ! O Wisdom and Word of God and Power! Grant us more perfectly to partake of Thee, in the unwaning day of Thy kingdom.”
Dear brothers and sisters, last Sunday, it was a great joy – as always – to celebrate the Triumph of Orthodoxy and the Restoration of the Holy Icons, but even more so this year with the chanting of the Synodikon and the procession at the end of our long succession of services.
Looking and seeing Kyril and Yury holding the menaion icon of the liturgical year and the synaxis of the saints of the Kiev Caves for everyone to kiss was a source of joy, as was James’s keenness in pointing out that he was carrying the icon of the Holy Face of the Saviour given to him for his nameday.
As we reminded our children, they are the Church’s tomorrow, and I hope they will remember occasions such as Sunday, and the many details that can only be memories because of the thoroughness with which Sacred Tradition is observed and celebrated.
When I first came to Orthodoxy through a parish not in ROCOR, my experience lacked the maximalism, energy, enthusiasm and great joy that resonated in last weekend’s celebrations: rather a shadow of our Church life, in a warm but intellectualised and theologically limp parish that was more interested in ecumenism and the arts than zealous defence of Orthodox Tradition, and though it had wonderful and generous people, it had as much spiritual zeal as a wilted lettuce.
In contrast to our understanding of the inheritance of Faith, others had suppressed the things that THEY were uncomfortable with. If it was to be compared to a box of chocolates, others had removed the centres they didn’t like, but had been quick to cover the gaps in the tray by introducing confectionary of their own making: ecumenist, renovationsist, intellectual and liberal, with very soft centres (filled with additives, artificial colours and synthetic flavouring) that were pleasing to THEIR palette, and which THEY believed everyone else had to like and, indeed, swallow! These introductions reflected individual human whims and enthusiasms, and NOT the consciousness of Christ’s Church.
Not once can I (with a very obsessive memory) remember celebrating the Triumph of Orthodoxy in any detail, and I cannot even recall discussion of the Church Fathers, of the Ecumenical Councils, of the Holy Mountain, of monasticism, even of ascetical life.
It’s astounding and highly disturbing to recall this, and I now realise that one young man probably returned to Anglo-Catholicism because these topics were more discussed and considered in certain High Church Anglican circles than in that local Orthodox parish.
This was certainly not the fulness of Faith or the fulness of Orthodoxy, and I thank God that this became apparent even to a rather idealistic neophyte, and when I returned home from the South Coast, I was greatly blessed to encounter Igumen Seraphim of our former Birmingham parish and our deeply devout, ascetical and prayerful starosta, Vera Vasilievna Mokarova, who showed me the fulness and beauty of traditional Russian Orthodoxy – built on the legacy of Bishop Constantine, fed by the Optina elders, startsy and righteous ones of Holy Russia, imbued with the breath of the Holy Mountain, and heavily influenced by the life and labours of St John the Wonderworker, Blessed Father Seraphim (Rose) of Platina and the St Herman of Alaska Brotherhood.
The portraits and photographs on the walls of the staircase and trapeza attested to the spiritual legacy inherited from successive generations.
I am so grateful that years later, despite my original stubborn odyssey as a refusenik when ROCOR and the Moscow Patriarchate united, the Lord’s mercy led me to the reconciliation that brought me, through our late Metropolitan Hilarion, to be the rector of the Cardiff parish and mission-priest to our Gloucestershire mission (and now to our Wessex mission), and to be able to serve the wonderful people of our widely scattered community, with their thirst for a maximal and full Orthodox Faith and life summed up by last Sunday’s celebrations.
Sunday, saw us stand together to not only celebrate the Triumph of Orthodoxy, but to celebrate and remember our own history and spiritual legacy as a local part of the Russian Orthodox Church born in the pain and poverty of dislocation, exile and displacement, struggling for holiness and the preservation of Faith and Holy Orthodoxy, despite the hardships and demands of simple survival.
As our deacons remembered the departed during our moleben, what precious names were heard: our departed First Hierarchs, including the great Abba of the Church in Exile, Metropolitan Antoniy of Kiev and Galych, Metropolitan Philaret, whose relics remain incorrupt, and our greatly missed Metropolitan Hilarion; also Vladyka Irenei’s predecessors in this God-preserved diocese – St John the Wonderworker and Bishop Constantine.
What great names were also heard in other dioceses of our Church Abroad: Archbishop Averky of Jordanville, Archbishop Andrei of Novodiveevo, Archbishop Nektary of Seattle: spiritual giants of our Orthodox Christian Faith.
We heard the names of great champions of Holy Orthodoxy, from an age when our small, poor, unconnected and seemingly unimportant Russian Orthodox Church Abroad produced saints, in men and women of great asceticism, holiness and unsullied Faith – and at a time when the patriarchates of world Orthodoxy were producing bureaucrats, ethnarchs and apparatchiks advancing the geo-political interests and foreign policies of world governments.
