In this episode, Fr. Anthony reflects on Christ’s call of St. Matthew as a revelation of the Lord’s pastoral wisdom, patience, and mercy. Drawing on St. John Chrysostom, he shows how Christ approaches each person at the moment they are most able to receive Him, gently leading sinners to repentance while shielding the weak from the self-righteous. The homily invites us to imitate this divine pedagogy—offering mercy before rebuke, healing before judgment, and a way of life that draws others to the knowledge of God.

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Mercy, Not Sacrifice: Christ’s Pastoral Method in the Calling of Matthew

St. Matthew 9:9-13

At that time, as Jesus passed on from there, He saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax office; and He said to him, “Follow Me.” And he rose and followed Him. And as He sat at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Jesus and His disciples. And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to His disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” But when Jesus heard it, He said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

 When looking at this encounter, it is important to know the context.  Jesus had been at this for a while.  He had already called at least four of the twelve; Andrew, Peter, James and John, to be his disciples.  Moreover, in addition to them, many others were following him.  He had already been baptized, been tempted, given the Sermon on the Mount and performed several public miracles.

Knowing this allows us to better appreciate Christ, how He operates, and therefore how we might better imitate Him as we claim to operate in + His name.

Example One: Calling the disciples

Let’s go back to His calling the disciples.  Why didn’t He call Matthew at the same time He called Andrew, Peter, James, and John?  St. John Chrysostom indicates that it was Christ’s pastoral heart that determined when we called each of His disciples.  Remember, as the Logos, He shares the Father’s will that “all be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth.” (1 Timothy 2:4).  This means that He addressed people in the time and manner they were most likely to hear.  St. John Chrysostom points out that Matthew’s heart was not open to Christ’s call at the same time as Andrew, Peter, James, and John.  It took miracles and profound teaching to soften His heart for the encounter.  And He didn’t just do this for Matthew, look how long it took for the Apostle Paul!  And perhaps, we can look at long he waited for us!

We should learn from this lesson from Christ’s earthly ministry and imitate Him.  We may need to live among some people for a while, showing the miracle of God’s love working in and through us in the way we act and the things we say, before they are ready to accept an invitation to join us in The Way that heals and perfects. 

Many of us jump the gun; skipping the vital step of living a public life of miraculous love – and then are surprised when the call to “follow Christ” goes unheeded. 

Yes, there are times when the modern equivalents of scribes and pharisees need to be confronted, but once again, let’s imitate Christ and let them out themselves when they question our motives and sanity for performing acts of sacrificial compassion.  If we skip the step of imitating Christ in His love for mankind, not only won’t we win converts, we may also be indicating that we aren’t really working in His Name at all.

Example Two: Leaving, not owning the opposition

Speaking of which, Christ also demonstrates his pastoral care at the very beginning of today’s lesson. 

You may remember that today’s lesson begins with something that seems to be a throwaway line; a transitional clause that lets the reader know that the narrative is moving on to another scene.  St. Matthew writes; “At that time, as Jesus passed on from there,…” and then segues into this lesson about how Christ called him, the author, to be His disciple.  But what did He leave and why?  What did He “pass on” from in the previous scene?

Let me share that with you; just prior to this, Jesus had publicly corrected some scribes - leaders in the Jewish community - by healing a man of his paralysis after they doubted His ability to forgive sins.  Do you see how they out themselves as fools?  But Christ doesn’t want them to remain in ignorance.  He desires that they, too, be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth …  but He also knew that they were not ready to accept the truth, so He left before they could double down on their sin and thus become even less likely to change their way of thinking and eventually answer His call to discipleship.

As St. John Christostom puts it;

For when He had performed the miracle, He did not remain, lest, being in sight, He should kindle their jealousy the more; but He indulges them by retiring, and soothing their passion. This then let us also do, not encountering them that are plotting against us; let us rather soothe their wound, giving way and relaxing their vehemence.

Jesus could have owned those scribes!  

This is what our polarized and self-indulgent culture seems to require of us: to immediately jump on any perceived weakness to show the superiority of our way.  We even manufacture offenses so that we have an opportunity to score points and play to the crowd.  But that’s not what Jesus did; there was a real offense and a real weakness – but He didn’t want or need to impress anyone.  Again, his desire is that of His Father; that all be saved and come to a knowledge of the Truth.  And so He forbeared and gave them an opportunity to cool off and repent while He moved off to spend time with someone who was ready to hear Him.

These are the kinds of lessons that are obvious to those who have “eyes to see and ears to hear,” but for the rest of us, it takes time.  As we have discussed previously, we still see the Gospel “through a glass darkly” and only see reality as “trees walking.”  But we want to learn, and so we ask those who have made this journey successfully before us, men like the Holy Apostle and Evanglist Matthew, whose memory we celebrate today and St. John Chrysostom who shares the deeper Truths that St. Matthew shared – we ask them to guide and pray for us as go deeper into The Way.

Let’s see what more we can learn about Christ’s approach to evangelism and pastoral care in today’s lesson. 

It is worth remembering that Matthew was a tax collector.  When Jesus gave him the invitation to “follow me”, he responded with hospitality.  He opened his house to the Lord, his disciples, fellow tax collectors, and unspecified sinners.  Just to make sure everyone had a good time, this was all done within view of some local Pharisees.  The Pharisees spent their whole lives dedicated to righteousness (as should all of us).  I am perfectly willing to believe that they were sincere in their devotion to the Law.  In fact, it was probably their devotion to the Law that led to their revulsion at seeing an alleged rabbi (Jesus) eating with sinners.  They shared their righteous indignation with the Lord’s disciples and He overheard them.  We can learn a lot about how to pastoral ministry by looking at Christ’s response.

First, He said (e.g. St. Mark 2:17);

Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick do.
I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance. 

This is the most obvious point: God was explaining what His mission to these sinners (and the world) was:  He had come to bring them to repentance.  This would hardly satisfy any ultra-Orthodox takfirists – they always want their pound of flesh!  After all, they say, repentance requires tears, and the best way to bring someone to tears is not to eat with them and provide them a living example of the better way; no, surely it is more effective to beat them over the head with the Sin-Stick, right?! 

Evidently not, at least according to the all-knowing and all-loving God-man Jesus Christ. After acknowledging the sinfulness of His dinner companions and their need for repentance, He corrected the Pharisees’ dubious pedagogical and evangelical instincts with this (e.g. St. Matthew himself in 9:13);

Go and learn what it means, ‘I will have mercy, and not sacrifice’:
for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

Christ is quoting Hosea when He says; “I will have mercy, and not sacrifice”.  The full passage (which was implied) continues with (Hosea 6:6);

“… and [I desire] the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.” 

This is huge.  The Pharisees knew the full quote and its context; they would have seen that Christ was telling them that they were guilty of the very same sorts of things that went against God throughout the Old Testament.  He was telling them that they were more concerned with fulfilling the letter of the law (i.e. doing the “burnt offerings” well) than they were with knowing God or bringing others to Him.  At that meal, He was doing something that they should have been doing themselves.

How Christ Discipled His Sinners cum Apostles

More importantly, along with His entire response, Christ used this quote to describe His method for bringing the “knowledge of God” to sinners; He would use mercy to lead them to repentance, which would in turn allow them to grow in the knowledge of God.  

St. John Chrysostom brings this point out at the end of his homily on this passage;

What Christ is saying through his words and deads is this, “The disciples have not yet become strong; they still need a lot of condescension. They have not been renewed by the Spirit yet.  You really shouldn’t put a lot of injunctions on people who are still weak.” 
And He said all these things in order to set laws and rules for His own disciples,
so that when it was their turn to train disciples, they would deal with them very gently.

 To reiterate St. John Chrysostom’s point, God is showing His disciples how the Gospel is to be taught: gently and with mercy … while protecting the weak from the attacks of the self-righteous.  This is important for us as Christian leaders: we are called to follow Christ!  We are called to take His Gospel to sinners so that they might repent,  come to the knowledge of God, and be saved.  Keep the Sin-Stick ready, but use it the way Christ Himself did; to defend the weak from the attacks of the self-righteous.

There is a temptation to bring sinners to a full awareness of their sin in order to drive them towards repentance, but be careful with this.  

Psalm 129: 3-4 (which we often repeat as a prokimen so that we will master it – or rather so that it might master us); 

If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?
But there is forgiveness with thee.

And later in that same Psalm, we learn from the Psalmist, in the Spirt, what the purpose of this merciful forgivness is; so that He might bring salvation to Israel (129:8).

Repentance, kenosis, and discernment are fostered over time.  It is an iterated and communal process.  The wounds this world inflicts on God’s children are serious and it takes time for Him to heal them.  This means that you may not be able to see the process through to its conclusion, but it is okay to simply begin the treatment; the Church has trained other physicians that can continue the process, just as you will be called to continue the work others have begun. 

As Christ said “One soweth, and another reapeth.” (St. John 4:37:4)

Conclusion

Saint Matthew’s life is a testimony to the efficacy of this gentle discipleship process.  He was a sinner.  The Lord protected Him and showed Him mercy.  Over time, through His example, His holiness, and His teachings, He brought Matthew through repentance to the true knowledge of God.  As a recipient of this grace, St. Matthew could do nothing else but offer it to others.  

It is true that the Church is a hospital, and that Christ is the Great Physician; and it is also true that St. Matthew found healing in the Church under the Doctor’s care. 

But it is also true that He did not stay in the hospital bed. After a lifetime spent spreading the Gospel, this “good and faithful servant” earned the martyr’s crown in Ethiopia.

May the Lord transform us into the kind of patient, merciful, and holy pastors who can do the same.

In this episode, Fr. Anthony reframes prayer not as a spiritual transaction but as a lifelong conversation with God that restores our capacity to see, experience, and share His beauty, light, and love. Drawing on themes of theosis, maturation, and Zachary Porcu’s vision of becoming human, he explores how prayer transforms our distorted desires, heals our blindness, and trains us to do the work God made us to do. The saints reveal that repentance and prayer are not a response to crises but a way of life — a steady ascent into clarity, freedom, and real communion with God and creation.

St. Luke 8: 41-56

Drawing on St. Nikolai Velimirović’s image of divine grace as electricity, this homily on the raising of Jairus’ daughter (Luke 8:41–56) invites us to become  living conduits through whom God’s uncreated energy continually flows. Christ’s tender command, “Talitha koum,” reveals the greater reality that in Him even death is but sleep, for the fire of His love transforms all who see with eyes full of light into partakers of His eternal life.

Homily on Jairus’ Daughter 
St. Luke 8:41–56

Glory to Jesus Christ! It is a blessing to be with you this morning. I have really appreciated your hospitality throughout this weekend.

In his homily on this beautiful event in the history of our salvation, St Nikolai Velimirović compares our Lord to electricity—or perhaps to magnetism, and to light. What he is describing is what we in the West call grace. The idea is that the Lord’s uncreated energy – His spiritual electricity - is continually available; and those who allow themselves to be connected to Him become receptacles and conduits of that spiritual electricity—of that grace, of that beautiful light. 

We see this especially at Pascha, when the priest sings “Come receive the light,” and one candle lights another, and the flame spreads from person to person.

Magnetism is a similar image: not only does it attract, but it also bestows magnetism in a lesser degree to some of the objects it touches. This a lovely and apt metaphor—though, as St Nikolai warns, don’t take it too far or you’ll end up spouting heresy– for instance, a screwdriver that has received magnetism from a magnetic source retains the magnetism even after the source is removed.  As we discussed yesterday, anything that is removed from the Source of Divine Energy loses its spiritual life.  Going back to the metaphor of electricity, our hope is not to become a sort of battery that receives grace and then stores it separate from its source; rather, our hope is to increasingly become pure conduits of divine energy through whom it continually flows. 

Switching metaphors again, Jesus Christ describes this as living water in the Gospel according to St. John when He says;

If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.  He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
(St. John 7:37; also St. John 4:14)

The grace that we share as Christians is flowing to and through us from its source, and that source is God.

There is another lesson here. 

St. Nikolai points out that there were many people in the crowd that day, but only one was healed. Let me develop a point from yesterday’s talk.  You may remember my sharing that the scripture about the newly healed blind man seeing “trees walking” as a metaphor for our need to work on seeing the world as it really is. 

A related scriptural metaphor from Christ Himself has to do with the “eye of darkness;”   

“The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!” (St. Matthew 6:22-23).

In part, these are eyes that fail to see the Lord even when He is present among us. Imagine that He turned to you and healed you after you had endured fourteen years of suffering. How would you respond? Lord willing, you would respond with thanksgiving and joy; a thanksgiving and joy that never fades. But the eye of darkness might quickly slip from thankfulness and joy back into bitterness and think or say: “Where have you been these fourteen years?”

Do you see the trap? Do you see how such a response, such an attitude, misses the whole point of God’s work among us — it’s kind of like saying to Christ the God-man when He appears in His glory to bring us into His Kingdom; “O Lord, I thought you’d be taller.”

The eye of darkness is a terrible thing. For those who see truly, the world is permeated with the grace of God.  Let us strive increasingly to the world with these eyes of light.

Another lesson the Fathers draw from this story is that the healing itself wasn’t even the main point. Do you remember the plot line we are following in the Gospel lesson? A ruler of the synagogue—a leader of the Jews—comes to Christ and begs: “My daughter lies dying. Please come to our house.” As the Lord goes with him, the crowd presses in around Him. And even along the way, miracles happen.

This is a lesson we need to learn: with the Lord, there is no such thing as “along the way.” His grace is always active. Every moment with Him is transformed in Him and by Him.  For the Christian, every moment of grace is an experience of eternal glory… and that moments lead in time to the next which is similarly transformed and transformative.

For the Christian, after such an encounter, there is no darkness left to return to, only life in Christ so full that we can say with St Paul, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” (Galatians 2:20)  When we are connected to Him in this way, His grace—like living water, or electricity, or magnetism, or light—flows through us and straightening our connections with the world around us.

This is what St Seraphim of Sarov meant when he said, “Acquire the Holy Spirit, and thousands around you will be saved.”  

And this is the same things that we celebrate in the life of St. Nektarios, whose memory we celebrate today, when we proclaim this verse at Orthros: “Since thou drunkest the nectar of life eternal, thou gushest, O Nektarios, streams of healings.

Again, there is no such thing as being merely “on the way”; rather, all of life is “along the Way”—in Christ, growing in Him forever.  Every moment is an opportunity to grow and share in this, the great Mystery of the Sacrament of our salvation.

Now, about this man—Jairus. Jairus had great power in his community and a relationship with God through the Law. Yet here he found himself powerless in the face of death. Everyone who tries to find salvation through secular power or the Law alone eventually meets that same limit.

At that time, the Jews were deeply divided over what death meant and whether there was truly a resurrection. So this became a teaching moment for the Lord. The other Gospels describe how the mourners had gathered, the flutes were playing lamentations, and the house was filled with grief. A twelve-year-old girl—the only child of a leader in the community—had died. And Jairus, for all his authority, was utterly powerless.

To make the moment even more striking, Jesus said something that caused the people to laugh Him to scorn: “She is not dead, but sleeping.”  He said this precisely so that they would affirm—beyond any doubt—that she was truly dead: the body cold, the breath gone. And then, having confirmed the reality of death, He revealed the greater reality of life.

He went in, took her by the hand with such tenderness; this pointed out most clearly in the version shared by St. Mark, in which he is recorded as having said in Aramaic, “Talitha koum”—literally, “Little lamb, arise.” (Mark 5:41) “Talitha” is a term of affection, something like “little lambkin.”

And she arose and He told her parents to give her something to eat.

All those who had mocked Him now faced undeniable evidence of a miracle. They could not rationalize it away or pretend they were mistaken. They had declared her dead—and now she was alive. There was only one explanation: the life-giving power of our Lord Jesus Christ. In Him is life, and in Him there can be no death. (John 1:4; John 11:25)

Now, here is a more difficult lesson.  Some steak for us to chew on. 

Jesus did not spend His earthly ministry going to every grieving parent to restore every child. I’m sure that’s hard for you to hear—it’s hard for me, too. But He did not come simply to prolong life in this world; He came to transfigure it. What good would it be to restore someone to this mortal life, only for them to die again after a few years? Instead, He performed this miracle so that we would know that when He says, “I go to prepare a [better] place for you,” that He has the power to fulfill that promise. (John 14:2-3)

There will be times—there have already been times—when we are the ones saying, “She is dead.” But the Church uses a different language: “fallen asleep” and “in blessed repose.” These are not naive phrases. They are reminders that for the Christian, death is but a rest before the age to come. (1 Thessalonians 4:13–14)

And honestly, we long for that age, don’t we? Life in this world can be exhausting —wars, suffering, the loss of children, — all the griefs that weigh us down. But as we sing in our funeral service; in the age to come, there will be “no sighing, no sorrow, no sickness, but life everlasting”  This is the time, quoting both the funeral and Revelation, “God will wipe away every tear.”

If I may change metaphors one last time: our God, who was earlier described as electricity, is also called a consuming fire. (Deuteronomy 4:24; Hebrews 12:29) Those of us raised in the South have heard preachers use that image as a warning. But for the Christian—for the ones who live in Christ so completely that it is no longer they who live but Christ who lives in them (Galatians 2:20)—that fire is not torment but glory. It is the radiant warmth of divine love.

For those purified by grace, the fire of God becomes the very source of joy and life. So when you find yourself saying, “Our beloved, our little lamb, is dead,” remember this: our Lord, who loves our beloved even more than we do, holds her hand and says, just as He did in today’s Gospel, “My dearest one, arise.”

That is the future that awaits all who have given their lives to Him. May we be strengthened by this as we grow in Him.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Today Fr. Anthony covers Chapter Nine, "Cosmic Revolution" of Zachery Porcu's "Journey to Reality" on the problem of suffering and evil.

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AI Title and Summary:

Keeping It Real About the Problem of Pain: Free Will, Moral Law, and the Ministry of Presence

Beginning from a memorial service and C.S. Lewis’ Problem of Pain, this talk wrestles honestly with Ivan Karamazov’s challenge, the suffering of children, and what our visceral reaction to evil reveals about the moral law—the “Tao” or Logos—written into our very being, which cannot be reduced to mere biology or sentiment. From there it explores free will as the costly condition of genuine love, the way Christ transforms suffering into a kind of sacrament, and how practices like fasting and the simple “ministry of presence” allow us to stand with others in their pain as living icons of the God who is with us in every cross and every death.

Today Fr. Anthony covers Chapters Seven and Eight from Dr. Zachery Porcu's Journey to Reality,  "The Life of the Church" and "The Bible and the Church."  Enjoy the show!

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Journey to Reality
Chapters Seven and Eight
You are What You Do (Including Eat)
10/29/2025

As creatures, we were made malleable.  It was built into our design so that we could grow towards perfection eternally.  While this is a characteristic of the entire cosmos – and every member of it – it has a special purpose for us.  We are the shepherds, farmers, and priests of the cosmos.  The system is designed so that as we become better, we are able to shepherd or grow the cosmos from one made good – that is to say made both beautiful and beneficial into one that is even better; that is to say even better and more beneficial.

This malleability is built into us.  Alas, we have left our true home, so that malleability leads to malformation.

Let’s talk about the malleability.  The way Dr. Porcu puts it is that we become what we do.  Much of my own work reflects on the way our rituals form us.  These rituals are embedded within a culture, and living within that culture shapes us into members and bearers of it.

A few weeks ago, we talked about how we live in a materialist, secular, and consumerist culture.  Living in it means that we automatically participate in its rituals.  These develop within us a certain way of thinking, acting, and relating to other people, God, and our environment.  How could it not?

The unfortunate thing for us is that our primary culture is imperfect and reifies its imperfections into our way of being.  I propose that the answer is not really to actively oppose it – as in some kind of culture war – because doing so before we break out of its conditioning is just going to ingrain its patterns more deeply into our hearts. 

Rather, we must find a new way of living.

This new way of living should come with its own rituals that will gradually get enough traction to lessen the hold that the majority culture has on us and replace it with its own. 

To the extent that we must participate in the old rituals, we should reframe our participation in a way that resonates with our new life rather than our old one.  We have to give them new meaning, so that, eventually, even these old ways of doing things can work with our new rituals to deepen the hold that our new way of life has on us and on our minds and how we relate to God, other people, and the environment.

Some rituals, such as pornography, fornication (i.e., sex outside marriage), and driving slowly in the left-hand lane on the expressway, cannot be redeemed and so they have to be avoided.

It will take discernment to figure out how to best engage in this process, so this way of life should involve developing a community that is all focused on the same sort of new life.

Now let’s go through chapter seven, “The Life of the Church.”

Quotes for discussion:

“[Y]ou don’t have to do anything, but if you want to become something, you have to participate in it.” (77)

“Sacramentally, the purpose of attending church services is to participate in a higher spiritual reality.” (70)

“[N]othing is ‘just’ physical.  Objects and actions have intrinsic, spiritual meaning.  Everything is participatory… [I]f the physical and the spiritual can’t be  separated, then imitation is always participatory.  … You can’t participate in something physically without also participating in its spiritual meaning.” (72)

“[As Orthodox Christians, our] goal is to imitate, and therefore participate in, a spiritual reality through the physical ritual.  And the spiritual reality that sacramental Christians are trying to imitate through their liturgy is nothing less than heaven itself…. This is why sacramental Christians call their liturgy the “Divine Liturgy.”  To participate in it is also to participate in the exact same cosmic liturgy that the angels perform around the throne of God…. [W]hen you step into a sacramental church space that’s correctly imitating the heavenly liturgy, you are stepping into a small bit of heaven itself – you are participating with the angelic powers in a higher spiritual reality.” (73)

“Sacramental Christianity is not just about doing a particular set of actions; it’s a whole way of life.  One way to describe this life is as participation in what the Church calls “liturgical time.” (75)

“[T]o be sacramental is not merely a matter of attendance, nor is it merely about thinking a certain way or performing certain ritual actions; it is a lifestyle… [G]oing to church and participating in the sacraments is about living out the idea that the physical and the spiritual are bound up together, and that you encounter them together through participation – not just in church, but in everything you do and are.” (77)

“You can’t become healthy by sitting at home and reading a lot of articles about health.  You don’t become a member of a family by skipping family gatherings in order to sit at home looking at pictures of past family events.  If you want to be a part of something, you have to live it.” (77)

“[Y]ou don’t have to do anything, but if you want to become something, you have to participate in it. And in sacramental Christianity, the thing you’re participating in is the higher spiritual reality of the arche’ Himself.” (77) 

Chapter eight, The Bible and the Church

 “[T]he Bible is not the source of Christianity.” (77)

“The Bible is not a scientific of historical document in the particular sense that modern people mean this.  It’s important here to distinguish between truth and fact.  Facts are those things that are objectively verifiable…. But even though facts are verifiable…, they have no deeper meaning.  Truth, on the other hand, includes facts but goes beyond them to encompass the deeper meaning of reality itself.” (77)

“As modern people we tend to care only about facts [read whole section] … even over meaning.” (77)

“There are plenty of mistakes and errors in the Bible that have been thoroughly documented… The Bible is about truth, and truth is higher than fact. (78)

“From the very beginning, ancient Christians recognized three levels of biblical interpretation: the literal, the moral, and the spiritual (what they called the typological). (78).

“But how do you know which passages in the Bible have a literal meaning and which don’t, or which have both?  How do you know what the correct typological meaning is?” (81)

“To really read the Bible with the mind of the Church requires that you have a certain kind of formation – not just intellectual but spiritual.” (84)

“And just as you can’t really understand the Bible’s true depths without participation in the life of the Church, so too the whole life of the Church [resonates with] imagery from the Bible.”

“The Bible… is not merely read or memorized, but lived and experienced.  Or, to put it another way, being reconnected with the arche’ is not something you do only in your mind.  It’s a new kind of life, and it must therefore be lived. 

Questions for Discussion

What are some of the new rituals that a commitment to living the Orthodox Way gives us, and how do they help transform our thinking and way of relating to others?

In addition to pornography and fornication, what are some of the rituals that you believe work against our new way of life?

What are some of the things that we have always done that can be given new meaning and help us become better Christians?

Are you concerned that the book claims that there are errors in the Bible?

Luke 16:19-31

Fr. Anthony reflects on the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, revealing how our blindness—born of sin and a materialist worldview—turns the world and one another into mere commodities. Yet when we learn to see with love and humility, tending creation as God’s garden, we rediscover beauty, grace, and the feast of life already set before us.

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The Gospel of Lazarus and the Rich Man
Homily – gardening in love

It is hard for us to live the way we should.  From our time in Eden to now, we have failed, and the consequences to our hearts, our families, and our world have been disastrous.  The world groans in agony.

One of our challenges is that we do not see things as they really are.  We do not see their beauty and we do not see how they are connected.  Instead of seeing things as both intrinsically good and perfectible, we evaluate them based on what they mean for us; what we can get from them.

We see through a mirror dimly, in part because of our personal sin, and in part because our corporate worldview is fallen.  The two work together to blind us to the world and opportunities for grace.  There is this idea that cultures that do not have a word for something, say for instance a specific color, then they cannot see it.  Their visual system will receive the requisite frequencies for that color, but it will not match any concept within their minds, so it either gets mislabeled or simply missed altogether.  This was certainly the case with the Rich Man in today’s parable – somehow he missed seeing Lazarus and the opportunity for grace a relationship with him would have provided.  Moreover, he and his community – here represented by his brothers – had missed the point of the entire religion that they claimed to be a part of.  And Abraham says that even a great miracle – a man rising of a man from the dead – would not be enough to restore their sight.

Humility is the root virtue of discernment; and in humility, we have to take it as a given that we are in may ways just like the Rich Man.  And I say take it as a given, because if it is true, then we will automatically mislabel – in this case meaning justify – our misperceptions and the gaps in our vision.  The Rich Man missed the purpose of his riches and his calling to serve the man at his doorstep; more than that, he missed the very purpose of his life; the thing he was put on this earth to do.  We are like Him and his brothers – and we claim to know the truth of the resurrection.

The Rich Man and his brothers had the same calling that all of us have.  This is the calling given to us at the beginning; we talked about this yesterday.  We were designed – made as God’s imagers - to bring out the best in everything and everyone; to heal those that are hurt and to build up those who are already well towards perfection.  But instead of this, our fallen materialist worldview and our sin combine, for example, to get us to think of things as objects and ourselves as consumers.  We want to know what we can use things for and what we can get out of people. 

One of the results of this is that our souls are starving from - a lack of grace.  We feast sumptuously on commodities, but cannot see the more real and and much more vital meal God has put before us.  We feed our bodies, but take no thought of the food required for our souls.

Again, let’s go back to Adam and Eve.  Think of how they fell.  One of the ways to understand their fall (from St. Nikolai Velimirovich) is that they turned the thing they were meant to tend – the garden – into a commodity; from something that deserved respect and the greatest of care to something that was useful primarily as food.  Even the thing God told them not to eat became a commodity to them: they wanted what it offered.  And remember what they learned?  That it “tasted good.”  What a loss.

Hear me well:  Adam and Eve were meant to eat the things that grew in the garden, but the availability of food was really just a side-effect (what economists call a “positive externality”) of being a good steward.  They got it all wrong when they put what they wanted from the garden before their love for it.  Instead of tending the garden, they tended to themselves.  They forgot about beauty; they forgot about connectedness; they forgot about service.  And so all the fruits of the garden became completely unavailable to them.

We are so much worse than they were; our commodification of people and things in this world knows no end.  We are always looking for an angle; looking for the best deal.  Looking for how things do or do not fit into our plans.  And because the materialist worldview is fallen and because selfishness is a sin, we do not see grace nor the many opportunities God has given us to multiply it in this world.  And so we starve in a world of plenty. 

Let me give you a concrete example.  Marriage was given to us in the Garden.  It was meant to bear fruit, and this fruit was meant to be both physical and spiritual.  But men should not love their wives because they hope for something physical in return, they should love their wives because they want to help nurture them towards perfection (but I am not speaking of marriage but of the Church).  If we cannot see this here and in our marriages, how will we see it in the world?

Christ does not love us because He wants something from us.  He does not sacrifice Himself for us in hopes of getting help with His plan to restore beauty to this world.  As we become perfect as God is perfect, we will help Him with this plan; but He sacrifices Himself for us because He sees the potential beauty within us and wants it to grow.  He does it because He loves us.

We have to stop looking at one another as things to be used, things that either bring us pleasure or pain; that are useful or irrelevant.  We have to see one another the way God sees us.

[More on Blindness: Commodification leads to a lack of proportion]

Surely one of the ways we have cursed ourselves through our blindness is that we cannot see the beauty that emanates from all of God’s creatures; the potential for grace that is present in every moment and every encounter.

Why is this so hard?  Why are we unable to enjoy the fruits of God’s love for us?  Why don’t we see things the way they are?  Why couldn’t the Rich Man see the grace that would flow from helping Lazarus; why could he and his brothers not understand the deeper meaning of the Law and the Prophets?  This blindness really is a curse; it pulls us further away from our purpose and robs us of the joy we were meant to have and share.

There are so many examples in our lives where we are blind to miracles.  Yes, the problems are there, but they are so minor compared to the miracles!

This even happens in Church.  I bring this up because it is the Eucharistic Feast and the Church that gathers around it that is most permeated with grace.

And yet, in many communities, parish life becomes a magnet for discontent, and a forum for judgment and complaints.  I pray it not be so here.  There are very real issues that parishes must deal with – things like how best to evangelize, what sorts of projects should be focused on, and how limited resources like space should be used.  But our automatic inclination – even here where God’s grace should flow most abundantly – we treat these things as objects about which we disagree with the natural inclination for polarization, rather than an opportunity to grow collectively in discernment, in earned harmony, and in love. 

The Orthodox internet is often more perverse. Every aspect of church life becomes something to be analyzed and debated, objects to market for or against… and it all threatens to turn the celebration of God with Us into a series of political or ideological positions that can be analyzed and judged … I do this all the time; I suspect some of you do, too.

We have turned even the Church, the vessel of everything good and true, into a commodity, something to be judged, to be measured, to be evaluated like some product on a grocer’s shelf.

Is it any wonder that we do the same thing with our spouses, our children…our enemies… the beggar on our doorstep?

Conclusion:  Love without reservation

My point is not that the things that attract our attention in this way are not important or that they should not be discussed.  Going back to the example of the garden, food is important.  If we don’t eat, we die.  But Christ reminds us;

“Do not be anxious about what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing.” (paraphrase of Matthew 6:25).

God is right here with us, working miracles in our midst, and we miss them by focusing on His height (“Oh, is that Jesus; I imagined he’d be taller.”)

Let’s not get distracted.  Let’s love without reservation.  Let’s love without expecting anything in return. 

Let me repeat the irony; if we tend this world – this garden – in love, we will receive what we need – the necessary commodities, if you will, in return.  As the Lord says in almost the next breath, if you really love, if you really give of yourself without reservation, then “it shall be given unto you in return; a good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over…” (St. Luke 6:38).

And again in St. Matthew (paraphrase of 6:33-34); “seek first God’s kingdom and his righteousness, and all the things you need will be given to you as well.”

The beggar is not an obstacle to our enjoyment of live – nor is our alleged enemy.  They are not objects to be judged in this way at all.  They are the cosmos, in need to God’s grace – and we are called to be its steward, the priests who minister them towards healing and perfection. 

Let’s open our eyes and our hearts to beauty and feast on the abundant grace God has surrounded us with; the feast of grace here in the Church, the feast of grace that is achieved when we love our neighbor, and the feast of grace that God blesses us with when we tend to the needs of the world.

This talk was given at St. Nicholas Orthodox Church (UOC-USA) in Charlottesville, VA.  In it, Fr. Anthony presents Orthodoxy's sacramental view of creation and uses music as an example of how the royal priesthood, in Christ, fulfills its commission to pattern the cosmos according to that of Eden.

My notes from the talk:

I’m grateful to be back in Charlottesville, a place stitched into my story by Providence. Years ago, the Army Reserves sent me here after 9/11. I arrived with a job in Ohio on pause, a tidy life temporarily dismantled, and a heart that didn’t care for the way soldiers are sometimes told to behave. So I went looking for an Orthodox church. I found a small mission and—more importantly—people who took me in as family. A patient priest and his matushka mentored me for six years. If anything in my priesthood bears fruit, it is because love first took root here.

