On this day, the eighth Sunday of Pascha, we celebrate the day of Holy Pentecost.
We have also taken the celebration of this feast from the Jews. Their celebration of Pentecost was both in honor of the number seven as well as in remembrance of the fact that they received the Law fifty days after the Passover. Thus we also celebrate fifty days after Pascha, receiving the One who gives us the Law, the most Holy Spirit, who guides us in all truth and teaches us what is pleasing to God. It should also be known that among the Jews were three great feasts: Passover, Pentecost; and the Feast of the Tabernacles. Passover was in remembrance of passing through the Red Sea, for the name of the feast itself is one of “passing.” That feast prefigured our own Pascha, which is the passing and returning from the darkness of sin to Paradise.
The second feast celebrated by the Jews, Pentecost, was a reminder of their sufferings in the desert and the hardships through which they passed in order to reach the Promised Land. It was only after these hardships that they could taste the fruits, the wheat and the wine. For us, however, Pentecost shows the departure from the wickedness of unbelief and the entrance into the Church so that we may commune of the Body and Blood of the Master. Many say that Pentecost is celebrated among the Jews in honor of the fact that the holy Prophet Moses fasted fifty days before receiving the God-written Law and the many other events that occurred as he ascended and descended Mount Sinai. Some hold that the Jews celebrated Pentecost for the reasons shown above; others, however, feel that Pentecost was established by the Jews according to the honor given to the number seven, as we have mentioned. This number, multiplied by itself, comes to one less than fifty. The honor that the Jews gave to Pentecost depends not only upon the number of days, but also on the number of years, for this decided the years of the celebration of the Jubilee, named the Time of Forgiveness, or Release, which fell every fifty years. On that year, they would leave the earth fallow and allow the animals to rest, and any slaves who were purchased at a price were given freedom to leave. (See Lev. 25.)
22.06.2024Read more
On this day, the Saturday before Holy Pentecost, we celebrate a memorial for all those who have fallen asleep since the ages in true worship and in the hope of everlasting life.
The Holy Fathers established that on this Saturday that precedes Holy Pentecost, we observe the memory of all people who throughout the centuries died in the right faith, just as they ordered that this be observed on the Saturday before Meatfare Sunday. They did this moved by their love for mankind, so that all who for whatever reason did not have the usual benefit of individual memorial services might be included in this common memorial. According to tradition, the Fathers of the Church received this injunction concerning the memorial services from the Apostles, who themselves taught that the memorials performed on behalf of the reposed bring great benefit to those who have fallen asleep. (See Apostolic Injunctions, 8.42.)
The Holy Fathers specified that we perform them today, because tomorrow we shall welcome the All-Holy Spirit and shall fervently be entreating the Lord for ourselves, that He send us His All-Holy Spirit to illumine us and strengthen us in the fear of God and in keeping the commandments and to guide us in obtaining eternal life. We shall also be praying for the deceased, that He give them rest in His lovely and longed-for dwellings. In praying for the dead, on the one hand, we show our love for our deceased fathers and brothers, and, on the other hand, we become more keenly aware of the vanity of this world, and thus we receive great benefit to our souls. For nothing rouses the slothful to repentance better than the recollection of death. And nothing else brings us the recollection of death as well as the memory of our loved ones who have slept the eternal sleep.
21.06.2024Read more
Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council, with Emperor Constantine
(Arius, whose heresy was repudiated, is underneath them)
On the seventh Sunday of Pascha, we celebrate the three hundred eighteen God-bearing Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council held in Nicaea of Bithynia.
The reason we celebrate this feast today is as follows: after our Lord Jesus Christ took flesh and fulfilled His ineffable dispensation for us, He returned to the throne of the Father. It was the desire of the Saints to show that the Son of God had truly become man, that He had ascended as perfect man and perfect God into Heaven and is seated at the right of the glory on high. This council of Holy Fathers proclaimed and confessed that the Son is of the same essence and honor as the Father. Therefore, following the feast of the glorious Ascension, this present feast has been set forth in order to add to the already large number of Fathers who preached that He Who has Ascended in the flesh is both perfect God and perfect Man in the flesh.
16.06.2024Read more
Οn Thursday of the sixth week after Pascha, we celebrate the Holy Ascension of our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ.
While the Savior was still together with the Disciples, before the Passion, He promised that the most Holy Spirit would come, saying, “Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you” (John 16:7) and, “However, when He, the Spirit of Truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth...” (John 16:13). That is why, after the Resurrection from the dead, having shown Himself to them during the period of forty days – not constantly, but from time to time – eating and drinking together with them and clearly revealing the Resurrection to them, on the final day, He promised them many things about the Kingdom of God. He commanded that they not leave Jerusalem but remain there and wait for the coming of the most Holy Spirit, for they needed to be baptized in the Spirit, having been baptized before only with John’s baptism of water. Thus, He commanded them to stay in Jerusalem so they would be strengthened by preaching the Gospel first in that very place instead of going to foreign lands immediately where they would more easily be ridiculed. This was also necessary so that they would be trained there, like soldiers, with the weapons of the Spirit, and thus they would go out for battle in preaching the Gospel.
13.06.2024Read more
On this day, the sixth Sunday of Pascha, we celebrate the miracle which our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ performed for the man who had been blind from birth.
This miracle, like those of the Samaritan woman and the paralytic, was brought about through the use of water in this way: As Christ was speaking with the Jews and showing them that He is together with the Father, existing before Abraham, they sought to stone Him. He then left that place where He had been speaking with them and met a blind man who was wandering about and who had been blind from birth, having only the shape and form of eyes. When the Savior saw him, His Disciples asked, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9:2). The reason they asked this is because they had heard Him telling the paralytic at the Sheep's Pool, “Behold, you have been made well. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you” (John 5:14), as if to say that “the sins of the parents are visited upon the children...”
09.06.2024Read more