When we hear the commemorations of the departed, I know that alongside the names in the petitions, many of us will be remembering the formative influences in our lives: the people from whom we have inherited the precious Deposit of Faith.
We hear the names of great stalwarts of the diocese in each proskomedia and Liturgy: Archbishop Nikodem and Bishops Nicholas and Constatine; the Archpriests Yevgeny, Mikhail and Georgy; Archimandrite Nikanor; the Abbesses Elizabeth and Seraphima… and others from whom we have received the fulness of Holy Orthodoxy.
We make a poklon to their memory and pray “Memory Eternal… Vechnaya pamyat!”
And just as we then prayed for many years for the living, and return to today, my heart rejoices as we consider not only today, but also tomorrow, with our young people approaching Orthodoxy already fed and fired by the very spiritual food, and inspired by the very elders, holy men and women that I encountered in my discovery of real Orthodoxy, and even by some of the great ones who were remembered in our prayers.
To have young people and those young in Orthodoxy (if not in years) imbued with the sacred legacy of Faith transmitted by St John the Wonderworker, Father Seraphim Rose, the Optina Elders. St Theophan the Recluse, Archbishop Averky, St Nikolai Velimirović, the elders of Mount Athos, and the great Romanian elders is music to the soul.
To know that ordinary people – neither scholars nor intellectuals – are imbued with the lives and writings of Church Fathers and great elders and eldresses, rather than modernist, intellectual and renovationist “theology” is a relief and comfort!
To have the Psalter read in its entirety everyday in Lent through the organisation of the parish brothers and sisters (largely young) themselves is exemplary and inspiring.
To have parishioners who wish to be part of services that are long because they are celebrated according to the fulness of our ROCOR liturgical tradition is a great blessing, and to have spiritual children who are fervent and serious about confession and the mystery of repentance is a joy.
We are very far from perfect as a community, and we still have a great list of things that need resolving and issues in which we seem to make little progress. But, whilst we are aware of our sins, shortcomings and faults, we are a family of believers who accept Orthodoxy as it is meant to be, whether we like all of the rules, canons and expectations or not.
We endeavour, and sometimes struggle to fulfil and live our Faith in obedience, even if that is occasionally an uncomfortable and hard obedience.
Others have thought themselves entitled to move the goalposts, and they themselves will have to answer for their actions.
We can only pray for them with mercy and compassion, and remind ourselves that there is nothing particularly laudable or praiseworthy in our tenacious preservation of Sacred Tradition.
Not only are we not heroes, but simply basic Christians for fulfilling the Saviour’s commandments to love and serve our neighbour (as preached a few weeks ago), but we are also not some sort of uber-Orthodox Christians for being strict in preserving the Sacred Traditions and praxis of Faith. We are simply being Orthodox – in what you know I see as “plain vanilla Orthodoxy”.
We are only fulfilling our duty as Orthodox Christians – preserving the fulness of Faith in dogma and action, as the inheritance of the children who carried their icons in Sunday’s procession.
As our deacons powerfully proclaimed,
“This is the Apostolic Faith!
This is the Faith of the Fathers!
This is the Orthodox Faith!
This Faith confirmeth the universe!”
And… the confirmation of this Faith is not in editing, adapting, doctoring, modernising and reinventing – rather it is in FAITHFULNESS to Sacred Tradition, by obedience, in submission and with humility.
May this humility lead us into that obedience through submission, putting aside our likes, enthusiasms and personal opinions to embrace the mind of the Church; to speak with the voice of the Church; to act in unison as the Church.
This may not always be easy. Indeed, it may sometimes be a difficult struggle, but in body, soul and spirit, in heart and mind, in word and deed and thought, this is the way of Faith: the ORTHODOX Faith.
Let us all beware of counterfeit Byzantine ‘flavoured’ imitations of Orthodoxy. Fakes are not always obvious, and not everything that says Orthodox on the label IS Orthodox.
We would never knowingly walk through a mine-field, or drink from a poisoned well, and so we must equally stay away from counterfeit or pick-and-mix “Orthodoxy”, but rather be demanding, maximalist and stubborn: guarding and preserving our Faith, and sharing it as a precious treasure and the pearl of great price.
Be steadfast and rejoice in our Faith!
“Вера наша, вера славна, вера наша ПРАВОСЛАВНА!”
In Christ – Hieromonk Mark
“O Lord, save Thy people, and bless Thine inheritance. Grant victories to the Orthodox Christians over their adversaries. And by virtue of Thy Cross, preserve Thy habitation.”
The last couple of years have been very interesting for our unusual community: unusual not for the characters we have (though we have to admit to having some very colourful, interesting and individual parishioners), but for the massive geographical dispersion of our parishioners, and the determination of those living so far away to be part of a parish that is faithful to Orthodox Tradition
Last Sunday saw ‘commuters’ from the Forest, Bath, Chippenham, Swindon, Oxford, Mells and Warminster in addition to our locals.