Bishops have a sense of humor; mine sent a Georgian convert with no Slavic roots to a Ukrainian parish in Rhode Island. It fit better than anyone could have planned. The Lord braided my history, discovering even ancestral ties in New England soil. Later, when a young man named Michael arrived—a reader who became a subdeacon, a deacon, and in time a priest—our trajectories crossed again. Father Robert trained me; by grace I was allowed to help train Father Michael; and now he serves here. This is how God sings His providence—melodies introduced, developed, and returned, until love’s theme is recognizable to everyone listening.

Why focus on music and beauty? Because they are not ornamental to the Gospel; they are its native tongue. Beauty tutors us in a sacramental world, not a “God of the gaps” world—where faith retreats to whatever science has not yet explained—but a world in which God is everywhere present and filling all things. Beauty is one of the surest ways to share the Gospel, not as salesmanship or propaganda, but as participation in what the world was made to be. The Church bears a particular charism for beauty; secular beauty can reflect it, but often only dimly—and sometimes in ways that distort the pattern it imitates. Beauty meets the whole human person: the senses and gut, the reasoning mind, and the deep heart—the nous—where awe, reverence, and peace bloom. Music is a wonderfully concrete instance of all of this: an example, a symbol, and—when offered rightly—a sacrament of sanctifying grace. 

Saint John begins his Gospel with the Logos—not a mere “word” but the Word whose meaning includes order, reason, and intelligibility: “All things were made through Him.” Creation, then, bears the Logos’ stamp in every fiber; Genesis repeats the refrain, “and God saw that it was good”—agathos, not just kalos. Agathos is goodness that is beautiful and beneficial, fitted to bless what it touches. Creation is not simply well-shaped; it is ordered toward communion, toward glory, toward gift. The Creed confesses the Father as Creator, the Son as the One through whom all things were made, and the Spirit as the Giver of Life. Creation is, at root, Trinitarian music—harmonies of love that invite participation. 

If you like, imagine the first chapter of Genesis sung. We might say: in the beginning, there was undifferentiated sound; the Spirit hovered; the Logos spoke tone, time, harmony, and melody into being. He set boundaries and appointed seasons so that music could unfold in an ordered way. Then He shaped us to be liturgists—stewards who can turn noise into praise, dissonance into resolution. The point of the story is not that God needed a soundtrack; it is that the world bears a pattern and purpose that we can either receive with thanksgiving or twist into something self-serving and cacophonous. 

We know what happened. In Adam and Eve’s fall, thorns and thistles accompanied our work. Pain entered motherhood, and tyranny stalked marriage. We still command tools of culture—city-building, metallurgy, and yes, even music—but in Cain’s line we see creativity conscripted to self-exaltation and violence. The Tower of Babel is the choir of human pride singing perfectly in tune against God. That is how sin turns technique into idolatry. 

Saint Paul describes the creation groaning in agony, longing for the revealing of the sons and daughters of God. This is not mere poetic flourish; it is metaphysical realism. The world aches for sanctified stewardship, for human beings restored to their priestly vocation. It longs for its music to be tuned again to the Logos. 

Christ enters precisely there—as the New Adam. Consider His Theophany. The Jordan “turns back,” the waters are sanctified, because nothing impure remains in the presence of God. He does not merely touch creation; He heals it—beginning sacramentally with water, the primal element of both life and chaos. In our services for the Blessing of Water we sing, “Today the nature of the waters is sanctified… The Jordan is parted in two… How shall a servant lay his hand on the Master?” In prayer we cry, “Great are You, O Lord, and marvelous are Your works… Wherefore, O King and Lover of mankind, be present now by the descent of Your Holy Spirit and sanctify this water.” This is not magic; it is synergy. We offer bread, wine, water, oil; we make the sign of the cross; we chant what the Church gives—and God perfects our offering with His grace. The more we give Him to work with, the more He transfigures. 

And then Holy Friday: the terrible beauty of the Passion. Sin’s dissonance swells to cacophony as the Source of Beauty is slandered, pierced, and laid in the tomb. Icons and hymns do not hide the scandal—they name it. Joseph and Nicodemus take down a body that clothes itself with light as with a garment. Creation shudders; the sun withdraws; the veil is rent. Liturgically, we let the discomfort stand; sometimes the chant itself presses the dissonance upon us so that we feel the fracture. But the dissonance does not have the last word; it resolves—not trivially, not cheaply—into the transcendent harmony of Pascha. On the night of the Resurrection, the church is dark, then a single candle is lit, and the light spills outward. We sing, “Come receive the Light from the unwaning Light,” and then the troparion bursts forth: “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death…” The structure of salvation is musical: tension, longing, silence, and a resolution that is fuller than our peace had been before the conflict. 

Here is the pastoral heart of it: Christ restores our seal. Saint Paul says we are “sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.” Think of a prosphora seal pressed into unbaked dough; the impression remains when the loaf is finished. Sin cracked our seal; everything we touched bore our corruptions. In Christ, the seal is made whole. In Baptism and Chrismation, that seal is pressed upon us—not only on the brow but on the whole person—so that our very engaging with the world can take on the pattern of the Logos again. We do not stop struggling—Paul’s “what I would, I do not”—but we now struggle inside a music that resolves. Even our failures can become passing tones on the way to love, if we repent and return to the key. 

This is why the Church’s common life matters so much. When we gather for Vespers and Liturgy, we enact the world’s purpose. The Psalms give us perfect words; the Church’s hymnody gives us perfected poetry. Music, rightly offered, is Logos-bearing—it is rational in the deepest sense—and love is the same. Music requires skill and repetition; so does love. Music benefits from different voices and timbres; love, too, is perfected when distinct persons yield to a single charity. Music engages and transfigures dissonance; love confronts conflict and heals it. Music honors silence; love rests and listens. These are not analogies we force upon the faith—they are the way creation is built. 

The world says, “sing louder,” but the will to power always collapses into noise. The Church says, “sing together.” In the Eucharistic assembly, the royal priesthood becomes itself—men, women, and children listening to one another, matching pitch and phrase, trusting the hand that gives the downbeat, and pouring our assent into refrains of "Lord have mercy" and "Amen." The harmony is not uniformity; it is concord. It is not sentimentality; it is charity given and received. And when the Lord gives Himself to us for the healing of soul and body, the music goes beyond even harmony; it becomes communion. That is why Orthodox Christians are most themselves around the chalice: beauty, word, community, and sacrament converge in one act of thanksgiving.

From there, the pastoral task is simply to help people live in tune. For families: cultivate attentiveness, guard against codependence and manipulation, and practice small, steady habits—prayer, fasting, reconciliation—that form the instincts of love the way scales form a musician’s ear. For parishes: refuse the twin temptations of relativism and control; resist both the shrug and the iron fist. We are not curators of a museum nor managers of a brand; we are a choir rehearsing resurrection. Attend to the three “parts” of the mind you teach: let the senses be purified rather than inflamed; let the intellect be instructed rather than flattered; and let the nous—the heart—learn awe. Where awe grows, so does mercy.

And for evangelization in our late modern world—filled with distraction, suspicion, and exhaustion—beauty may prove to be our most persuasive speech. Not the beauty of mere “aesthetics,” but agathos beauty—the kind that is beautiful and beneficial, that heals what it touches. People come to church for a thousand different reasons: loneliness, curiosity, habit, crisis. What they really long for is God. If the nave is well-ordered, if the chant is gentle and strong, if the icons are windows rather than billboards, if the faces of the faithful are kind—then even before a word is preached, the Gospel will have begun its work. “We no longer knew whether we were in heaven or on earth,” the emissaries of Rus’ once said of their time at worship in Hagia Sophia. Beauty did not close their minds; it opened them to truth. 

None of this bypasses suffering. In fact, beauty makes us more available to it, because we stop numbing ourselves and begin to love. The Scriptures do not hide this: the Jordan is sanctified, but the Cross remains; the tomb is real; the fast is pangful. Yet in Christ, dissonance resolves. The Church’s hymnody—from Psalm 103 at the week’s beginning to the Nine Odes of Pascha—trains us to trust the cadence that only God can write. We learn to wait in Friday night’s hush, to receive the flame from the unwaning Light, and to sing “Christ is risen” not as a slogan but as the soundtrack of our lives.

So: let us steward what we’ve been given. Let us make the sign of the cross over our children at bedtime; let our conversations overflow with psalmody; let contended silence have a room in every home; let reconciliation be practiced before the sun goes down. Let every parish be a school for choir and charity, where no one tries to sing over his brother, and no one is left straining alone in the back row. If we will live this way, not perfectly but repentantly, then in us the world will begin to hear the old pattern again—the Logos’ pattern—where goodness is beautiful and beauty does good.

And perhaps, by God’s mercy, the Lord will make of our small obedience something larger than we can imagine: a melody that threads through Charlottesville and Anderson, through Rhode Island and Kyiv, through every parish and prison and campus, until the whole creation—long groaning—finds its voice. Let God arise. Let His enemies be scattered. Christ is risen, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life.

Today Fr. Anthony covers Chapter Six from Zachary Porcu's Journey to Reality, "Sacramental Being."  (FWIW, he still doesn't buy the idea of something becoming a spiritual battery as batteries work seperate from an active power source and nothing is separate from the presence of God). Enjoy the show!

Luke 7:11-16 (The Widow of Nain)

At the gates of Nain, the procession of death meets the Lord of Life—and death loses. Christ turns the widow’s grief into joy, revealing that every tear will one day be transformed into the eternal song of alleluia.  A "by-the-numbers" homily - enjoy the show!

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This was an encounter between two forces: death and the very source of life. We know how this encounter always turns out. Life seems so fragile (war, disease, accidents, violence) and we seem doomed to die.

What happened (Jesus brought the dead back to life)

Focus briefly on three parts of this Gospel reading: the procession, the grief of the mother, and how it ended.

The funeral procession.  How we do funerals.  Preparation for it.  Psalms.  Preparation of the body.  Funeral service(s).  Burial.  The movement of the person from one list in our daily prayers to the other. Nine-day prayers.  Forty-day prayers.  Annual prayers.  Often with koliva or a special bread.

The grieving mother.  Do not weep.  “Blessed are those who mourn.”  Jesus Himself, always in the Spirit, wept at the death of Lazarus.  Do not weep “like those who have no hope…” (I Thessalonians). Repent of the sin that leads to unhealthy tears; and that repentance requires that we live knowing that we may never have another chance on this side of a funeral to mend a relationship.  Tears of honest grief are cathartic, as are tears of outrage at the absurdity of living in a world where death is so prevalent.  But let those tears flow in the knowledge that as outrageous, ignoble, and offensive as death is; that our tears of sorrow are being turned, as we sing in the funeral service, into the song “alleluia!”  And that is how I want to conclude...

How it ended.  This was an encounter between two forces: death and the very source of life.  Who won?  And who won when death took a man captive and found that it, instead, it was forced to encounter God?  Who won?  It was no real contest!  As we hear from St. John Chrysostom on Pascha: Christ-God annihilated death!  In a world that was made and is governed by the source of Life, death place is temporary, a consequence and concession to our sin – sin which itself is, again through Christ, only temporary.  It is holiness and life that endures forever.

Conclusion. That is the side we have chosen: we reject sin and we reject death.  We have intentionally chosen the side of holiness and of life.  It seems as though our relationship with life is so vulnerable – to sickness, to violence, to sudden catastrophes; but in the only reality that matters in the end, it is quite the opposite.  It and all its associated grief, anxieties, traumas, and pain are products of this world, doomed to end when it is remade in glory. 

Again, we have intentionally chosen the side of life.  Let’s live it as it was meant to be lived, not in fear of death but in the joy of the One who has through death defeated death and who desires us to live well both now and into eternity.    

Luke 8:5-15.

Faith is a living seed sown by God, but it cannot survive in the air of ideology or emotion—it must take root in the heart. Fr. Anthony calls us to cultivate this inner soil through the ancient disciplines of the Church so that our faith might stand firm and bear fruit a hundredfold.  Enjoy the show!

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Filling all things…
Journey to Reality
Chapter Five: Sacramental Thinking

St John 14: 1-7.  Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know. Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.

St. Basil the Great (On the Holy Spirit).  We understand the “way” to be the road to perfection, advancing in order step by step through the words of righteousness and the illumination of knowledge, always yearning for that which lies ahead and straining toward the last mile, until we reach that blessed end, the knowledge of God, with which the Lord blesses those who believe in him. For truly our Lord is a good way, a straight road with no confusing forks or turns, leading us directly to the Father. For “no one comes to the Father,” he says, “except through me.” Such is our way up to God through his Son. ON THE HOLY SPIRIT 8.18.

 “Modern, westernized people tend to think about the world from the starting point of physicality.  The physical world, as we would say, is the primary reality… It is the objective, measurable world on which we can all agree.”  Page 50 of 142.

The assumption of materialists is that if a thing cannot be measured, then it is unprovable, a matter of opinion, AND of lesser importance.

The natural world is everyone’s baseline.  Religious or spiritual people have an added category, that of the “supernatural,” but as long as we operate in the material paradigm, these are the things that BY DEFINITION cannot be measured and are thus kind of optional.  Belief then becomes a way to stand up and assert that there are some things that are important that cannot be measured directly.  “I believe…” is our assertion that there is a supernatural reality and that it is well-ordered and that there are supernatural outcomes that should matter to us:

·      Forgiveness of sins

·      Sacramental marriage (vs. an agreement or contract)

·      Eternal life

When we talk about religion, it is often in materialist terms.

·      What good is it (for health, family, society)?

·      What does it cost in terms of time and money?

·      Does its system make sense?  E.g. Juridical vs. Therapeutic vs. Holistic Healing

But this worldview can only take us so far.  It “misses the mark” when it comes to understanding the world and how it works.

An irony:  the materialist world may allow us to see things objectively, but not truly.  I am playing with words here, but it points to the difficulty.

Objectivity refers to the quality of being unbiased and fair, making decisions based solely on facts rather than personal feelings or beliefs. It is often considered essential in fields like science and journalism to ensure accurate and impartial reporting or analysis.

Objects have attributes that can be measured.  As a social scientist, I was taught that we have a poor understanding of something if we cannot put a number to it and that if we took enough measurements, we could explain everything.  Omniscience – or godhood – then is a matter of having enough data and the computing power to run the numbers.  Omnipotence involves the ability to manipulate everything towards a desired outcome.  This is no longer just the stuff of science fiction. 

This is another one of those areas where claims are being made for technology that should not be made.  We can rightly question double-predestination, but what will keep us from doing the same thing as we grow in material understanding and power?

A step in the right direction is to recognize that there is a moral dimension to the world.  But the problem is that it cannot be measured.  Outcomes can be measured, but their values can only be asserted.  This is why both secular philosophers like Nichze and religious ones like C.S. Lewis and Fr. Seraphim Rose claim that this kind of worldview leads to nihilism and the assertion of will. 

Religious and spiritual people who believe in the supernatural will then say that God (or spirit, or Arche) is the solution to this problem.  Again, this gets us heading in a good direction, but it usually keeps within the materialist worldview.  Again, which system makes sense, agrees with what I prefer, has the best agape meal, and so on.

But it really is strange to come at God in this manner.  All we are doing is taking the “God of the Gaps” concept and applying to morality and value.  This is like looking at the world through a two-dimensional, black and white filter.

We can do better.  Let’s see how our ancestors did it.

They did not see the natural and supernatural as separate.  It was just “the world.”

Some things were visible and some things were invisible.  Just as we cannot see radiation, atoms, and gravity know them to be part of reality, so it was with our ancestors for the invisible things. 

“This idea that the physical and the spiritual are not seperable has a few important implications.  If we say that the physical and the spiritual have to go together, then what we’re really saying is that there is a spiritual quality to everything physical, and a physical quality to everything spiritual.  This means, among other things, that physical objects and actions can have intrinsic meaning.” (Page 53 of 142)

The example of two bisecting lines.  A Cross.  There is a story behind it, and that gives it subjective meaning, but there is more to it.  The things that are described in that story create meaning.  The cross is part of something primal and real it has “cosmic significance” (ibid).  And this is true regardless of whether people recognize it as such (example of vampires).

Another way of describing this older view is as “enchanted” (vs. disenchanted). 

Another way is that we are part of a grand story.  Stories are excellent at conveying meaning.  This is why some stories are said to be true even though they are fiction.  This is complete nonsense to the materialist mind.

What about objectivity?  Isn’t this view biased?  Isn’t it subjective?

It certainly is biased.  But it is only subjective because our perception of the world is incomplete and often wrong, and we really do assert our wills to create and share meaning. 

We have to go beyond thinking about things primarily as either objective – meaning things that can be measured, or subjective – meaning things that cannot. 

A refresher on objective vs. subjective:

Pizza.

·      Objectively, it has bread, sauce, and topics of a certain type and consistency and spices that affect the olfactory system in certain measurable ways.  This is seen as what the pizza IS.

·      Subjectively, we prefer certain kinds of bread, sauce, topics, and spices.  This is our opinion about the pizza. 

·      We can argue about what belongs on a pizza or how it should be prepared, but it’s easy to come to an agreement on what the pizza actually is. 

The problem with this kind of a dichotomy is that it turns value and meaning into a matter of opinion and not only does that lead to disaster – it doesn’t describe the way the world really is.

Why disaster?

Disagreeing about pizza can lead to arguments and bringing home a pizza one person sees as valuable and another doesn’t may lead to temper tantrums; but what if the thing being described is something like human life or someone else’s freedom? 

Why is it wrong?

Because everything has intrinsic value.  And this is because it has being through it’s connection to the source of value – the Arche.’

Personal Knowledge

Another step in getting us to where we need to go is to look at knowledge that is gained personally, from the inside. 

But even in relationships, we miss the mark.  Vices and virtues affect how well we can know things and people.  An angry person is going to notice – and even create – things in people and their behaviors that stoke their anger.  Humility allows the person to be open to the truth.  Vice clouds our vision.

“The practice of virtue is, therefore, an essential element in seeking knowledge and the ultimate truth of things.  Why?  Because reality is participatory.  Or, to put it more simply, if you’re a bad person, you’re also going to be a bad friend.  If you’re jealous, resentful, petty, or arrogant, your going to have a hard time building a relationship with anyone to the extent that those impulses control your life.  To have better relationships, you have to be a better person.  And if Truth itself is a Person, you’re only going to be able to know Truth to the extent that you’re able to have a relationship with Him.” (Page 61 of 142)

In summary: the physical and spiritual world are inseparable.  This gives everything meaning.  We learn that meaning through participation; this involves both intellectual and moral growth.  How can this work?  Tune in next week!

Some questions: 

·      How is personal knowledge more than just data?

·      How do we keep from pretending our subjective opinions are illumined?

·      How does anyone know how clean their mirror is or how true their sight is?

St. Luke 6:31-36
The Gospel’s “Golden Rule” reveals more than an ethical ideal—it unveils the way God heals His creation. Fr. Anthony shows how practicing mercy, even toward our enemies, transforms hearts and communities, turning the parish itself into an ark of salvation and mechanism of the world’s perfection.

St. Luke 5:1-11.

Drawing on St. Luke’s account of Christ calling His disciples to become fishers of men, this homily explores why marriages and parishes often falter when built on human strength alone. Fr. Anthony reminds us that brokenness, poor models, and cultural confusion cannot be overcome by willpower or good intentions, but only through Christ and His Church. Just as the apostles’ empty nets were filled at the Lord’s command, so too our families and parishes flourish when rooted in His blessing and obedience.

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Homily: Why is it so hard to build a good marriage (and parish)?
Saint Luke 5:1-11; Fishers of Men

So it was, as the multitude pressed about Him to hear the word of God, that He stood by the Lake of Gennesaret, and saw two boats standing by the lake; but the fishermen had gone from them and were washing their nets. Then He got into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, and asked him to put out a little from the land. And He sat down and taught the multitudes from the boat.

When He had stopped speaking, He said to Simon, “Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.”

But Simon answered and said to Him, “Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing; nevertheless at Your word I will let down the net.” And when they had done this, they caught a great number of fish, and their net was breaking. So they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!”

For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish which they had taken; and so also were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid. From now on you will catch men.” So when they had brought their boats to land, they forsook all and followed Him (St. Luke 5:1-11).

Introduction: How Christ Builds the Church

This is a beautiful story from the ministry of Jesus Christ. It comes on the heels of his Baptism, his temptation by the devil in the wilderness, and the beginning of his preaching ministry in the synagogues of Galilee. In this Gospel, Christ has started building something very special; something that would never fall; something that would bring healing to broken humanity; something through which He would change the world. He began building the Church. And He did it with simple fishermen on the side of a lake.

Continuation: We are Building, too

We are participating in this work as well. We want to build something that will never fail; something that will bring healing to broken people; something that will transform a troubled place. We are building a parish. Today’s Gospel provides a wonderful lesson for us on this very thing.

In his homily on today’s Gospel, St. Nikolai Velimirovich writes;

“Except the Lord build the house, all who labor labor in vain.” (Psalm 126:1) If the builders build in God’s name, they will build a palace, even their hands are weak and their material poor. If, though, the builders build in their own name, in opposition to God, the work of their hands will be brought down as was the Tower of Babel.

There is no power that can bring God’s work to ruin. Pagan palaces and cities fall into ruin, but God’s huts remain standing. That which God’s finger upholds stands more firmly than that which [the mythical titan] Atlas supports on his back… May the almighty Lord preserve us from the thought that we can achieve any good without His help and His blessing…

May today’s Gospel serve as a warning that such vain thoughts must never be formulated our souls. It speaks of how all men’s efforts are in vain if God does not help them. While Christ’s apostle’s were fishing as men, they caught nothing; but when Christ commanded them to cast their nets once more into the sea, they caught such a great haul of fish that their nets tore.

Why would anyone think they can build something worthwhile without Christ? I don’t know. It is futile. We know better. But we do it all the time.

Understanding the Curse of Sin: the example of marriage

Let’s look at the example of marriage. It can be so hard to get it right, and there are just so many ways to get it wrong. Why is it so hard? It isn’t because people aren’t trying. In fact, they are trying all kinds of things… but they aren’t working very well. At best, some couples might end up with a marriage that lasts, but marriage was not just meant to endure. It’s not supposed to be like a boxing match that makes it to the final round; with the two so tired they can hardly lift a glove and they just lean on one another gasping and looking forward to the bell (or, as is as likely to happen in marriages, the two just hang out in their separate corners doing their own thing until the final bell sounds). A good marriage does more than last, it brings joy to its members and its fruit brings happiness that endures from generation to generation.

But why is this so rare? It should come as no surprise. Look how many people  come from broken families. It isn’t their fault, but this really puts them behind the eight ball. They come from broken families and a broken world, so they have bad examples and have internalized all the wrong instincts. Brokenness has been imprinted in their minds and hearts; this cannot help but shape their actions, no matter how good and noble their intentions are. Even if they try to rise above and do things right, what examples are they going to follow? Television? Movies? TikTok?  Their friends? Their hearts? None of these is a reliable guide – all of them are fallen. If statistics are correct – and there is no reason to doubt them – our young men are learning more about how to relate to women from pornography than they are from anything good and real. And the expectations and self-respect of our young women are being shaped by this same blighted culture.

Is there really any wonder that we are so bad at marriage? That even those young couples who try to get it right end up building a perverted parody of the kind of blessed union of flesh and spirit that we celebrate in the Mystery of Crowning? That we have far more “towers of Babel” than temples of true love?

Reiterating the Problem… and the solution

To repeat the Psalm; “Except the Lord build the house, all who labor labor in vain.” (126:1). We cannot overcome our own brokenness by trying harder or following the examples and guidance of people who are broken, too (St. Matthew 15:14; … if the blind lead the blind both will fall into a pit). An alcoholic cannot live a healthy life by trying harder; he has to admit his problem, heal and transform his heart and habits. And he has to let God be the foundation of this process. This is why twelve-step programs are so successful: they transform the hearts and habits of the repentant, with God as the foundation of the process. How many addicts do you know that continue ruining their lives because they think they can work everything out on their own?

But alcoholics and philanderers do not just hurt themselves. We know from history and our own observations that the children of alcoholics and broken homes are cursed by both nature and nurture. Again, it isn’t fair, but it is true. If we want the next generations to succeed then we have to be honest about both the cause and the cure of what ails them and us. The cause is our brokenness, and the cure is Christ Jesus. The cure is His Church. The cure is the Way of Holy Orthodoxy. All else is vanity. They are Towers of Babel. They are sand castles at a low tide.

Back to Today’s Gospel: becoming fishers of men

The curse of sin is the very thing that Christ came to remove. To put it in very practical terms, Christ came to save your marriages, to heal your addictions, to restore your sanity, and to replace your sorrow, pain, and frustration with joy and eternal blessedness. That is to say, He came to save you from the very real, very specific, and very damning problems in your life. And not just yours, but everyone’s. A world that was created good groans in agony, and our Lord loves it too much to allow that to continue.

And so He became a man, He taught us, He died for us, He was resurrected and ascended into Glory, and, more to today’s point, He established the Church to be the Ark of our salvation.

What a beautiful image a boat is for the Church. Think about it: we are drowning in a sea of sin and trying to tread water amidst a storm of temptation. We cannot survive this on our own, and it does not help to band together – eventually, even the strongest swimmer must succumb to weakness; moreover, the weak are infamous for dragging the stronger down. It is a terrible situation to be drowning in this stormy sea. Our breaths are numbered, and we are sure to die in agony. It is only a matter of time. But into this bleak scene comes salvation: the apostles cast out their nets and pull us in to the safety of the boat. We can finally breath without struggling. It is calm in the boat. It is here that our real healing begins… then we are given our own nets. 

Conclusion: we cannot catch men if we don’t try; we cannot catch men if we don’t learn how

We are in the boat. Here at Christ the Saviour, we have the fullness of the faith (we are like a fractal of the Universal Church) so it is fair to say that we are the boat. But remember that bit earlier about how nature and nurture conspire against our marriages? You know me well enough by now to know that I wasn’t just talking about marriage. Marriage is an image of the Church: the union of flesh with one another and the union of that one flesh with God (Ephesians 5:32). Why should we think that we are naturally any better at living as the Church than we are with marriage? The same forces work against us: we suffer from both nature and nurture. Just as good intentions are not enough for the children of broken homes, they are not enough for us as we try to build this parish. Without serious help, we will just end up building the equivalent of a miserable and failed marriage, another Tower of Babel, a perverse monument to our own fallenness. We cannot do it on our own.  We need help.  

We need Christ.

Without Him, we are like the Apostles in today’s lesson before our Lord came; “toiling all night and catching nothing” (St. Luke 5:5). It had been a hard night for them and they had given up on catching anything; but then Christ came and told them to go back out, and they caught more than they could carry. So many that their boats almost broke.

This parish has been through a lot.  There was a time when it was down to a handful of people.  Like Simon in today’s lesson, we had good hearts and the best of intentions, but we were tired; and we had pretty much given up on catching fish.

But the Lord has told us to get back out there and get it done.

And so that is what we are doing.  Of course, we are smart in the ways of the world, and we are always tempted to rely on our own strength and our own hearts. But our hearts are broken and our strength will fail us. “Except the Lord build the house, all who labor labor in vain.” (126:1). But for those who put their trust in the Lord and in His way – there is no limit to the good that they can do. This is where we are. We have given our lives and the future of this parish to the Lord Jesus Christ.  Like Simon, we haven’t always seen the point of what the Lord commands, but also like Simon, we follow Him.

And we know the result of doing the Lord’s will: the catch was so great that their nets were so full that they were all but bursting, and the ship could barely stay afloat.  Does this sound familiar?  The Lord has bless your commitment and your faith; and our growth has been so great that we wonder if our walls can hold the number of men, women, and children who have been pulled in to the safety of the Church. So great that we, like Simon calling for the second boat, are helping to plant missions and look for new properties to provide enough room. Because there is no reason to expect this growth to stop.  After all, there are a lot of people drowning in the waters around us.

We cannot allow them to perish – it is God’s will that all be saved. It is a tough calling.

But we do not labor in vain: because we are building according to the Lord’s command. We have been transformed fishers of men.

To God be all glory and may He bless us as we do this work.

This episode introduces our series on Orthodox Christian virtue, beginning with the call to authentic masculinity. Fr. Anthony explains that true manhood is humble, courageous, and sacrificial, and can only be formed through living a life in fellowship with others.

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Introduction to our Series on Orthodox Christian Virtue
Men’s Group, Christ the Saviour in Anderson SC
Fr. Anthony Perkins, 28 September 2025

Etymological note: the word “virtue” is from the Latin virtus, which means strength, manliness, and moral excellence.  The trick is not to redefine moral virtue around fallen concepts of manliness, but to regain the sort of masculinity that is, by its nature, both strong and godly (ie, holy).

Why a Series on Orthodox Christian Masculinity?

·      Men struggle with the development of a proper goal and worldview that would allow them to thrive, specifically as Christian men.

·      Men increasingly lack sound role models and guides, but there are many influencers who would fill that role for all the wrong reasons and give bad advice.

·      This combination of high demand and unreliable supply means that everyone suffers; men who are called to be part of the solution to the problem of the world’s pain instead increase it.

·      The Orthodox Church is the fullness of the faith, but has addressed this problem inconsistently (Note on the book “Why Men Hate Going to Church”).  It is great to have Orthodox influencers addressing the issue, but this happens at the expense of building the kind of community would and should naturally foster community.  Men can watch videos, listen to podcasts (do men even read books anymore?!), and increase their tribal commitment to virtue, but unless they are in the trenches with other men committed to the same goal and part of a system that blesses and supports the goal and its pursuit, this is idle posturing. 

o   This is the problem of superficial mentorship: ideas without connection or skin in the game. (incomplete or bad ecclesiology).  It is both gnostic (because it is anti-incarnational) and Protestant (in that each person becomes their own guide, moving to the idea/guru that matches their inclinations rather than joining and submitting to something substantial and real).

o   The temptation of clericalism.  Leaving all teaching and mentoring to the parish priest. (incomplete or bad ecclesiology)

o   As on the internet, the men who might want to step up and fill this void may not be suited for it because they lack the proper temperament, manner of life, experience, or training.  (Self-selection is bad ecclesiology.) Remember Matthew 15:14b on the blind leading the blind.

·      This is NOT a series that is going to present THE ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN UNDERSTANDING OF MASCULINITY ™ so that we can all adjust our minds to its reality.  Lord willing, it will teach the right ideas, but that is not how real spiritual formation happens.

·      It is a series that is part of our effort to create a community of men who not only understand masculine virtue and commit themselves to its achievement, but also one where we train and work towards that standard together.  So it includes NOT JUST ideas of manliness but intentionally develops scalable ecclesial institutions that incarnate the living of those ideas through the brotherly support, mentorship, encouragement, and accountability.

Your role in the process: commitment to living a life of virtue in community with others.

My role in the process and why I am the leader of our local chapter

·      Long-standing commitment to Christian virtue and all the sacrifices that entails; as well as the many blessings that have followed.

·      Married thirty-five years. 

·      A respected and decorated leader in the Army, community, and Church.

o   Retired Military Intelligence Chief Warrant Officer with deployments throughout the world, to include two to Afghanistan.

o   Three master’s decrees: political science, divinity, and special education.

o   Ordained as a priest in 2007, have been teaching seminary since 2008; and have served in multiple leadership positions in the national church and at seminary.

·      Trained and experienced in the concepts of teamwork, spiritual development, community, and theology.

·      A lifetime of experience teaching these concepts and discipling others to teach them in the military, academia, parishes, seminary, and on the internets.

If I were into self-promotion or social media, these might get me a following; but the real reason that I am the leader of the process is ontological, that is to say baked into our reality: I am the legitimately and canonically ordained priest assigned by our bishop to the priest – that is to say the “elder” and pastor – of this parish.  This would be true even if I had never served in the military, taught at seminary, or enjoyed the benefits of a healthy marriage. 

