Today, on the joyful Sunday of the Holy Myrrh-bearing Women, our beloved Elder, His Grace Bishop Partenij of Antanis, celebrated a hierarchical Divine Liturgy at the ancient Church of the Holy Apostle James (Chiesa di San Jacopo Soprarno), located in the very heart of Florence, on the banks of the River Arno. Concelebrating with His…
Today the Lord enters Jerusalem – Life among mortals – humbly mounted upon a donkey, while the people receive Him with palm branches and cries: “Hosanna! Blessed is He Who comes in the Name of the Lord!” And this entrance – humble, meek, upon a creature that no one would imagine bearing the immortal King…
If the first Sunday of Great Lent, the Sunday of Orthodoxy, showed us that, through the Incarnation, God became visible and that His image can be depicted in an icon, then the second Sunday reveals something even deeper: that this same God not only became visible, but that His uncreated light is also accessible, tangible,…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yxnFwYjPDk There is something profoundly consoling in the fact that the first week of Great Lent ends with a miracle. Not with some poor human achievement, not with some negligible merit of our own, but with the miracle of a Saint who, even after death, cares for the people of God. The Saturday of Saint…
When, in the Friday twilight silence of the church at Bigorski Monastery, the final echo of penitential Clean Friday faded away, another hymn took its place – more solemn, fresher, filled with pure thanksgiving and filial trust. The brethren and the faithful stood upright with dignity, for this is precisely what the Akathist signifies: not…
Friday. The end of the first week. And when this evening the sun sets behind Mount Bistra, we shall be able to say: we have passed through. With God’s help, with prayer, with intense struggle and patience. The first week of Great Lent – the strictest and most demanding – is behind us. Yet not…