Devoted and loyal regular parishioners not only living in South Wales, but in Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Somerset, Wiltshire and Dorset are part of our parish family – and I intentionally use the word family, despite its banal misuse by so many organisations.
Why do people come such distances?
For the beauties of an exquisite Orthodox temple crammed with icons, shrines and sacred antiquities? Definitely not.For architectural grandeur and monuments of the sacred arts? Definitely not, as imposing as Nazareth House is! For a Slavic club with the opportunity to immerse oneself in East Slavic culture and language? Despite our Russians, Ukrainians, Poles and Serbs, given the numbers of British parishioners, probably not. For a gigantic choir whose voice echoes in the lofty cupolas? Despite our talented but tiny choir, definitely not. For a thronged meal in trapeza after Liturgy? With no facilities apart from toilets and a sink, definitely not.
So, why make such a journey?
Whilst some parishioners have come to us after happy times in more distant communities because we are their nearest parish with weekly services, others have come as ‘refugees’ from parishes where Sacred Tradition is neither cherished nor kept, but rather rejected and destroyed in favour of self-determined renovationsist attempts at user-friendly man-centred imitations of Orthodox life.
Some have come from communities where clergy make their own personal decisions about what is correct and what is incorrect, what is changed, what is re-invented and what is omitted – sometimes based on modernist, liberal, heterodox ideas learned and absorbed from mentors, from the baggage of former lives as non-Orthodox clergy, or in conscious conformity to political agendas that have been dressed up as Church teaching.
Some parishioners have belonged to parishes where clergy project their personal ideologies, views and preferences onto their communities and those in their spiritual care, so that the faithful sometimes automatically accept what they are taught is the norm, and presume that the whole Orthodox world believes and does the same as them!
Some parishioners have come from parishes where ethnic identity, culture and language are at the forefront, but the most basic Orthodox Christian teaching has been lacking.
Sadly, detractors and mischief-makers have sometimes labelled those who have joined our parish as malcontents chasing ultra-Orthodoxy/hyperdoxy or tilting at windmills; as ultras who think they know better than their former clergy; as searchers for the spiritually exotic and obscure, those who are searching for some unattainable Orthodox Shangrila… but this is where we have to be forthright and direct in saying NO!
Our parishioners, old or new, are not obscurantist academics, intellectuals, deluded false-zealots or fantasists, but everyday, normal people living normal Orthodox lives of Faith.
They are people who want to live in the totality and purity of Orthodox Christianity, to struggle to acquire the Holy Spirit in the fulness of Sacred Tradition, not adulterated or diluted versions of Faith.
They are people who love God, who love the saints, who love their Orthodox Faith and love the Church of Christ.
They are people who study the Sacred Scriptures, who read the lives of the saints, who seek spiritual knowledge and enlightenment – and as a result begin to sense when something is wrong, and subsequently wish to discuss in places where discussions are forbidden, to ask questions of those who are not willing to be questioned or to give answers!
As bogolubtsy – God lovers – they simply want 100% Orthodoxy and the fullness of Faith… nothing fancy, nothing different, nothing extra-special – just straight-forward Orthodoxy: with dignified worship, spirtual-teaching, pilgrimages, and the company and fellowship of other straight-forward, informed and conscientious people living their Faith fully, and finding their life’s meaning in the Lord.
Though maximalist, the Orthodoxy confessed in our community is far from ultra, exotic, hyper-correct or obscure. It’s simply traditional Orthodoxy conforming to the Gospels, the Law of God, the Ecumenical Councils, the holy fathers and Sacred Tradition: plain vanilla Orthodoxy!
This is reflected in what we believe, what we preach, what we do, what we don’t do, and the way we do things. Others may do things differently, but we are clear in our ways.
For example…
Whilst recognising that some jurisdictions receive converts by economia, with chrismation, our standard reception by baptism is nothing strange, but simply Patristic practice: plain vanilla Orthodoxy!
Our insistence on the baptismal norm being triple-immersion, not pouring, is not ultra-stictness, but simple obedience to canonical Orthodox tradition and the praxis of our Church from its beginning: plain vanilla Orthodoxy!
Our refusal to commune miaphysite Christians, who are outside the communion of the Eastern Orthodox Church, is not zealotry or sectarianism, but obedience to patristic teaching, the Ecumenical Councils and holy canons: plain vanilla Orthodoxy!
Recognising that other jurisdictions have different practices, our ROCOR insistence on regular confession, especially before Holy Communion, is not some new-fangled thing invented by East Slavs, or ‘hyperdoxy’, but simple Orthopraxis: plain vanilla Orthodoxy!OOOMmm
Our belief that we go to confession to confess all of our sins, and not just when we need to tackle ‘the big ones’ (as taught in some places), is not obscurantism, but the teaching of the holy fathers of the Church: plain vanilla Orthodoxy!
