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Articles Section
This section of our website has articles about Orthodoxy and our church. These articles are also currently subdivided into three categories:
- Orthodox Church, a collection of articles about the Orthodox Church. We hope the articles in this section will be helpful to both inquires of Orthodoxy, and to those who are members of the Church.
- Worship, a collection of articles about services, prayers, and worship of the Orthodox Church.
- Saints and Icons, a collection of articles about saints, their relics, or their icons. We hope to include articles, of special interest to our parish, on the saints who are depicted on our icons, or whose holy relics rest here. Articles on our feast day icons will be included here also.
(Also see our new Salvation History Section.)
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Fasting: 7 Questions and 7 Answers |
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Articles Section -
Orthodox Church
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Written by Bishop Michael
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Fasting: 7 Questions and 7 Answers
His Grace, Michael ~ Bishop of New York & the Diocese of New York and New Jersey
With the beginning of Great Lent rapidly approaching on 27 February, [the Diocese of New York and New Jersey] is pleased to offer a new installment of “Lessons in Our Faith” in which Bishop Michael offers clear and concise teaching on the subject of fasting. (See the Diocese of New York and New Jersey web page for other installments of "Lessons in Our Faith".)
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Click here for lesson.
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Pre-Lent |
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Articles Section -
Worship
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Written by Fr. Thomas Hopko
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Pre-Lent
from The Orthodox Faith by Fr. Thomas Hopko
The paschal season of the Church is preceded by the season of Great Lent, which is itself preceded by its own liturgical preparation. The first sign of the approach of Great Lent comes five Sundays before its beginning. On this Sunday the Gospel reading is about Zacchaeus the tax-collector. It tells how Christ brought salvation to the sinful man and how his life was greatly changed simply because he “sought to see who Jesus was” (Lk 19:3). The desire and effort to see Jesus begins the entire movement through lent towards Easter. It is the first movement of salvation.
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The Glorification of the Saints in the Orthodox Church |
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Articles Section -
Saints and Icons
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Written by Fr. Joseph Frawley
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The Glorification of the Saints in the Orthodox Church
by Fr. Joseph Frawley
While the glorification of saints in the Orthodox Church has been taking place for nearly 2000 years, few people today are certain about how this really happens. Does the Church "make" a saint? Are there special panels which decide who can be considered for sainthood? Are saints "elected" by a majority vote? Does a person have to perform a certain number of miracles in order to quality as a saint? The answers to these questions may be surprising to some.
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Christian Dogma and Defending God's Truth |
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Articles Section -
Orthodox Church
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Written by Archbishop Dmitri of Dallas
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Christian Dogma and Defending God's Truth
by Archbishop Dmitri of Dallas and the South
On the SEVENTH SUNDAY OF PASCHA, Orthodox Christians commemorate the Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council held in the city of Nicea in the year 325 A.D. At this gathering of bishops the Alexandrian priest Arius and the heresy of Arianism were officially condemned. Arius and his followers falsely taught that our Lord Jesus Christ was created by God and inferior to Him.
Members of this revered Council sought to protect the Orthodox doctrine and experience of Christ as being, "Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten, not made, of one essence with the Father, by Whom all things were made" (Nicene Creed).
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Introduction to the Lives of the Saints |
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Articles Section -
Saints and Icons
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Written by Ven. Justin Popovich
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Introduction to the Lives of the Saints
by Ven. Justin Popovich
Until the coming of the Lord Christ into our terrestrial world, we men really knew only about death and death knew about us. Everything human was penetrated, captured, and conquered by death. Death was closer to us than we ourselves and more real than we ourselves, and more powerful, incomparably more powerful than every man individually and all men together. Earth was a dreadful prison of death, and we people were the helpless slaves of death. [1] Only with the God-man Christ "life was manifested"; "eternal life" appeared to us hopeless mortals, the wretched slaves of death. [2] And that "eternal life" we men have "seen with our eyes and handled with our hands," [3] and we Christians "make manifest eternal life" to all. [4] For living in union with the Lord Christ, we live eternal life even here on earth. [5] We know from personal experience that Jesus Christ is the true God and eternal life. [6] And for this did He come into the world: to show us the true God and eternal life in Him. [7] Genuine and true love for man consists of this, only of this: that God sent His Only-Begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him (1 John 4: 9) and through Him live eternal life. Therefore, he who has the Son of God has life; he who has not the Son of God has not life (1 John 5: 12) - he is completely in death. Life in the one true God and Lord Jesus Christ is really our only true life because it is wholly eternal and completely stronger than death. Can a life which is infected by death and which ends in death really be called life? just as honey is not honey when it is mixed with a poison which gradually turns all the honey into poison, so a life which ends in death is not life.
