Author: Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick

The Very Rev. Archpriest Andrew Stephen Damick is Chief Content Officer of Ancient Faith Ministries, former pastor (2009-2020) of St. Paul Antiochian Orthodox Church of Emmaus, Pennsylvania, and author of The Lord of Spirits, Arise, O God, Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy, Bearing God and An Introduction to God. He is co-host of the following podcasts: The Lord of Spirits (with Fr. Stephen De Young), The Areopagus (with Michael Landsman), and Amon Sûl (with Richard Rohlin). He is also host of The Orthodox Pilgrim, Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy, Orthodox Engagement, and Roads from Emmaus. With Richard Rohlin he is collaborating on the major documentary series The Wolf and the Cross. You can follow him on YouTube, Facebook, Telegram and Instagram.

Synaxarion for the Saturday of the Akathist

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
I’m off to Philadelphia for much of the day today to give a couple of talks at one of the churches there, so I thought I would leave you with this today, the synaxarion for the Saturday of the Akathist, the Fifth Saturday of Lent, which is today: On the fifth Saturday of the Great Fast, we celebrate the praise of our Most-holy Lady,…

Sweet Partings: The Final Akathist

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
We now come to the part of Lent where we begin to say farewell to various services that have accompanied us on the journey. Today is the Fifth Friday of Lent. In the practice of my archdiocese, we celebrate the Small Compline service with the Akathist Hymn on the first five Fridays of Lent. On the first four, the akathist is divided into quarters,…

Worlds Next to Worlds: A Curious Ecumenism

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Lunch today was with a good friend I have locally, who describes himself as “Post-Charismatic” and “Ortho-Curious.” He is seminary educated and works in the teaching staff at a mini-mega-church (basically the same style as a mega, but without the thousands of people). We eat lunch and drink coffee together regularly, watch movies together, and he has been to my house many times. It…

“Immensity, cloister’d in thy dear womb”: John Donne on the Annunciation

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Students of Renaissance English poetry all get to know John Donne, that 16th/17th century priest and poet who vacillated painfully between whether to remain with the Church of England or to be a Catholic. He also vacillated between a life of devotion and the passions which afflict us all since the Fall. And his poetry reflects all this struggle. To my mind, perhaps his…

The Great Canon and St. Mary of Egypt: Impressions

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Take heed, then, often to come together to give thanks to God, and show forth His praise. For when ye assemble frequently in the same place, the powers of Satan are destroyed, and the destruction at which he aims is prevented by the unity of your faith. – St. Ignatius of Antioch, “To the Ephesians” Yesterday evening, for the first time in its history,…

“Happily Ever After”? Yes, Really – Movie Review: Cinderella (2015)

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Yesterday afternoon, my two older children and I went to go see the new, live-action Disney film Cinderella, directed by Kenneth Branagh and starring Lily James as Cinderella and Cate Blanchett as Lady Tremaine (the Stepmother). And I wanted to say a few things about it. (I’m not a professional movie critic, so this will not be the usual review. And yes, there are…

Lenten Evangelism #8: Renunciation of the World and Evangelism

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Sunday of St. John of the Ladder, March 22, 2015 Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. What does a sixth century monk living on Mount Sinai have to teach us about evangelism? That is the question I asked as I pondered the continuation of our series on…

Haphazard Reminiscence and Gratitude

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Forgive me a bit of rambling reminiscence and reflection, if you don’t mind. I guess this is one of the hazards of committing to blogging every day for forty days. I’m not sure why, but I’ve been remembering some things from more than twenty years ago lately, from shortly after my family moved to North Carolina, three weeks after I graduated from high school…