When we ask for modest dress and the covering of heads by our ladies in church during services, it’s not cultural baggage, Old Believerism or Old Calendarist zeal, but humble obedience to the authority of Holy Scripture and the expression of basic Sacred Tradition: plain vanilla Orthodoxy!OOO
When we refused multiple or disposable spoons during the covid pandemic, this was not extremist blind-zealotry, but simple, straight-forward Faith in the the inviolability of the Lord’s Body and Blood, and the confession of the most basic Orthodox belief: plain vanilla Orthodoxy!
Our refusal to abandon the Divine Liturgy, confessions and communion of the Holy Mysteries during the same period was nothing above or beyond, but just regular Orthodox spiritual sacramental life administered by ordinary Orthodox clergy: plain vanilla Orthodoxy.
Our insistence on a strict eucharistic fast – with compassion and economia for those who not being able to do so – is not over-strictness (and we know that this in not obeyed in some places!), but simple Sacred Tradition: plain vanilla Orthodoxy!
Our insistence on liturgical strictness and preserving our inheritance, to pass on to future generations is not externalist formalism, but the treasuring and preservation of Sacred Tradition in the life of the Church: plain vanilla Orthodoxy!
Our faithfulness to fasting PROPERLY throughout Great Lent and Holy Week, not just in the first and last weeks, is simply submission to Orthodox tradition, rather than self-willed, self-appointed pick-and-mix rebellion: plain vanilla Orthodoxy!OOO
Our refusal to recognise or accept graceless schismatics as Orthodox, whatever heterodox views Orthodox leaders in ancient patriarchal sees may opine, is not wilful insult, jealousy or jurisdictional in-fighting, but faithfulness to Orthodox ecclesiology and the Faith of the Church: plain vanilla Orthodoxy!
When our faithful turn to their spiritual-fathers for guidance and for a blessing for new undertakings, journeys, the praxis of their spiritual-lives, and big life decisions and events, this is not guruism or some sort of out-of-date spiritual archeology, but living spiritual tradition handed down and preserved in every generation: plain vanilla Orthodoxy!
Our loyalty to the Patristic Calendar does not mean we believe those using the Gregorian Calendar to be unOrthodox or deficient, but rather testifies to our recognition of the calendar as a sign and source of the spiritual and liturgical unity of the vast majority of Orthodox Christians in the world, who have preserved this tradition: plain vanilla Orthodoxy!
We are a very ordinary little parish with no wealth or property, no temple of our own, with few resources other than our people – but in them, we have all the wealth we need.
We have people fervent in Faith, some of whom willingly travel long distances, who face discomfort, who incur not inconsiderable costs for travelling and invest hours on journeys.
We have people whose spiritual-lives are fervent and demonstrate the love they have for all whom they hold in their prayers, who honour the saints day by day and whose whole being is centred on the Lord.
We have people who labour day by day to make the Beatitudes reality in their lives, labouring for the Kingdom of Heaven.
We have people who are not daunted by constantly setting up and putting away all that is needed for worship, but struggle on in the hope that, one day, we will have our own temple.
We have people who generously support the needs of the parish, those in need, and the mission, charitable work and labours our Church Abroad in so many parts of the world.
We have people who grab every opportunity for pilgrimage, and who travel to support the clergy in our other missions. These people come together week by week, month by month, in one building yesterday, a different one today, and who knows where tomorrow?
We have people who have been courageous enough to oppose sacrilege and the rejection of the canons and Orthodox Tradition; sadly leaving brothers and sisters they love.
Dear brothers and sisters, warmest greetings to you as we celebrate the memory of St Spyridon the Wonderworker, as so many of you are also marking the western Christmas celebrations with non-Orthodox family and friends.
We also greet them as they celebrate the Lord’s Nativity, and hope and pray that this will be a time for reflection upon eternal values and truths, far from the ephemeral frippery that sums up what has become little more than a mid-winter festival for many people.
As a youth I loved – and continue to love – the homely poems of Sir John Betjeman, particularly appreciating his poem ‘Christmas’, now rather old-fashioned, but with eternal questions that must still challenge us to today…
And is it true? And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window’s hue,
A Baby in an ox’s stall?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me?
And is it true? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,
No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare –
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.
As we continue our Advent journey, when the baubles and tinsel of western Christmas are put away, we will hopefully have a little space and time to reflect upon the wonder beneath the questions that Betjeman asked – “And is it true… that the Creator of heaven and earth and all that is was born and laid in the manger, and that each time we celebrate the Divine Liturgy, the God-Man, our Saviour Jesus Christ continues to be Emmanuel – “God With Us” – in His self-sacrifice and self-giving of the Holy Mystery of His Body and Blood?
