The importance of Christian friendships In this age where secularism is on the rise, and materialism has become a major distraction from spiritual pursuits, Christian friendship has never been more important. The pursuit of personal fulfillment, entertainment, worldly pleasure, and the acquisition of material goods, has become the dominant theme of our age. Families that once placed the life of…
Thank you for your continued prayerful and financial support All-Merciful Saviour Monastery is a non-profit, 501 C3 organization, under IRS regulations. All donations are therefore tax deductible. We support ourselves through the sales of Monastery Blend Coffee, our fine line of handmade soaps, and a little gift shop. We grow as many of our fruits and vegetables as we can,…
Creating harmony out of chaos The inevitability of death is particularly difficult to face for most Americans, as we’ve become a people that eschew traditional funerals, preferring to “celebrate the life of our loved one, while disposing of the body, and banning any sign of death from the memorial service should we even decide to have a service. Yet the…
The origin of our Orthodox Faith is the Self-disclosure of God Our Orthodox Faith did not have her beginnings with the logical reasoning and speculation of her theologians, nor with the so-called “proofs” for the existence of God with our quest for the Divine. Rather, the origin of our Orthodox Christian Faith is the Self-disclosure of God. This “God is…
The restoration of ourselves, and the world The Lord Jesus Christ was humble, meek and good, and with the help of the Lord we too can be humble. Fasting and prayer are the means by which God can change our hearts, but we must approach both with humility and purpose. Saying our prayers quickly just to get through them is…
The purveyors of biblical teachings and Apostolic worship With the exception of a few dissenters, the first thousand years of the Church found a consensus among the Fathers on all the basic tenets of the faith, from Baptism, the Eucharist, and the role of Holy Tradition. These respected pastors and theologians of their day set the standard for what is…
Darkness does not exist in its own right Our Orthodox Christian theology views evil not as a primeval essence that is co-eternal and equal to God, but rather a falling away from good. Evil does not exist in and of itself, and was not created by God. Our Orthodox Church rejects the Gnostic teaching that the entirety of being is…
The ultimate sickness Humankind’s ultimate sickness is that of unbelief. This world is the place of preparation for our life in eternity, the place where we are prepared for the Kingdom that is to come. Within this world, Our Lord Jesus Christ established a hospital in which the medicine for the cure of our sickness is available, and this hospital…
God is with us in the intimacy of grief The recent massive deaths that have taken place in the horrible fires that have engulfed California has brought together whole communities in need of mourning. During times like this, we need to mourn. One of the most rewarding and challenging aspects of the priesthood is comforting people in their darkest moments…
I’ve never met an atheist! The young man announced at the beginning of a college class, that he was an atheist. I’d been invited as a guest lecturer, and had opened the talk with the observation that everyone has a nous that hungers for God. This young man took exception, declaring there was no God, and furthermore stating that he…
A day set aside to give thanks to God Thanksgiving has officially been an annual tradition since 1863, when during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national day of thanksgiving to be celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November. The word Thanksgiving has it’s roots in the Greek word, εὐχαριστία (eucharistia), where the Church gets the word Eucharist.…
God infuses His Energies into the icons The Old Testament God was revealed to us by Christ Jesus. Prior to the incarnation of the Logos, God’s people were forbidden to make any image of Him, for no one had seen His face. Yet when Christ said to His disciples, “he who has seen Me has seen the Father”, the fullness…