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In this cold and dark season before the Nativity, we celebrate the memory of one of our great northern saints: the monk who went to Valaam seeking the tradition of the holy Fathers, the missionary who went to Alaska seeking souls for Christ. As we prepare to welcome our Lord and God and Savior into the cold cave of Bethlehem – and, indeed, into…
Joyous feast of St. Spyridon!
St. Spyridon is known as one of the “walking saints”: the cloth covering the feet of his relics constantly wears down, such that his foot-coverings must be replaced more frequently than his other vestments. This miracle is a sign of a deeper reality. After all, the saints no longer need to go about on foot; they…
Speaking of the most holy Theotokos, St. Maximus the Confessor writes that, “She was blessed by all and was full of all grace, and I will say even further that she was supremely worthy of every grace, intelligent with respect to images and words, a scrutinizer of divine visions, completely removed from all restlessness, wrath, and gossip,…
St. Nicholas, known the world over for his miracles, is also specifically known for his depiction on a number of wonder-working icons. Though these miraculous images of St. Nicholas are not as numerous or well-known as the wonder-working icons of the Mother of God, they are clearly worthy of our veneration, celebration, and contemplation. One such…
Happy Thanksgiving to my entire flock in the United States of America! Today many of us celebrate with family or friends, giving thanks for the unnumbered blessings that we enjoy. But why does God give us these blessings? In order to indulge our appetites for mortal pleasures, so we can have as good a time as possible while we are here on earth? No.…
Today we celebrate entrance of the most holy Theotokos into the temple; today the three-year-old most pure Ever-virgin enters into the inner sanctuary, fleeing the company of men in order to devote herself solely to God, attended only by angels. With this feast, the Theotokos is revealed as the model hesychast, the ultimate practitioner of stillness…
The Nativity Fast, whose beginning we mark this day, encompasses forty days of preparation for the Nativity of the Savior. This fast is notably less intense than the fasts of Dormition and Lent, and it culminates in twelve days of feasting (December 25 through January 4 plus January 6), the longest fast-free period in the Church’s year. The fast…
Today we celebrate the synaxis of the holy archangel Michael and all the bodiless powers of heaven. The tradition of the Orthodox Church speaks of seven or eight archangels: Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, Barachiel, Jegudiel, and Salathiel, to whose number Jeremiel is sometimes added. Michael is the guardian angel of the entire Christian people;…
In the ancient Western Rite of the Church, today is All Hallows’ Eve, the vigil of the Western Rite feast of All Saints; as is well known, it is this liturgical celebration that underlies the popular holiday of Halloween. According to our sacred and holy Byzantine Rite, we celebrate the liturgical feast of All Saints in late spring or early…
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
“Blessed are the eyes which see the things you see; for I tell you that many prophets and kings have desired to see what you see, and have not seen it, and to hear what you hear, and have not heard it.”
These words, spoken by the Lord to his disciples 2,000 years ago, were…
This is the first annual feast of our righteous mother Olga of Kwethluk, and we rejoice in the goodness of God, who continues to make saints and reveal them to us for our comfort, help, and inspiration. Among the outstanding virtues of Saint Olga were her humility and her simplicity, and so this day let us beseech the Lord that he grant us…
According to the practice that the Orthodox Church in America has inherited from the Russian Orthodox Church, this day, known as Demetrius Saturday, is a universal commemoration of the departed. Though the Church sets aside several Saturdays in particular as memorial Saturdays, the departed are remembered every Saturday. Indeed, we should remember…
110th Anniversary of Saint Vladimir Orthodox Church
Trenton, New Jersey
October 19, 2025
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Today, the Lord speaking in parables describes the faithful as different types of soil: some are good fruitful soil, but others are bad soil – rocky, thorny, shallow.
Heard in one way,…
Happy Thanksgiving to my flock in Canada!
As we celebrate the bountiful harvest of the earth this day, we are reminded that God “established the earth; he did not create it empty, he formed it to be inhabited” (Is. 45:18). From the Arctic Circle to the Atlantic Coast, from the Prairies of the West to the lowland forests of the East, the Lord…
Today we celebrate the Protection of the Theotokos and also two of the Church’s great singers and melodists, St. Roman and St. John Cucuzeles. There is a deep connection between our hymnography and the person of the Theotokos: her song, the Magnificat, is, in a sense, the first song of the Church. Likewise, she, more than any other, inspires the…
The first event of the New Testament, chronologically, is the conception of the Forerunner. Only St. Luke deals with the Baptist’s conception and birth, but three of the four Gospels begin St. John’s testimony in some form or other. As the holy apostle and evangelist John the Theologian writes, “There was a man sent from God, whose name was…
Saint Tikhon’s Monastery and Seminary
September 14, 2015
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Today, as we bow down before the Cross, the wisdom of the world is put to shame by the foolishness of God.
Today, as we exalt this instrument of torture and death as an ensign of life, we testify that the humility of…
The final chapter of the Didache refers to a sign of outspreading, or expansion, and many have understood this sign to be the sign of the Cross. On the Cross, Christ stretches out his arms in order to embrace all creation. In his Incarnation, he becomes small; on the Cross, he displays the magnitude, the unfathomable greatness, the sheer and…
Saint Vladimir’s Seminary
September 8, 2025
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
One of the folk-names for today’s feast is translated in English as the “Little Most Pure.” The literal meaning here is clear: today we see the Theotokos as a baby; looking at the festal icon we behold little version of our…
Last week we celebrated the beginning of a new ecclesiastical year; now we mark the first great feast of the year, the birth of the Theotokos. The outer proclamation of the Gospel began with Christ’s Forerunner, whose conception we celebrate later this month, but the inner mystery of the Church, the Incarnation of the Word, begins with the…