As co-heirs with Christ, today we are offered in His holy temple along with Him. Today we share in His place as the first-born, both receiving and distributing the inheritance of God to all our siblings. And today we do so as a royal priesthood, both priests and kings, bringing God’s presence even to the nations.
People’s faith can get shaken when they learn that Church leaders are weak and sinful, possibly especially because the weakness and sin that so often manifest among Church leaders seem to be so spectacularly bad…. But perhaps even more faith-shaking is when one discovers that some Church leaders are actually Machiavellian manipulators.
Sunday of the Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, October 14, 2018 Titus 3:8-15; Luke 8:5-15 In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. One of the accusations that certain non-Orthodox Christians level against the Orthodox is that we worship idols. They say that when we bow before an icon or kiss it or…
Twenty-Seventh Sunday after Pentecost / Tenth Sunday of Luke, December 10, 2017 Ephesians 6:10-17; Luke 13:10-17 In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of the darkness of this age, against the spiritual hosts of…
Sunday after Ascension, May 28, 2017 Acts 20:16-18, 28-36; John 17:1-13 Very Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. We have now left behind the time of continuous celebration of Christ’s resurrection and are now celebrating His ascension into heaven, a feast that falls on the fortieth day…