In our Orthodox liturgical culture, we are reminded of this by the melismos icon in which it is the Christ-Child Who is worshipped on the diskos of the eucharist, with either angels or St John Chrysostom and St Basil the Great in supplication on each side – for it is the very Christ-Child laid in the manger in the Cave of Bethlehem, and who received the gifts of the magi Who gives Himself as His Gift to us.
We are reminded of this at the covering of the Holy Gifts at the end of the proskomedia, as the priest takes the metal star-cover, and placing it over the Lamb (and the commemorative particles) says the words,
“And the star came and stood over the place where the Young Child was.”
At the melismos of the Liturgy – the fracturing and dividing of the Lamb before communion – it is the One Who was the Young Child Who is divided for the Communion of His children with His Most Pure Body and Most Precious Blood:
“Broken and distributed is the Lamb of God: broken, yet not divided; ever eaten, though never consumed, but sanctifying them that partake thereof.”
With this in mind, as we enter the last fortnight of the Nativity Fast, culminating in the Nativity Liturgy on Sunday 7th January – according to the Civil Calendar – we should seek to partake of that great wonder – that He Who is equally the Child of Bethlehem and the Risen Saviour and Victorious Conqueror of death and hell calls us and invites us to His supper:
“Take, eat, this is My Body which is broken for you for the remission of sins… Drink of it, all of you; this is My Blood of the New Testament, which is shed for you and for many, for the remission of sins.”
In today’s Gospel for the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers, we hear of those who were to busy to come to the supper that a certain rich man arranged, and to which they were invited…
“The first said unto him, I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it: I pray thee have me excused. And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them: I pray thee have me excused. And another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.”
Though our prime understanding of this is the refusal of the Old Israel to respond to God’s persistent and determined call for their return to Him, through His servants, the Holy Forefathers and Prophets, we should not be complacent as the New Israel and children of the Resurrection, but also see it as a cautionary warning to us.
Christ has given us the feasts of the Church and the perpetual feast of His Mystical Supper as a foretaste of the Kingdom, as a token of His love, and as the Banquet of His Church, to which all are called, regardless of age, social status, learning or knowledge, as the very ones who were called from the highways and hedges by the servants seeking new guests to bring to their master’s supper.
Like the Passover lamb of the Exodus, we cannot partake of Christ the New Passover UNLESS we partake of the Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world: the Lamb of God worshipped by the shepherds in the cave, Who is the Word Who became flesh and dwelt among us on that first Christmas night.
In these last days of the Fast, we prepare to meet the New Born Saviour as that very Lamb of God, Who was born and laid in the manger, to take away the sins of the world; clothed in Adam’s flesh to carry the Cross and to defeat the power of death and hell through the very flesh which He had put on; and in the coming feast of the Nativity He calls us to Himself, to each of us to worship and adore, but also to be joined to Him and have Him abiding in us through the Holy Mysteries.
As we approach the coming feast, we do not travel as magi, with costly gifts, but in our journeys of Faith many of us have travelled a very long way; far from the people we once were; far from the ideas we once held or the lives we once led; far from the things that we once thought to be the priorities of life, signs of success, well-being or achievement; far from the attachments and earthly things that once held us; and during that journey we have encountered much, perhaps changed much, and hopefully learned much – but not in terms of intellectualism and worldly knowledge, but in the simple and true wisdom that Christ has revealed and gives us, for we know that “God is the Lord, and has revealed Himself to us”
This revelation is the great gift of Christmas – God’s salvific gift of Himself to us and for us – and for those of us who preserve and live the Orthodox, Catholic and Apostolic Faith, this gift is one which is never exhausted as the Holy Mysteries of the Church are continually given to us, for our renewal and transformation, with the Eucharist as the greatest sign of Christ’s Gift to each of us, as precious individuals Whom He loves and cherishes.
To return to St Spyridon – his life as a simple rural shepherd, turned shepherd-of-souls after the death of his wife, when he was chosen and consecrated as bishop of Tremithus in Cyprus, reminds us that it is God “Who hast revealed the fishermen as most wise by sending down upon them the Holy Spirit.” It is in God that all Truth and all Wisdom is to be found, and that Truth and Wisdom was incarnate, and entered the world as a Person.
St Spyridon could almost be one of the simple shepherds who were in the hills tending their flocks by night. Unlike the Cappadocian Fathers, this simple soul did not receive a great classical education; he did not study grammar, logic, or rhetoric… mathematics, philosophy or theology; he did not know the classical Greek educational traditions or the great places of learning – and yet he was enlightened and made not only a TRUE theologian (who knows God rather than only knowing about Him), but also a wonder-worker, whose innumerable miracles never cease.
In him, divine-love, truth and wisdom made their dwelling, because his heart became the cave and the manger in which Christ found a home.
We are each called to approach the coming feast of the Nativity, like the simple shepherds, and with the simplicity and faith possessed by St Spyridon, knowing that the human heart and even the most complex and complicated lives, opened and surrendered to the New-Born Saviour in humility, faith, hope and love, can be transformed and the greatest of places, in which all things become possible through the love and mercy, and the in-dwelling of the Grace of God.