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General Confession |
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Articles Section -
Worship
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Written by Fr Alexander Schmemann
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General Confession
by Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann
What is General Confession and why should it be recognized as proper and useful in the present conditions of our Church life?
To answer this question, one must acknowledge first of all that today an overwhelming majority of the Church’s members do not know either what is confession or how to approach it. It is reduced, and this at best, to a purely formal and general enumeration of usually secondary “defects,” to laconic answers to questions, or to a conversation about “problems.” We have here the results, on the one hand, of a multi-secular, Western, formal and juridical, understanding of confession, and, on the other hand, the “psychologism” proper to our time, which dissolves almost completely the awareness, not of “difficulties,” “problems” and “questions,” but, of sin. Thus, in a large parish where I confessed a few dozens of people, each one began by presenting to me a receipt from the parish treasurer certifying that the man had paid his “dues.” Then he silently waited for absolution. In other parishes there exists the practice of simply reading, from a book, a short formula of confession translated from Latin. Finally, I witnessed on many occasions a simple denial by the penitents of any sin, and this because by “sin” they meant “crimes” which indeed they have not committed. The opposite extreme is the concentration in confession on some particular “difficulty,” from which it becomes evident that the responsibility lies with conditions of life of which the penitent is an innocent victim. In all these types of confession what one does not find is precisely repentance, the “sadness of God,” the despair from being separated from Him, the desire to change one’s life, to be renewed and regenerated.
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What is Primary to Orthodox Spirituality? |
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Articles Section -
Orthodox Church
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Written by Rick Burns
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What is Primary to Orthodox Spirituality?
by Rick Burns
We would think that this would be an easy question to answer … but if we ask around, we will get many different answers. Some will tell us that we need to know the Traditions of the Church. Some will say that we need to know the Bible, others may say we need to know the Saints, while still others recommend that we need to know the liturgical services. While all of these answers are excellent, how much do we need to know about these things to begin the Orthodox journey? Certainly, as we mature as adults, our understanding of these and many other important topics regarding the Orthodox faith should increase. But what is primary to begin and live the faith that will count us among the Orthodox believers?
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Monasticism - The Sacraments |
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Articles Section -
Worship
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Written by V. Rev. Thomas Hopko
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Monasticism - The Sacraments
V. Rev. Thomas Hopko
Although not considered as one of the sacraments of the Church since it is not essential to the Christian life as such and is not a necessary element for the very existence of God's People, monasticism has played an important role in Christian history and is highly valued by the Orthodox Church.
In the Orthodox Tradition the monastic calling is considered to be a personal gift of God to the individual soul for his salvation and service to the Body of Christ. The monastic vocation is the calling to personal repentance in a life dedicated solely to God. The ultimate Christian virtue of love is sought by the monk or nun primarily through prayer and fasting, and through the exercise of the Christian virtues of poverty, chastity, humility and obedience.
The monastic Christian does not normally exercise any particular ministry in the Church such as that of priest, pastor, teacher, nurse or social worker. The monk is normally a layman and not a cleric, with each monastery having only enough clergy to care for the liturgical and sacramental needs of the community itself.
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The Sayings of the Fathers
"If but ten of us lead a holy life, we shall kindle a fire which shall light up the entire city." - St. John Chrysostom
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