It is accepting the fact that we “go to war with the army and leaders we have, not the ones we want” that allows us to get traction in doing the work we are called to do.  We might gain a rudimentary understanding of what we are called to do and be as Christian men from our favorite Orthodox influencers on the internet, but if we are more attached to them and their virtual communities than the leaders and community in which we actually live, then we are setting ourselves up for failure.  The Church has been perfecting the saints for many centuries without the internet; it is foolishness to jettison that system in favor of one that has not been tested and is known to be skewed towards narcissism and exaggeration. 

So here are the objectives of this series:

·      To provide a deeper understanding of Orthodox Christian Masculinity that each of us can defend and commit ourselves to.

·      To provide tools that will allow us to grow in personal holiness, first by dealing with our fallen “manly” temptations (anger, lust, gluttony, manipulation, and just checking out) and second by the acquisition of a peaceful, confident, and humble spirit.

·      To provide the tools – and not just the ideas! – to lead our family, communities, and parish.

·      To develop and intentional community of men, with mentorship, discipleship, and accountability.

·      That mentorship includes

o   The expectation that every man will go to confession regularly and schedule meetings with his priest as necessary.  We should be going to confession AT LEAST FOUR TIMES A YEAR; the ideal is once a month.

o   The development of horizontal friendships with other men IN THIS PARISH for encouragement, accountability, and the deepening of Christian love.

o   Each of us will develop and maintain a relationship with a mentor.  You can have more than one mentor, just like you can go to more than one priest for confession, but the point is that salvation is LOCAL.  Again, you don’t go to war with the army and leaders you want, but with the one we have.  The temptation is to Americanize ecclesiology through the internet and to turn the local stable of churches and paraliturgical communities into our very own spiritual buffet.  Didn’t we say we wanted to give that way of thinking up when we became Orthodox?
These mentors are:

§  [NAME]

§  [NAME]

§  [NAME]

§  [NAME]

o   Why these? 

§  They are old.  Let no man despise your youth, but a healthy culture has a special place and respect for gray beards.  Younger men are wonderful spiritual brothers and we should rely on them for such.  They can certainly be leaders in other ways, AND it is our job (and especially mine and the mentors) to disciple them so that they are able to do a better job than us when their beards turn gray.  This is within the spirit of having age requirements for formal ordination.

§  They have been committed Orthodox Christians for a while.  This is important because it takes time for Orthodoxy to gain traction.  No one doubts the novice’s commitment, but experience is required for mentorship.  Again, this is in line with the spirit of ecclesial norms: Canon Law prohibits the ordination of novices. 

·      Think of it as a kind of apprenticeship, but one where we are all already active life-smiths, but need a good system to help us improve the quality of our work.

So what is Orthodox Christian Masculinity?

·      The way of a man committed to living out his faith humbly, courageously, and sacrificially in service to God, family, and community.

o   Humble

o   Courage (confidence)

o   Sacrificially: DUTY!!!  Get up and do something!  Reliability. 

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

—Theodore Roosevelt

We are doing great deeds together.  To the glory of God and the transformation of the world..

Future classes: Mentors are going to lead.  Spiritual discipline and asceticism.  How to build a strong and safe home.  Financial asceticism.  How to protect and serve the weak and vulnerable. 

In the meantime, commit yourself to being a reliable and godly man.  Peaceful and strong.  Give up things that distract you and build up habits that will make you better.  Lead your family in prayer, lead them in going to church; encourage your friends to be godly and hold them accountable in private when needed, and live the kind of Cross-carrying life that transforms your souls towards perfection and brings peace and joy to those around you.

God is a Personal Triune Arche’
Journey to Reality
Chapter Three: Who is God?

Money quote from this chapter:
“The reality is that Christianity is profoundly different from every other religion in history precisely because the Trinity solves this problem of the One and the Many on the basis that God’s nature is love.  No other religion is like that.” (pg 37 of 142)

Framing Scripture on the Godhead (this is just an introduction to the subject):

Genesis 16:7&13.  Now the Angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness by the spring on the way to Shur… Then Hagar called the name of Lord who spoke to her, “You-Are-the-God-Who-Sees-Me”; for she said, “I have seen the One who appeared to me face to face.”

Genesis 19:24.  Then the Lord rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and on Gomorrah from the Lord out of the heavens. (repeated in Amos 4:11).

Genesis 22:15-16.  Then the Angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time out of heaven and said, “By Myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you did this thing and for My sake did not spare your beloved son. 

[God appears many times to Abraham in human form.  Jesus confirms that that was Him in John 8:56-58; Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day. He saw it, and was glad.” Therefore, the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old! Have you seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Most certainly, I tell you, before Abraham came into existence, I AM.]

“God had appeared to Jacob visibly in a dream at Bethel (Gen. 28:10–22), where he was identified as the Lord. Later the Angel of God came to Jacob in another dream and told him point-blank that he was the same God who met him at Bethel earlier (Gen. 31:11–12).” (Heiser, Supernatural), Ch 6).

Exodus 3:4.  When the Lord saw he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush, and said, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” 

Exodus 23:20-22. Behold I send My Angel before your face, to keep you in the way and to bring you into the land I prepared for you.  Listen to Him and obey His voice; do not provoke Him, for He will not pardon your transgressions; for My Name is in Him.

[In 1 Corinthians 10 and Hebrews 11, St. Paul explains that it was Jesus the Logos that brought the Israelites out of Egypt, was with them in their journey, and brought them into the promised land.  Jude 1 does the same.]

Judges 6:20-24.  The Angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened bread and lay them on this rock, and pour out the broth.” And he did so.  Then the Angel of the Lord stretched out the end of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and the unleavened bread.  And the Angel of the Lord departed out of his sight.  Now Gideon perceived that this was the Angel of the Lord.  So Gideon said, “O Lord, my Lord!  For I have seen the Angel of the Lord face to face.”  Then the Lord said to him, “Peace be with you; do not fear, you shall not die.”  So Gideon built an altar there to the Lord, and called it the Peace of the Lord.  To this day, it is still in Ephrata, the father of Esdri.

Jeremiah 1:4-9.  Now the word of the Lord came to me saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” Then I said, “Ah, Lord God! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth.” But the Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a youth’; for to all to whom I send you you shall go, and whatever I command you, you shall speak. Be not afraid of them,
for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.” Then the Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth; and the Lord said to me, “Behold, I have put my words in your mouth.

Proverbs 8:22-30.  Wisdom’s role in creation.

All this is to say that God has always been Three Persons and has always made Himself known to us through His Son.  Of course, the Incarnation is the most obvious of this.  We could do the same with the Holy Spirit.

Which brings us back to Chapter Three:

The moral reality of the Arche’.  Not just the unmoved mover – reality itself – but also GOOD itself.  This idea is fairly widespread.

The Personal God.  But the Arche’ is also personal, with a mind and a will.  Must avoid allowing this to bring us back to the idea of gods like Zeus or such; or even the Universe as a person.  These pagan ideas are often well-intentioned, but they are too small.

You can imagine something being a person.  A rock with a personality, or a cosmos with a spirit, but we mean a lot more than that.

“We’re not taking some object (a rock, a mountain, a planet) and adding the idea of personhood to it.  We’re saying that the ultimate governing principle of reality – distinct from the created universe – is personal.  This is what we end up with “I AM” as His name.

The One or the Many?

What is a person like?  Are persons like water, appearing to be separate, but they merge when you put them together and their distinctiveness disappears.  In this view, the Arche is the source of all water, and persons have a propensity and calling to be brought back together into oneness with other drops and the Source.  This is the worldview of the “one”.

Or perhaps persons are distinct objects.  You can put them together, as when you stack stones, but they keep their own uniqueness.  You cannot merge them together; if you break them up to do so, they are no longer themselves.  In this individualist view, the Arche’ is like one huge stone, and we have broken off of it and can never merge back with it.

Both of these worldviews seem to explain an important element about the world we find ourselves in, but each does so at a cost.  The worldview of the One explains, truly enough, that there is some kind of fundamental unity among all people and all things, but it does so at the cost of our individualism.  Persons can’t really exist in this view; our distinctiveness turns out to be an illusion, as our very nature means that we belong to a greater whole that has no place for our individuality.  If a drop of water falls into the ocean, the drop ceases to exist and there’s no way to get it back.

In a worldview of the many, we get to preserve our individuality but at the cost of any sense of unity.  Because (in this view) you don’t share a connection with any other person at the level of ultimate reality, there’s a sense in which you’ll always be alone, despite however many connections of relationships you make.  And in fact, this needs to be so in order to preserve your individual uniqueness.  Otherwise you’d just melt into other people and disappear – the way water droplets do. 

Neither of these views paints a complete picture of the way we experience reality, and still less do they resolve the problem of how to understand the Arche’ as a person. … In order to transcend the limitations of both these views, we need a worldview that can combine the best features of the One and the many without being either of them.

The Trinity

Three distinct persons (individuals? No.) with one essence.  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  The Father is not the Son is not the Holy Spirit is not the Father.  BUT they are NOT separate: they are ONE GOD.

There are many ways we try to simplify this: modes, focusing on one aspect at the expense of the others, personalities, three gods.  The Oneness and Threeness are part of the definition and need to be held together.  [Comparing it to a family?  Hmmmm (Awww, Patrick!)  ]

Being and Love. 

Neither the water nor the stone approach (one and many) has room for love.  But the Trinity is ideal for love: there are other persons to love, but it isn’t just an individual attribute of attraction.  Our individualism makes it hard for us to understand the implications of a world made for love by love.  We are relational beings.  Interdependent and connected.

God is Love.   Three persons united in one essence and existing as a perfect, loving, community.  We are called be one as God is one.

Next week: The Problem of the Fall?

Sunday after the Exultation of the Cross
Galatians 2:16-20; St. Mark 8:34-9:1

On the Sunday after the Exaltation of the Cross, Fr. Anthony reflects on Christ’s call to “take up your cross and follow Me.” Drawing on the imagery of military service, he shows how the Christian life demands selfless duty, not comfort, as we bear the Cross in love rather than mere suffering. He contrasts the marketer’s dream of the radiant sun with the scandal of the Cross, explaining why the Church, in wisdom, sets the Cross—not the Sun—as its banner. In Christ, the Cross becomes not a sign of death, but the Tree of Life that transforms our pain into victory and joy.

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Homily: the Cross and the Sun
The Sunday after the Exaltation of the Cross

“Take up your cross and follow me”

There are many ways to understand this command. Many take it as God’s way of saying we need to put up with all the sufferings that our bodies give us.  That’s true, but there’s more to it that. I want to use the example of the soldier to explain how.  In the army, we would sing as we walked. It made the time go by more quickly, developed camaraderie, and taught us some valuable life lessons. One of the most popular went like this:

82nd patch on my shoulder,
pick up your chutes and follow me,
Airborne infantry,

10th Mountain patch on my shoulder,
pick up your rucks and follow me,
Mountain Infantry.

That is what comes into mind every time I hear; “take up your cross and follow me”. The new verse might go something like this;

Christ the Saviour patch on my shoulder
pick up your cross and follow me,
Christian infantry.

Why is this useful?

Think about it: what are these things that the soldiers are picking up? Why do they pick them up?  They use these things to battle the nation’s enemies.  They use these things to protect their families and keep their nation safe.  Most of all, these things are used in selfless service and duty for something other than themselves.

Why do we pick up the cross? For the same reason. Selfless service and duty for something other than ourselves. Is there suffering involved?  Yes. Soldiers suffer. But it’s not about the suffering, it’s about the love (call it duty, that’s fine).  Yes. Christ suffered. But it’s not about the suffering; its about the love. Is there suffering involved for us? Yes. But we don’t count it as suffering. It is just the cost of doing what is right.

The Cross: A marketer’s nightmare

Have you ever thought about the implications of having the Cross as our standard?  It isn’t the kind of thing that a marketing team would come up with.  After all, who would market their product by saying, “Try this – it will cause a lot of pain!”  Marketers would have chosen the wonderful image of the Sun: it gives warmth, allows things to grow, and makes it so that we can see things as they really are.  Plus, in English at least, it is a homophone for “the Son”, so putting the “Sun of Righteousness” on our shields and chests could still be a witness of our reverence for Christ, our King and God.

The Sun of Righteousness

People love the sun.   I probably took it for granted growing up in the south, but after living in New England and other parts of the North for most of my adult life, I love and appreciate it even more now.  A sunrise after a long and difficult night gives new hope; a warm sun after a trying winter brings new life to tired bones.  Another tie-in that would make this a shoe-in for the marketing team is that we orient our churches to the East so that we can await the coming of the Messiah – again, the “Sun of Righteousness”.  The sun is such a huge part of our human subconscious, and it resonates with our Christian theology – surely it would be a better advertisement of the healing and resurrection power of the Church than a cross!

Think about it!  The cross is the opposite of the sun.  The sun builds up life, the cross destroys it.  The sun gives comfort and warmth, the cross brings pain.  Everyone recognizes the value of the sun; the only ones who value the cross are tyrants and psychopaths – and they certainly don’t want it for themselves.  The marketers wring their hands, wondering who could possibly be attracted by such a symbol!

The Logic of the Cross of Christ

So why the cross?  I have told you before that when the Orthodox Church reveals something to me that doesn’t make sense, I rejoice because it means I am about to learn something new and grow as a Christian.

[Leave aside the fact that non-human representations of Christ are problematic, e.g. the 82nd Canon of the Council of Trullo…]

The Sun might have been the perfect emblem for us if we had not broken our covenant with God in the Garden of Eden.  Just as plants in the well-tended garden mature upwards towards the rays of the Sun, we were made to grow naturally towards the goodness emanating from the Christ.  Take a look sometime at the iconography from Genesis, chapter one.  There is a series by Michael Kapeluk available from the Ancient Faith Store, but the originals are in the chapel of St. Thomas at All Saints Camp in Northwestern PA, one of the most beautiful and peaceful places on God’s green earth.  Those icons provide a literal depiction of Christ in human form, bringing all the forms of creation into being (we recite this truth in the Creed every day; Christ is the one “through whom all things were made”).  

Had we not chosen to grow according to our own will instead [a will that has become increasingly warped], we would have grown toward Christ from blameless simplicity into perfection, moving from blessing to blessing for all eternity.  So, to reiterate, the sun might have been a useful image for Christian theosis had we never fallen.

This idea [of the Sun as our banner] is still attractive to us now because we want to pretend that the love God has for us is strong enough to grow us into joyful perfection all on its own.  We want to pretend as if we have no flaws that access to better sun and soil could not overcome.  The problem is, to continue the agricultural metaphor in the same way Jesus often did, [the problem is] that our roots are ruined.  They can grow nothing but nettles and weeds.  Without correcting the fatal flaws inherent within us, better soil and sunlight will only make for a bigger patch of poison ivy – it cannot turn that ivy into grape vines, wheat, or roses.  And even that result [that is, of bigger weeds] is only for the short term – Christ tells us what will happen to such weeds in the long term: they will be thrown into the fire (St. Matthew 13:30).  

The Sun of Righteousness is a dead-end for weeds!  Our roots must be removed and our branches grafted to the True Vine in order for the rays and heat of the Sun of Righteousness to bring us everlasting growth and goodness.  Pruning is painful.  Grafting takes effort.  No one wants to do it, but the untended garden is a curse to your yard.  No one wants to do the work, but we know we have to.  So here’s the segue:

We must be grafted to the Tree of Life, and that Tree is the Cross.

Why We Love the Cross

The Cross is the work of salvation.  Putting to death the old man so that the new one can live in Christ – this is how we are transformed into perfection.  Yes, it will be painful.  Excising sin and unhealthy habits is not a lot of fun.  But it has to be done.  It’s not a lot of fun to be patient and charitable in the face of hatred and stupidity, but that is the path of transformation.  

We crucify our own sins, nailing them to the cross so that we can be forgiven and learn to live without them, but we are also crucified by a world that quickly turns against those who truly live in Christ and have Him living in them.  

If the world hates you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.  If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.  Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; (John 15:18-20a)

If we desire salvation, if we desire joy, if we desire to do good, then we must sew on that patch, deny ourselves, take up the cross, and follow Christ.  Being a Christian is not easy – we are sinful and so is the world we live in – but it is the only right and rational thing to do.  If we are comfortable as Christians, then we aren’t really trying.  The Cross is not comfortable, but it is our sign and symbol because it is the only path to victory.

Epilogue

All of you know pain.  All of you are tortured by crosses.  I have known you long enough to know the pain this world causes you.  For many of you, that pain and confusion has multiplied over the last couple of weeks.  Those crosses are real.  The pain they cause is real.  There is no end to the number of crosses in this world, but there is only one cross that saves, and that is the Cross of Christ.  We cannot choose what this world does to us, we cannot avoid the pain this world inflicts on us – but if we live our pain as Christ did on the Cross, our pain will transform us into invincible warriors and holy saints and this world into a garden of grace and delight.  

All other crosses lead inexorably to death, but the Cross of Christ is the way of eternal peace and perfection.

“I AM” (not a tribal god)
Journey to Reality
Chapter Three: Who is God?

Preamble.  First – apologize. 
If you want to see an object’s strengths and weaknesses, put it under stress.  We do this with our asceticism: prayer rules, regular participation in worship, fasting, and tithing are useful not just because they develop virtue, but because they test it.  They show the extent to which we need to work on our patience, reliability (faith), kindness, and trust.  For most people, most of the time, the responses are not life-threatening and they allow for repentance and change towards the better.

Big stresses to the system do an even better job at exposing flaws and virtues.

They can also do real damage to people’s souls. 

Many have been going through that kind of a trial the past week.  As your pastor and, for many of you, your spiritual father, my main calling is to care for your souls. 

I understand the complexity and dynamics at work in our society as a trained and  experienced social scientist, intelligence analyst, and theologian and, I will be happy to share some observations with you.  But these are sorts of things that many of you have been binging on over the past week.  And that in itself is often a tell; an indicator of a sickness.

So first, I ask you the most important question: what have you learned about your spiritual health over the last week? 

NOTE: I am not asking about your alleged discernment about the spiritual health of others, but of your own.

1 Corinthians 13:4-9. 4. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;  it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. [But love never ends.]

How are we doing on this?  To the extent we have been pulled off our peace, we are subject to manipulation.  If the con is well-done, people won’t even know they are being used.  Propaganda doesn’t just work on THEM, it works on everyone.  And there are always demonic propagandists looking for opportunities to manipulate for various purposes.  None of them good.

Now on to the Scripture Preparation for our Reading

There is always a temptation to:

·      Turn God into a created and anthropomorphized god
SO THAT WE CAN UNDERSTAND HIM (Compare this to the Incarnation)

·      Turn God into a tribal god.

This shows up in the Scriptures.  God has emotions (anger, jealousy) and sets aside the Jews as his portion/tribe.  The Bible is True, but its meaning is not always obvious.

·      Deuteronomy 4:23-24.  So watch yourselves, that you do not forget the covenant of the Lord your God which He made with you, and make for yourselves a graven image in the form of anything against which the Lord your God has commanded you. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.

·      Deuteronomy 32:5-10.  When the Most High divided the nations, When He scattered the sons of Adam, He set the boundaries of the nations by the number of God’s angels.  For the Lord’s portion became the people of Jacob; the allotment of His inheritance is Israel. 

We can turn God into our own tribal God and subsume our worship to tribal virtue signaling.  But that would be heresy.  Christian nationalism brings too many temptations.  It is NOT Orthodox.  We have the fullness of the faith, but we do not own God and His is the God of all mankind.  And more.  Worship and prayers are not spells, but our offering to the absolute source of all good things who has adopted us into His kingdom.

Exodus 3:14.
God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”

St. Hilary of Pottiers (On the Trinity); In [the Books of Moses and the Prophets] I found the testimony of God the Creator about himself expressed in the following manner: “I am who I am,” and again, “Thus shall you say to the children of Israel: He who is, has sent me to you.” I was filled with admiration at such a clear definition of God, which spoke of the incomprehensible nature in language most suitable to our human understanding. It is known that there is nothing more characteristic of God than to be, because that itself which is does not belong to those things which will one day end or to those which had a beginning. But that which combines eternity with the power of unending happiness could never not have been, nor is it possible that one day it will not be, because what is divine is not liable to destruction, nor does it have a beginning. And since the eternity of God will not be untrue to itself in anything, he has revealed to us in a fitting manner this fact alone, that he is, in order to render testimony to his everlasting eternity.

St. Jerome (Letter 15): There is one nature of God and one only; and this, and this alone, truly is. For absolute being is derived from no other source but is all its own. All things besides, that is, all things created, although they appear to be, soon are not. For there was a time when they were not, and that which once was not may again cease to be. God alone who is eternal, that is to say, who has no beginning, really deserves to be called an essence. Therefore also he says of him, “I am has sent me.”  Letter 15.4.

St. Augustine (Tractate on the Gospel of John): Perhaps it was hard even for Moses himself, as it is much also for us, and much more for us, to understand what was said, “I am who I am” and “He who is has sent me to you.” And if by chance Moses understood, when would they to whom he was being sent understand? Therefore the Lord put aside what man could not grasp and added what he could grasp. For he added and said, “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” This you can grasp. But what mind can grasp, “I am who I am”? Tractate on the Gospel of John 38.8.3

St. John 8:58.
Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.”

St. Gregory the Great (Homily 16 on the Gospels).  Our Redeemer graciously turns their gaze away from his body and draws it to contemplation of his divinity. He says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” “Before” indicates past time, “I am” present time. Because divinity does not have past and future time but always is, he did not say, “I was before Abraham” but “Before Abraham was, I am.” And so it was said to Moses, “I am who I am,” and “You will say to the children of Israel, ‘He who is has sent me to you.’ ” Therefore he who could draw near by manifesting his presence and depart after completing his life existed both before and after Abraham. Truth always exists, because nothing begins before it in time or comes to an end after it.

When we have the correct understand of God, that He is the uncreated Arche’ whose essence IS; but that He also works in creation through His energies, we can add words to His Name without limiting Him.  Here are some examples (For a more complete list, see “on the Divine Names” by St. Dionysius):

I am …
With you… [I am] your God. (Isaiah 41:10; St. Matthew 28:20)
I am He who comforts you (Isaiah 51:12)
Way, Truth, Life. (St. John 14:6)
Resurrection and the Life. (St. John 14:6)
The True Vine (St. John 15:1,5)
Light of the world. (St. John 8:12)
Bread of Life (St. John 6:35)
The Door (St. John 10:9)
Good Shepherd (St. John 10:11)
Alpha and Omega… (Revelation 1:8)

This helps us understand Dr. Porcu’s point in chapter three.  The early Christians knew that God was the arche’, with all that this entailed, but they also knew that he was a Person with a Mind and a Will (p. 28).

WHAT THIS DOESN’T MEAN.

·      The example of the rock that is a person.  The tree that is a person.  The planet that is a person. The star that is a person. The universe that is a person.

·      “However, this is not what we mean when we say that the arche’ is a person.  We’re not taking some object and adding the idea of personhood to it.  We’re saying that the ultimate governing principle of reality – distinct from the created universe – is personal.

This is why God’s name – which allows us to relate to Him – is centered on existence.

St. Jerome (Letter 15): As the angels, the sky, the earth, the seas all existed at the time, it must have been as the absolute being that God claimed for himself that name of essence, which seemed to be common to all. But because his nature alone is perfect and because in the three persons there subsists but one Godhead, which truly is and is one nature, whoever in the name of religion declares that there are in the Godhead three elements, three hypostases, that is, or essences, is striving really to predicate three natures of God. Letter 15.4.

HIS BEING, HIS EXISTENCE, HIS ESSENCE, IS NOT SHARED WITH CREATION.

His energies, however, are.  Which should we worship?  This, not intent or love, is the main difference between the Orthodox sacramental worldview and the pagan one.

Next week: The One or the Many?

Exultation of the Cross
Behold the Man: The Cross and Our Shared Criminality
Homily on the Passion and the Cross
I Corinthians 1:18-24; St. John 19:6-11, 13-20, 25-28, 30-35

Christ was crucified among criminals, a mirror of our own sinfulness and complicity in His Passion.  Yet like the repentant theif, we are invited to turn to Him in humility, behold His mercy, and enter the Kingdom with the New Adam who reveals true humanity.  Enjoy the show!

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Our Lord Jesus Christ, the God-man, was condemned and put on a cross to die in the midst of criminals.  Not just the obvious criminals, such as the thieves on his right and his left, but he was surrounded by them.  For the entire world had been given over to sin.  The religious authorities, the ones who knew the law and the prophets, and should have been the first to support him, were certainly criminal.  They “assembled together… unto the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas, and consulted that they might take Jesus by subtlety and kill him.” (Matthew 26:3-4).  They were jealous of Jesus, seeing how “the world is gone after him.” (John 12:9).  They did not want a trial; they wanted his death.  Remember that when the good and law-abiding man, Nicodemus, called them on this and suggested to them that Jesus be brought before the court for a hearing, saying, “Does our law judge any man, before it hears him, and know what he does?”  They mocked Nicodemus, saying, “Art thou also of Galilee? Search, and look: for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet.”  They were not interested in the Law or the Truth or even the facts; they were preserving their own comfort and power, and were willing to break the law and commit murder (deicide!) to protect it.  They were criminals.

Nor were they the only criminals.  Think also of Judas, who participated in their perfidy by betraying his alleged friend and teacher for thirty pieces of silver.  And then there was the entire crowd who came out, and in their own criminality, chose the convicted criminal Barabbas over Christ.  As St. Nikolai Velimirovic puts it; “God or a criminal?  And the criminals choose the criminal.”

Yes, Christ was surrounded by criminals.  But before we condemn them, let’s remember one of the first rules of biblical interpretation; when the scriptures speak of bad men, be they the scribes and pharisees, Judas, the Jewish people, or even common criminals, we are to think not just of them, but how it is that we are like them. 

In our fallenness, it is easy to see the criminality of others, especially those with whom we disagree or are from other Babelic tribes than our own.  But so often their crimes are not obvious because they are so heinous, but because they have been magnified by the problems with our vision – we can only see darkness when our eyes are full of darkness and it is hard to see anything objectively when we have giant honking logs sticking out of our eye-sockets.  When tempted by such judgment, let us remember Christ, draw in the sand and say, “Let he who is without sin, throw the first stone.”

Yes, we are all criminals of the sort that participated in the passion of our God; petty, jealous, riotous, scheming – it’s all there in our hearts and on our lives for everyone to see.  We are the criminals of this story.  All of us have sinned against God and against His Way.

But there was one criminal who stepped out of his sin and the propaganda of the devil, and repented.  He accepted that he had earned his suffering.  Again, paraphrasing St. Nikolai; blessed is the criminal who, in the midst of his very real agony, does not lash out in condemnation of the other criminals but rather recognizes that he has earned his cross because of his sins.  The resulting clarity then allows him to see the God-man in his midst, repent, beg for God’s mercy, and then find himself in Paradise with his saviour.  We quote this saint every time we take communion: “Remember me, O Lord, when Thou comest into Thy kingdom”.  We imitate his words, but do we imitate the deep transformation that allowed him, while feeling such pain, to say them?

And now that we have looked at the crowds of the scene described in today’s Gospel, let us look to Christ.  Right before today's reading, Pilate had brought our Lord out before the people after he had been beaten and scourged and had a crown of thorns put on his head and had said, “Behold the man!”.

Yes, let us behold the man.  For Jesus was both fully God and fully man.  And His humanity had brought Him immense agony.  Earlier, we saw Him as a man when He was an infant in a cave, and when He and his family fled to Egypt, and when He was hungry and thirsty and had no place to lay his head.  Of course we also saw Him as God, walking on water, quelling storms, healing the sick, and multiplying loaves.  But at no time was his humanity more on display than from the Garden of Gethsemane to the Cross.  First, sweat poured from his head like blood because of anguish, and then that blood was joined by more from the lashes and the crown and the nails.  Jesus in the Garden was tormented; as man he knew pain and was expecting more – and as God He had ordained this as the path to the salvation of the world.  St. Nikolai writes; “these two were in conflict and had to be brought into accord.”  And so the man-mind and will went from the tortured; “if Thou be willing remove this up from Me” to the submissive “nevertheless, not My will, but Thine, be done.”  And when He did this, He acquired a peace that could not be broken by unjust accusations, or blasphemies, or physical pain.

Yes, “Behold the Man”!  Behold the sort of man that God had in mind when he first formed Adam.  A man obedient to God and willing to do everything so that some might be saved.  Think of His dignity as He went to His death.  Not only did He avoid grumbling and condemnations, “He worked for the good of all to His dying breath.” (SNV, 201)  He desired good even in the midst of the pain of crucifixion, even in the midst of the most supreme injustice, and even in the midst of those who reviled Him.  As St. Luke records, He said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” 

Do we see the charity?  Do we see the love?  Are we not drawn to imitate Him in His magnanimity?  Rather than throwing their sins against their teeth and shouting it out to God for vengeance, He was merciful toward them.  For even if the criminals who assaulted Him used words to justify their blasphemy, they “knew not what they did.”

“Behold the Man.”

Are we men?  Are we willing to imitate the Ur-Man, the New Adam; the very definition of what it means to be a man? 

Can we be charitable in our pain?  Can we look to the salvation or others from the depths of our despair?

And if this is, at least for now, beyond our reach, let us then imitate the one at his side, and focus not on the sins of others, but on our own, and turn to God in repentance, crying;

“Remember me, Lord, in Thy Kingdom.”

In this episode, Fr. Anthony examines the nature of ultimate reality—God, gods, and the arche’—through Scripture and the Fathers. With insights from Journey to Reality, he shows how God transcends all categories and draws us into worship and transformation.  Enjoy the show!

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Ultimate Reality: God, gods, arche’
Fr. Anthony Perkins; 10 September 2025

Text: Zachery Porcu, PhD. 2025. “Chapter 2 – Ultimate Reality” in Journey to Reality; Sacramental Life in a Secular Age.  Ancient Faith Publishing.

Verses to Frame the Discussion

Exodus 24:10. And they saw the God of Israel; and there was under his feet as it were a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness.

Exodus 33:11. Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. When Moses turned again into the camp, his servant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, did not depart from the tent.

Isaiah 6:5. And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”

HE IS GREATER EVEN THAN THIS (SOME FUN WITH AN “INCONSISTENCY” 

Exodus 33:17-20. And the LORD said to Moses, “This very thing that you have spoken I will do; for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.” Moses said, “I pray thee, show me thy glory.” And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you my name ‘The LORD’; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But,” he said, “you cannot see my face; for man shall not see me and live.”

St. Ambrose: “Who shall see my face and live?” Scripture said, and rightly so. For our eyes cannot bear the sun’s rays, and whoever turns too long in its direction is generally blinded, so they say. Now if one creature cannot look upon another creature without loss and harm to himself, how can he see the dazzling face of his eternal Creator while covered with the clothing that is this body?

St. Gregory of Nyssa: He would not have shown himself to his servant if the sight were such as to bring the desire of the beholder to an end, since the true sight of God consists in this, that the one who looks up to God never ceases in that desire. For he says, “You cannot see my face, for man cannot see me and live.”

Scripture does not indicate that this causes the death of those who look, for how would the face of life ever be the cause of death to those who approach it? On the contrary, the divine is by its nature life-giving. Yet it is the characteristic of the divine nature to transcend all characteristics. Therefore he who thinks God is something to be known does not have life, because he has turned from true being to what he considers by sense perception to have being.

Job 38:19-20.  “Where is the way to the dwelling of light, and where is the place of darkness,   that you may take it to its territory and that you may discern the paths to its home?

1 Timothy 6:16. I charge you to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ;  and this will be made manifest at the proper time by the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords,  who alone has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.

John 1:18. No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.

On the resulting religion:

Revelation 9-11.  And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives for ever and ever, 10 the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives for ever and ever; they cast their crowns before the throne, singing,

 “Worthy art thou, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for thou didst create all things,
and by thy will they existed and were created.”

2 Corinthians 3:18.  And we all, with unveiled face, beholding[a] the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

St. John Chrysostom.  The Spirit is God, and we are raised to the level of the apostles, because we shall all behold him together with uncovered faces. As soon as we are baptized, the soul beams even more brightly than the sun because it is cleansed by the Spirit, and we not only behold God’s glory, we also receive from it a kind of splendor.

Segue to the book chapter (theosis requires a repentant mind)

Religion should be more than our consumer society would lead us to believe it is.

“What is the nature of reality?”  What does it all mean?