Let us approach the coming feast with awe, faith and love, desiring the Saviour to change us, banishing darkness, confusion and fear, and bringing us light and life.
In seeking Him as Light and Life, let us fast and pray, beseeching the Lord
”…as Thou didst consent to lie in a cave and in a manger of dumb beasts, so consent also to lie in the manger of mine irrational soul and to enter into my defiled body.”
– daring to approach when we see the Deacon present the Holy Gifts at our Nativity Liturgy, hearing those familiar but ever awesome words,
“With the fear of God and faith, draw near – Со стра́хом Бо́жиим и ве́рою приступи́те.”
And, we know that our drawing near is only possible because the Love of God and God of Love did not simply draw near to us, but came searching for us when we were lost, reconciling us with Him, making peace between earth and heaven by becoming like unto us in the scandal of the Incarnation, in the seeming impossibility of the birth of the God-Man in the Cave of Bethlehem, in the shocking dereliction and suffering of the Cross, and in the glory and victory of the Life-Giving Resurrection.
This is the promise of the coming feast, hiding within the New-Born Child, the whole economy of salvation.
Troparion of the forefeast, Tone 4: Make ready, O Bethlehem! Be thou opened unto all, O Eden! Adorn thyself, O Ephratha! For in the cave the Tree of Life hath sprung forth from the Virgin. Her womb is shown to be a noetic paradise, in the midst of which is the divine Tree, whereof eating, we shall live, and not die as did Adam. Christ is born, that He might restore His image which fell of old!
“The Cross is the guardian of the whole world! The Cross is the beauty of the Church! The Cross is the strength of kings! The Cross is the support of the faithful! The Cross is the glory of the angels and the wounder of the demons!”
(Exapostilarion)
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Dear brothers and sisters,
Greetings for the feast of the Exultation of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross of the Lord.
Contrary to the logic of the world and the mockery of the modern day equivalent of the Jews (for whom the Cross was a stumbling block) and the Greeks (for whom the Cross was foolishness), today, we joyfully celebrate the feast.
In our temples, we surround the Cross with herbs and flowers, venerating it as a precious treasure and source of sanctification, blessing and healing.
Prostrating ourselves and venerating it, we chant, “Before Thy Cross we bow down, O Master, and Thy holy Resurrection we glorify.”
In our cathedrals and monasteries, hierarchs and abbots bless the four corners of the earth, with the Cross as the sign of victory by which the demons are conquered, the powers of evil put to flight, and the world consecrated through God’s grace. We know that the powers of hell fear this very sign and painful reminder of their own defeat and impotence.
But, how can it be that a the Church came to recognise a Roman gibbet, a shameful tool of torture and death to be the sign of victory and the Tree of Life?
The early Christians and Fathers of the Church saw many types of the Cross in the Jewish scriptures: in the wood with which Noah built the salvific ark; in the the wood carried for Isaac’s intended sacrifice; in the rod of Moses, which divided the Red Sea, opening a path from slavery to freedom; in the cruciform raising of Moses arms, by which Israel defeated Amalek; in the bronze serpent set cross-wise on a pole for the healing of the Israelites bitten by the fiery snakes.
In all of these, the meaning and vision was of healing, deliverance, freedom, salvation, victory and restoration.
As inheritors of the early Christian understanding of the prophetic and prefigurative voice of the scriptures in image and symbol, and as heirs of their spiritual approach to the Cross, we celebrate and honour it in its glorious, life-giving fulness.
Like the early Christians, seeing beyond the Saviour’s pain and suffering in His accepting, embracing, carrying and enduring the Cross, we see life, liberation, the restoration of humanity and the redemption of Adam and Eve, and of all humanity with them.
Thus, over twenty centuries after an instrument of torturous death was transformed and consecrated by the Saviour’s sacrificial love, obedience, humility, and His total outpouring of self, we Orthodox Christians hymn and venerate the Life-Giving Cross as the Tree of Life, the destruction of hell and the death of death.
Whilst some heretics are loathe to even acknowledge the reality of the crucifixion and the form of the Cross, we embrace it with enthusiastic devotion and deep love – having been sealed with its precious image in Holy Baptism and Chrismation; wearing it around our necks; being signed with it upon our heads in confession as we are assured of Christ’s forgiveness for the penitent; anointed with its form in Holy Unction; tracing its image upon ourselves in prayer and divine worship, and being blessed with that same figure.
In the hymns of Paschal matins, we boldly declare that “through the Cross, joy hath come to all the world…”, and exulting in this joy, we are mindful that at the heart of the meaning of the Cross is the reckless and limitless love of God, of which the sacrificial-love of the Cross was sign of the absolute nature of that love in which God held His Creation from its very beginning.
