Dear brothers and sisters,  

Festal greetings to you on this glorious feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord – not just metaphorically glorious, but truly so, as Mount Tabor became a place where the glory of Christ-God was revealed to the disciples, as far as they were able to bear it. 

The Saviour revealed something which had not been seen by the men and women of the Gospels: not by the magi, even though they fell down and worshipped Him as they laid their gifts before Him; not by the shepherds, even though an angel revealed the new-born Lord to them; not by Symeon the God-Receiver, even though he took the Infant-Saviour into his arms and recognised Him as the Light to enlighten the gentiles; not by the many sick, disabled and possessed people whom He healed and set free, even though He, as their Creator made them into new creations through the miracles He wrought. 

Peter, James and John beheld the Saviour in a way that none of the disciples had so-far beheld Him, as Christ revealed His divinity on Mount Tabor. 

The glory that radiated from the Saviour and enveloped Him in the Transfiguration was not something put on for the occasion. As the Church Fathers clarified, when Jesus was transfigured He did not take upon Himself something new that He did not formerly possess, or change into something or someone else. Rather, in the radiant splendour of the godhead, He showed Himself to His disciples as He already was, and as He always had been, though His divinity was temporarily hidden when He was incarnate, as the Saviour of the World 

In the words of St Gregory Palamas, 

“We believe that at the Transfiguration He manifested…  only that which was concealed beneath His fleshly exterior. This Light was the Light of the Divine Nature, and as such, it was Uncreated and Divine.” 

The Saviour revealed what His humility, His love and compassion had hidden when He was obedient to the Father’s will in the incarnation, clothing Himself in Adam and hiding what the Prophet Ezekiel had seen and struggled to describe when the Lord-Yahweh, the pre-incarnate Saviour, appeared on the heavenly chariot-throne in 

“… a likeness with the appearance of a man high above it. Also, from the appearance of His waist and upward I saw, as it were, the colour of amber with the appearance of fire all around within it; and from the appearance of His waist and downward I saw, as it were, the appearance of fire with brightness all around. Like the appearance of a rainbow in a cloud on a rainy day, so was the appearance of the brightness all around it. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord.” 

The uncreated-light of Christ’s divinity on Mount Tabor echoed the glory that Ezekiel could only approximate in words and images, and also the glory that Moses encountered when he ascended Mount Sinai: glory that was such that Moses himself was transfigured by his encounter with Christ-Yahweh, as St Gregory reminded his listeners: 

“Even the face of Moses was illumined by his association with God. Do you not know that Moses was transfigured when he went up the mountain, and there beheld the Glory of God? But he (Moses) did not affect this, but rather he underwent a Transfiguration.” 

On Mount Tabor, Moses, present in spirit, again reflected the divine-glory, whilst Elias who had ascended into heaven reflected the light of the Transfiguration both physically and spiritually. 

And, the Saviour appeared in glory, not simply to show the glory of His divinity to the disciples, but to prepare them for the suffering which would obscure this glory more and more, as He went to His voluntary passion like a lamb to the slaughter, with the appearance of the suffering-servant foreseen by the Prophet Isaiah, who 

“hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely, he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.” 

Behind this sacrificial-suffering, self-emptying and selfless giving was the same Christ who was transfigured, to show the certainty of the glory which lay beyond the Cross, in the eternity of the Kingdom, and His divinity which was concealed beneath the robe of His suffering flesh. 

The Transfiguration pre-empted His great suffering, so that the necessity of the Cross and the sacrifice of Christ, as the Lamb of God and New-Passover, could be understood by those closest to the Saviour, so that they would not be scandalised by the Cross of Christ, and His crucifixion. 

In the words of St Leo the Great: 

“And in this Transfiguration the foremost object was to remove the offense of the cross from the disciple’s heart, and to prevent their faith being disturbed by the humiliation of His voluntary Passion by revealing to them the excellence of His hidden dignity.” 

Paths of suffering-for-Christ would also be the lot of the disciples, given courage by the glimpsed glory of the Kingdom, which would be reinforced by their experience of the resurrection, of the glorious ascension and the gift of the Holy Spirit, at Pentecost.  Through their spiritual labours and ascent, the Saviour sought to share His glory with them, so that they – and every generation of faithful – might be partakers and inheritors of His glory, to be transfigured like Moses and Elias, radiant in His light.