Mankind wants to know, and he has tried to provide answers.  Many involve a mysterious higher power we call God.

The problem with the word “God.”

[Psalm 94:3.  For the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods.]
[Isaiah 45:5.. I am the Lord, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God.]

Zachary Porcu’s solution: Arche’

Other solutions? Capital “G” God.  “I AM”.  Unmoved Mover. Light.  True God. Tian, Brahman, Absolute.

What is the Arche’ like? (P. 25; J) Life (essence).  Light (essence)

Arche compared to gods, angels, men, and rocks.

Last paragraph of chapter;

So then, when we ask about whether there is a God in this sense, we are not asking whether there is some specific superhuman entity that orders or governs the universe.  That is thinking far too small.  We are asking about the arche’ of all being: the source, principle, the thing that is being itself.  This is the highest of all questions; there is nothing the answer does not affect. 

NOTE: The question of whether the God of the Old Testament was the arche’ or a demiurge was settled decisively: God was, is, and always shall be perfect and uncreated.

Today we started our Fall Wednesday evening education series, during which we are working our way through Zachery Porcu's "Journey to Reality" from Ancient Faith Publishing.  Today, after framing our discussion with the "trees walking" account of the healing of the blind man from the Gospel according to St. Mark (8:22-38 - see below), we cover the main topics in chapter one.  Enjoy the show!

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Trees Walking: the Problem of Discerning the Gospel
Fr. Anthony Perkins; 03 September 2025

Text: Zachery Porcu, PhD. 2025. “Chapter 1 – What is Christianity” in Journey to Reality; Sacramental Life in a Secular Age.  Ancient Faith Publishing.

St. Mark 8:22-38 (KJV)

²² And he cometh to Bethsaida; and they bring a blind man unto him, and besought him to touch him.

²³ And he took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the town; and when he had spit on his eyes, and put his hands upon him, he asked him if he saw ought.

St. Ambrose; Through the font of the Lord and the preaching of the Lord’s passion, your eyes were then opened. You who seemed before to have been blind in heart began to see the light of the sacraments.

²⁴ And he looked up, and said, I see men as trees, walking.

Why would he see men as trees???

²⁵ After that he put his hands again upon his eyes, and made him look up: and he was restored, and saw every man clearly.

Note the progression.

²⁶ And he sent him away to his house, saying, Neither go into the town, nor tell it to any in the town.

²⁷ And Jesus went out, and his disciples, into the towns of Caesarea Philippi: and by the way he asked his disciples, saying unto them, Whom do men say that I am?

²⁸ And they answered, John the Baptist; but some say, Elias; and others, One of the prophets.

How could they not know?

²⁹ And he saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Peter answereth and saith unto him, Thou art the Christ.

But even using the right word, how much did he understand?

³⁰ And he charged them that they should tell no man of him.

³¹ And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.

³² And he spake that saying openly. And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him.

And how much of this plain speaking were they able to hear?

³³ But when he had turned about and looked on his disciples, he rebuked Peter, saying, Get thee behind me, Satan: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men.

This is the warning: a poor understanding of the truth can lead us to condemnation.  (segue to text)

So how can we know the Gospel in a way that saves?

Intellectual knowledge.  Study the Bible!  [oops]

More intellectual knowledge.  Study the Fathers. [oops]

The Bible is not the source of the Gospel or of the Church or of Christianity.  All the written texts of Holy Tradition – to include the Bible - are not the source of Orthodoxy.

How can I make this claim?

It is not the way that the members of the early Church were saved and grew in holiness.  It was not a text that evangelized the Roman Empire.  It was a way of being; a way of thinking; a way of relating.  It was first called “The Way.”

The metaphor of the family (p 13)

Our way of relating to information is new.  Before, information was contextualized within relationships.  We still have some of this, but even people’s experience of Orthodoxy is increasingly a-contextual and un-Orthodox.

The metaphor of sex (p. 15)

Two types of Christianity

         Text-based (re-enactment).  Ideas.  Dissolute community.

         Sacramental participation.  A community with a life-energy (an angel!)

Problems with using the Bible.  Genres: myth, song, prophecy, history, rules, authors, styles.  Needs interpretation!

Need to avoid:  ignoring – forsaking both the culture AND the text (progressive/individualist).  Make the text and the culture what we want it to be.

A paradigm shift to Sacramental Reality.

St. Matthew 19:16-26 (Rich Young Man)
Hebrews 9:1-7

In this homily, Father Anthony reflects on the Gospel of the rich young man, reminding us that salvation is more than meeting a minimum standard—it is a lifelong journey toward holiness. He shows how Christ gently leads us beyond comfort, calling us to surrender our attachments, whether wealth, time, opinions, or fears, in order to live in love and trust before God. Through the practice of kenosis, or self-emptying, we learn to soften our hearts, grow in grace, and allow Christ to transform us into His likeness.

NOTE: The prayer that Fr. Anthony references at the beginning of the homily is: "The Holy Spirt shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee." It is from St. Luke 1:35, with the Archangel Gabriel pronouncing this blessing upon the Virgin Mary.  As Fr. Anthony notes, the Orthodox Church uses this blessing liturgically during the Divine Liturgy.

St. Matthew 18:23-35 (The Unforgiving Servant)
I Corinthians 9:2-12

In this homily, Father Anthony explores the calling of Christians not only to pursue personal holiness, but also to help cultivate a culture of holiness that shapes the life of the parish and the wider world. Using the Divine Liturgy as our pattern, he explains how intentional practices—such as the placement of prayers, offerings, and the way we relate to one another—form habits that naturally move us toward mercy, patience, and love. Reflecting on the parable of the unforgiving servant and St. Paul’s guidance to the early Church, Father Anthony shows that true salvation is not simply release from debt, but the ongoing transformation of our hearts and relationships into the likeness of Christ.

I Corinthians 4:9-16
St. Matthew 17:14-23

Fr. Anthony reflects on St. Paul’s call to imitation, teaching that we are shaped by those around us and must guard our hearts and minds against sin while cultivating holiness. He explains the spiritual power of the Antiochian pre-communion prayers, showing how their repetition trains our minds, transforms our souls, and unites the faithful as one body in Christ.  Enjoy the show!

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Here is the Antiochian Orthodox Pre-Communion Prayer for the Divine Liturgy:

In this homily, we reflect on Christ’s miraculous feeding of the five thousand as a revelation of His abundant love and the Church’s calling to hospitality. Fr. Anthony explores how, through grace, even our limited offerings are multiplied to nourish the world, revealing a Kingdom where scarcity has no place.  Enjoy the show!

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MATTHEW 14:14-22

At that time, Jesus saw a great throng; and he had compassion on them, and healed their sick.

This is what he does.  He sees our suffering and heals us.  What a blessing to have such a compassionate and capable God.

When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, "This is a lonely place, and the day is now over; send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves." Jesus said, "They need not go away; you give them something to eat." 

Hospitality.  We are meant to do more than eat and learn; we are meant to feed and teach.  And more than that, we are meant to instruct others in the way of hospitality, so that they, too, may feed and teach (and teach others to feed and teach).  This system is scalable, through grace, towards perfection.  Scarcity is destroyed by the model of Christian hospitality.

They said to him, "We have only five loaves here and two fish."

The apostles did not have enough and Christ new that.  But He knew they had something He could build on and multiply; again destroying the limitations of scarcity and localism.  St. Hillary develops the spiritual version of this theme; 

This means that up to then they depended on five loaves—that is, the five books of the law. And two fish nourished them—that is, the preaching of the prophets and of John. For in the works of the law there was life just as there is life from bread, but the preaching of John and the prophets restored hope to human life by virtue of water. Therefore the apostles offered these things first, because that was the level of their understanding at the time. From these modest beginnings the preaching of the gospel has proceeded from them, from these same apostles, until it has grown into an immense power.

This is the way the Lord works.  He takes what we are and, through grace, transforms it into something better.  In sin, we are part of the problem.  Hunger, scarcity, selfishness; but He lifts us up and we become part of the solution.  Feeding people with His love from a source that never ends and, as for selfishness, not only moving us unto something better, but allowing us to be a healing balm to those who suffer from the same malady.

And he said, "Bring them here to me." Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass; and taking the five loaves and the two fish he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and broke and gave the loaves to the crowds.

St. Jerome.  By the breaking of the bread, he makes it into a seedbed of food—for if the bread had been left intact and not pulled apart and broken into pieces, they would have been unable to feed the great crowds of men, women and children. The law with the prophets are therefore pulled apart and broken into pieces. Mysteries are made manifest, so that what did not feed the multitude of people in its original whole and unbroken state now feeds them in its divided state.

And they all ate and were satisfied.

The Church has always seen this as pointing toward the Eucharist.  God is the food that is “forever eaten but never consumed.”  Again, note how scarcity does not exist in the Kingdom. 

And they took up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces left over. And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children. Then he made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds.

St. Hilary:  The loaves were given to the apostles, for through them the gifts of divine grace were to be administered. The crowds were then fed with the five loaves and two fish, and they were satisfied. The leftover fragments of bread and fish, after the people had their fill, amounted to twelve baskets. Thus, by the word of God coming from the teaching of the law and the prophets, the multitude was satisfied; and an abundance of divine power, reserved for the Gentiles from the ministry of the eternal food, was left over for the twelve apostles.

And, following this metaphor, still eat from these baskets because our bishop is an inheritor of this meal, something we are blessed to share here so that we may be fed.

Now we celebrate the presence of God in our midst, in this deserted place, healing our infirmities, feeding our hunger, and empowering us to do the same for others.

This recording of the Divine Liturgy (Christ the Saviour, Anderson SC) starts with the Great Doxology.  The homily and reception of communion were cut from the recording.  The sound quality isn't great - it was done with a phone sitting on an analoy off to the side.  Of course, worship is always better in person; join us when you can!  orthodoxanderson.org

Title: Seeing Suffering Brightly: Faith, Discipline, and the Light of Christ

Matthew 7:27-35; The Two Blind Men
In this homily, Fr. Anthony shares Metropolitan Saba's teaching from the 2025 Convention that true spiritual vision begins not in denial of suffering, but in faithful endurance of it, transforming evil through thanksgiving and trust in God. Drawing on real martyrdom and lived faith in places like Damascus, he challenges us to see God’s love even in discipline and to witness to Christ with joy, courage, and unwavering hope.

For a complete text of His Eminence, Metropolitan Saba's talk:  
https://www.antiochian.org/regulararticle/2526

Everything is Awesome!
James 5:10-20; St. Matthew 9:1-8
(Riffing on St. Peter Chrysologus)

Over the last few homilies, I have tried to share an approach to living that looks for the good, and the beautiful, and the true in all things so that we might have joy in them and nurture them towards greater glory.  Today, I am going to continue this lesson by applying it to scripture.  Of course, in this case we are not nurturing scripture to greater glory, but we always grow in our appreciation of its goodness, beauty, and truth so that those virtues might grow within us.

Let’s go through today’s Gospel reading.

This story starts out so mundanely, with Christ entering the boat, crossing the sea, and coming to his town.  But even in, this there is something to learn, something that should leave us in awe.

This is the God who has complete mastery over all the elements, over all of time and space.  Why does he cross the sea in this way – surely the hosts of heaven, at the very least, could have born him to his destination?

As St. Peter Chrysologus teaches us the way that he juxtaposes the material with the spiritual and the mundane with the glorious;

Christ came to take up our infirmities, and to confer his own power upon us; to experience human things, to bestow divine ones; to accept insults, to return honors; to endure what is irksome, and to restore health, because a doctor who does not bear infirmities does not know how to cure; and the one who has not been a fellow patient is unable to confer health.

To summarize St. Gregory of Nazianzus; that part of humanity that God did not accept or assume, cannot be saved.  There were no shortcuts for our salvation.  God became man and lived according to our infirmity (in everything but sin).

Therefore, he endured these limitations so that he would be shown to be true man by these human limitations.

Do you see how much beauty here?

We go on to read that he entered the boat.

He entered a boat?  Sure you see where we are going with this!  We know these truths, but do we ever slow down and just bask in their glory?

What is the boat but the Church?  Again, let’s listen to St. Peter Chrysologus;

Christ always enters the boat of his Church to calm the waves of the world, so that he might lead those who believe in him tranquilly across to his heavenly homeland, and make citizens of his own city those whom he made sharers in his humanity. Therefore, Christ does not need the ship, but the ship needs Christ, because without a Pilot from heaven the ship of the Church is unable to pass through the sea of the world amid so many grave perils and reach heaven’s harbor.

We have talked about the sea and the boat; what about his destination?

How can we not be amazed that the Creator and Lord over all the cosmos, for the sake of our salvation;

… began to have a human homeland, began to be a citizen of a Jewish town, and he himself the Parent of all parents began to have parents, in order that his love might invite, his charity attract, his affection bind, and his kindness persuade those whom his sovereign might had put to flight, dread had scattered, and the force of his power had made exiles.

I cannot tell you how often I passed over these words as if they were filler between the really important things in the narrative.  How often do we do this not just with scripture, but with life?  Every moment, every detail of life is precious, brimming with meaning and potential.  But we skip over this invitation to joy, to glory, because we are looking or waiting for greater things.  My brothers and sisters, in a world that has been infused with the divine, everything is steeped in magnificence.

And so, we finally get to the meat of the story;

He came to his own town, and they brought him a paralytic lying on a bed. And when Jesus saw their faith, it says, he said to the paralytic: “Have confidence, son! Your sins are forgiven you” (vv. 1–2).

While the point about God having the power to forgive sins, and Him choosing to exercise that power as man, as the new Adam, thus setting the scene for giving that power to us as the new humanity in Him; while all that may be obvious, or if not obvious, certainly provides the grist for most homilies on this passage….

There are details that we often pass over and that deserve our attention. 

Jesus saw their faith…

Their faith… not the faith of the paralytic.  St. Peter points out that the faith of the infirm is often unreliable – the mind of the infirm is often delirious – and so “he does not examine all the senseless desires of the infirm, but he comes to help thanks to someone else’s faith, so that he may grant through grace alone, and not deny, whatever is of the divine will.”

What a beautiful thing is the love of the Lord for all of us in our delirium!  And, when we are thinking straight, and thus concerned more for the ill and infirm among us as ourselves – he brings his mercy and forgiveness to those we bring to him!  Do you see how great this is?  When we pray for others, it does not fall on deaf ears but on ears that are always ready to hear and respond.  And who is more ill among us than the spiritually or even physically injured or dead?  And yet He teaches us, through this example from His life and from the way His Spirit has guided our worship and prayer to pray for all, and most especially for those who cannot pray or act for themselves.  Lord hear our prayer!

And, just to make sure you appreciate the goodness evident here, take a moment to appreciate the paralysis and incapacitation of our own minds and thus appreciate why it is that the prayers of the prayers of the righteous avail so much!  They bring our paralyzed souls into the presence of God and plead for our healing before Him.

And to all this, the Pharisees responded: He blasphemes: for who can forgive sins except God alone? (v. 3)

6. And when Jesus had seen their thoughts, it says, he said to them: “Why do you think evil in your hearts? What is easier to say: your sins are forgiven you, or to say: stand up and walk? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has power to forgive sins”—he then said to the paralytic: “Stand up, pick up your bed, and go home.” And he stood up and went home (vv. 4–7).

Pick up your bed, that is, “Carry what used to carry you, reverse the burden, so that what is a testimony to your infirmity may be a proof that you are healed; so that the bed of your pain may be evidence that I cured you; so that the amount of its weight may attest to the amount of strength you have regained.”

Go home, to the place that you belong – our heart’s true home.  The place that is where we can grow in glory.  The place that is for the believer – every single place, because every single place, like every single moment, is connected with the divine source of all beautiful, good, and true.

Peter Chrysologus, Selected Sermons of Saint Peter Chrysologus, ed. Thomas P. Halton, trans. William B. Palardy, vol. 2, The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2004), 193–197.

The Sunday for the Fourth Ecumenical Council
Titus 3:8-15; Matthew 5:14-19

Note: the recording includes a few seconds when Fr. Anthony's mind went apophatic and he forgot a critical detail.  Real life is like that sometimes!  

First Council: Nicea in 325 (vs. Arius)

"And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Only-begotten, Begotten of the Father before all worlds, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, Begotten, not made; of one essence with the Father, by whom all things were made: 

Who for us men and our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and was made man; 

And was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered and was buried;  And the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; And ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of the Father;  And He shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead, Whose kingdom shall have no end."

Second Council: Constantinople in 381 (defend the Holy Spirit).

Finished our Creed; Holy Spirit, the Church, Baptism, Resurrection, Life in the age to come.

Third Council: Ephesus 431 (vs. Nestorius – she gave birth to the man Christ; Christotokos).

Jesus Christ was fully God and fully Man.

Because Jesus was true God of true God, the Virgin Mary gave birth to God; thus she should be called Theotokos. 

Fourth Council: Chalcedon in 451 (vs. Nestorianism and the Abbot Eutyches and the Alexandrian Patriarch Diasocurus (recent robber council)

The Fathers accepted the message sent by Pope Leo, which Dioscorus had abstained from reading at his robber Council in Ephesus. In the message, The Pope distinguishes clearly between the two natures, emphasizing the presence of the two natures in one hypostasis.

Among the most important conclusions of the Council was that Christ is “perfect God and perfect Man. A true God and a true Man. Equal to the Father in Godhead and equal to us in humanity, like us in everything except in sin. He was begotten from the Father as God pre-eternally and in the last days He was born of the virgin Mary the Mother of God (Theotokos), according to humanity. He is one. He is the Messiah, the Son of God, the Lord who must be confessed in two natures united without confusion nor change, without division nor separation. He was not divided into two persons but he has always been the Only Begotten God the Word and the Lord Jesus Christ”.

 In this Chalcedonian definition, the Fathers of the Council re-emphasized the Creed. They also emphasized two other important things:

·      The unity of the person in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is indicated in the “he is one and the same”. The Lord Jesus Christ is One. He is the Word of God eternally born from the eternal Father before the ages, and born from Mary in humanity.

·      That the two natures in Christ sustain their properties amidst the unity of the person. The word became Flesh assuming all the Human Nature except “sinning”, without giving up or abandoning his Divine Nature.

Application

The Church Fathers chose a gospel to be read in relation to this Council. It is Christ’s saying: “You are the light of the world”. 

Not just the physical light, but the spiritual light.

One of the things that the spiritual light is that we can be full of it ourselves; that we can carry God within us and He can become the light through which we see one another.

Not the light of ego or self-confidence; this is a shortcut which will lead us into division (heresy); not the heresy of Nestorius or Eutechius, but the witness of a proud and divisive spirit that actually drives the self and others away from the true light – even while using pious words of Scripture and the Fathers.

 This true light is helps us see one another. The Lord says after that: “let your light shine on people so that they can see your work and glorify your Father in the heavens”.

This is done not by pious strutting or false humility; but by the way we see and connect with others in the light; by the way we avoid being contaminated by giving in to the dark tempations of the world; and by sharing the same kind of sacrificial light that the Source of Light did when He became perfect man.

That is how we can live as a real family with God in heaven as our Father. We avoid sin; and we love one another.

This way we can make God’s Will come true. The gospel which we heard was chosen to describe the Holy Fathers (whose number is 630) of the Fourth Ecumenical Council in Chalcedon. These Fathers were the light of the world in both their time and ours as well. We abide by their teachings which were handed down to us. By their teachings we are able to avoid the darkness of heresy.

Let us be like them. Let them be our example and model, through Christ, who lives in them, that He might dwell in us too.

See https://www.antiochpatriarchate.org/en/page/1155/ for a more thorough treatment.

In this homily on St Matthew 8:5-13 (the faith of the Centurian), given on the Sunday after the Feast of American Independence (7/6/2025), Fr. Anthony continues to remind us of our calling to order creation, focusing on the evangelic method that looks for the good in something and working to make it better.  Christ did not focus on the faults of the Centurian, but on what was good in Him so that it might become his defining characteristic and thus guide him (in Christ!) towards the better, the more beautiful, and the True.  He encourages us to do this for our neighbor and our nation.  Enjoy the show!

This homily was given at an outdoor chapel up in the mountains at Camp St. Thekla on the 27th of June, 2026.  The recorder was a few feet away from Fr. Anthony, so the recording has a chorus of insects as background noise.  In the homily, Fr. Anthony describes our calling to identify and nurture the good in creation (to include that in our souls!) towards perfection.  Enjoy the show!

This homily was given on the 26th of June 2025 at Camp St. Thekla in Cleveland, South Carolina, at the celebration of the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul (offered in anticipation).  In it, Fr. Anthony reflects on the bold faith and deep friendship between these two pillars of the Church. Drawing from their distinct personalities— Peter the confident fisherman who was always both bold and repentant and Paul the intellectual missionary who was always ready to live and sacrifice for his beliefs.  Father encourages all of us to recognize how God uses our unique gifts for a greater purpose. He challenges listeners, especially the youth, to be courageous in their faith, to build strong friendships rooted in Christ, and to be open to the mission God is calling them to.  Fr. Anthony gave a version of this homily tailored for his parish the following Sunday (but neglected to record it).  Enjoy the show!

This homily was given at Camp St. Thekla in Cleveland SC, on June 24, 2025, the Nativity of St. John the Baptist. Fr. Anthony used it as an opportunity to encourage all the campers who felt like they didn't belong.  It touches on the themes of prophecy, being called, and how to listen for the voice of God.  Enjoy the show!

The Feast of All Saints
Hebrews 11:33-40; 12:1-2;
St. Matthew 10:32-33; 37-38; 19:27-30

After clearing up potential confusion about "leaving" families as a sure way to heaven, Fr. Anthony asks how we are doing with the gifts of the Passion, Resurrection, and Pentecost (THE Holy Spirit!) God has given us to assist us in our healing and perfection.  He encourages us to do a gut check on how we are doing by looking at the degree to which criticism and praise pull us from our peace.  Enjoy the show!

Pentecost: The Language of Love
This episode explores Pentecost as more than a miracle of tongues—it's a call to unity through the divine language of love. The Holy Spirit empowers us to truly listen, love, and live in communion. Through grace, repentance, and the Eucharist, we are formed into the family of God—one in purpose, diverse in gift, united by love.  Enjoy the show!

The Truth Matters
This homily explores why truth is essential—in logic, relationships, and faith. It examines the unique role of religion, the danger of distorting truth (like Arius did), and the deep meaning of Christ’s incarnation, resurrection, and ascension. Standing on the Rock of Christ, we’re called to live in love and invite others to the truth God gives as a gift.  Enjoy the show!

In today's class, Fr. Anthony talks about spiritual fatherhood and how the health of the parish flows from the health of the priest and back.  The talk included the temptation of tyranny, young-eldership (mladastarstvo), and people-pleasing.  Enjoy the show!

John 4:5-42.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus talks about living water and secret food—not physical things, but spiritual truths.
So here’s the big question: What truly motivates us? Is it money, health, happiness? Those things matter—but they don’t last. When life gets hard, they can’t sustain us.
Jesus shows us something deeper. His true nourishment is doing God’s will—connecting with others, sharing love, offering grace. That’s the “living water” He gave to the Samaritan woman, and it transformed her life.
And it can transform ours, too.
Let’s find our purpose in loving well. That’s what will carry us through every season—even into eternal life.

On Paralytic Sunday, Christ asks a man who had been sick for 38 years, “Do you want to be made well?” It’s a question that reaches beyond the Gospel and speaks directly to us. True healing—spiritual and physical—begins with recognizing our need, seeking real help, and committing to the path of recovery. Christ is the Great Physician, and the Church is His hospital. But healing isn’t automatic; it requires humility, trust, and obedience. As with the paralytic, Christ knows our pain and desires our healing. The question is: do we truly want to be made well?

In John 9:1–38, Jesus heals a man born blind, showing that suffering isn’t always caused by sin but can reveal God’s glory. St. John Chrysostom teaches that the man's blindness led to humility and spiritual insight, unlike the Pharisees who remained spiritually blind. The reflection calls us to open our eyes to God’s grace in everyday life, allowing ordinary things—like relationships—to become vessels of holiness through love and intention.

Today Fr. Anthony started out talking about some of the temptations that come with becoming Orthodox, but most of the conversation ended up being about the draw and danger of cults. Enjoy the show!

Today’s reflection centers on the Myrrhbearers — those who came to anoint Jesus’ body after His death. Their actions teach us a powerful lesson about love as duty rather than transaction or warm fuzzy. They approached the tomb thinking Jesus was still dead and knowing (!) that he was utterly unable to reward them for their sacrifices. But their actions found resonance with something deep and real - the Love that knows no death.

Fr. Anthony speaks about different liturgical traditions, their history and significance, especially Pascha. Enjoy the show!

This homily from Thomas Sunday emphasizes the point that God does not condemn doubt but invites honest seekers into deeper belief. True belief in Christ isn't just accepting facts, but trusting in His love, intentions, and power—similar to the trust found in all healthy relationships. Doubt, when motivated by a sincere desire for truth, can lead to greater faith, especially when brought into open, loving community. However, skepticism rooted in malice or apathy is spiritually harmful. Christ welcomes honest questions because they build relationship, but He opposes harmful, rigid belief used to hurt others. Ultimately, believers are called to trust Christ, share faith with love and patience, and grow in a relationship that leads to real, eternal life.

Entrepreneur, Orthodox Christian, and former radio host Jimmy Harris shares his own experiences with overcoming financial adversity using sound Biblical principles, and through this, leading his family into financial peace and prosperity. Enjoy the show!

In this homily, Fr Anthony challenges us to reflect on our own expectations of God. Like the Jews, we often approach God with our own predefined ideas of what He should do for us. When our problems persist or even worsen, we are faced with a choice: either we try to control God and limit His power by confining Him to our expectations, or we allow Him to transform our lives in unexpected ways, leading us to a deeper relationship with Him. Enjoy the show!

Today, Fr. Anthony continues to keep it real while talking about the great challenge of loving our enemies.  

Love your enemies.

Matthew 5:43-48
1 Corinthians 13: 1
John 13:34
Romans 15:1a

St. John Chrysostom:  [St. Paul] adorns love not only for what it has but also for what it has not. Love both elicits virtue and expels vice, not permitting it to spring up at all.

St John Chrysostom: For neither did Christ simply command to love but to pray. Do you see how many steps he has ascended and how he has set us on the very summit of virtue? Mark it, numbering from the beginning.

·      A first step is not to begin with injustice.

·      A second, after one has begun, is not to vindicate oneself by retaliating in kind.

·      A third, to refuse to respond in kind to the one who is injuring us but to remain tranquil.

·      A fourth, even to offer up one’s self to suffer wrongfully.

·      A fifth, to give up even more than the wrongdoer wishes to take.

·      A sixth, to refuse to hate one who has wronged us.

·      A seventh, even to love such a one.

·      An eighth, even to do good to that one.

·      A ninth, to entreat God himself on our enemy’s behalf.

Do you perceive how elevated is a Christian disposition? Hence its reward is also glorious.

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Why should we love our enemies?
Fear of punishment, desire for reward?  To become holy as God is holy: NOT TRANSACTIONAL.

Practical truth – NOT JUST “who is my neighbor” BUT ALSO “who is my enemy?” 

Let’s stop putting people into categories of who deserves love or prayer and live – and suffer - for the salvation of all.  That's the way God does it and that's the way we must do it, too.

Fr. Anthony concludes his prestantation on beauty at the 2025 UOL Lenten retreat by connecting music with love.

Music taps into and draws from something that is primal, foundational, and rational (word – bearing); so does love.  Music requires mastery of certain skills and concepts that require repetition to master; so does love.  Music improves when there are different voices represented; so does love.  Music works with dissonance to move us towards deeper truths; so does love.  Music often requires periods of silence for listening, anticipation, and appreciation; so does love.

Fr. Roman Marchyshak is the priest at Holy Trinity Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Trenton, NJ and teaches liturgical music at St. Sophia Ukrainian Orthodox Seminary.  In this presentation, he talks about the role music plays in the worship of the Orthodox Church, reminding us that it is not an adornment, but an essential element.  He had some of the seminarians from St. Sophia's sing selected pieces to illustrate his main points.  Enjoy the show!

This is the audio for the first part of the 2025 Ukrainian Orthodox League Lenten Retreat held on Saturday April 5th in Philadelphia.

Beauty helps us understand Orthodox (INCARNATIONAL!) theology better and thus live more graceful lives.  It is also one of the best ways to do Orthodox Evangelism.  People come to us for many reasons, but an encounter with God is what they really long for.  Beauty is a special charisma of the Church – secular beauty is a pale imitation (or perversion) of that true beauty.  Beauty resonates with the built-in beauty receptors of our senses, intellect, and nous.

Enjoy the show!

On the Sunday of St. John of the Ladder, Fr. Anthony delivers a homily that encourages us to take our pursuit of joy, peace, and freedom from anxiety seriously. He begins by asking whether we truly want these things or if we expect them to come without effort, likening it to people desiring health or success without being willing to make the necessary sacrifices. He emphasized that true peace and joy require commitment, not idle desire, and must be pursued through effort, prayer, and fasting.

Fr. Anthony critiqued the common temptation of chasing material security and success, such as the promises of the "American Dream." While these may offer temporary peace, he warned that they are ultimately unreliable. Instead, Fr. Anthony pointed to the ascetic struggle of Orthodoxy, which teaches the importance of cultivating true love for God and others while rejecting selfishness. This process, he explained, involves training the heart to be immune to external manipulation and cutting the "strings" that vice and bad habits use to control us.

In closing, Fr. Anthony reminds us the faithful of the spiritual disciplines of fasting, prayer, and charity, especially during Great Lent. He urges us to evaluate our progress in these practices and to recommit ourselves to the ascetic path if we have fallen short. Ultimately, the homily leaves us with this message: true joy and peace come from aligning with God’s will, casting out the demons of vice, and living according to the Orthodox faith.

Fr. Anthony leads a discussion with the men of Christ the Savior's parish on the basics of leading a Christian home. Enjoy the show!

Still trying to “keep it real,” Fr. Anthony leads a class on the challenges that come when we try to love our neighbor. Enjoy the show!

Mark: 8:34-9:1.
In this homily, Fr. Anthony discusses the true meaning of taking up one's cross in Christian life. He emphasizes that Christ's cross was not just a symbol of pain but of sacrificial love, where Jesus Christ gave Himself for the salvation of others. The act of following Christ involves denying personal desires to serve others, even when it's difficult or misunderstood. By sacrificing our time and efforts for others' well-being, we emulate Christ's example, aligning our actions with His purpose for eternal life. The homily highlights that true sacrifice is motivated by love and the desire to see others thrive, leading to spiritual glory. Enjoy the show!

In this lesson, Fr. Anthony talks about how necessary a prayer rule and proper worship are to knowing and loving God. Enjoy the show!

After reading part of Philippians 2, Fr Anthony talks about the work we are called to do, how our disordered minds thwart it, and what we can do about it. Enjoy the show!

Fr. Anthony talks with Dn. Basil about recent findings on religion and the authoritarian personality. Dn. Basil in a a professional therapist; his practice is Mount Tabor Counseling (mounttaborcounseling.com). Enjoy the show!

The Sunday of Orthodoxy: Embrace the Fullness of the Faith
Fr. Anthony Perkins

Every morning we join together and pray:

Lord, save and have mercy on our civil authorities; protect our nation with peace, subduing our every foe and adversary. Fill the hearts of our leaders with peaceful, benevolent thoughts for your Holy Church and for all your people so that we, in their tranquility, may lead a peaceful and quiet life in true faith and in all godliness and purity.

This same attitude is found amongst the most solemn intercessor prayers in all of Orthodoxy: those that occur during the Anaphora. In the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, the prayer is;

We also offer You this spiritual worship for the whole world, for the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, and for all those who live in purity and holiness. And for all those in public service, permit them Lord, to serve and govern in peace, that in their tranquility we may lead a calm and quiet life in all Godliness and purity.

This is our approach to politics, and this is the basis of our theology of church and state.

We are expected to pray for our government, that it provides a safe place for us to pursue perfection. And don’t forget that pursuing perfection is what we are all about. We are learning to radiate peace and joy and unity so strongly, to be transformed by the grace and mercy of Christ so completely, that the people and world around us are themselves transformed. That when people see us on the streets, they recognize us as something different because of our love; that when they see us together as a church they are awed by the love that radiates among us and warmed by the Spirit that burns within our hearts.

