During the first days of the Christmas fast the Church celebrates the feast of the entrance of the child Mary into the Jerusalem temple… The spiritual story tells how, coming into the temple, the child Mary is led into the Holy of Holies by the priest Zachariah, the father of...

Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann was the Dean of St. Vladimir’s Seminary from 1962 until his death in 1983. Hundreds of SVOTS alumni were trained under his keen mind, warm humor, and guiding principle: “A seminarian should know only three paths: to the classroom, to the library, and to the chapel.” Father...

While the canon of the feast of the Nativity begins to be sung on the festival of the entrance of the Virgin Mary into the temple, the first prefeast hymns of Christmas are sung on the feast of “the all-praised and first-called apostle Andrew.” In the gospel according to St...

I was raised in a parish in the Romanian Episcopate (OCA) , a child of first generation Americans of Romanian parentage. I sang in the choir from early on (my father was the choir director until he became a deacon), taught music at our Vatra summer camp from the time...

The extraordinary thing about the image of Saint Nicholas in the Church is that he is not known for anything extraordinary. He was not a theologian and never wrote a word, yet he is famous in memory of the believers as a zealot for orthodoxy, allegedly accosting the heretic Arius...

Fasting, praying, Church more than once a week, “take up your cross,” SACRIFICE…Do I have to be a monk?? I have been asked that question on a number of different occasions. With all of the prescriptions given to us to do, it seems sometimes that the Church is asking us...

Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann was a priest, theologian, and one of the leading spokesmen for Orthodox Christianity in the 20th century. Fr. Alexander served as the Dean of St. Vladimir’s Seminary from 1962 up until his death in 1983. “The eternal God was born as a little child.” One of the...

Genealogies don’t mean the same to us as they did for ancient peoples, so the first part of this morning’s reading may be tedious to modern ears. Most people will remember the list of strange names and forget the ending probably because a majority check out somewhere around “Amminadab” if...

Once, when I was in college, I got into a discussion with someone about whether or not God is subject to passions. I was arguing that, as God, He is capable of loving us unconditionally, without any of the restraints or limitations we sinful people experience because of various passions...

When Jesus’ taught His disciples how to pray, He gave them the “Our Father” (Matthew 6:9-13; Luke 11:1-4). They were not to mindlessly recite it, saying it with their lips only (Matthew 15:8; Mark 7:6) but rather that the words would be said with the heart and mind and become...