Desirous for the redemption and restoration of His children from the very moment of their fall, in that love, in the economy of salvation, He sought to heal like by means of like, entering into creation itself to effect the healing and salvation of the fallen.
Just as sin, disobedience and death entered the world through wood – by the Tree of Knowledge – so righteousness, obedience, and restored life would be effected through the Wood: the Tree of the Cross, which has become for us the Tree of Life.
He Who was raised up on this Tree, of His own will, was the very Immortal Word of God and Creator of Whom St John tells us, “All things were created through Him, and apart from Him not one thing was created that has been created…”
As the first Adam fell through approaching a tree in disobedience, and the fruit of that tree was death, so the second Adam approached His Tree in obedience, and the fruit of that Tree is life!
This is proclaimed by the Church’s hymns for the feast, in which we reflect that the tree was healed by a Tree, chanting in matins,
“Of old, in paradise, a tree stripped me naked, the enemy bringing about mortality through eating; but the Tree of the Cross, bearing for men the vesture of life, hath been planted in the ground, and the whole world hath been filled with all manner of joy.”
From the height of that Tree, Christ, the Wisdom, Word and Power of God created anew: making of humanity and the world a new creation, whose conception is signalled by the words of the sacrificed Lamb of God, “It is done.”
As the earth quaked, the sun was eclipsed, the Veil of the Temple was rent from top to bottom, and the bodies of the saints rose from their graves, the awesome, life-giving and world-changing power of the Cross was first manifested in the labour pains of a new world born and created from the height of the Cross.
Year by year, we celebrate this wonderful mystery in this feast of the Exultation, knowing that those who love the Cross of Christ, embracing its message of sacrificial love, selflessness and obedience in their lives are themselves exalted by the Cross just as much as we exalt the Cross on this joyful feast.
St Ephrem the Syrian poetically speaks of the Cross as a bridge spanning the jaws of death, and leading to ‘the land of the living’:
“He who was also the carpenter’s glorious son set up his Cross above death’s all-consuming jaws, and led the human race into the dwelling place of life. Since a tree had brought about the downfall of mankind, it was upon a tree that mankind crossed over to the realm of life. Bitter was the branch that had once been grafted upon that ancient tree, but sweet the young shoot that has now been grafted in, the shoot in which we are meant to recognise the Lord whom no creature can resist.
We give glory to Thee, O Lord, who raised up Thy Cross to span the jaws of death like a bridge by which souls might pass from the region of the dead to the land of the living. We give glory to Thee who put on the body of a single mortal man and made it the source of life for every other mortal man.”
On this feast, we glorify the Lord and His Life-Giving Cross, by which hell was defeated and stripped bare as the Risen Lord led our first-father and first mother with the saints of the Old Israel across this wondrous bridge from death to life.
In labouring to follow Him, Who wishes to exalt and raise us up by His Cross, let us rejoice and celebrate in the radiant joy of the feast.
“Come then, my brothers and sisters, let us offer our Lord the great and all-embracing sacrifice of our love, pouring out our treasury of hymns and prayers before him who offered his Cross in sacrifice to God for the enrichment of all.”
(St. Ephrem the Syrian, 306-373 AD)
As the Tree of Life, and the sign of selfless cruciform-love, let us live with the Mystery and meaning of the Cross, as the centre of our lives: our axis mundi stretching from earth to heaven.
During Great Lent, and the other fasts of the Church Year, it is customary for all Orthodox Christians to go to confession to their priest. Properly this should be done several times a year, the exact frequency depending upon how often one is blessed to receive the Holy Mysteries and on the counsel and blessing of one’s spiritual father. As a preparation for this sacramental confession and to help one examine one’s conscience before coming to confession, the following questions are sometimes distributed in parishes and, although of course the list is not exhaustive, it may be a help to those of our readers who are Orthodox Christians.
Sins Against God
Do you pray to God in the morning and evening, before and after meals?
During prayer have you allowed your thoughts to wander?
Have you rushed or gabbled your prayers? or when reading in church?
Do you read the Scriptures daily? Do you read other spiritual writings regularly?
Have you read books whose content is not Orthodox or even anti-Orthodox, or is spiritually damaging?
Have you pronounced the name of God without reverence, joking? Have you asked God’s help before starting every activity?
Have you made the sign of the Cross carelessly, thoughtlessly? Have you sworn? Have you murmured against God?
Have you sinned by forgetting God?
Have you been slack in attending church?
Have you consecrated even part of the feast days, particularly Sundays and the Twelve Great Feasts, to God?
Have you tried your best to attend church on these days? or have you spent them more sinfully than ordinary days?
If unable to attend church for some reason, have you nonetheless tried to devote some part of these days to prayer and spiritual reading?
Have you joined with people not of the Faith in prayer, or attended their worship services?
Have you kept the fasts?
Have you behaved irreverently in church, or before the clergy and monastics?