It is wonderful when the government respects this and gives us a safe space to make it happen. But sometimes the government goes beyond this. Sometimes it wants to get more involved. Orthodoxy is a way of life – we do not simply pursue holiness in our minds and before the icons in our prayer corners or in our houses of worship: we do it 24/7, with an approach to life that is complete and holistic. The way we eat, the way we talk, everything we do – it’s all designed to further this one goal: the healing and perfection of us and of this world. When the government sees it as its own responsibility to guide us towards a certain way of thinking and living – rather than as simply the force that protects us as we think and live – we quickly run into problems.

On previous Sundays of Orthodoxy, I have preached about the transformative power of beauty, of the fact that icons are not only allowed by Christianity but required by it, I have explained the findings of the councils and why they are true. These are very important lessons, and I will, no doubt return to them in future years. But certainly one of the lessons to be learned from the whole nasty history of iconoclasm – when morality police came into our churches and destroyed our icons and told us we were wicked for having them – is just how dangerous it is for the government to get involved in the substance of theological disputes. And it gets even worse when it seeks to enforce the version it believes is best for us.

But thank God we are free from such things here and now. Thank God the First Amendment [and the rest of the Constitution] encourages our government to protect us rather than change us. This, combined with the melting pot of cultures and religions here has created a widespread respect for the ideal of religious diversity, even when disparate beliefs are held with fervor.

But here’s the thing. There really have been times when people hid their icons because the authorities were confiscating them and persecuting the people who were caught with them. Here, don’t just think of when the iconoclasts ruled in Constantinople in parts of the first millennium; the militant atheist iconoclasts in the Soviet Union destroyed plenty of icons in the 20th century and Muslims have done this more recently than in Kosovo and the Middle East.

But in America we are free. No one is taking our icons. And yet even so it seems to me that the iconoclasts are winning, not just in our broader American culture (which we are called to sanctify), but perhaps even amongst us, in our own homes.

When strangers come into our homes, are they greeted with an image of that which is central to our identity? The thing that drives and draws us toward peace and perfection? Are our wedding and patronal icons central to the “feng shui” of our living rooms and bedrooms? Do we have reminders in our kitchens and hallways that there is a Christian manner of eating and living? Is there an icon near our television to remind us that our every thought should be pure and chaste, that it is better to pluck our eye than allow it to pull us off the path of righteousness?

And remember, it’s not just about icons. All our life is to be transformed by our life in Christ. It is a holistic way of life that informs and blessed everything. The way we eat, the way we think, the way we love.

If we have not sanctified our homes with icons, I wonder if we have sanctified them with prayer. If we have not sanctified them with prayer, then there is no way we can them with love. And if we have no love, our lives are full of noise and confusion, and we are little more than wasted potential; wasted skin and mind and soul.

The world believes that icons are unnecessary. We know that to be a lie.

St. John of Damascus lived in a time when icons were being attacked, both by the Muslim authorities who governed over him and his flock and by heretical religious authorities who shared their vision. He was a theologian, so he defended icons with theological arguments, but his strongest advice was pastoral:

He wanted to see his people free. He wanted to see them healed. He wanted to see them holy. He knew that Orthodoxy – the fullness of the faith (and not some compromised watered-down version) was essential to that purpose.

So he told them to embrace their icons, despite the surrounding culture.

I want you to be free. I want you to be healed. I want to see you holy. I know that Orthodoxy – the fullness of the faith (and not some compromised watered-down version), is essential to that purpose.

So I encourage you to embrace your icons. And not just icons. Resist every temptation and encouragement to water down any aspect of your faith; not by attacking the forces that mock or try to destroy your faith, but by committing yourself to a life in Christ. To prayer. To fasting. To sacrificial giving. To chastity.

As we will proclaim together at the end of the Liturgy; 

This is the Faith of the Apostles.
This is the Faith of the Fathers.
This is the Faith of the Orthodox.
This is the Faith which has established the Universe.

In the name …

MATTHEW 6:14-21

The Lord said, "If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. And when you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by men but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

We are going on a journey up a mountain – we should not carry things that are not worth having.  

This is part of the connection between forgiveness and fasting; 

• “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth…”

• Holding onto grudges – remembrances of wrongs – is the polyunsaturated meal that multiplies like the food in Gurgi’s magical sack: no matter how much we eat, there is always more.  But the more we eat, the more we are weighed down, the more damage we do to our souls, and the less capable we are of the theotic climb to holiness.

Three types of letting go.

1.  Exoneration: this is the ideal – wipes the slate clean

• It was an accident – no intent

• The actor was a child or an innocent; reconciliation should not even be threatened and should automatically be restorred

• The person is truly sorry; takes full responsibility; asks for forgiveness, and shows through their actions that they are reliable partners in love

• IN THESE CASES FULL EXONERATION IS REQUIRED; THE WORLD BECOMES BETTER WHEN WE DO AND WORSE WHEN WE DON’T

• “If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?

But there is forgiveness with thee.” Matthew 129:3-4.

2. Forbearance

• Apology is qualified or inauthentic

• Let go of the thought

• “Forgive but don't forget”; setting of boundaries

• Allows us to maintain relations with people we cannot avoid or that we love

• Allows for the possibility of eventual exoneration as the person grows in goodness

• In scripture; all the commandments to be patient with one another and for the strong to bear the burdens of the weak speak to this kind of forgiveness.

3. Release

• No recognition of wrongdoing

• No repentance

• No expectation that the person will not do it in the future

• FORGIVENESS OF THIS KIND.DOES NOT EXONERATE

• Liberating.

• “And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet.”  St. Matthew 10:14.

Three Mistakes many of us make:

• Reconciling when it hasn’t been earned through repentance

• There is not more heartfelt sorrow and desire for forgiveness than that offered by the addict or the one who is set to lose things they value because of their sin.

• There is also little less reliable.

• Reliability is an attribute of love.  Those adults who cannot be relied on to be reliable do not deserve complete reconciliation.  They have earned boundaries of various types.  Some belong in category three.

• Those who demand reconciliation because of the depth of their feelings may be either sincere or manipulative, but it takes discernment to determine if complete reconciliation should be given.  For those with whom we have a good history, this can be done in steps.
  
  

• Taking offense when none was intended.  We are terrible at discerning intent, but we jump to it so quickly.  Offer grace and, if needed, a conversation.  Flowing from this:
  
  

• Coming at relationships like lawyers or police interrogators rather than friends and Christians.
  
  

We’ve got a mountain to climb…

Forgiveness is one of the great superpowers granted to us; let's use it properly.

Revelation Class 15;  Heading to the Final Showdown
26 February 2025
Revelation, Chapter Twenty – Twenty-two

Andrew of Caesarea, Commentary on the Apocalypse, ed. David G. Hunter, trans. Eugenia Scarvelis Constantinou, vol. 123, The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2011).

Fr. John Peck; Fr. Barnabas Powell. Rejecting RAPTUREMANIA: An Orthodox Look at a Dubious Doctrine (Function). Kindle Edition.

Patrick Henry Reardon, Revelation: A Liturgical Prophecy (Yonkers, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2018).

Chapter Twenty

One thousand years.  

Andrew of Caesarea:  … The one thousand years, therefore, is the time from <the year of> the Incarnation of the Lord until the coming of the Antichrist.

Gog and Magog.

Fr. Patrick Reardon.  The name is not especially important for the identification of the invader; like the other names in these chapters of Ezekiel, it symbolizes evil realities much larger and more menacing than their historical references. Thus understood, Gog and his forces appear here in Revelation 20.

On Eternal Punishment

Andrew of Carsarea.  For also as there are “many mansions in my Father’s” <house> among those saved, thus, here too, there are different places and manners of punishments, those sharper and those milder, by which those not deemed worthy of the Book of Life will be tried.

Chapter Twenty-One

The End of Evil.

Fr. Patrick Reardon.  In this final vision, which lasts two chapters, John is aware that seven things are gone forever: the sea, death, grief, crying, pain, the curse, and the night (21:1, 4; 22:3, 5). Here we are dealing with the definitive abolition of conflict, the end of chaos. The first symbol of this chaos is the sea...

The New Eden.

Fr. Patrick Reardon.  John’s vision here, especially verses 19–21, is also related to Ezekiel 28:12–15, where we find joined the themes of the mountain and the precious stones, for this city is also the Garden of Eden, where those stones first grew (cf. Gen 2:10–12).

An Example of Symbolic Interpretation (the stones)

Andrew of Caesarea.  By the amethyst, being somehow fiery in appearance, I surmise Matthias is signified, having been deemed worthy of the divine fire in the distribution of tongues and filling again the place of the one who had fallen, with fiery yearning to be well pleasing to the One who had chosen <him>.

Chapter Twenty-Two

The Living Waters.

Fr. Patrick Reardon.  The theme of the living waters is very much central to the Johannine corpus (cf. Jn 4:7–15; 7:38; 19:34; 1 Jn 5:6–8).

The Seal/Name.

Fr. Patrick Reardon.  Heaven, portrayed here as vision and worship with the angels (verses 8–9), is for all those whose foreheads are sealed with the mark of the living God. This sealing, of course, stands in contrast to the mark of beast…

Blessed is the Kingdom…

Fr. Patrick Reardon.  In this book a great deal has been said about the worship in the heavenly sanctuary. Now we learn that Christians already share in the worship that the angels give to God (verses 8–9).

The End of Old Time

Fr. Patrick Reardon.  Verse 11 indicates a definite cut-off point in history, which is the final coming of Christ. Verse 12, which quotes Isaiah 40:10, promises the reward, which is access to the Holy City, eternal beatitude—the fullness of communion with God. In preparation for that reward, verses 14–16 are something of an altar call, an appeal for repentance, based on all that this book has said.

The Final Partition

Fr. Patrick Reardon.  In referring to those “outside” the City, John is relying on an ancient eucharistic discipline of the Church, called “excommunication,” which literally excluded the person from receiving holy communion. …

Some Terms

Chiliasm was (may have been?) renounced at the Second Ecumenical Council.  

The millennium is now.  The first resurrection confused people: it is the one to hades or the bosom of Abraham.

Pre-millennialism is very similar to chiliasm.  A literal reign.  It misunderstands the language.

About the Rapture

From Fr. John Peck and Fr. Barnabas Powell.  “There is no Rapture. It isn’t in the Bible. It was invented in the 19th century, and spread because of new religious groups, and the use of a specifically tailored study Bible. Believers will be present for the Great Tribulation to give their witness and glorify God, as the Bible says. There is no Third Coming of Christ. When Christ returns, that is the end of this world, and it will be unmistakable. There will be no doubt whatsoever.  Stop worrying about what you will do if Jesus comes back before you die. Instead, worry about what will happen if you die before Jesus comes back.”

From the OSB: Christ’s second coming will entail a sudden revelation of judgment.  One will be taken to heaven and the other left for eternal condemnation.  The separation of the saints from the wicked will occur on “the day when the Son of man is revealed” (v. 30) and not, as some speculate today, at an event that occurs before His return.

As for Preterism and Partial Preterism; the Orthodox Church does not look to the book of Revelation for specific data on the end times.  If you want to shoehorn it into this debate, it is partial-preterist.  

St. Matthew 25:31-46. Fr. Anthony covers the literal meaning and two spiritual meanings of the parable, noting that it should come as no surprise that diligently following the Orthodox Way prepares us to move to the right-hand, glory and thanks to God! Enjoy the show!

(Luke 15: 11-32). Riffing off of St Nikolai Velimirovic, Fr Anthony preaches on the attributes of love - patience, forgiveness, and joy - that the father exhibits towards his sons as he pastors and encourages them them towards perfection.

Revelation Class 14 – 19; Heading to the Final Showdown
12 February 2025
Revelation, Chapter Fifteen - Twenty 

Patrick Henry Reardon, Revelation: A Liturgical Prophecy (Yonkers, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2018), 79–.

Chapter Fifteen

John sees in heaven the tabernacle of testimony from the Book of Exodus, the traveling tent of the divine presence that Moses and the Israelites carried through the desert. This tent, however, is “heavenly,” which means that it is the original model, the very pattern that Moses copied (Ex 25:9, 40; Acts 7:44; Heb 8:5). …

The tent itself is full of the cloud of the divine presence, the very cloud that led the Israelites through the desert of old. When that tent was dedicated in the desert, the divine cloud took up residence within it (Ex 40:34–38). That cloud later took residence in Solomon’s temple (1 Kgs 8:1–12), where Isaiah beheld it (6:1–4). In prophetic vision Ezekiel saw that cloud return to the second temple built in 520–16 (Ez 44:4).

Chapter Sixteen

… As in the account in Exodus, the intent of this [these] plague[s] is that the idolaters should repent, but in neither case does it happen. …

… Verse 15 contains a well-known saying of Jesus, in which he compares his final return to the coming of a thief in the dead of night. This dominical saying is preserved in the Gospels of Matthew (24:43) and Luke (12:39)….

Chapter Seventeen

John’s vision of the woman on the scarlet beast is better understood if one bears in mind certain features of his cultural and religious memory [idolatry as fornication; Jezabel as a wicked woman with loose morals connected with Baal;  Proverbs on good vs. bad woman (Wisdom vs. Folly); Cleopatra? And Berenice (daughter of Herod); and the city of Rome]. 

Chapter Eighteen

This chapter deals with the city of sin, Babylon. It is not a prophecy of the downfall of Rome, such as that of AD 410 for instance, but an affirmation of hope for the downfall of what the pagan Roman Empire stood for. …

John’s complaint against the economic and commercial idolatry of his time should be regarded against the background of the Bible’s prophetic literature, especially the prophecies of Amos and Isaiah, who spoke out frequently against the unjust practices of the business world that they knew. price fixing, monopoly, widespread unemployment, and so forth. Actually, such considerations are among the most common in the Bible.

We observe that John does not see Babylon fall. An angel tells him that it has already happened. John, that is to say, has no violent vision. There is no projection, here, of a vindictive spirit; it is, rather, the divine resolution of a cosmic problem. …

Chapter Nineteen

The previous chapter spoke of the destruction of Babylon, pictured as a woman dressed in scarlet. …. We begin the chapter with the “Alleluia.” Although our own experience may prompt us to associate that fine prayer with the sight and scent of lilies, here in Revelation it resounds against the background of smoke rising from a destroyed city. The worship scene portrayed here is related to victory over the forces of hell…

By portraying the reign of God as a marriage feast, John brings together three themes, all of them familiar to the Christians of his day. [banquet; wedding; garments]…

Luke 18:10-14. In this homily on the Publican and Pharisee, Fr. Anthony loses his voice and misses a couple of his points but still manages to spend over twenty minutes preaching about the need for repentance and good habits on the way to holiness. Enjoy the show!

Revelation Class 13 – The Woman and the Beasts
05 February 2025
Revelation, Chapter Twelve - Fourteen 

Patrick Henry Reardon, Revelation: A Liturgical Prophecy (Yonkers, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2018), 70–78.

Chapter Twelve

… Nonetheless, this is not simply a description of the Lord’s nativity. The Woman in the vision is the mother of Jesus, but she is more; she is also the Church, which gives birth to Christ in the world. The sufferings and persecution of the Church are described as birth pangs (cf. Jn 16:21–22).

The serpent, of course, is the ancient dragon that is the enemy of our race, the one who seduced the first woman in the garden. …

Chapter Thirteen

Up till now we have seen two beasts, one of them from the underworld (Chapter 11) and the other from the heavens (Chapters 12). Two more beasts will appear in the present chapter, one of them from the sea (verse 1), who also has seven heads and ten horns (cf. 12:3), and one from the land (verse 11). … 

Far more than ourselves, one fears, the early Christians were aware of the power of evil in the world. They spoke of it frequently in personified forms that are difficult to interpret literally. And the Christians described their relationship to this evil as one of warfare. …

Now we come to the beast arising out of the earth, a parody of Christ in the sense that he faintly resembles a lamb (verse 11). Performing great signs and bringing fire down from heaven (verse 13), he is also a parody of the two witnesses in Chapter 11; in this respect he resembles the magicians of Egypt. The Gospels, we recall, have several warnings against false christs and false prophets, who will work wonders. …

Interpreters of the sacred text, however, have been most partial to the Hebrew form of the name, “Nero Caesar,” which does, in fact, add up to exactly the number six hundred and sixty-six. There are other possibilities, but this explanation seems the most compelling. The number was thus a reference to Nero, the first Roman emperor who ever undertook the persecution of the Christian Church.

Chapter Fourteen

… On the image of harvest as judgment, see Joel 4:13–14 (3:9–14). The Son of Man on the cloud is, of course, from the Book of Daniel, an image that Jesus interprets of Himself in each of the Synoptic Gospels.

The rising pool of blood becomes a kind of Red Sea. Indeed, the following chapter will be full of imagery from the Book of Exodus. plagues, the cloud of the divine presence, the tent of testimony, Moses, the crossing of the Red Sea, and the destruction of the pursuers.

Luke 2:22-40. Today the Meeting of the Lord was on a Sunday so everyone got some candles! They also heard Fr. Anthony preach on the stories and virtues of some of the participants in this great feast. Enjoy the show!

Luke 19:1-10 Today Fr. Anthony praises St. Zacchaeus’ true repentance, compares it to an ephemeral sort of repentance, and notes the great freedom that simplicity brings.

Enjoy the show & please forgive the audio quality!

Revelation Class 12 – The Trumpets
22 January 2025
Revelation, Chapter Eight - Eleven 

Patrick Henry Reardon, Revelation: A Liturgical Prophecy (Yonkers, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2018), 58–69.

In the present text, the immediate response to the opening of the seventh seal is silence in heaven for thirty minutes (verse 1), while the angels with the seven trumpets prepare themselves (verses 2, 6), and the throne room is ritually incensed (verse 3). The silence that accompanies the incensing provides a time for prayers to be offered, the ascending of which is symbolized in the rising incense smoke (cf. Lk 1:9–10; Ex 30:1–9; Talmud, “Tamid” 3.1). In the temple ritual of Israel, it is likely that thirty minutes was required for the priest to make the rounds of the temple with his censer, though it sometimes took longer (cf. Lk 1:21)…

The trumpets, moreover, will be sounded by the seven “angels of the Presence” (cf. Tob 12:15; Lk 1:19). The trumpets themselves are best understood in two points of reference. First, there were seven trumpets sounded in the procession around the walls of Jericho in Joshua 6. It is useful to bear in mind that the Ark of the Covenant was borne at the end of that procession, after the seven trumpets. Similarly, at the end of the sounding of the seventh trumpet in the Book of Revelation, the Ark of the Covenant will once again appear (cf. 11:15, 19).

Second, that event of the fall of Jericho was given a constant liturgical expression in the ritual of the Jerusalem temple by the sounding of the trumpets (1 Chron 15:24; Neh 12:4–42). Almost any time anything of significance happened in the worship at the temple, such as prayers, sacrifices, and so forth, the trumpets were sounded. Thus, the blare of the trumpet symbolized Israel’s constant and sustained worship of God. This is also the function of the trumpets here in Revelation 8.

The blowing of the seven trumpets parallels the opening of the seven seals in several close particulars. Thus, the first four trumpets form a unified whole (verses 7–12), as did the first four seals (6:1–8). As in the case of the fifth and sixth seals (6:9–17), the fifth and sixth trumpets will be expressed in a longer and separate narrative (9:1–21). Finally, a pair of visions will precede the sounding of the seventh trumpet (10:1–11:14), as another pair preceded the opening of the seventh seal (7:1–17).

In addition, by introducing various plagues upon the earth, the seven trumpets find another extensive parallel in the seven bowls of plague that will follow them. Finally, let us note that the plagues visited on the earth at the sounding of the trumpets, like the plagues visited on Egypt, do not touch those who, having been sealed, belong to God.

Chapter 9

The first four trumpets produced plagues that resembled the seventh, first, and ninth plagues of Egypt (Ex 9:22–26; 7:20–21; 10:21). These plagues, prompted by the trumpets, affect only the physical and astrophysical world, not human beings—at least not directly. The final three, described by the heavenly eagle as “woes,” afflict mankind directly (8:13).

The image of a fallen star already appeared in 8:10–11. Now another star falls in response to the fifth trumpet (verse 1; cf. Is 14:12–20). This star opens the bottomless pit, from which arises a hellish smoke (verse 2; cf. 8:12) that contrasts with the incense smoke of prayer. The abyss represents existence without the worship of God—the theological term for which is “hell.” As John watches, a massive swarm of locusts takes form within that hellish cloud (verse 3), reminiscent of Egypt’s eighth plague (Ex 10:12–15). Unlike those former locusts, however, these locusts attack men themselves, not plant life (verse 4). Their activity is limited to five months, which is roughly the normal life span of locusts…

The torture inflicted by these followers of Abaddon is spiritual, not physical, and the Christians, sealed with the sign of the Living God, are exempt from it.

To the citizens of the Roman Empire the Euphrates River was a symbol analogous to the “Iron Curtain” of the Cold War era, that is, a border beyond which the enemy world lay massively in menace (verse 14). …

The army that John sees, like the army of locusts summoned by the previous trumpet, comes right out of hell. Both of these invaders, the locusts and the horsemen, are sent to encourage men to repentance, but men’s hearts, like the heart of Pharaoh, are hardened. The idolatries listed in verse 20 are the root of the other moral evils listed in verse 21. This relationship of idolatry to moral evil is identical to that in Romans 1:21–32 and Ephesians 5:6.

Chapter 10

Just as there was a double interrupting narrative immediately prior to the opening of the seventh seal, so a pair of visions will now precede the sounding of the seventh trumpet. the angel holding the little scroll, and the two faithful witnesses.

In the first of these, John is struck by the angel’s numinous character, at once bright and obscure. The angel’s body is clothed in a cloud, reminiscent of the cloud of the divine presence during ancient Israel’s desert journey and the cloud associated with the tabernacle of the divine presence. The face of the angel, on the other hand, has the luminosity of the sun. Nonetheless, the very fierceness of his countenance is tempered by the rainbow arching over his head, a reminder of the eternal covenant between God and creation in Genesis 9. 

The scroll the angel holds is smaller than the scroll in Chapter 5, a detail suggesting that its message may be less universal. Indeed, the message of that scroll is not directed to the world, but to the community of faith (verses 8–11). It is not read but eaten; John absorbs its message into himself. He assimilates the Word that he might then give expression to it. In this respect he imitates the prophet Ezekiel (cf. Ez 2:9–3:4).

Chapter 11

In our reading of the Book of Revelation thus far we have encountered the Danielic expression, “a time, times, and half a time” (Dan 12:7). If we substitute the word “year” for “time,” the meaning of the expression is clear. “three and a half years,” or forty-two months, or (following the Hebrew calendar of thirty days per month) twelve-hundred and sixty days. In the Book of Daniel this was the length of time during which the Jerusalem temple was violated by Antiochus Epiphanes IV (Dan 9:27).

Similarly here in Revelation it is the symbolic length of time of severe trial and the apparent triumph of evil (verses 2–3; 12:6; 13:5). John’s contemporaries must also have been struck by the fact that the Roman siege of Jerusalem also lasted three and a half years, from AD 67–70. In the present chapter this length of time refers to the persecution of the Christian Church, of which Jerusalem’s temple was a type and foreshadowing.

Within the Christian Church, however, we find an inner court, as it were, a deep interior dimension that the forces of evil cannot trample. … This is the inner court of which John is told to take the measure (cf. Ez 40:1–4; Zech 2:1–2), a measuring that he will narrate later (21:15–17).

The literary background of John’s vision of the two witnesses is Zechariah 4:1–3, 11–14, where the prophet has in mind the anointed ruler Zerubbabel and the anointed priest Jeshua, the two men who preserved the worship in God’s house. Those two figures represented royalty (Zerubbabel was a descendent of David) and priesthood (Jeshua was a descendent of Aaron), which are two essential aspects of the life in Christ (cf. Rev 1:6; 5:10).

“Two” witnesses are required, of course, this being the minimum number required in order “to make the case” (Deut 19:15). But the two witnesses in this chapter of Revelation are the heirs, not only to Zerubbabel and Jeshua, but also to Moses and Elijah. It was the first of these who afflicted Egypt with plagues, and the second who closed up heaven for three and a half years (cf. Lk 4:25; Jas 5:17). This is John’s way of asserting that the Christian Church, in her royal priesthood, continues also the prophetic war against false gods. She will destroy God’s enemies by fire (verse 5), as did Moses (Num 16:35) and Elijah (2 Kgs 1:9–12).

When the monster from the abyss kills these two servants of God (verse 7), the forces of evil seem to have triumphed (verse 10), but they will be carried up to heaven, again like Moses and Elijah (2 Kgs 2:11), because the victorious Lamb has the final word….

In the hymn that follows the seventh trumpet (verses 17–18), we should especially observe that God’s wrath is salvific, a matter at which believers will rejoice, because God’s reign is established by his wrath. God is not a neutral observer of history. … The wrath of God is the last thing in the world that Christians should be afraid of, for the wrath of God is on their side (Mt 23:35–36).

As in the ancient procession around Jericho, the Ark of the Covenant appears after the seventh trumpet (verse 19).

On Gratitude (with thanks to St. Nicholai Velimirovich)
Luke 17: 12-19 (The Ten Lepers, only one of whom returned)

[Start with a meditation on the virtues of hard work and gratitude; hard work so that we can be proud of what we have done and foster an appreciation for the amount of effort that goes into the making and sustaining of things. This makes us grateful for what we have, and especially the amount of effort that goes into gifts that we receive from others. But what if these virtues break down? What if there was a society where hard work was not required and gratitude was neither expected nor offered? What if everything was both easy and taken for granted? Would this be a society comprised of real men and women, or of spoiled children? Would those who understood the need for virtue – and who cultivated it within their own lives – [would they] not weep when they saw the corruption that surrounded them?]

We are taught through small things, not always being able to understand big ones.

• If we cannot understand how our souls cannot live for a moment without God, we can see how our bodies cannot live for a moment without air.
• If we cannot understand how we suffer a spiritual death when we go without prayer and the doing of good deeds, we can see how we suffer and die when we go without water and food.
• If we cannot understand why it is that God expects our obedience, we can study why it is that commanders expect obedience from their soldiers and why architects expect it from their builders.

So it is with gratitude. If we do not understand why it is that God seeks our gratitude – and why He seeks it in both thought and action – we can look at why parents demand gratitude from their children.

• Why do parents require that their children thank them for everything, both large and small, that they receive from their parents?
• Are parents enriched by the gratitude of their children?
• Are they made more powerful?
• Is it to feed their egos?
• Does it give them more influence or status in society?
• No, parents are not enriched by their children’s gratitude, and it takes time and effort to cultivate it in them. So parents spend time and effort on something that brings them no personal enrichment. Why do they do it?
• They do it for love. They do it for the good of their children so that they will grow up to be civilized and a benefit to society and to their own families.
• “A grateful man is valued wherever he goes; he is liked, he is welcomed, and the people are quick to help him.”

What would happen if parents stopped teaching their children gratitude? How would their children turn out? How would society turn out? Isn’t it every parent’s obligation, then to demand gratitude from their children?

And so it is with God. He does not need our thanks. There is no way to add to His infinite power. There is no way to add to his glory. He in no way benefits from the thanks that we give Him.

• And yet He demands that we thank Him every morning for getting us through the night.
• And yet He demands that we thank Him at every meal for the food on our tables.
• And yet He demands that we thank Him every Sunday for the gift of His Son.

It seems like a lot, right? Couldn’t we just skip it? No. Not if we want to be good. Not if we want to be holy.

• It isn’t just about doing things to please God (He is what He is regardless of our actions),
• and it isn’t really about doing things because we need to follow God’s rules.
• It is about being (and becoming) good and doing what is right.

 God desires that we be His children, through Christ, He has made this possible. Through our baptism and through our confession that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, we can join the ranks of the saints. This is not something to be taken for granted.

• We are like the lepers who encountered Christ in today’s Gospel
• Because of our disease, we are not fit to join the saints and angels of God.
• But Jesus Christ has healed us of our disease. He has nailed our sins to the Cross. He has restored our fallen humanity to a state of grace.
• This is not something we have earned, nor is it something we deserve, nor is it something that Christ had to do.
• All ten of the lepers received the gift of health and their ability to walk once more with those who are well in a healthy community. Only one was grateful.
• Christ God suffered and died so that all of humanity could receive the gift of healing and eternal life, and the ability to live in everlasting joy with all the saints and angels.
• What is our response?

Are we like the spoiled child that expects everything he receives (and more), that believes that everything is his due? If so, what kind of life can we expect to have? How can it not be stunted and incomplete? What kind of families and communities can we expect to grow around us?

Or are we like the child who grows into the virtuous adult, the one who everyone likes to have in their company, who brings out the best in those around him? If so, will our lives not be better? Will our community not thrive?  Will we not have shown – through God’s grace – that we belong with the saints?  Not because we are avoiding being punished or are being rewarded for following God’s rules; but because the faith evidenced in following God’s rules has allowed Him to grow within us.  As with the tenth leper, our faith has made us well. 

We are not worthy of the gifts that God has given us. We accept them with open arms. We offer our thanks for them. And we join the ranks of holy ones and angels that continually proclaim His glory.

Homily: Holiness Changes Everything (Sunday after Theophany)
Ephesians 4: 7-13
St. Matthew 4: 12-17 

Review/Introduction. 

Ontology of Beauty.  Designed to provide a deeper appreciation for our faith and to demonstrate the blindness of materialism (to include the “new atheists”).  When materialists describe our appreciation for beauty, they either try to show how an appreciation for beauty somehow increased evolutionary fitness, or, in a more sophisticated way, say that it is a happy coincidence.  We know that there is more to beauty than these explanations allow.  God is beautiful, and His infinite beauty continually flows into creation as naturally as do logic, life, and love.  Beauty draws us into a growing relationship with something Good beyond ourselves, while at the same time resonating with and nourishing the spark of beauty within; it is not only real, but it is perfecting.  It’s ontology is sacramental.

Today we are continuing the feast of Theophany; the celebration of God’s revelation to us of His Triune (Three in One; One in Three) nature at Christ’s Baptism.  God the Father (the First Person of the Trinity) is revealed through His voice, which acknowledges Jesus as His Son (the Second Person of the Trinity), while the Holy Spirit (the Third Person of the Trinity) descends on Him and confirms this great truth.  This is an important thing for us to know, and we thank God for this revelation.  Among other things, the prayerful contemplation of the Trinity tells us much about how we, though separate persons, can and should be united; that the Church is more than a collection of like-minded individuals, and that the thing that they share is the thing that best defines them.  It describes how we can, as the Liturgy says, have “one mind” yet maintain our own identities, thoughts, and charismas.  

Theophany as an Introduction to Holiness. 

But it is not this mysterious truth that the Church, through the hymns and scripture of the feast, would have us focus on.  No, the poetry and prophecy of the feast of Theophany is on the reaction of creation to the presence of the Messiah, the Christ, the God-man Jesus; and in so doing it brings up another reality that – along with the reality of beauty that we discussed last week – “confounds the Greeks” (i.e. the new atheists and all materialists).  This reality is the ontology of holiness and its effect on creation.   

Holiness I: a source and reflection of spiritual light, warmth, and power.

Holiness is a quality that blessed things have; things that have been sanctified through their dedication to and proximity to the absolute source of spiritual light, warmth, and power.  This source exists outside of creation, but creation is designed to thrive under its influence; and having thrived, to become holy itself.  You get a sense of holiness when you perceive that something is “good”; and by good, I do not mean useful or pleasing.  These are the selfish perversions of “goodness”.  I mean when you can just tell that something is wholesome and right; when it just seems to radiate spiritual light, warmth, and power.

Holiness II: Eden as the Cultivation of Holiness.  

As the race created in the “Image of God”, humans had a special blessing to be cultivators of a holy creation.  The rest of creation, in turn, was created to respond to us.  But when we forsake holiness in favor of profanity, our special relationship with creation changed; we became as much of a curse to creation as anything else.   We, along with everything else, were created “good”, but we have forsaken this goodness and the result is a world that yields weeds and thistles along with fruits and vegetables.

