“My faith, finally, is that if I am canceled by the power death has in our world, then God’s greater power can overcome it.” (John Garvey, Death and the Rest of Our Life, p. 78) On my first visit to Armenia in 1990, I visited the home of Anahid and Kevork Oynoyan. They had lost their twelve-year-old
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600 Moscow Churches Ring Bells Together To Welcome Relics from Italy (Video)
Bell-ringing is a huge big deal in the Russian church. There is a whole science around the subject. (Wikipedia) Russian bells are the largest and most powerful of any national church, with some of them reaching absolutely enormous sizes, weighing 32 metric tons. The tolls have not only spiritual and musical significance, they also
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“LET US PURIFY OUR SENSES”
Today, brothers and sisters, let’s greet each other with the joy of this feast of the Triumph of Orthodoxy! Yes, today really is a prazdnik—a feast—although it’s a feast that comes in the midst of our fasting, one that crowns and illumines all the ascetic efforts we have taken on during this past week. The
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The Sacramentality of Matter: Artists, Wood, Paint and God Enfleshed
Orthodox Christians celebrate the memory of the Holy Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council. Sound boring? Better hold onto your seat, because this is a wild ride! Nearly four hundred years after the establishment of the Christian Byzantine Empire, a movement of rigorist puritanism began to develop in the Church that viewed icons with
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32 SIGNS AND SYMBOLS IN CHRISTIANITY
The Ass The ass is frequently portrayed in Renaissance painting, particularly in pictures of the Sacrifice of Isaac, the Nativity, the Flight into Egypt, and the Entry of Christ into Jerusalem. The most familiar portrayal is in the Nativity scenes, where the ass regularly appears. The ass and the ox symbolize that the humblest and
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WE PRAY BEFORE THE RELICS OF SAINTS BECAUSE THEY HAVE THE POWER OF LIFE
The primate spoke about this on the day of the Great Martyr and Healer Panteleimon, August 9, reports the information-education department of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry noted that the Lord endowed the Great Martyr Panteleimon with the gift of healing people’s diseases, and after death he helps all who call upon
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WHY DO ORTHODOX CHRISTIANS BLESS MATERIAL THINGS?
So why do Orthodox Christians bless water, and other material things? How can water “be” holy? How can the grace of God be contained in some material object? The word “holy” has a double meaning in the ancient Christian Church, which means “not earthly” or “set aside for a special purpose.” God commanded His people
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