Similar paths have been trodden by the Saviour’s followers throughout the history of the Church, from the Roman persecutions to the trials of the new-martyrs and confessors of the Communist Yoke in the 20th century, and through this suffering countless people were transfigured, not literally, but spiritually – encountering God, with their endurance and courage buoyed by the promise touched upon by St Leo in his homily for the feast,

“About which the Lord had Himself said, when He spoke of the majesty of His coming, Then shall the righteous shine as the sun in their Father’s Kingdom Mat. 13:43, while the blessed Apostle Paul bears witness to the self-same thing, and says: for I reckon that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the future glory which shall be revealed in us Rom. 8:18: and again, for you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. For when Christ our life shall appear, then shall you also appear with Him in glory Col. 3:3 .” 

– and in this he reminds us of the obvious: that most will have to wait for the life of the age to come to behold God’s glory, when the righteous shall shine like the sun. 

Few will have the foretastes of this glory, like St Symeon, St Seraphim or St John the Wonderworker, but we live in hope of this promise of the glory  of God manifest on the mountain.

But, to attain to this promise, glimpsed on Tabor by the disciples, we must take up our Cross to follow the Saviour in selfless love and obedience: thoroughly, faithfully, and maximally. 

This is the only way each of us can begin to climb the mountain, even its lowest and gentlest slopes: embracing Orthodox life as podvig/ascetic labour – praying, fasting, struggling for purity, through repentance and making the Gospel and the Law of God the entire rule of our lives, day by day.

Above all, let us pray, as this communion with God joins time and eternity, our finite and transient human lives with the changeless eternity of the life of God who always IS.

In prayer there is a certain transcendence of time and place, as there was when the Lord was transfigured on the mountain, and prayer may be the catalyst of our metamorphosis and transfiguration. 

St Gregory, (taking the Transfiguration Gospel from St Luke) observes that 

“That same Inscrutable Light shone and was mysteriously manifest to the Apostles and the foremost of the Prophets at that moment, when (the Lord) was praying. This shows that what brought forth this blessed sight was prayer, and that the radiance occurred and was manifest by uniting the mind with God, and that it is granted to all who, with constant exercise in efforts of virtue and prayer, strive with their mind towards God. True beauty, essentially, can be contemplated only with a purified mind.“

Let us raise up our hearts and minds to God, as even in wordlessness, this is prayer.  And, through prayer – sometimes easy, often a struggle – let us labour to purify our intellect, thoughts and senses, so that we may contemplate things divine and eternal, and join ourselves to things heavenly and changeless: racing to the mountain in this prayer, eager to behold and experience the glory of the Lord. 

“Arise, ye slothful thoughts of my soul, which have ever been dragged down to the earth! Be ye upborne and rise aloft to the summit of divine ascent! Let us make haste to Peter and the sons of Zebedee, and with them let us go to Mount Tabor, that we may see the glory of our God with them, and may hear the voice which they heard from on high; and they preached that Thou, in truth, art the Effulgence of the Father.” 

Ikos of the Matins Canon. 

In Christ – 

Hieromonk Mark 

Dear brothers and sisters, 

Apologies for posting later than intended, after a few busy days with parishioners in Wiltshire and Somerset, and a late arrival home. 

Our Cardiff parish has been blessed to have gained devoted parishioners in Wessex, initially due to their resistance to local attacks on Orthodox Eucharistic praxis, and their refusal to compromise the Holy Mysteries or doubt the healing efficacy of the Saviour’s Body and Blood. 

It was a blessing to be able to recognise their many journeys and great effort to support our services by travelling in the opposite direction to pray with them in Wiltshire and Somerset, making a few home visits – with Margarita’s home being blessed in the process – and to celebrate the feast of St Panteleimon with a pilgrimage visit to the beautiful church of St Laurence, at Bradford on Avon. As announced after Liturgy, this was a reconnaissance-visit prior to a parish pilgrimage, to hopefully be led by Bishop Irenei. 

It was wonderful to gather in the small chancel and serve a moleben to the Holy Martyr and Archdeacon Laurence of Rome and the Holy Great Martyr and Healer Panteleimon, before a festal lunch and a time of fellowship and conversation. 

The short visit has galvanised our resolve to pray and worship on the other side of the Severn, recognising the constant travels to Cardiff on the part of our Wessex parishioners. 

Later this week and the beginning of the following week, I hope to visit some holy places with Cardiff parishioners. To maximise the opportunities on this front, I would like to hear confessions on Saturday, rather than Friday. I know that this may be problematic for a few people and will endeavour to work around this. Please email by Thursday 18:00 to arrange confessions.

Sunday is the Feast of the All-Merciful Saviour and the Procession of the Life-Giving Cross, and we will have the traditional blessing of honey at the end of Liturgy, so remember to bring your new honey, so that you can taste and see that the Lord is good!.