Holiness III:  But God desires the restoration of creation with us as its cultivator.  

Old Adam – that is to say, old humanity – forsook holiness and lost its special relationship with the rest of creation.  Adam fell, and scripture tells us that creation groaned in agony as a result.  But here scripture is simply affirming something we already know: we are at odds with the world – some would say we are at war with it, and our attempts to subdue it through sheer force and technology have been met with, as God describes “thorns and thistles”.  The response of the best environmentalists can only mitigate the affects of this sundered relationship; and the desires of the purist secular and pagan ecologists, while well intended, cannot be realized through good will alone.  It seems that we are destined to wrestle with the world until either it or us are destroyed.

But into this mess comes new hope: the New Adam; the one who never forsook holiness; the one who is, in fact, the pre-eternal source of holiness who chose to join the race of fallen Adam so that through Him it might be restored.   Spiritual warmth, light, and power radiated from His flesh.  He was holy and creation responded to Him.  The waters of the Jordan were transformed by His contact with it; water became the source, the mechanism, of the perfection of humankind.  All the wickedness that had come to dwell within the Jordan were “turned back” due to the presence of the messiah, the God-man Jesus.  Wickedness cannot abide the presence of holiness.  It is forced to either fight it or flee.  And this influence of Christ on creation did not stop at the Jordan.  The world could not be still at His presence: the good responded to Him as it was intended; the wicked either repented and joined Him in holiness or doubled down in its profanity.  

Conclusion: the mission of the Church.  

The marvelous thing is that through Him all of creation is being renewed.  His ministry on earth was just the start, the seed.  When it was planted in the earth at His death, it immediately sprang out of the earth with greater power and purpose.  Through Him, by embracing His holiness – now risen as the Holy Orthodox Church with Him as its root and head –  we can bring holiness to the world.  In the saints, this took very tangible form; but I know that you have seen it operate in your own life.  You respond to holiness and you have seen others do the same.  Some recoil in shock and revulsion; others reflect it back so that the mutual glow is increased.

Am I being too abstract?  Try this.  The materialists say there is no proof of what I am saying: let’s show how wrong they are.  Repay profanity with holiness.  When someone is being mean and spiteful, meet it with patience and kindness.  See what the reaction is.  If you are pure in your intent, there will be one of two reactions: either the spite will dissipate or it will attack.  In either case, do not stop the experiment: watch how your friends and enemies alike respond to the holiness you bring into their lives.  Watch how its presence in others affects you.

Not only will this confound the new atheists in our midst, it will bring joy back into this troubled world.  And that is the real point of the Theophany of Our Lord.

The Sunday before Theophany
On Repentance and Its Relationship to Beauty and Love
2 Timothy 4: 5-8;  St. Mark 1: 1-8

“Behold, I will send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way, the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight;”

After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.  I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

Sandals – he knew humility (despite the many temptations he faced for pride!).  The problem is that we don’t: we must listen to and heed St. John’s message (as found in St. Matthew 3:2); “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand”.  This is not some prophecy of doom, but a revelation that God is among us – and the warning that we need to prepare if we are to meet Him well.

“We need to repent?  We need to change?  Why?”  Some preachers might come at this by pointing out the many temptations that we succumb to, call us to account for the resulting sin, and explain the need for contrition,  confession, and absolution.  I want to come at it from a different direction: I want to focus on how this call for repentance flows naturally from one of the central components of our faith about the world and how it works.  Specifically, I want to explain how an appreciation for the existence of beauty should naturally lead us towards repentance (and from repentance to glory).

Why come at it this way?  Because I am concerned about our faith.  There are strong attacks being made against Christianity, and I am not sure that people with a lukewarm and superficial faith can withstand them; people whose faith is not informed by deeper knowledge and experience will drift away.  There is a sense in which that might be useful – I am not sure how much good a superficial belief does a person, and we have all seen first hand the detrimental effect that nominal Christians have on the internal life of our parishes, not to mention their witness to the broader community.  God says of such people – through St. John the Theologian - that He will vomit such people out of His mouth (Revelation 3:15-17)!  No one wants to be vomited out of the mouth of God – and we do not want it to happen. 

This is why we must evangelize the lukewarm Christians in our midst.  And it is not enough to give them a set of rules, describe how they have broken these rules, and then call them to repentance.  Nor is it enough to give them more words that describe what it is that the true Christian believes or what Orthodoxy is.  We must do everything we can so that they can personally experience the literal Truth of God’s grace.  Ideally, this would happen through our worship together, but without an appreciation for the deeper nature of the things that worship taps into (the “Old Magic” as Aslan puts it in the Narnia series), it does little more than provide sentimental entertainment.  People need to be taught so that they can enjoy the fruits of worship; they need to be taught so that they “may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.” (Ephesians 6:13b)  I am not talking about the removal of doubt, but the answer to every thinking Christian’s prayer; “Lord I believe; help me in my unbelief!” (St. Mark 9:24; St. Luke 17:5). 

I think that one of the best ways to strengthen our faith and counter these new attacks –  and especially the misleading reductionism of the militant atheists – is to focus on the fundamental existence of beauty, morality, and love and the implications of this ontology for us.  Today I will focus on the sacramental ontology of beauty.

1.  Beauty is basic, it is real, and it is eternal. When we say that something is “beautiful”, we do not mean that it interacts in a pleasurable way with the conglomeration of memories that culture and experience has put into our minds: we mean that it has a specific quality to it.  It is beautiful.  When we say that we like such a thing, what we really mean (or should mean, if we practice humility) is that it is actually likable.   Yes, our description of beauty is filtered through our culture and experience - how could it not be?  But there is a quality of beauty that flows into this world as a continual outpouring of the absolute Beauty of her creator.   Just as the warmth of the sun points to the heat of that great star, so to does beauty serve as a sure sign that there is more to this world than our personal enjoyment of it.

2. Beauty is NOT for passive entertainment.  It is interactive.  Enjoyed properly, it draws us outside of ourselves as we participate in this special quality.  We can be selfish in our encounter with it, simply appreciating how it makes us feel; but we get even more out of it when we release the tethers of selfishness and really lose ourselves in a good piece of art or music or, better yet, worship.  When this happens, we experience something right and true: we encounter and commune with something wonderful outside of ourselves.  And when the exhibition is over, the concert has ended, or we have come to the end of the book or movie or service; the memory of it awakens within us a longing for more.  Our hearts have been enlarged by the time we have spent in communion with greatness.  Beauty resonates within us and nourishes and increases our capacity for it.  Once this process has begun, things change.  After this, we find that when we are separated from Beauty, there is an ever larger empty space inside that needs to be filled.  We want to enjoy it more; we want to fill our nights and days with it.  We want it to become part of our lives – in, short, we want to become one with Beauty; to sacrifice everything for the sake of Goodness becomes our most earnest desire.  Were such a consummation not possible, the existence of such transcendent Beauty would be the cause of the greatest despondency.  But the Good News is that consummation is possible.   God desires it and has satisfied our mutual longing through the Gift and Grace of His Son.  This is the Gospel: that Beauty has become Incarnate not just so we can appreciate Beauty, but so that we can join Him in His Beauty.  Through Him we can be made beautiful.

Which is simply another way to say that encounters with true beauty are sacramental (mysterious): something fundamental is revealed through them, and by participating in these encounters, the seed  of glory within us is nourished and we become more beautiful, perfect, and godly ourselves.  But this does not happen automatically.

3.  Becoming beauty.  There are many wrong ways to try this: we do not become beautiful through surgery or going to concerts or even just by coming to the Divine Liturgy (the greatest gift of beauty offered on this earth).  We do it by embracing the deeper virtue.  We do it by submitting ourselves to its logic and allowing it to transform our lives in its image.  Let me paraphrase an old saw (how Michelangelo created David out of stone): if we want to become beautiful; then we start with what is already there and remove all the bits that aren’t right.  If we want to participate in the experience of beauty, then we cannot do things that are ugly.  We cannot be ugly ourselves.  Which brings me to a critical point:  it isn’t enough to look in the mirror to tell the difference between good and bad (beauty and ugliness) within us – our pride and psychoses do not let much of the truth in there.  Our pride will either completely overlook many of our obvious warts and defects (perhaps even calling them “beauty marks” or, just as bad condemn things that are actually God-pleasing,  No, we do not have enough discernment to affect the necessary changes on our own.  We need help. 

We need to turn our attention away from ourselves toward the source of beauty; the standard of perfection; the wellspring of everything that is good.  Christ is Goodness and Beauty Incarnate.  When we encounter Him, when we live our lives within the rays of the Sun of Righteousness, we will know the essence of beauty; we will desire more; and we will want to change our lives so that we can better bask in and reflect His glory.

Which is simply another way of saying not just that “Beauty will save the world, but  “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand.”

Matthew 2: 13-23 (The Slaughter of the Innocents)
Herod (and us): from temptation to possession

Five Steps of Sin

1. The temptation (logismoi) occurs.  We are NOT accountable for this.
2. Interaction with the thought – what are the options?  What would it look like?  In his summary of Orthodox Spirituality in Mountain of Silence,  Fr. Maximos (now Mp. Athanasios of Limassol) says that this is not sin, either.  I disagree – a symptom of the disease we have is that it is all but impossible for us to imagine possibilities objectively.  
3. Consent to do the sin.  This is always a sin, even if we do not carry out the action.
4. Defeat to the idea.  Not only is this sin, it weakens us to future temptations.
5. Passion, obsession, or possession by the temptation.  

Let’s look at Herod’s descent into madness.

1. He had an idea to kill all of the male infants.  This was not the only choice he had; others would have been less wicked – some may have even softened his heart enough to meet the Christ with joy.  This was the temptation.
2. What happened when he interacted with this idea?  Moreover, what happened when he considered all the possibilities?  Was it a simple cost-benefit calculation, comparing all the options about how to react to the birth of the prophesied Messiah?    When he did the math, was it purely objective, or was the scale weighted in a certain direction by his feelings, feelings that were driven by his pride and desire to rule?  Remember that, as the King of the Jews, the people of God, he could have brought the Christ child into his palace and raised Him there to rule.  But that option was not the one that drew his attention – it was drawn towards murder.  It was drawn towards regicide and the slaughter of as many lives as necessary to guarantee it.  This was not because it was the best solution – it probably wasn’t even the best way to keep himself in power.  But it felt right.  And so of all the ideas, or all the logismoi, both sinful and graceful, he focused on this one.  He imagined what it would look like, how it would work.  Which takes us to consent.
3. He consented to the idea.  He entertained it, not just to imagine whether or not it could work or to figure out the best way to get it done – it was more than that.  He chewed on it.  And somewhere along the way, he made it happen.
4. Next, he was defeated by it.  Not just because he pulled the trigger, but because it came to define part of how he defined himself.  He was a man who did whatever was necessary to keep himself in power.  All other things were defined and valued in relationship to this identity, to this desire, to this obsession.
5. And this is the final step – he was possessed by it.  And here is a difficult truth about his path to possession: this was not the first time he had united himself with this kind of sin.  He had assassinated rivals, to include his own wife, to consolidate his power.  Even before that, he had waged war against his own people in order to capture Jerusalem.  Not to free it from the Romans, but in cooperation with the Roman general Marc Antony in order to put himself in charge. 

Do you see how, once he had given in to sin – in this case, violence - for personal gain, it made it easier to do so in the future?  All of his fallen psychology kicked in to make repentance more and more difficult.  For example, the devaluation of the lives of others, the web of justifications and lies that he had to convince himself of in order to keep himself going?  For someone like this, it takes a real wake-up call to get them to change.  He got the call when the wise men came, but he didn’t just hit the snooze button, he threw away the clock.

“Send word so that I can go and worship Him myself.”  Doesn’t that just drip with evil?  How would Herod worship Him; with gifts?  With prostrations?  That is how the kings from the east did!  Not at all.  Quite the opposite.

What about us?  The wide road to sin-full-ness

Now here is the rub.  I’ve been describing Herod’s descent into madness, but that is the same wide road that beckons to us all.  

What sins do we entertain?  What sins do we chew on?  Are we obsessed by?  What wickedness have we justified so fully that we feel its evil as good?

And as if it wasn’t enough that each of us individually, thanks to ancestral sin, cannot imagine sin without engaging with it, we are surrounded by cultural systems that seek to deaden our instinct for the holy and replace it with other things, like hedonism and power and self-loathing and anything else that the marketers of the powers of the air can distract us with.

It's easy to see this happening in others.  We know people who have fallen into all kinds of sin and justified it.  They immerse themselves in an internet subculture and the next thing you know they are defining themselves in new ways that separate themselves from the good, the true, and the beautiful.  

But it’s so hard to see this in ourselves.  Herod had several baths of purification built into his temple.  He was so far gone that he didn’t see the irony of maintaining ritual purity while living such a debauched and self-aggrandizing life.  We should be very concerned lest we fall in the same way.

What sins do our own personalities, conditions, and cultures lead us to accept as normal or even good?  How can we get around the unreliability of our feelings – what we like to call our consciences when it comes to seeking the good?   How do we deal with the fact that we are so far from being able to see things as they are and weight alternatives objectively?

What then, can we do?

The first step is to admit that we have a problem.  To admit that the “old man” we put to death during our baptism is not entirely dead.

The second step is to cultivate an instinct of humility, including the willingness to admit that we rarely as right as our self-confidence would have us believe.

The third is to build relationships of accountability and discernment.  How do you react when people correct you or offer a version that differs from your own?  Taking criticisms well is a sign of spiritual maturity.  It’s one that tyrants, narcissists, and sociopaths don’t have.  And it’s one that we are missing unless we work on it.  But we need it.  We need to have people in our lives that tell us the things that we miss, the things that we get wrong.

Herod skipped all these steps, and he died in his sin.

We have given our lives to Christ; we are called to something better than tyranny and the slaughter of innocents.  

Let’s learn to live the kinds of lives – lives in communities of mutual love, trust, and support – that give no place for temptations to grow.

Let’s live in Christ, together.

Sunday before the Nativity
Hebrews 11:9-10,17-23,32-40
St. Matthew 1:1-25

After giving a refresher on motivated reasoning, Fr. Anthony notes how much context affects what we think about our ancestors from the genealogy of Christ.  He then encourages us to tip the scales of our judgment so that we are more charitable towards people/things we are inclined to dislike, more skeptical towards people/things we are inclined to like, and generally more loving towards all.  Enjoy the show!

Today Fr. Anthony uses the simple theory of reading (word recognition x decoding -> reading comprehension) to talk about chanting and why it is so difficult for those new to Byzantine chant to learn it (because they do not have the equivalent of word recognition), especially if they cannot read music (because they have neither the equivalent of word recognition nor the ability to decode).  Enjoy the show!

Revelation 11
20 November 2024
Chapter 7

Lawrence R. Farley, The Apocalypse of St. John: A Revelation of Love and Power, The Orthodox Bible Study Companion (Chesterton, IN: Ancient Faith Publishing, 2011).

Patrick Henry Reardon, Revelation: A Liturgical Prophecy (Yonkers, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2018), 53.

Fr. Patrick Reardon. 

The final preservation of God’s elect was foreshadowed in their deliverance at the time of the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70.

This sealing with the mark of the true Paschal Lamb fulfilled the promise contained in that earlier marking of Israel with the sacrificial blood of its type (Ex 12:21–23). Both Ezekiel and Exodus are important for the understanding of this seal. Ezekiel’s reference was to the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BC, of which everyone was aware who saw the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70. The passage in Exodus 12 had to do with the last of the ten plagues visited upon Egypt, the slaying of the firstborn sons. This sealing in Revelation, then, involves a new Exodus, in which God’s people will be delivered, not left to share in the sin of the earthly Jerusalem.

Fr. Lawrence Farley:  What is this seal? The image is drawn from Ezekiel 9. In this passage, angels were to slay all in Jerusalem that rebelled idolatrously against Yahweh. But before they began their dreadful task, one angel went through the city and, at the divine command, put “a mark” (in Hebrew a tau) on all who were faithful (Ezek. 9:4). To be thus marked on the forehead is to enjoy the protection of God and an immunity from coming judgment….

This time of great tribulation seems to last throughout the age, for in Matthew 24:29 the Second Coming is said to occur “immediately after the tribulation of those days.” The parallel version of this verse in Luke 21:24 seems to confirm this, for it describes what Matthew refers to as “great tribulation” as a time of “great distress upon the land … [the people] will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive into all nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled”—that is, until the end of the age. Even the original prophecy of Daniel 12 states that the “time of tribulation” will be followed by the resurrection of the dead, when “many of those who sleep in the dust will awake” (Dan. 12:2).

It would seem then that in Matthew 24 the “great tribulation” is the age-long time of suffering for Israel that began with the destruction of the Temple in AD 70…

This understanding of “the great tribulation” (7:14) as the suffering of the Church throughout the age explains too the difference in the two crowds mentioned in this chapter. In 7:1–8, John receives a vision of the Church on earth, sealed and protected by God in preparation for their entering the final time of conflict. It is the Church of the final days. In 7:9–17, however, John sees a vaster multitude. This crowd comprises, not just the Church of the final days, but the Church gathered throughout all the centuries, coming from “the great tribulation,” the age-long struggle with the world. Unlike the former crowd, this multitude is vast beyond counting, stretching into the horizons of heaven. It is the Church glorified at last, fresh from its victorious struggle, an overwhelming testimony to the power of God.

Sunday of the Forefathers. 2 Timothy 1:8-18; St. Luke 14:16-24 In this homily (that Fr. Anthony would have preferred audibling to his deacon - if only he had one!), Fr. Anthony challenges us to be strong like the three holy youths but not to put ourselves in the fires of our own hells by making mountains out of molehills. Or something like that. He really needed some sleep, bless his heart! Enjoy the show!

In this homily on Ephesians 2:14-22, Fr. Anthony uses the Simple Theory of Reading to teach about why Byzantine Chant - and theosis - are so difficult, why we need a change of heart more than new words, and how the Church is the solution to our existential crisis. Enjoy the show!

Revelation 10
04 December 2024
Revelation 5:1 - 

Andrew of Caesarea, Commentary on the Apocalypse, ed. David G. Hunter, trans. Eugenia Scarvelis Constantinou, vol. 123, The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2011), 85–112.

o can stand?”

Loosening of the First Seal

6:1. And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard one of the four living beings saying, with a voice like thunder, “Come!”

And here the good order of those in heaven is shown, from the first orders coming down to the second. Thus, from one of the fourfold-appearing living beings, that is, the lion, he heard originating from the first voice the command “come” <being spoken> to the angel forming the vision through an angel in a figurative fashion. The first living being, the lion, seems to me to show the princely spirit of the apostles against the demons, about whom it has been said: “Behold, the kings of the earth have been gathered together,” and also, “You will appoint them as rulers upon all the earth.”2 [60]

6:2. And I saw, and behold, a white horse, and the one sitting on it having a bow; and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer.

… Thus we explained the loosening of the first seal as meaning the generation of the apostles, [61] those who bend the gospel message like a bow against the demons … [and the return of the nations]

Loosening of the Second Seal

6:3. And when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living being saying, “Come.”

I think the second living being, the calf, is said to characterize the priestly sacrifice of the holy martyrs, while the first <living being> describes the apostolic authority, as was said.

6:4. And out came another horse, bright red, and the one sitting [62] upon it was permitted to take the peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another; and he was given a large sword.

We suppose that this means the second succession of the apostles, which is completely fulfilled through martyrs and teachers, during which, while the remainder of the gospel message was spreading, the peace of the world was abolished, <human> nature having been divided against itself according to that which had been said by Christ, “I did not come to bring peace to the earth but a sword,” through which the slain martyrs were lifted up to the heavenly altar. The fire-red horse <is> a symbol of either the shedding of blood or the flaming disposition of those suffering for Christ. What was written about the one seated on <the horse>, that he was permitted to take the peace, shows the all-wise allowance of God testing the faithful servants through trials.

Loosening of the Third Seal

6:5. And when he opened the third seal, I heard the third living being saying, “Come!”

I think the third living being, the man, is said to signify the fall of people and, because of that, torment, on account of the easy fall into sin through the power of free choice.

6:5b–6. 5b And I saw, and behold, a black horse, and the one sitting on it having a scale in his hand; 6 and I heard <something> like a voice in the midst of the four living beings saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not harm oil and wine!”

It is likely and sensible for a literal famine to occur then, just as it will also be announced by what follows. …

Loosening of the Fourth Seal, Showing the Chastisements Which Befall the Impious

6:7. And when he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living being saying, “Come!” [65]

The fourth living being, that is, the eagle, its high flight and keen eyesight coming down upon its prey from above, can signify the wounds from the divinely led wrath of God for the revenge of the pious and the punishment of the impious, unless being improved by these <wounds> they return.

6:8. And I saw, and behold, a pale horse, and the name of the one sitting upon <it> was Death. And Hades follows him. And they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill by sword and by famine and by death and by wild beasts of the earth.

The series <of events> drawn out previously are connected to the present events. For as Eusebius says in the eighth chapter of the ninth book of his Ecclesiastical History, in the zenith of the persecutions, during the reign of Maximin the Roman Emperor, innumerable crowds were killed by the coming of famine and plague among them, along with other calamities; and such that <the living> were not able to bury them, and yet the Christians then generously busied themselves with the burial <of the dead>, and many of those who had been deceived2 were led to [66] the knowledge of the truth by the philanthropy of the Christians. …

Seal, Meaning the Saints Crying Out to the Lord About the End of the World

6:9–10. 9 And when he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of people who had been slain on account of the word of God and on account of the witness which they had <made>. They cried out with a loud voice, saying, 10 “How long, O holy and true Master, before you judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell upon the earth?”

6:11. And he gave them each a white robe and told them to rest again a little longer, until their fellow servants and their brethren who were to be killed in the future, even as they <had been>, completed <their number>.

And by these <words> the saints seem to be asking for the full consummation of the world. Wherefore, they are called upon to endure patiently until the completion of the <number of> brothers, so that they will not become complete without them, according to the Apostle

Loosening of the Sixth Seal, Signifying the Upcoming Plagues at the End of Time

6:12–13. 12 And I saw, and when he opened the sixth seal, and a great earthquake occurred, and the sun became black as sackcloth, and the moon became like blood. 13 And the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree casts its winter fruit when shaken by a great wind;

It seems to us that here a shift has taken place beginning from the time of persecutions to the time before the departure of the pseudo-Christ, during which so many afflictions were prophesied to come, and perhaps the people, being practiced in these afflictions, did not renounce the punishments brought upon them by the Antichrist, of such a sort as we have never known. We often find in the Scriptures that an earthquake certainly <represents> a change in <the course of> events. …

6:14a. And the sky vanished like a scroll that is rolled up,

The sky rolled up like a scroll hints at either the unknown <time> of the second coming of Christ—because silently and in a moment the scroll is opened—or also that the heavenly powers feel pain over those who fall from the faith as if they will suffer some kind of twisting on account of sympathy and sorrow. …

6:14b–17. 14b And every mountain and island was moved from its place. 15 And the kings of the earth and the great men and the rich and the commanders of thousands [and the strong], and every slave and every freeman, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, 16 and they say to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; 17 for the great day of his wrath has come, and who can stand?”

Today Fr. Anthony talks with Fr. Adam Roberts about his pastoral counseling practice.   Fr. Adam is the priest of St. Paul Orthodox Church in Katy TX, the Dean of St. Athansius College, a co-founder of Camp St Thekla, the author of several books, and has a Masters of Theology in Pastoral Counseling from the University of Balamand. In his counseling, he has counseled married couples as well as youth and young adults who are struggling with purpose and identity.  You can read more about his practice here. Enjoy the show!

Luke 18:35-43. Once again demonstrating that there is some overlap between a homily and a hostage situation (30 minutes!), Fr. Anthony talks about the life in Christ being less a moment of pure enlightenment and more about turning the long, slow slog of life into a graceful movement from joy to greater joy. Enjoy the show!

Galatians 6:11-18

St. Luke 18:18-27

Today Fr. Anthony uses the Apostle Paul’s call for a “new creation” instead of a fulfillment of the Law to help us evaluate the man’s challenge to the Lord.  Along the way, he shares the meaning of the commandments in the “new creation” and uses the metaphor of mountain climbing to help us understand Christ’s call to give everything up and follow him.  He notes that we are rich in worldly ways, making it as hard for us to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven as the camel getting through the eye of a needle.  He forgot to turn on his microphone before the actual homily, so he recorded this reprisal on the drive home. Enjoy the show!

Seals, Scrolls, and Wrath 

Excursus on the Three Senses of Scripture

• Literal – Straightforward reading of the text.
• Ex: The outside writing on the scroll, the man Jesus
• Allegorical – Heavenly meaning veiled in the literal
• Ex: The inside writing of the scroll, the God-Man the (contains both the physical (literal) and the unseen (spiritual)
• Moral – What are we to do with this revelation?
• Ex: Paul’s obedience to the revelation of Jesus Christ to be an Apostle - “Therefore, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision” (Acts 26.19); contrast with Jonah

Tools of Interpretation: Scripture and Tradition

• Analogia Fidei (or “Analogy of Faith”): Scripture interprets Scripture
• New is Old revealed; Old is New concealed
• “This grace hid itself under a veil in the Old Testament, but it has been revealed in the New Testament according to the most perfectly ordered dispensation of the ages, forasmuch as God knew how to dispose all things.” - Saint Augustine
• Working Principle: Scripture is not divided. One part illumines other parts since all parts have God as its source; contrast to a mere academic approach that divides book based on different authors

• Scripture testifies to Tradition: “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” – 2 Peter 1.20-21
• “Holy men” (literally ἁγίου ἄνθρωποι) can be interpreted simply as “saints”
• ἅγιος – adjective often used as a noun that can be translated “holy ones” or “saints”
• God is Holy and the source of all holiness; people considered holy, or of God, have a place of authority and deference in the Church in terms of practice and teaching

THE GOSPEL
(For the Ninth Sunday of Luke)

The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Luke. (12:16-21)

Context;
13 Then someone from the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the
inheritance with me.” 14 But Jesus said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator
between you two?” 15 Then he said to them, “Watch out and guard yourself from all types
of greed, because one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”
The Lord spoke this parable: “The land of a rich man brought forth plentifully; and he
thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’
Every moment is an opportunity for grace, or to put it another way, to prepare for death – and
eternal life. There will be a judgment: how have used the opportunities that God has given us?
How have we prepared our soul?
How have we prepared the souls of our neighbor (union!!!)
And he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns, and build larger ones; and there I
will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid
up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, be merry.’
Let’s look at how the man has prepared his soul.
St. Nikolai: the dog and the lamb.
He has killed his soul and moved his passions into its place!
The one talent.
How has he prepared his neighbor.
The original settting.
St. John Chrysostom.
But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you; and the things you
have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich
toward God.” As He said this, Jesus called out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
There will be a judgment.
Three types of preparation.

In this class, we review Vespers service components, work on matching pitches in hand offs, and chanting clearly and consistently.

Revelation: Lesson 8
Revelation 4:1 – 5:1

Andrew of Caesarea, Commentary on the Apocalypse, ed. David G. Hunter, trans. Eugenia Scarvelis Constantinou, vol. 123, The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2011), 81–90.

4:1. After these I saw, and behold, an open door in heaven! And the first voice that I heard was like a trumpet [47] speaking to me, saying, “Come up here, and I will show you the things which must happen after these.”

[Compare to the Ascent of Moses].

4:2–3. 2 And immediately I was in the Spirit. And behold, a throne stood in heaven, 3 and one sitting upon the throne who appeared like the stone jasper and carnelian, and a rainbow was around the throne that looked like an emerald.

… First, jasper, meaning, as pale green, the evergreen at once both the life-bringer and bestower of the food of the divine nature, through which every seed brings forth young sprouts. … And the rainbow like an emerald shows the variety and blooming virtues of the angelic orders.

4:4. And around the throne <were> twenty-four thrones, and sitting on the thrones <were> twenty-four elders wrapped in white garments, and upon their heads <were> gold crowns. [49]

… by the twelve elders <is meant> those who excelled in the Old, and by the twelve others those who excelled in the New. …

4:5a. From out of the throne came flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder.

4:5b–6a. 5b And seven torches of fire burn before the throne, which are the seven spirits of God; 6a and before the throne <something> like a glass sea like crystal.

…  The glass sea designates the multitude of the holy powers, and also the clarity, spotlessness, and calmness of the future life. … 

4:6b. And in the midst of the throne, and around the throne, <were> four living beings, full of eyes in front and behind:

The throne is shown by this to be signifying the reign and resting-place of God, in which and around which he saw the seraphim, being taught through the multitude of their eyes their ability to see God with regard to the divine light, and also that those eyes behind and in front receive light and knowledge from God.

4:7. And the first living being <was> like a lion, the second living being <was> like a calf, the third living being had a face like a man, and the fourth living being <was> like an eagle flying.

These living beings, we think, were also seen by Isaiah…  

4:8a. And the four living beings, each of them having six wings, are full of eyes all around and within,

…

4:8b. And they do not rest day and night, saying, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and who is and who is to come!”

These holy powers do not rest, never ceasing the divine hymnody and offering the threefold blessing to the Tri-hypostatic Divinity. And the who is and who was and who is to come we said means the Holy Trinity.

4:9–10a. 9 And whenever the living beings give glory and honor and thanksgiving [53] to him who is seated on the throne, who lives for ever and ever, 10a the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives for ever and ever.

[LITURGY!]

4:10b–11. 10b They cast their crowns before the throne, saying, 11 “You are worthy, Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power, for You created all things, and by Your will they exist and were created.”

They say, “You, Master, are the cause and the provider of the crowns of victory, and thanksgiving is due to You from all things as creatures.”

About the Small Scroll Sealed With Seven Seals Which No One Who Has a Created Nature is Able to Open

5:1. And I saw in the right <hand> of the One who was seated on the throne a small scroll covered in writing on the inside and outside, sealed with seven seals.

… The seven seals, which no one of created nature is able to loosen, <signify> either the fulfillment of the scroll, which is obscure and unknown to all, or the dispensation of the one “who searches the depths of the Spirit of God.” The scroll also means the prophecy which Christ himself said in the Gospel according to Luke had been fulfilled, which things occurring thereafter are to be fulfilled in the last days.

The Good Samaritan and Veteran’s Day 

St. Luke 10:25-37 

Introduction.  

The Deeper Magic of Unity. The Division of Mankind into Nations. The Demons,  our Fallen Psychology, and the Reification of Separation. The Coming of Christ, Pentecost, and the Promise of Unity. 

And this is where we find ourselves today. We know that Christ has brought an end  to our division and allows us to be One as He is One; joyous, peaceful, and  continually progressing through the endless stages of perfection in peace … but  still living in a world where lives come to an end and violence between nations  ceases only so long as strength and vigilance are maintained. 

The Good Samaritan  

The need for our enemies and why our love for them actually brings us the light of  objectivity. Christ as the ultimate “other.”  

Veterans Day 

And so we come to the juxtaposition of this Epistle with our celebration of  Veteran’s Day. 

On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month; temporary cessation of  hostilities, was declared between the Allied nations and Germany in World War I.  And yet we still have war. People and nations still prey on and threaten one  another. Even when we are between wars, we no not have the peace of Christ, but  the peace of strength. And where we do not have the peace of strength, we have  war and the lessons of martyrdom. Our Church prays and works for the Peace of  Christ; and as that peace is worked for and anticipated, we pray for and support the  peace that comes from military might. This is the practice and teaching of the  Church. 

Right after the anaphora we pray: 

We also offer You this spiritual worship for the whole world, for the Holy, Catholic,  and Apostolic Church, and for all those who live in purity and holiness. And for  those in public service; permit them, Lord, to serve and govern in peace, that in  their tranquility we may lead a calm and quiet life, in all Godliness and purity.

From our Morning Prayers: 

Lord, save and have mercy on our civil authorities; protect our nation with peace,  subduing our every foe and adversary. Fill the hearts of our leaders with peaceful,  benevolent thoughts for your Holy Church and for all Your people so that we, in  their tranquility, may lead a peaceful and quiet life in true faith and in all  godliness and purity. 