Have you laughed or talked in church, or moved about unnecessarily, thus also distracting other people from prayer?
Have dressed modestly and in a becoming manner when in church?
Have you tried to pay reverent attention to the readings, hymns, and prayers in church?
Have you striven to pray with the service, crossing yourself, etc., or have you rather simply stood and day-dreamed?
Have you prepared for the services beforehand, looking up the Scriptural readings, making sure you have the texts to follow the service etc., especially if the service will be in a language you do not readily understand?
Have you ever left church after the Divine Services, and particularly after receiving the Holy Mysteries and immediately engaged in light talk and thus forgotten the blessings and graces you have received?
Have you been ashamed of your Faith or the sign of the Cross in the presence of others?
Have you made a show of your piety?
Have you used your Orthodox Faith or its teachings merely to browbeat others or belittle them?
Have you used it as a shield or excuse for your own inadequacies rather than humbling yourself?
Have you believed in dreams, fortune telling, astrology, signs and other superstitions?
Do you give thanks to the Lord for all things?
Have you ever doubted God’s providence concerning yourself?
Do you at least try to perceive His purpose in all the things that come upon you?
Sins Against Your Neighbours
Do you respect and obey your parents?
Have you offended them by rudeness or contradiction?
(These two apply also to priests, superiors, teachers and elders.)
Have you insulted anyone?
Have you quarrelled or fought with anyone? Have you hit anyone?
Are you always respectful to old people?
Are you ever angry, bad tempered or irritable?
Have you called anyone names? Do you use foul language?
Have you derided any that are disabled, poor, old or in some way disadvantaged?
Have you entertained bad feelings, ill will or hatred against anyone?
Have you forgiven those who have offended you?
Have you asked forgiveness from those whom you have offended?
Are you at peace with everyone?
Have you left the needy without help when you could have helped?
Have you attended the sick or elderly when they have asked you to do so?
Have you shown kindness and attention to all, remembering that God is expecting just such an attitude from you?
Have you hit animals without a cause or been cruel to them, or neglectful of those in your care?
Have you stolen anything?
Have you taken or used other people’s things without asking?
Have you kept money or things that were lent you without returning them?
Have you wasted your employers’ time or resources? Have you taken things from work for your own use, used the firm’s phone or other facilities for your own purposes without permission or repayment?
Are you obstinate, and do you always try to have your own way?
Have you been inconsiderate of other people’s feelings?
Have you tried to have your revenge against those who have offended you?
Have you harboured resentment? Have you deceived people?
Have you gossiped?
Have you told untruths?
Have you judged and condemned others?
Have you taken pains before approaching for confession to be reconciled with all?
Sins Against Yourself
Have you been proud? Do you boast of your abilities, achievements, family, connections or riches?
Do you consider yourself worthy before God?
Are you vain, ambitious? Do you try to win praise and glory?
Do you bear it easily when you are blamed, scolded or treated unjustly? Do you think too much about your looks, outward appearance and the impression you make?
Have you sinned in thought, word or deed, by a look or glance, or in any other way against the seventh commandment? (Adultery, fornication, all extra-marital sexual relationships with others, masturbation, engaging in unnatural sexual acts, fantasising, pornography, etc.)
Have you envied anyone anything? Have you been over-sensitive?
Have you been lazy? Have you done your duties heartily?
Have you wasted your time, energy or abilities in things that do not profit the soul?
Have you become obsessive about anything? Have you been despondent or listless?
Have you had thoughts of committing suicide?
Have you brought a curse on yourself or others or ill-wished them, being impatient?
Have you a weakness for alcohol? Have you drunk too much, or become dependent on drink?
Have you taken drugs, other than necessary medicines? Have you smoked?
Have you watched television too much or indiscriminately? Have you given yourself up to any other similar pastime which wastes your time and energy and might have harmed you?
Have you been greedy, either with regard to food or to possessions?
Have you indulged in comfort-eating? Have you become accustomed to eating between meals?
Have you been picky about your food, or wasteful of foods, forgetting that so many people are without proper nourishment? Have you been extravagant? Have you been wasteful?
Do you care for and seek first the salvation of your soul, the spiritual life and the kingdom of God, or have you put earthly considerations in the first place?
Is there any other sin, which burdens your conscience, or which you are ashamed to tell?
Anyone preparing for confession must ask God to help his resolve to tell all his sins. A penitent should prepare for confession and collect his thoughts regarding his sins at least a day before confession. The most valuable thing in the eyes of God is the confession of the sin which weighs most on the conscience.Continue reading →
On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”
Dear brothers and sisters, Christ is Risen! Христосъ воскресе! Hristos a înviat! Χριστός ἀνέστη!
Dear brothers and sisters, warmest greetings to you as we celebrate the memory of St Spyridon the Wonderworker, as so many of you are also marking the western Christmas celebrations with non-Orthodox family and friends.
J