Following on from the feast of the Holy Great Martyr and Healer, Panteleimon, our small portion of his sacred relics will be available to venerate alongside the Life-Giving Cross. 

Service variables may be found here: 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TmFLB3h_6gG6MhHKQJyIHu2EAtkGI0Wi/view 

Remember that Sunday marks the beginning of the Dormition Fast, and food for trapeza should be vegan, with wine and oil permitted. 

May God bless you, and your week. 

In Christ – Hieromonk Mark 

Dear brothers and sisters,

Having celebrated the memory of the Holy Great Princess, Olga last Sunday, and St Vladimir’s Day with a lovely Liturgy in Walsingham, on Thursday, it was a joy to celebrate the Baptism of Rus’ today, when we could be together as a community.

Thanks to all who made today’s well-attended Liturgy such a joyful occasion, continuing into such a lovely lunch celebrating not only the feast, but also Margarita’s nameday, yesterday.

Our kliros and oltarniky performed their obediences very ably, and we were blessed to have Father Luke with us, with his assistance with confessions being a tremendous help, given the number of communicants.

It also allowed clergy participation in lunch whilst I celebrated a memorial service for the servant of God, Nikolai, whose anniversary falls at this time, and for whose repose we ask your prayers. Memory Eternal! Вѣчная память!

As those in church are aware, we are trying to slow down Holy Communion, so that those communing have consumed the Holy Gifts before their mouths are wiped and they kiss the chalice.

None of us should be consuming the Holy Gifts whilst moving away from the chalice, but we often do so, having formed bad habits in crowded Liturgies, where we are not given sufficient time to consume the Gifts and are ushered on. We have no need to rush in St John’s and will not be doing so, since this is our meeting with the Saviour, who offers Himself to us in the Holy Mysteries and comes to dwell in us.

Again. May I remind all who have communicated that they should not leave the body of the church until the thanksgiving prayers are complete, unless their obediences require them to do so.

Our ‘holiday’ from catechesis continues, but we look forward to forthcoming baptisms, when James will be baptised in honour of St James the Faster and Tracey with the name Mary, for the Mother of God, whose Dormition we will be celebrating at the time of the baptism. We also look forward to Thomas’s baptism around the feast of the Protecting Veil of the Mother of God – a wonderful and beautiful feast.

May I ask those wishing to confess, on Friday to email me by Wednesday evening, and thanks to all who have been so prompt in their requests: otetzmark@hotmail.com

I wish you all a happy feast of St Seraphim, tomorrow, and encourage you all to pray the canons or akathist in his honour! We also celebrate other important feasts in the week ahead:

• Tuesday – the Holy and Glorious Prophet Elias
• Wednesday – the Holy and Glorious Prophet Ezekiel and St. Symeon of Emesa, the fool-for-Christ
• Thursday – the Holy Myrrh-bearer and Equal-to-the-Apostles, Mary Magdalene
• Friday – the Icons of the Most Holy Theotokos of Pochaev and “The Joy of All Who Sorrow” (with coins) of St. Petersburg
• Saturday – the Holy Martyrs and Passion-bearers Boris and Gleb
• Sunday – the The Dormition of the Righteous Anna, Mother of the Most Holy Theotokos – Liturgy variables: https://drive.google.com/file/d/18si1-PvB1kO1M3lcT3sMUBgb9rDmWlEa/view

Having enjoyed tea and pirozhky with Father Luke, on returning home, I will now settle down with a cup of tea and enjoy ‘Wimbledon in a cake’, as one of the desserts was described.

Thank you all for your constant labours and many kindnesses.

May God bless you all. S prazdnikom –

Hieromonk Mark

Dear brothers and sisters,

In the ‘pilgrim language’ of Walsingham, I have just made my ‘last visit’ of the day to the Holy House, which is at the centre of prayer and devotion in the Anglican Shrine, in which the Orthodox have maintained a chapel and spiritual presence since 1941 (having being involved in Walsingham pilgrim life since 1931), with the chapel being consecrated on Troitsa 1945.

I have previously written of the origin of the Holy House, and will simply quote from a past posting:

“The Mother of God appeared to Richeldis (Rychold), Lady of the Manor of Walsingham in the 11^th century, commanding her to build a replica of the original Holy House of Nazareth, later dismantled and rebuilt in Loreto, in Italy, after the Islamic conquest of the Holy Land.

The great shrine and priory, which developed around the chapel of the Holy House was endowed through royal patronage and was renowned throughout Europe, but despite its sanctity and fame it fell victim to the ravages of the reformation and the destruction of the holy places by King Henry VIII and his henchmen.