And from St. Paul (1 Timothy 2:1-2): 

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and  thanksgivings be made for all men, for kings and all who are in high positions, so  that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life, godly and respectful in every way. 

And how is this peace that we pray for maintained? Through the sacrifice of men  and women in our armed forces and police who are willing to put our security and  comfort ahead of their own. [a note on the special sacrifice of Christian warriors]. 

It is obtained and maintained by soldiers, sailors, marines, and first responders who  are willing to suffer, to fight, to die, and yes, even to kill – not out of glory or any  kind of sinful passion; but only so that we – in the peaceful space their efforts create and sustain – might pursue perfection in Christ, and through this an end to  all wars achieved not through military victory or a well thought out and executed  set of treaties and institutions; but through the union of all people and nations into  one humanity, humbled and perfected in Christ. 

We thank all of our veterans and those serving now for your willingness to live the  kind of life that allows us the freedom to pursue true and lasting peace. 

We pray that Lord our God grant that we always be so blessed with men and  women [like these] who are willing to sacrifice their lives for us and we pray that  He gives us, the civilians, the strength and commitment to live in such a way that  their efforts are not squandered through our impiety, selfishness, and unwillingness  to live and spread the Gospel. 

Allow all of us to surrender ourselves to you, Lord, through the Cross, so that our  Union may be eternal and the peace between us become real and unending. Check out this episode!

Today, we talked about the kind of culture we should have at the kliros (to include risk aversion and gentleness). We worked on intonation and antiphonal psalmody, and talked about being patient as our skills develop.

The Decree of the Holy, Great, Ecumenical Synod, the Second of Nice (787 AD).

549

(Found in Labbe and Cossart, Concilia. Tom. VII., col. 552.)

THE holy, great, and Ecumenical Synod which by the grace of God and the will of the pious and Christ-loving Emperors, Constantine and Irene, his mother, was gathered together for the second time at Nice, the illustrious metropolis of Bithynia, in the holy church of God which is named Sophia, having followed the tradition of the Catholic Church, hath defined as follows:

Christ our Lord, who hath bestowed upon us the light of the knowledge of himself, and hath redeemed us from the darkness of idolatrous madness, having espoused to himself the Holy Catholic Church without spot or defect, promised that he would so preserve her: and gave his word to this effect to his holy disciples when he said: “Lo! I am with you always, even unto the end of the world,” which promise he made, not only to them, but to us also who should believe in his name through their word. But some, not considering of this gift, and having become fickle through the temptation of the wily enemy, have fallen from the right faith; for, withdrawing from the traditions of the Catholic Church, they have erred from the truth and as the proverb saith: “The husbandmen have gone astray in their own husbandry and have gathered in their hands nothingness,” because certain priests, priests in name only, not in fact, had dared to speak against the God-approved ornament of the sacred monuments, of whom God cries aloud through the prophet, “Many pastors have corrupted my vineyard, they have polluted my portion.”

And, forsooth, following profane men, led astray by their carnal sense, they have calumniated the Church of Christ our God, which he hath espoused to himself, and have failed to distinguish between holy and profane, styling the images of our Lord and of his Saints by the same name as the statues of diabolical idols. Seeing which things, our Lord God (not willing to behold his people corrupted by such manner of plague) hath of his good pleasure called us together, the chief of his priests, from every quarter, moved with a divine zeal and brought hither by the will of our princes, Constantine and Irene, to the end that the traditions of the Catholic Church may receive stability by our common decree. Therefore, with all diligence, making a thorough examination and analysis, and following the trend of the truth, we diminish nought, we add nought, but we preserve unchanged all things which pertain to the Catholic Church, and following the Six Ecumenical Synods, especially that which met in this illustrious metropolis of Nice, as also that which was afterwards gathered together in the God-protected Royal City.

We believe…life of the world to come. Amen.535

We detest and anathematize Arius and all the sharers of his absurd opinion; also Macedonius and those who following him are well styled “Foes of the Spirit” (Pneumatomachi). We confess that our Lady, St. Mary, is properly and truly the Mother of God, because she was the Mother after the flesh of One Person of the Holy Trinity, to wit, Christ our God, as the Council of Ephesus has already defined when it cast out of the Church the impious Nestorius with his colleagues, because he taught that there were two Persons [in Christ]. With the Fathers of this synod we confess that he who was incarnate of the immaculate Mother of God and Ever-Virgin Mary has two natures, recognizing him as perfect God and perfect man, as also the Council of Chalcedon hath promulgated, expelling from the divine Atrium [αὐλῆς] as blasphemers, Eutyches and Dioscorus; and placing in the same category Severus, Peter and a number of others, blaspheming in divers fashions.

Moreover, with these we anathematize the fables of Origen, Evagrius, and Didymus, in accordance with the decision of 550 the Fifth Council held at Constantinople. We affirm that in Christ there be two wills and two operations according to the reality of each nature, as also the Sixth Synod, held at Constantinople, taught, casting out Sergius, Honorius, Cyrus, Pyrrhus, Macarius, and those who agree with them, and all those who are unwilling to be reverent.

To make our confession short, we keep unchanged all the ecclesiastical traditions handed down to us, whether in writing or verbally, one of which is the making of pictorial representations, agreeable to the history of the preaching of the Gospel, a tradition useful in many respects, but especially in this, that so the incarnation of the Word of God is shown forth as real and not merely phantastic, for these have mutual indications and without doubt have also mutual significations.

We, therefore, following the royal pathway and the divinely inspired authority of our Holy Fathers and the traditions of the Catholic Church (for, as we all know, the Holy Spirit indwells her), define with all certitude and accuracy that just as the figure of the precious and life-giving Cross, so also the venerable and holy images, as well in painting and mosaic as of other fit materials, should be set forth in the holy churches of God, and on the sacred vessels and on the vestments and on hangings and in pictures both in houses and by the wayside, to wit, the figure of our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ, of our spotless Lady, the Mother of God, of the honourable Angels, of all Saints and of all pious people. For by so much more frequently as they are seen in artistic representation, by so much more readily are men lifted up to the memory of their prototypes, and to a longing after them; and to these should be given due salutation and honourable reverence (ἀσπασμὸν καὶ τιμητικὴν προσκύνησιν), not indeed that true worship of faith (λατρείαν) which pertains alone to the divine nature; but to these, as to the figure of the precious and life-giving Cross and to the Book of the Gospels and to the other holy objects, incense and lights may be offered according to ancient pious custom. For the honour which is paid to the image passes on to that which the image represents, and he who reveres the image reveres in it the subject represented. For thus the teaching of our holy Fathers, that is the tradition of the Catholic Church, which from one end of the earth to the other hath received the Gospel, is strengthened. Thus we follow Paul, who spake in Christ, and the whole divine Apostolic company and the holy Fathers, holding fast the traditions which we have received. So we sing prophetically the triumphal hymns of the Church, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Sion; Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem. Rejoice and be glad with all thy heart. The Lord hath taken away from thee the oppression of thy adversaries; thou art redeemed from the hand of thine enemies. The Lord is a King in the midst of thee; thou shalt not see evil any more, and peace be unto thee forever.”

Those, therefore who dare to think or teach otherwise, or as wicked heretics to spurn the traditions of the Church and to invent some novelty, or else to reject some of those things which the Church hath received (e.g., the Book of the Gospels, or the image of the cross, or the pictorial icons, or the holy reliques of a martyr), or evilly and sharply to devise anything subversive of the lawful traditions of the Catholic Church or to turn to common uses the sacred vessels or the venerable monasteries,536 if they be Bishops or Clerics, we command that they be deposed; if religious or laics, that they be cut off from communion.

[After all had signed, the acclamations began (col. 576).]

The holy Synod cried out: So we all believe, we all are so minded, we all give our consent and have signed. This is the faith of the Apostles, this is the faith of the orthodox, this is the faith which hath made firm the whole world. Believing in one God, to be celebrated in Trinity, we salute the honourable images! Those who do not so hold, let them be anathema.

Those who do not thus think, let them be driven far away from the Church. For we follow the most ancient legislation of the Catholic Church. We keep the laws of the Fathers. We anathematize those who add anything to or take anything away from the Catholic Church. We anathematize the introduced novelty of the revilers of Christians. We salute the venerable 551 images. We place under anathema those who do not do this. Anathema to them who presume to apply to the venerable images the things said in Holy Scripture about idols. Anathema to those who do not salute the holy and venerable images.

Anathema to those who call the sacred images idols. Anathema to those who say that Christians resort to the sacred images as to gods. Anathema to those who say that any other delivered us from idols except Christ our God. Anathema to those who dare to say that at any time the Catholic Church received idols.

Many years to the Emperors, etc., etc.

535 Anastasius in his Interpretatio (Migne, Pat. Lat., Tom. CXXIX., col. 458), gives the word, “Filioque.” Cardinal Julian in the Fifth Session of the Council of Florence gave evidence that there was then extant a very ancient codex containing these words; and this MS., which was in Greek, was actually shown. The Greek scholar Gemistius Pletho remarked that if this were so, then the Latin theologians, like St. Thomas Aquinas would long ago have appealed to the Synod. (Cf. Hefele, Hist. Councils, Vol. V., p. 374, Note 2.) This reasoning is not conclusive if Cardinal Bellarmine is to be believed, who says that St. Thomas had never seen the Acts of this synod. (De Imag. Sanct., Lib. ii., cap. xxii.)

536 Constantine Copronymus turned many monasteries into soldiers’ barracks. In this he has been followed by other crowned enemies of Christ.

Epitome of the Definition of the Iconoclastic Conciliabulum held in Constantinople, A.D. 754.530

The Definition of the Holy, Great, and Ecumenical Seventh Synod.

543

THE holy and Ecumenical synod, which by the grace of God and most pious command of the God-beloved and orthodox Emperors, Constantine and Leo,531 now assembled in the imperial residence city, in the temple of the holy and inviolate Mother of God and Virgin Mary, surnamed in Blachernæ, have decreed as follows.

Satan misguided men, so that they worshipped the creature instead of the Creator. The Mosaic law and the prophets cooperated to undo this ruin; but in order to save mankind thoroughly, God sent his own Son, who turned us away from error and the worshipping of idols, and taught us the worshipping of God in spirit and in truth. As messengers of his saving doctrine, he left us his Apostles and disciples, and these adorned the Church, his Bride, with his glorious doctrines. This ornament of the Church the holy Fathers and the six Ecumenical Councils have preserved inviolate. But the before- mentioned demi-urgos of wickedness could not endure the sight of this adornment, and gradually brought back idolatry under the appearance of Christianity. As then Christ armed his Apostles against the ancient idolatry with the power of the Holy Spirit, and sent them out into all the world, so has he awakened against the new idolatry his servants our faithful Emperors, and endowed them with the same wisdom of the Holy Spirit. Impelled by the Holy Spirit they could no longer be witnesses of the Church being laid waste by the deception of demons, and summoned the sanctified assembly of the God-beloved bishops, that they might institute at a synod a scriptural examination into the deceitful colouring of the pictures

(ὁμοιωμάτων) which draws down the spirit of man from the lofty adoration (λατρείας) of God to the low and material adoration (λατρείαν) of the creature, and that they, under divine guidance, might express their view on the subject.

Our holy synod therefore assembled, and we, its 338 members, follow the older synodal decrees, and accept and proclaim joyfully the dogmas handed down, principally those of the six holy Ecumenical Synods. In the first place the holy and ecumenical great synod assembled at Nice, etc.

After we had carefully examined their decrees under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we found that the unlawful art of painting living creatures blasphemed the fundamental doctrine of our salvation—namely, the Incarnation of Christ, and contradicted the six holy synods. These condemned Nestorius because he divided the one Son and Word of God into two sons, and on the other side, Arius, Dioscorus, Eutyches, and Severus, because they maintained a mingling of the two natures of the one Christ.

Wherefore we thought it right, to shew forth with all accuracy, in our present definition the error of such as make and venerate these, for it is the unanimous doctrine of all the holy Fathers and of the six Ecumenical Synods, that no one may imagine any kind of separation or mingling in opposition to the unsearchable, unspeakable, and incomprehensible union of the two natures in the one hypostasis or person. What avails, then, the folly of the painter, who from sinful love of gain depicts that which should not be depicted—that is, with his polluted hands he tries to fashion that which should only be believed in the heart and confessed with the mouth? He makes an image and calls it Christ. The name Christ signifies God and man. Consequently it is an image of God and man, and consequently he has in his foolish mind, in his representation of the created flesh, depicted the Godhead which cannot be represented, and thus mingled what should not be mingled. Thus he is guilty of a double blasphemy—the one in making an image of the Godhead, and the other by mingling the Godhead and

manhood. Those fall into the same blasphemy who venerate the image, and the same woe rests upon both, because they err with Arius, Dioscorus, and Eutyches, and with the heresy of the Acephali. When, however, they are blamed for

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undertaking to depict the divine nature of Christ, which should not be depicted, they take refuge in the excuse: We represent only the flesh of Christ which we have seen and handled. But that is a Nestorian error. For it should be considered that that flesh was also the flesh of God the Word, without any separation, perfectly assumed by the divine nature and made wholly divine. How could it now be separated and represented apart? So is it with the human soul of Christ which mediates between the Godhead of the Son and the dulness of the flesh. As the human flesh is at the same time flesh of God the Word, so is the human soul also soul of God the Word, and both at the same time, the soul being deified as well as the body, and the Godhead

remained undivided even in the separation of the soul from the body in his voluntary passion. For where the soul of Christ is, there is also his Godhead; and where the body of Christ is, there too is his Godhead. If then in his passion the divinity remained inseparable from these, how do the fools venture to separate the flesh from the Godhead, and represent it by itself as the image of a mere man? They fall into the abyss of impiety, since they separate the flesh from the Godhead, ascribe to it a subsistence of its own, a personality of its own, which they depict, and thus introduce a fourth person into the Trinity.

Moreover, they represent as not being made divine, that which has been made divine by being assumed by the Godhead. Whoever, then, makes an image of Christ, either depicts the Godhead which cannot be depicted, and mingles it with the manhood (like the Monophysites), or he represents the body of Christ as not made divine and separate and as a person apart, like the Nestorians.

The only admissible figure of the humanity of Christ, however, is bread and wine in the holy Supper. This and no other form, this and no other type, has he chosen to represent his incarnation. Bread he ordered to be brought, but not a representation of the human form, so that idolatry might not arise. And as the body of Christ is made divine, so also this figure of the body of Christ, the bread, is made divine by the descent of the Holy Spirit; it becomes the divine body of Christ by the mediation of the priest who, separating the oblation from that which is common, sanctifies it.

The evil custom of assigning names to the images does not come down from Christ and the Apostles and the holy Fathers; nor have these left behind them any prayer by which an image should be hallowed or made anything else than ordinary matter.

If, however, some say, we might be right in regard to the images of Christ, on account of the mysterious union of the two natures, but it is not right for us to forbid also the images of the altogether spotless and ever-glorious Mother of God, of the prophets, apostles, and martyrs, who were mere men and did not consist of two natures; we may reply, first of all: If those fall away, there is no longer need of these. But we will also consider what may be said against these in particular.

Christianity has rejected the whole of heathenism, and so not merely heathen sacrifices, but also the heathen worship of images. The Saints live on eternally with God, although they have died. If anyone thinks to call them back again to life by a dead art, discovered by the heathen, he makes himself guilty of blasphemy. Who dares attempt with heathenish art to paint the Mother of God, who is exalted above all heavens and the Saints? It is not permitted to Christians, who have the hope of the resurrection, to imitate the customs of demon-worshippers, and to insult the Saints, who shine in so great glory, by common dead matter.

Moreover, we can prove our view by Holy Scripture and the Fathers. In the former it is said: “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth;” and: “Thou shalt not make thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath;” on which account God spoke to the Israelites on the Mount, from the midst of the fire, but showed them no image. Further: “They changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man,…and served the creature more than the Creator.” [Several other passages, even less to the point, are cited.]532

The same is taught also by the holy Fathers. [The Synod appeals to a spurious passage from Epiphanius and to one

inserted into the writings of Theodotus of Ancyra, a friend of St. Cyril’s; to utterances—in no way striking—of Gregory of

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Nazianzum, of SS. Chrysostom, Basil, Athanasius of Amphilochius and of Eusebius Pamphili, from his Letter to the Empress Constantia, who had asked him for a picture of Christ.]533

Supported by the Holy Scriptures and the Fathers, we declare unanimously, in the name of the Holy Trinity, that there shall be rejected and removed and cursed out of the Christian Church every likeness which is made out of any material and colour whatever by the evil art of painters.

Whoever in future dares to make such a thing, or to venerate it, or set it up in a church, or in a private house, or possesses it in secret, shall, if bishop, presbyter, or deacon, be deposed; if monk or layman, be anathematised, and become liable to be tried by the secular laws as an adversary of God and an enemy of the doctrines handed down by the Fathers. At the same time we ordain that no incumbent of a church shall venture, under pretext of destroying the error in regard to images, to lay his hands on the holy vessels in order to have them altered, because they are adorned with figures. The same is provided in regard to the vestments of churches, cloths, and all that is dedicated to divine service. If, however, the incumbent of a church wishes to have such church vessels and vestments altered, he must do this only with the assent of the holy Ecumenical

patriarch and at the bidding of our pious Emperors. So also no prince or secular official shall rob the churches, as some have done in former times, under the pretext of destroying images. All this we ordain, believing that we speak as doth the Apostle, for we also believe that we have the spirit of Christ; and as our predecessors who believed the same thing spake what they had synodically defined, so we believe and therefore do we speak, and set forth a definition of what has seemed good to us following and in accordance with the definitions of our Fathers.

1. If anyone shall not confess, according to the tradition of the Apostles and Fathers, in the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost one godhead, nature and substance, will and operation, virtue and dominion, kingdom and power in three subsistences, that is in their most glorious Persons, let him be anathema.

2. If anyone does not confess that one of the Trinity was made flesh, let him be anathema.

3. If anyone does not confess that the holy Virgin is truly the Mother of God, etc.

4. If anyone does not confess one Christ both God and man, etc.

5. If anyone does not confess that the flesh of the Lord is life-giving because it is the flesh of the Word of God, etc.

6. If anyone does not confess two natures in Christ, etc.

7. If anyone does not confess that Christ is seated with God the Father in body and soul, and so will come to judge, and that he will remain God forever without any grossness, etc.

8. If anyone ventures to represent the divine image (χαρακτήρ) of the Word after the Incarnation with material colours, let him be anathema!

9. If anyone ventures to represent in human figures, by means of material colours, by reason of the incarnation, the substance or person (ousia or hypostasis) of the Word, which cannot be depicted, and does not rather confess that even after the Incarnation he [i.e., the Word] cannot be depicted, let him be anathema!

10. If anyone ventures to represent the hypostatic union of the two natures in a picture, and calls it Christ, and thus falsely represents a union of the two natures, etc.!

11. If anyone separates the flesh united with the person of the Word from it, and endeavours to represent it separately in a picture, etc.!

12. If anyone separates the one Christ into two persons, and endeavours to represent Him who was born of the Virgin separately, and thus accepts only a relative (σχετική) union of the natures, etc.

13. If anyone represents in a picture the flesh deified by its union with the Word, and thus separates it from the Godhead, etc.

14. If anyone endeavours to represent by material colours, God the Word as a mere man, who, although bearing the form of God, yet has assumed the form of a servant in his own person, and thus endeavours to separate him from his 546 inseparable Godhead, so that he thereby introduces a quaternity into the Holy Trinity, etc.

15. If anyone shall not confess the holy ever-virgin Mary, truly and properly the Mother of God, to be higher than every creature whether visible or invisible, and does not with sincere faith seek her intercessions as of one having confidence in her access to our God, since she bare him, etc.

16. If anyone shall endeavour to represent the forms of the Saints in lifeless pictures with material colours which are of no value (for this notion is vain and introduced by the devil), and does not rather represent their virtues as living images in himself, etc.

17. If anyone denies the profit of the invocation of Saints, etc.

18. If anyone denies the resurrection of the dead, and the judgment, and the condign retribution to everyone, endless torment and endless bliss, etc.

19. If anyone does not accept this our Holy and Ecumenical Seventh Synod, let him be anathema from the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, and from the seven holy Ecumenical Synods!

[Then follows the prohibition of the making or teaching any other faith, and the penalties for disobedience. After this follow the acclamations.]

The divine Kings Constantine and Leo said: Let the holy and ecumenical synod say, if with the consent of all the most holy bishops the definition just read has been set forth.

The holy synod cried out: Thus we all believe, we all are of the same mind. We have all with one voice and voluntarily subscribed. This is the faith of the Apostles. Many years to the Emperors! They are the light of orthodoxy! Many years to the orthodox Emperors! God preserve your Empire! You have now more firmly proclaimed the inseparability of the two natures of Christ! You have banished all idolatry! You have destroyed the heresies of Germanus [of Constantinople], George and Mansur [μανσουρ, John Damascene]. Anathema to Germanus, the double-minded, and worshipper of wood! Anathema to George, his associate, to the falsifier of the doctrine of the Fathers! Anathema to Mansur, who has an evil name and Saracen opinions! To the betrayer of Christ and the enemy of the Empire, to the teacher of impiety, the perverter of Scripture, Mansur, anathema! The Trinity has deposed these three!534

530. In this epitome of the verbose definition of the council, I have followed for the most part Hefele. (Hist. of the Councils, Vol. V., p. 309 et seqq.)

531. Now four years old.

532. These are Hefele’s words.

533. These are Hefele’s words.

534. These are not given in full but are sufficient to give the true gist.

Revelation, Session Seven
Christ the Savior, Anderson SC
Chapters Two and Three – the letters to the seven churches

Sources:

• The translation of the Apocalypse is from the Orthodox Study Bible.

• Lawrence R. Farley, The Apocalypse of St. John: A Revelation of Love and Power, The Orthodox Bible Study Companion (Chesterton, IN: Ancient Faith Publishing, 2011),

• Bishop Averky, The Epistles and the Apocalypse (Commentary on the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament, Volume III. (Holy Trinity Seminary Press, 2018).

• Andrew of Caesarea, Commentary on the Apocalypse, ed. David G. Hunter, trans. Eugenia Scarvelis Constantinou, vol. 123, The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2011).

• Jack Norman Sparks, The Orthodox Study Bible: Notes (Thomas Nelson, 2008), 1712.

• Venerable Bede, The Explanation of the Apocalypse, trans. Edward Marshall (Oxford: James Parker and Co., 1878).

• William C. Weinrich, ed., Revelation, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2005).

Andrew of Caesarea, Commentary on the Apocalypse, ed. David G. Hunter, trans. Eugenia Scarvelis Constantinou, vol. 123, The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2011), 63–80.

The Things Declared to the Angel of the Church in Pergamum

2:12–13a. 12 And to the angel of the church in Pergamum write: “Thus says the one who has the sharp two-edged sword: 13a I know your works and where you dwell, where the throne of Satan is.

This city was full of idols… 

2:13b. And you keep my name. You did not deny my faith even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness, that all-faithful martyr, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells.

…

2:14–15. 14 But I have a few things against you: that you have <some> there keeping the teaching of Balaam, who in Balaam taught [30] Balak to put a stumbling-block before the sons of Israel, to eat meat sacrificed to idols, and to practice fornication. 15 Thus you also have those who keep the teaching of the Nicolaitans, which I likewise hate.

So it seems this city had possessed two difficulties: First, the majority was Greek, and second, among those who were called believers, the shameful Nicolaitans had sown evil “tares among the wheat.”8 …

2:16. Repent. If not, I will come to you soon, and I will war against them by the sword of my mouth.

Love for humankind is also in the threat. For he does not say, “against you,” but I will war against them, those who are incurably “diseased.”

2:17. The one who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches: To the one who is victorious I will give to him to eat from the hidden manna, [31] and I will give to him a small white stone, and a new name written upon the stone, which no one knows except the one receiving it.”

The “Bread of Life” is the hidden manna, the One who descended from heaven for us and has become edible. …

Things Declared to the Angel of the Church in Thyatira

2:18. And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write: “Thus says the Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire and whose feet are like glowing brass. [32]

… [T]his union, ignited by means of the divine Spirit, cannot be grasped by human reasoning.

2:19–20. 19 I know your works and your love and faith and service and your patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed the first. 20 But I have this very much against you, that you allow the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet, to teach and to lead my servants astray to practice immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols.

…

2:21. I gave her time to repent of her immorality.

The evil <is> a choice, he says, since, having received time to repent rightly, she did not use it.

2:22–23a. 22 Behold, I will throw her on a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her I will throw into great tribulation, unless they repent of their deeds. 23a And I will strike her children dead.

…

2:23b–25. 23b And all the churches shall know that I am he who searches reins and hearts, and I will give to each of you according to your works. 24 And I say to the rest of you in Thyatira, who do not hold this teaching, any who have not learned the deep things of Satan, as they say: I do not lay upon you any other burden; 25 only hold fast to that which you have until I come.

These things are <addressed> to the deceived heretics and those deceiving others. [34] To the more simple he says: “Since you, through your simple manner, are not able to endure the cunning and quick-witted men, inasmuch as you do not know the deep things of Satan, as you say, I do not request that you do battle through words but that you safeguard the teaching which you have received, until I will take you from there.”

2:26–28a. 26 And he who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, I will give him authority over the nations, 27 and he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as earthen vessels they will be shattered, 28a just as I myself have received <authority> from my Father.

To him who does my works,” he says, I will give authority “over five or ten cities,” as the Gospel said. …

2:28b–29. 28b And I will give him the morning star. 29 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

Morning star, or, it says, the one about whom Isaiah was saying, “How did he fall from heaven, the bright rising morning star?” whom he promised he will hand over to be “crushed under the feet of the saints.”22 Or <it is> the One who brings light, as has been said by the blessed Peter, [35] “dawning in the hearts” of the faithful, the well-known illumination of Christ. …. It is not surprising that we have taken this as referring to two things totally contradictory to each other. For we learn from the divine Scriptures that the lion of Judah <is> the Christ,30 and <the lion> from Bashan <is> the Antichrist. According to what is meant, it is this or the other. It <the morning star> also implies both the dawn of the future day, by which the darkness of the present life will be covered, and also its “messenger” bringing the good news of this <dawn>.32…

The Things Declared to the Angel of the Church in Sardis

3:1. And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: “Thus says the one who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars: I know your works, that in name you live, and you are dead.

…

3:2. Wake up and strengthen those things which remain and which were about to die; for I have not found your works being fulfilled in the sight of God.

“Shake off the sleep of laziness,” he says, “and strengthen your members, who are about to die completely through unbelief.” For it is not the beginning of good works that crowns the worker, but the completion.

3:3a. Remember, therefore, what you received and heard, and keep [that], and repent. [37]

“Keep the tradition which you received from the apostles, and repent of laziness.”

3:3b. If you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come upon you.

Naturally. …

3:4. You have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their garments; and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy.

“You possess this good,” he says, “that some people, those who have not soiled the garment of the flesh by filthy deeds, will be with me in the rebirth brilliantly attired because they have kept ‘the garment of incorruption’5 spotless.”

3:5–6. 5 He who conquers shall be wrapped about in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life, and I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels. 6 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

He who is victorious in the above-mentioned victory will shine like the sun in the clothing of his own virtues, and his name will remain indelible in the book of the living. [38] “He will be confessed before my Father and the holy powers,” even as triumphant martyrs, just as he says in the Gospel, “the righteous will shine as the sun.”7

The Things Declared to the Angel of the Church in Philadelphia

3:7. And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: “Thus says the Holy One, the True One, who has the key of David, who opens and no one shuts, who shuts and no one opens.

His kingdom is called the key of David, for it is the symbol of authority. The key is also the Holy Spirit, <the key> of both the book of Psalms and every prophecy, through which the “treasures of knowledge” are opened …

3:8. I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut; <I know> that you have little [39] power, and you kept my word and did not deny my name.

…  “I opened before you a door of instructive preaching, which cannot be closed by temptations. I am satisfied with the attitude, and I do not demand things beyond strength.”

3:9. Behold, I will give <you> those of the synagogue of Satan—who say that they are Jews and are not, but they lie. I will make them so that they come and bow down before your feet, and they will know that I have loved you.

“As a reward for the confession of my name,” he says, “you will have the return and repentance of the Jews, who will kneel before your feet, asking to approach me for the illumination which comes from me, remaining Judaizers secretly in their hearts, <though> not in appearance.”

3:10–11. 10 Because you have kept the word of my patience, I will keep you from the hour of trial which is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell upon the earth. I am coming soon. 11 Hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown. [40]

…  He rightly says, I come quickly, for “after the affliction of those days immediately” the Lord will come, as he says. For this reason he suddenly commands <them> to keep the treasure of the faith inviolate, so that no one loses the crown of patience.

3:12a. He who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God; he will never go out of it,

Naturally. The victor over the opposing powers is established <as> a pillar and a foundation of the truth, having in it the immovable base according to the Apostle.

12b. And I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which descends out of heaven from my God, and my new name. [41]

“Upon the heart of such a pillar,” he says, “I will engrave the knowledge of the divine name and of the heavenly Jerusalem, so that he will see in her the beautiful things through the eyes of the Spirit, and also my new name which will be known by the saints in the future.” …

3:13. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

Let us pray that we ourselves possess such a little ear.

Things Declared to the Angel of the Church of the Laodiceans

3:14a. And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: “Thus says The Amen, the faithful and true witness,

…

3:14b. the beginning of God’s creation:

…  For the beginning of creation is the primary and uncreated cause.

3:15–16a. 15 I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you be cold or hot! 16a Thus it is that you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold,

Gregory the Theologian says, “We must live exactly hot or exactly cold.” … [I]in faith, the middle way and the lukewarm are worthless.

3:16b–17. 16b I intend to vomit you out of my mouth. 17 For you say, ‘I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing,’ and you do not know that you are miserable and wretched and poor and blind and naked.

“Just as lukewarm water causes people who receive it to vomit,” he says, “hence I too, through a word of my mouth, will vomit you like detested food into eternal punishment, for you mingled the thorns of riches with the seed of the divine word and you are unaware of your own poverty in spiritual matters and the blindness of your spiritual eyes and the nakedness of good deeds.”

3:18. I advise you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you will become rich, and that you may put on white garments, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed, and salve to anoint your eyes, that you may see.

…

3:19. If I love someone, I reproach and correct <him>. Therefore, be zealous and repent.

Oh, the love for humanity! How much goodness the reproach holds!

3:20. Behold, I stand at the door and I knock; if one will hear my voice and will open the door, I will come in to him, and I will dine with him, and he with me.

“My presence is not forced,” he says. …

3:21. He who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I myself have conquered and taken my seat with my Father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” [45]

The Kingdom and the repose of the future age are indicated by the throne.  …  Therefore, having made the cloud a vehicle for the rise heavenward in his Ascension,25 he also says through the Apostle that the saints will be “caught up in the clouds to meet him,” and he will come <as> Judge, as Creator and Master of creation, handing over to the saints to judge those who opposed the truly divine and blessed slavery, as the Apostle says, “Do you not know that we will judge angels?” that is, the “rulers of darkness.”28 …

In this class, we talk about chanting with predictable patterns, chanting together and intoning clearly.

Fr. Anthony talks with Fr. Gregory Jensen about his most recent "Father, Speak a Word" substack article, "The Problem is I'm Shallow."  The idea is that our lives are superficial and unlikely to lead to the kind of healing and growth that we are called towards.  They also discuss a great irony: those who seem most motivated to move towards depth (the rigorists and gerundists) do it in a way that only increases the problem because they get distracted by the forms rather than inward discernment and change.  The answer to superficiality is 1) to become part of the Orthodox Church and 2) to immerse oneself in the (seemingly mundane and certainly repetitive) faith as it should be lived within our very real and often messy families and parishes.  Enjoy the show!

Revelation, Session Six and Seven
Christ the Savior, Anderson SC
Chapters Two and Three – the letters to the seven churches

Sources:

• The translation of the Apocalypse is from the Orthodox Study Bible.

• Lawrence R. Farley, The Apocalypse of St. John: A Revelation of Love and Power, The Orthodox Bible Study Companion (Chesterton, IN: Ancient Faith Publishing, 2011),

• Bishop Averky, The Epistles and the Apocalypse (Commentary on the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament, Volume III. (Holy Trinity Seminary Press, 2018).