The 20th century saw the restoration of Anglican religious life around a newly built Holy House and shrine complex.”

The current Holy House, to which the image of Our Lady of Walsingham was translated in 1931, is a very plain structure, echoing the humble simplicity of the Holy House of Loreto, and the mediaeval recreation in the priory a few hundred metres from the current site.

It stands within the Anglican Shrine Church, just inside the ‘west’ door, towards which it is liturgically oriented. The chapel of the Annunciation and shrine of St Vincent of Saragossa are located behind it, between the Holy House and the door and, to its ‘liturgical north’, a Saxon well is accessed by north-south steps (not the original Holy Well, but nevertheless a constant source of healing and blessing from the Mother of God).

The second day of the consecration of the extended church, in 1938, saw the celebration of the Hierarchical Liturgy on the high altar by Archbishop Nestor of Kamchatka, and the memorials of the Walsingham ‘greats’ who welcomed him and the Orthodox pilgrims stand near the Holy House and the west door.

Above the well, in the north aisle of the church, the effigy of Fr Alfred Hope Paten (1885-1958), a great friend and benefactor of the Orthodox Church in Britain reposes, tomb-like.

Immediately next to the Holy House, a  similar memorial to the sometime Bishop of Acra, Mowbray Stephen O’Rorke (1869-1953) – another friend and supporter of exiled Russian Orthodox Christians is to be found, with a figure of the Lady Richeldis kneeling on the west wall of the Holy House, just above the feet of his effigy. Thanks to Dr David Woolf, for pointing out that Bishop O’Rorke’s mortal remains rest beneath this stately memorial.

Lamps and candles burn in the Holy House day and night, for the intentions of parishes, families, pilgrims and their many intentions, and intercessory prayers are offered there every day of the year. Small paper shields, like zapisky, proclaim the intentions, and give the names of parishes and associations for which lamps burn, both inside and outside the Holy House.

Pilgrims pass through its doors from morning till night, and are struck by the peace and prayerfulness of this very special place in which the pilgrim feels the merciful care and loving solicitude of the Mother of God, ‘Our Lady of Walsingham,’ in its profound and hushed peace, amidst the flames of candles and lamps, gently flickering, blue and red.

Most Holy Mother of God, Our Lady of Walsingham, pray to God for us!

Dear brothers and sisters, 

Recently, our community has been blessed with some wonderfully festive Liturgies – for the Forerunner, for the Holy Chiefs of the Apostles, Peter and Paul, and yesterday for the Royal Martyrs. 

On these occasions we have been pleased to celebrate the namedays of the faithful, and we very pleased that Nicholas could be with us yesterday, on his first nameday, having been baptised by Father Luke in honour of the Holy Tsar-Martyr on Lazarus Saturday, (on the same day that we baptised George in the sea), after a long and thorough catechumenate. 

As well as congratulating him, we would like to thank him for reading the Hours, the Apostol and thanksgiving prayers – of which he was not forewarned. Many Blessed Years! 

We were also very happy to welcome Isaiah, one of the catechumens from the Llanelli Parish, and were glad for yesterday’s addition to our catechumens with Thomas’s quiet admittance to the catechumenate in the porch of St John’s, whilst the parish shared trapeza in the church. 

We are now looking forward to James’s baptism in Chippenham in a fortnight, adding to the number of our Wessex faithful, and to Tracey’s baptism in St Nicholas on the Eve of the Dormition, at which time she will take the baptismal name of Mary, in honour of Our Lady, the Mother of God, and her feast. 

Last Saturday saw a wonderful Cheltenham Liturgy, and next Saturday sees the celebration of the feast of Venerable Anthony of the Kiev Caves at the Urdd Centre in Llangrannog, on the Cardigan Coast, currently housing refugees from Ukraine. We hope to commence the Hours at 10:00 and Liturgy at 10:30, but given that this is a new setting we are keeping a slightly open mind. Directions may be found here: 

https://www.urdd.cymru/en/residential-centres/llangrannog/about/directions/ 

Looking forward to next Sunday’s Liturgy, at 11:00, we celebrate more namedays, with the feast of the Holy Equal to the Apostles, Great Princess Olga, and the variables for the feast may be found at ‘Orthodox Austin’, as usual: 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vaZU8gMRGU07waG9ryRIa9KYvjnWcF8P/view 

May I ask for confession requests by Wednesday evening please, as this is something of a challenging week, given a concentration of activities? I have already had a chance to confirm some confessions with parishioners. 

Wishing you a sensible and cautious few days, and looking forward to seeing parishioners at the cooler end of the week. 

In Christ – Hieromonk Mark