• Andrew of Caesarea, Commentary on the Apocalypse, ed. David G. Hunter, trans. Eugenia Scarvelis Constantinou, vol. 123, The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2011).

• Jack Norman Sparks, The Orthodox Study Bible: Notes (Thomas Nelson, 2008), 1712.

• Venerable Bede, The Explanation of the Apocalypse, trans. Edward Marshall (Oxford: James Parker and Co., 1878).

• William C. Weinrich, ed., Revelation, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2005).

Andrew of Caesarea, Commentary on the Apocalypse, ed. David G. Hunter, trans. Eugenia Scarvelis Constantinou, vol. 123, The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2011), 63–80.

The Things that had been Written to the Angel of the Church of the Ephesians

2:1. To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: “Thus says the one who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands.

He discourses with the church through the angel just as if he were an educator <speaking> to the one being instructed….

2:2–5a. 2 I know your works and your toil and your patience, and that you cannot bear evil men, and you have tested those calling themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them false. 3 And you have endurance and patience on account of my name and did not grow weary. 4 But I hold it against you that you have left your first love. 5a Remember, therefore, [25] from where you fell, and repent and do the works <you did at> first.

Accepting the church in two ways, he reprimands it in one way. He has put the one <reprimand> in the middle and the achievements on either side... 

2:5b–6. 5b If not, I will come to you soon and I will move your lampstand from its place, if you do not repent. 6 But this you have: that you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

The movement of the church <means> to deprive them of divine grace…

2:7. The one who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who conquers I will grant to eat of the Tree of Life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.”

…  He promised to grant to such a victor in the war against the demons to eat of the Tree of Life, that is, to partake of the blessings of the future age, for, periphrastically, eternal life is meant by the Tree. …

The Things Declared to the Angel of the Church of the Smyrnaeans

2:8. And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write: “Thus says the First and the Last, who was dead and came to life.

The first as god, and the Last as having become man in the latter times, and having opened eternal life to us through his three-day death.

2:9a. I know your works and the tribulation and the poverty, but you are rich.

“Affliction and poverty in the bodily things, which you suffer patiently for my sake, being afflicted by the unbelievers and deprived of your possessions, but in spiritual things you are rich, having ‘the treasure hidden in the field’ of your heart.” [28]

2:9b. And the blasphemy of those who say they themselves are Jews and are not, but a synagogue of Satan.

…  “Judah” means “confession.”  [(Sept.) and they do not confess Christ]

2:10. Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to put some of you in prison that you might be tested, and you will have tribulation for ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.

He says, “Do not fear the tribulation from the enemies of God through afflictions and trials, for <it will last only> ten days and not <be> long-lived.” For this reason, death must be despised, since in a little while it grants “the unfading crown of life.”

2:11. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches: The one who is victorious will not be harmed by the second death.”

… He will not be harmed by the second death of Gehenna. [29]

The Things Declared to the Angel of the Church in Pergamum

2:12–13a. 12 And to the angel of the church in Pergamum write: “Thus says the one who has the sharp two-edged sword: 13a I know your works and where you dwell, where the throne of Satan is.

This city was full of idols… 

2:13b. And you keep my name. You did not deny my faith even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness, that all-faithful martyr, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells.

…

2:14–15. 14 But I have a few things against you: that you have <some> there keeping the teaching of Balaam, who in Balaam taught [30] Balak to put a stumbling-block before the sons of Israel, to eat meat sacrificed to idols, and to practice fornication. 15 Thus you also have those who keep the teaching of the Nicolaitans, which I likewise hate.

So it seems this city had possessed two difficulties: First, the majority was Greek, and second, among those who were called believers, the shameful Nicolaitans had sown evil “tares among the wheat.”8 …

2:16. Repent. If not, I will come to you soon, and I will war against them by the sword of my mouth.

Love for humankind is also in the threat. For he does not say, “against you,” but I will war against them, those who are incurably “diseased.”

2:17. The one who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches: To the one who is victorious I will give to him to eat from the hidden manna, [31] and I will give to him a small white stone, and a new name written upon the stone, which no one knows except the one receiving it.”

The “Bread of Life” is the hidden manna, the One who descended from heaven for us and has become edible. …

Flavius is an independent researcher and journalist who travels the world collecting and sharing the stories of how people and their faith are affected by war and hardship.  I think you will enjoy our conversation about his previous work, how he came to it, and the hardships too many Ukrainians are facing as a result of the combination of Russia's unjust and fratricidal war and local corruption.  Flavius's witness and voice are important and compelling.  You can read his article, "Ukraine's Two Wars: Ukrainians are dying on the frontline while fighting to preserve their faith" at The American Conservative. Enjoy the show! 

2 Corinthians 9:6-11. If we are not careful, the seeds we sow will grow briars. Sow well, in Christ!

Ten Commandments of Chanting

1. Bring and maintain peace in the kliros.  It’s a witness of cooperation, harmony, and reverence – nothing else belongs there (any more than it does in the altar or nave).

2. Come early and be prepared.  This is especially true if you are reading an epistle.  Prayer is part of the preparation.  Spend time with the priest before the service to compare notes/get on the same page (and get a blessing).

3. Our ears are more important than our voices.  

4. Make the hand-offs sound like you are part of the same team, not separate or (egad!) competing.  In chanting, this includes re-pitching only when there is a problem.

5. Chant clearly and confidently.  This is the Word of God, offered to His people.  

6. Chant humbly and without vainglory.  The kliros is a magnet for pride.  

7. Don’t settle for “good enough”.  Even beginners get the notes right.  Good chanting requires making the services witness to the harmony and unity of God.

8. Match the tempo of the service.  It’s not a race, nor is it a dirge.

9. Let the service speak for itself.  It is perfect, we become perfect in and through it.

10. Sing with joy and thanksgiving!  We bring beauty to the services as much through our witness as our voices. 

Terms:  

Intoning – musically reading simply around a single note.  Often done with Psalms.

Chanting – singing the words according to a set pattern or Tone.

Tone – a set melody based on a given system (e.g. Byzantine or Common).

Plain Reading – can be done with a normal reading voice or intoning

Kliros – the home base of the chanter(s).

The Good News I

According to St. John: 

In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things were made through Him, and without Him was not any thing made that was made. (1:1-2)

Genesis 1: 26a, 27-28a

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it and rule... 

SUBDUE?!  RULE?!

Subdue into the pattern of
the good, the beautiful and the true.

The Curse (expulsion from Eden)

Using Beauty Against Itself? (the line of Cain)

The End of the Good, Beautiful, and the True? (Nephalim etc.)

Genesis 9:1,7

And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth... (every wild beast will dread you)...

And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.

Genesis 11 –  The Tower of Babel

The Restoration: Luke 3: 3-6

And he came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins;  As it is written in the book of the words of Esaias the prophet, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.  Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth;

And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.

The Good News II

According to St. John: 

And the Logos become flesh and dwelt among us.  (1:14a)

To all who received him, who believed in his name, He gave power to become children of God. (1:12)
And according to St. Paul:

In [Christ] you also, who have heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and have believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, which is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. (e.g. Ephesians 1:13-14). 

St. Matthew 28:16-20

And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

Beauty in Nature, Architecture, Art, Literature, Music, Fellowship, and THE GULAG?!

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

Gives insights into how people ended up in the Gulag

• This is really developed in the Gulag Archipelago 

• Ivan admitted that he surrendered to Germany to betray the USSR

• The young Gopchik gave milk to Ukrainian guerrillas

• The foreman was discharged for being the son of a kulak (SoanEotP)
  
  

Some insights into the state of faith and religion in the USSR

• Corruption in the Russian Orthodox Church

• Faith of the peasant/redneck (represented by Ukrainian) Orthodox

• Faith and (beautiful) martyrdom of the Baptists

One Day - On Beauty and Art (presages his essay)

Two bookkeepers, also zeks, were toasting bread on the stove.  They'd rigged up a sort of wire griddle to keep it from burning.

Tsezar was lolling at his desk, smoking his pipe.  He had his back to Shukhov and didn't see him.  Opposite him sat Kh-123, a wiry old man doing twenty years' hard.  He was eating gruel.

"You're wrong, old man," Tsezar was saying, goodnaturedly.  "Objectively, you will have to admit that Eisenstein is a genius.  Surely you can't deny that Ivan the Terrible is a work of genius?  The dance of the masked oprichniki!  The scene in the cathedral!"

Kh-123's spoon stopped short of his mouth.

"Bogus," he said angrily.  "So much art in it that it ceases to be art.  Pepper and poppy seed instead of good honest bread.  And the political motive behind it is utterly loathsome — an attempt to justify a tyrannical individual.  An insult to the memory of three generations of the Russian intelligentsia!" (He was eating his gruel without savoring it.  It wouldn't do him any good.)

"But would it have got past the censor if he'd handled it differently?"

"Oh well, if that's what matters...  Only don't call him a genius — call him a toady, a dog carrying out his master's orders.  A genius doesn't adjust his treatment of a theme to a tyrant's taste."

"Ahem!"  Shukhov cleared his throat.  He felt awkward, interrupting this educated conversation, but he couldn't just go on standing there.

Tsezar turned around and held his hand out for the bowl, without even looking at Shukhov — the gruel might have traveled through the air unaided — then went back to his argument.  "Yes, but art isn't what you do, it's how you do it."

Kh-123 reared up and chopped at the table with his hand. "I don't give a damn how you do it if it doesn't awaken good feelings in me!"

Shukhov stood there just as long as he decently could after handing over the gruel, hoping Tsezar would treat him to a cigarette.  But Tsezar had entirely forgotten that Shukhov was behind him.  So he turned on his heel and left quietly.

Never mind, it wasn't all that cold outside.  A great day for bricklaying.

Walking down the path, he spotted a bit of steel broken off a hacksaw blade lying in the snow.  He had no special use for it right then, but you never knew what you might need later.  So he picked it up and slipped it into his trouser pocket.  Have to hide it in the Power Station.  Thrift beats riches.

Solzhenitsyn:  Beauty will Save the World

Part One:  The Ontology of Beauty

One artist sees himself as the creator of an independent spiritual world; he hoists onto his shoulders the task of creating this world, of peopling it and of bearing the all-embracing responsibility for it; but he crumples beneath it, for a mortal genius is not capable of bearing such a burden. Just as man in general, having declared himself the centre of existence, has not succeeded in creating a balanced spiritual system. And if misfortune overtakes him, he casts the blame upon the age-long disharmony of the world, upon the complexity of today’s ruptured soul, or upon the stupidity of the public.

Another artist, recognizing a higher power above, gladly works as a humble apprentice beneath God’s heaven; then, however, his responsibility for everything that is written or drawn, for the souls which perceive his work, is more exacting than ever. But, in return, it is not he who has created this world, not he who directs it, there is no doubt as to its foundations; the artist has merely to be more keenly aware than others of the harmony of the world, of the beauty and ugliness of the human contribution to it, and to communicate this acutely to his fellow-men. And in misfortune, and even at the depths of existence – in destitution, in prison, in sickness his sense of stable harmony never deserts him.

But all the irrationality of art, its dazzling turns, its unpredictable discoveries, its shattering influence on human beings – they are too full of magic to be exhausted by this artist’s vision of the world, by his artistic conception or by the work of his unworthy fingers.

Part Two:  Can (Just) Beauty Save?

One day Dostoevsky threw out the enigmatic remark: “Beauty will save the world.” What sort of a statement is that? For a long time I considered it mere words. How could that be possible? When in bloodthirsty history did beauty ever save anyone from anything? Ennobled, uplifted, yes – but whom has it saved?

… It is possible to compose an outwardly smooth and elegant political speech, a headstrong article, a social program, or a philosophical system on the basis of both a mistake and a lie. What is hidden, what distorted, will not immediately become obvious. Then a contradictory speech, article, program, a differently constructed philosophy rallies in opposition – and all just as elegant and smooth, and once again it works. Which is why such things are both trusted and mistrusted…

But a work of art bears within itself its own verification: conceptions which are devised or stretched do not stand being portrayed in images, they all come crashing down, appear sickly and pale, convince no one. But those works of art which have scooped up the truth and presented it to us as a living force – they take hold of us, compel us, and nobody ever, not even in ages to come, will appear to refute them.

So perhaps that ancient trinity of Truth, Goodness and Beauty is not simply an empty, faded formula as we thought in the days of our self-confident, materialistic youth? If the tops of these three trees converge, as the scholars maintained, but the too blatant, too direct stems of Truth and Goodness are crushed, cut down, not allowed through – then perhaps the fantastic, unpredictable, unexpected stems of Beauty will push through and soar TO THAT VERY SAME PLACE, and in so doing will fulfil the work of all three?

In that case Dostoevsky’s remark, “Beauty will save the world”, was not a careless phrase but a prophecy? After all HE was granted to see much, a man of fantastic illumination. And in that case art, literature might really be able to help the world today? It is the small insight which, over the years, I have succeeded in gaining into this matter that I shall attempt to lay before you here today.

Part Three:  The Terrible Beauty of the Gulag

And as I stand here today, accompanied by the shadows of the fallen, with bowed head allowing others who were worthy before to pass ahead of me to this place, as I stand here, how am I to divine and to express what THEY would have wished to say?

Frequently, in painful camp seethings, in a column of prisoners, when chains of lanterns pierced the gloom of the evening frosts, there would well up inside us the words that we should like to cry out to the whole world, if the whole world could hear one of us. Then it seemed so clear: what our successful ambassador would say, and how the world would immediately respond with its comment. Our horizon embraced quite distinctly both physical things and spiritual movements, and it saw no lop-sidedness in the indivisible world. These ideas did not come from books, neither were they imported for the sake of coherence. They were formed in conversations with people now dead, in prison cells and by forest fires, they were tested against THAT life, they grew out of THAT existence.

When at last the outer pressure grew a little weaker, my and our horizon broadened and gradually, albeit through a minute chink, we saw and knew “the whole world”. And to our amazement the whole world was not at all as we had expected, as we had hoped; that is to say a world living “not by that”, a world leading “not there”, a world which could exclaim at the sight of a muddy swamp, “what a delightful little puddle!”, at concrete neck stocks, “what an exquisite necklace!”; but instead a world where some weep inconsolate tears and others dance to a light-hearted musical.

How could this happen? Why the yawning gap? Were we insensitive? Was the world insensitive? Or is it due to language differences? Why is it that people are not able to hear each other’s every distinct utterance? Words cease to sound and run away like water – without taste, colour, smell. Without trace.

As I have come to understand this, so through the years has changed and changed again the structure, content and tone of my potential speech. The speech I give today.

And it has little in common with its original plan, conceived on frosty camp evenings.

Part Four:  The Babel of Local Scales

Mankind has become one, but not steadfastly one as communities or even nations used to be; not united through years of mutual experience, neither through possession of a single eye, affectionately called crooked, nor yet through a common native language, but, surpassing all barriers, through international broadcasting and print. An avalanche of events descends upon us – in one minute half the world hears of their splash. But the yardstick by which to measure those events and to evaluate them in accordance with the laws of unfamiliar parts of the world – this is not and cannot be conveyed via soundwaves and in newspaper columns. For these yardsticks were matured and assimilated over too many years of too specific conditions in individual countries and societies; they cannot be exchanged in mid-air. In the various parts of the world men apply their own hard-earned values to events, and they judge stubbornly, confidently, only according to their own scales of values and never according to any others.

In one part of the world, not so long ago, under persecutions not inferior to those of the ancient Romans’, hundreds of thousands of silent Christians gave up their lives for their belief in God. In the other hemisphere a certain madman, (and no doubt he is not alone), speeds across the ocean to DELIVER us from religion – with a thrust of steel into the high priest! He has calculated for each and every one of us according to his personal scale of values!

One world, one mankind cannot exist in the face of six, four or even two scales of values: we shall be torn apart by this disparity of rhythm, this disparity of vibrations.

A man with two hearts is not for this world, neither shall we be able to live side by side on one Earth.

Part Five:  Art Shares, Shapes, and Preserves Culture

But who will co-ordinate these value scales, and how? … Who might succeed in impressing upon a bigoted, stubborn human creature the distant joy and grief of others, an understanding of dimensions and deceptions which he himself has never experienced? Propaganda, constraint, scientific proof – all are useless. But fortunately there does exist such a means in our world! That means is art. That means is literature.   … 

They possess a wonderful ability: beyond distinctions of language, custom, social structure, they can convey the life experience of one whole nation to another. 

[It also] becomes the living memory of the nation. Thus it preserves and kindles within itself the flame of her spent history, in a form which is safe from deformation and slander. In this way literature, together with language, protects the soul of the nation.

But woe to that nation whose literature is disturbed by the intervention of power. Because that is not just a violation against “freedom of print”, it is the closing down of the heart of the nation, a slashing to pieces of its memory. …

In some cases moreover – when as a result of such a silence the whole of history ceases to be understood in its entirety – it is a danger to the whole of mankind.

Part Six:  Lies and Suppression Destroy

What is more, it is not simply crude power that triumphs abroad, but its exultant justification. … The young, at an age when they have not yet any experience other than sexual, when they do not yet have years of personal suffering and personal understanding behind them, are jubilantly repeating our depraved Russian blunders of the Nineteenth Century, under the impression that they are discovering something new. …

And on top of this we are threatened by destruction in the fact that the physically compressed, strained world is not allowed to blend spiritually; the molecules of knowledge and sympathy are not allowed to jump over from one half to the other. This presents a rampant danger: THE SUPPRESSION OF INFORMATION between the parts of the planet. 

Contemporary science knows that suppression of information leads to entropy and total destruction. Suppression of information renders international signatures and agreements illusory; within a muffled zone it costs nothing to reinterpret any agreement, even simpler – to forget it, as though it had never really existed. (Orwell understood this supremely.) 

A muffled zone is, as it were, populated not by inhabitants of the Earth, but by an expeditionary corps from Mars; the people know nothing intelligent about the rest of the Earth and are prepared to go and trample it down in the holy conviction that they come as “liberators”.

Part Seven:  Creating a Shared Human Story

Friends! Let us try to help if we are worth anything at all! Who from time immemorial has constituted the uniting, not the dividing, strength in your countries, lacerated by discordant parties, movements, castes and groups? There in its essence is the position of writers: expressers of their native language – the chief binding force of the nation, of the very earth its people occupy, and at best of its national spirit.

We shall be told: what can literature possibly do against the ruthless onslaught of open violence? But let us not forget that violence does not live alone and is not capable of living alone: it is necessarily interwoven with falsehood. Between them lies the most intimate, the deepest of natural bonds. Violence finds its only refuge in falsehood, falsehood its only support in violence. Any man who has once acclaimed violence as his METHOD must inexorably choose falsehood as his PRINCIPLE.

And the simple step of a simple courageous man is not to partake in falsehood, not to support false actions! Let THAT enter the world, let it even reign in the world – but not with my help. But writers and artists can achieve more: they can CONQUER FALSEHOOD! In the struggle with falsehood art always did win and it always does win! Openly, irrefutably for everyone! Falsehood can hold out against much in this world, but not against art.

And no sooner will falsehood be dispersed than the nakedness of violence will be revealed in all its ugliness – and violence, decrepit, will fall.

That is why, my friends, I believe that we are able to help the world in its white-hot hour. Not by making the excuse of possessing no weapons, and not by giving ourselves over to a frivolous life – but by going to war! Proverbs about truth are well-loved in Russian. They give steady and sometimes striking expression to the not inconsiderable harsh national experience:

ONE WORD OF TRUTH SHALL OUTWEIGH THE WHOLE WORLD.

And it is here, on an imaginary fantasy, a breach of the principle of the conservation of mass and energy, that I base both my own activity and my appeal to the writers of the whole world.

Revelation, Session Five
Christ the Savior, Anderson SC
Fr. Anthony Perkins

Sources:

• The translation of the Apocalypse is from the Orthodox Study Bible.

• Lawrence R. Farley, The Apocalypse of St. John: A Revelation of Love and Power, The Orthodox Bible Study Companion (Chesterton, IN: Ancient Faith Publishing, 2011),

• Bishop Averky, The Epistles and the Apocalypse (Commentary on the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament, Volume III. (Holy Trinity Seminary Press, 2018).

• Andrew of Caesarea, Commentary on the Apocalypse, ed. David G. Hunter, trans. Eugenia Scarvelis Constantinou, vol. 123, The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2011).

• Jack Norman Sparks, The Orthodox Study Bible: Notes (Thomas Nelson, 2008), 1712.

• Venerable Bede, The Explanation of the Apocalypse, trans. Edward Marshall (Oxford: James Parker and Co., 1878).

• William C. Weinrich, ed., Revelation, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2005).

Review – from the Orthodox Study Bible

Introduction and Blessing

1:1. The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants – things which must shortly take place. And He sent and signified it by His angel to His servant John.

2. Who bore witness to the Word of God, and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, to all things that he saw. [speaking of the Gospel of St. John] 

3.  Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written in it; for the time is near.

Greeting to the Seven Churches

4.  John, to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from Him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne, 

5.  and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth.  To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, 

6.  and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever.  Amen. (OSB)

7.  Behold, He is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him.  And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him.  Even so, Amen.

8. “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, says the Lord (God), who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

10.  I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day and I heard behind me a loud voice, as of a trumpet, 

11.  saying, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last.” And, “What you see, write in a book and send it to the seven churches which are in Asia: to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamos, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.

12-13.  Then I turned to see the voice that spoke with me.  And having turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the seven lampstands One like the Son of Man, clothed with a garment  down to the feet and girded about the chest with a golden band.

New Material – from the Orthodox Study Bible

14-20.  His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and His eyes like a flame of fire; His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace, as if refined in a furnace, and His voice as the sound of many waters; He had in His right hand seven stars, out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword, and His countenance was like the sun shining in its strength. And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. But He laid His right hand on me, saying to me, “Do not be afraid; I am the First and the Last.  I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore.  Amen.  And I have the keys of Hades and of Death.  Write the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will take place after this.  The mystery of the seven stars which you saw in My right hand, and the seven golden lampstands: The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands which you saw are the seven churches.

1:14. His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and His eyes like a flame of fire

• OSB.  Further, Christ is here described as God, His hair (v. 14) being that of Daniel’s vision of God as the “Ancient of Days” (7:9; see also 1En 46:1). His eyes signify knowledge; His feet (v. 15), permanence and stability; His voice, authority or teaching; His right hand (v. 16), power; His two-edged sword, complete discernment. This imagery continues throughout Revelation to affirm the preexistence and eternal divinity of the Son of Man (see also Jn 1:1–18). Thus, in Christ man (v. 14) and God (vv. 15, 16) are united.

• St. Bede. 
  14. white. The antiquity and eternity of majesty are represented by whiteness on the head, to which all the chief ones adhere, as hairs, who, because of the sheep which are to be on the right hand are white, like wool, and because of the innumerable multitude of the white-robed and the elect, who come forth from heaven, are glistering like snow.
  eyes. The eyes of the Lord are preachers, who, with spiritual fire, bring light to the faithful, and to the unbelieving a consuming flame.

• Andrew of Caesarea.
  1:14. His head and his hair were white as white wool, as snow, and his eyes as a flame of fire.

For even though he is recent amidst us, nonetheless he is ancient; rather, he is before time. His white hair is a symbol of this. And his eyes are as a flame of fire, on the one hand, illuminating those who are holy and, on the other hand, burning the sacrilegious.

1:15.  His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace, as if refined in a furnace, and His voice as the sound of many waters;

• OSB. 1:15 Dan 2:31–44 indicates this mysterious metal foundation not only provides stability but has the ability to forcibly crush all opposition as well. These images are contrasted with the feet of clay found in Dan 2:33, 43: the kingdoms of this world are not permanent, nor ultimately triumphant.

• St. Andrew of Caesarea. 

1:15a. And his feet were like glowing brass, red-hot as in a furnace. [21]

The divine Gregory also understood that the feet meant the divine condescension through the flesh. For his feet by treading on the divinity achieved our salvation. The feet are also the foundations of the Church, like glowing brass, which physicians say is a sweet-smelling incense, which they call masculine incense. Or otherwise: On the one hand, meaning the human nature by the glowing brass, and on the other hand the divine nature by the incense, through both of which is also shown the sweetness of the faith and the unconfused union <of the two natures of Christ>. Or the fine brass signifies the beautiful melody of the gospel proclamation, and the incense is the return of the nations by which the bride is summoned. And the feet of Christ are also the apostles, who have been tested by fire in the furnace of trials in imitation of their Teacher.

1:15b. And his voice <was> like the sound of many waters.

Naturally. His voice is in common with that of the Spirit, from which “rivers of living water flowed from the belly” of the faithful, and it made a penetrating sound over all the earth.

• St. Bede.  

15. feet. By the “fiery feet” he means the Church of the last time, which is to be searched and proved by severe afflictions. For orichalcum is brass, which, by much fire and various ingredients, is brought to the colour of gold. Another translation, which renders it, “like orichalcum of Lebanon,” signifies that in Judæa, of which Lebanon is a mountain, the Church will be persecuted, and especially at the last. The temple also frequently received the name of Lebanon, as there is said to ito, “Open, O Lebanon, thy gates, and let the fire devour thy cedars.”
voice. The voice of confession, and preaching, and praise does not resound in Judæa alone, but among many peoples.

1:16.  He had in His right hand seven stars, out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword, and His countenance was like the sun shining in its strength.

• OSB: 1:16 The Lord holds the stars that represent the seven churches (1:20), and hence, the Church. For Christ is Lord of the Church. In His just judgment, the sword He wields is the Word of God, which cuts effortlessly to the very marrow and heart of humanity (see 2:16; 18:15; Is 11:4; 49:2; WSol 18:15; Eph 6:17; 2Th 2:9; Heb 4:12). The brilliance of His face recalls the Uncreated Light John saw radiating from the Savior at the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor.

• Andrew of Caesarea.

1:16. And he had in his right hand seven stars, and coming out from his mouth was a sharp, double-edged sword, and his appearance <was> as the sun shines in its power. [22]

Further down he says that the seven stars are the seven angels of the churches. The sharp, double-edged sword means his decision against the wicked, “sharper than any two-edged sword,” or the sword of the Spirit circumcising our inner man.38 Like the sun his face shines, not in a splendor <appearing> to the senses, but to the intellect. For he is the “sun of righteousness,” shining with his own power and authority, not like the sensory sun, which <shines> as a created object by God-given power and divine command.

• St. Bede.

16. right hand. In the right hand of Christ is the spiritual Church. “On Thy right hand,” he says, “stood the queen in a vesture of gold.” And as it stands on His right hand, He saithq, “Come, ye blessed of My Father, receive the kingdom.”
mouth. He, the Judge of all things visible and invisible, “after He has killed, has power to cast into hell fire.”
countenance. Such as the Lord appeared on the Mount, will He appear after the judgment to all the saints, for at the judgment the ungodly will behold Him Whom they pierced. But all this appearance of the Son of Man belongs also to the Church, for He Himself was made the Christ in the same nature with it, and He gives to it a sacerdotal dignity and a judicial power, and to “shine as the sun in the kingdom of His Father.”

1:17-18. And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. But He laid His right hand on me, saying to me, “Do not be afraid; I am the First and the Last. I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore.  Amen.  

• OSB. 1:17, 18 Mortal humanity cannot bear the revelation of divine glory, a frequent biblical theme (see Ex 19:21; 33:20; Is 6:5). Just as he fell prostrate at Mount Tabor (Mt 17:6), so also does John here, in the presence of the glorified Savior (see Ezk 1:27; Dan 10:7–9; see also 1En 14:24). Do not be afraid is a revelatory formula from the OT. As a signal for the theophany, it was carried over into the NT (see the Annunciation, Lk 1:30; Jesus walking upon the water, Mt 14:27—“Fear not, I AM”; the Transfiguration, Mt 17:7). In the OT God was called “the first and the last” (Is 44:6; 48:12), and so, too, is the Messiah. Some early heresies (e.g. Docetism) held that Jesus only seemed to die. But the Lord Himself testified, I … was dead, affirming the authenticity of His death; alive forevermore, His Resurrection—the power of which effects His lordship over death and its realm. The Orthodox icon of the resurrected Christ depicts Him with these keys (v. 18) in hand, standing triumphantly on the open gates of Hades.

• Fr. John Farley.  Like those receiving such theophanic appearances in Old Testament days (e.g. Ezek. 1:28; Dan. 8:17), John fell at His feet as if dead. Even though he had leaned in familiarity upon His breast at the Last Supper (John 13:23), yet such is the power of the Lord in His heavenly exaltation that even the beloved disciple is overwhelmed. The Lord restores him in preparation to write the things he has seen and will see.

He tells John, “Do not be afraid,” and in this He tells all of John’s churches not to fear. They need not fear death, martyrdom, or anything in all the world. Why? Because Christ has overcome the world, trampling down death by death. He became dead, but now He is alive to ages of ages. As such, He is the first and the last, sovereign over all (compare God as the Alpha and Omega in 1:8) and the Living One, the source of all life. He had authority over death and Hades by His Resurrection. Death cannot now separate us from Him, for He is Lord of both the living and the dead.

• St. Andrew of Caesarea. 
  Christ revived the Apostle himself who had suffered through the weakness of human nature like Joshua son of Nun and Daniel, by saying to him, “Do not fear, for I have not come near to kill you, since I am beginningless and endless, having become dead for your sakes.”
  1:18b. And I have the keys of Hades and of death. [23]

Instead <of being dead>, he has authority over bodily and spiritual death.

• St. Bede.  17. 

I fell. As a man, he trembles at the spiritual vision, but his human fear is banished by the clemency of the Lord.

the first. He is the first, because “by Him were all things made;” the last, because in Him are all things restoredu.

18. keys. Not only, He saith, have I conquered death by resurrection, but I have dominion also over death itself. And this He also bestowed upon the Church by breathing upon it the Holy Spirit, saying, “Whose sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them,” and the rest.

1:19.  And I have the keys of Hades and of Death.  Write the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will take place after this.  

• OSB.  John’s visions have to do with both the present (things which are) and the future.

• Fr. John Finlay.  Then Christ gives John a command: he is to write the things which he has seen, and the things which are, and the things which are about to happen after these things and send them to the main churches under his care in Asia. (From these seven main locations, they could be sent out to other smaller church communities as well.) This gives a basic outline of the Book of Revelation as a whole: it relates what John has seen (the vision of Christ in ch. 1), the things which are (the present state of the churches, described in chs. 2–3), and the things which are about to happen in the future (the prophecies of chs. 4–22).

• St. Andrew of Caesarea.  [nothing]

• St. Bede.  Reveal to all the things which thou alone hast seen, that is, the various labours of the Church, and that the evil are to be mingled in it with the good unto the end of the world.

1:20.  The mystery of the seven stars which you saw in My right hand, and the seven golden lampstands: The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands which you saw are the seven churches.

• OSB. The angels of the seven churches have been variously interpreted as being (1) the guardian angels of the church communities; (2) the pastoral leadership of these local churches; (3) a personification of the prevailing spirit of the given congregations; or (4) simply the messengers responsible for delivering the letters. The term “angel” (heavenly or earthly messenger) is used over 60 times in Revelation.

• Fr. John Farley.  The introduction concludes with an explanation of the meaning of the seven stars in His hand and the seven lampstands among which He stands. The seven lampstands are the seven churches of Asia, and the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches. This is a reference to what may be termed the individual corporate personality of each church community. Each local church is thus portrayed as having an angel, even as each person has his guardian angel. Just as a person’s guardian angel resembles that person (see those who reacted to the announcement that Peter was standing unexpectedly at the door by suggesting that it was not Peter but his angel; Acts 12:15), so the church’s angel sums up and embodies the local church. The angel of the church is an image of the strengths and weaknesses of each church. In writing to the angel of the church of Ephesus, the Lord actually speaks to the church of Ephesus in its corporate aspect. We see this today as well, in that church communities have corporate characteristics—some are loving, some judgmental, some zealous, some lax. The reference to each church’s “angel” is a way of addressing each community as a community, using the language of the apocalyptic.

• St. Andrew of Caesarea.  Since Christ is the “true light,” because of this, those abundant in his light are lamps as they shine in the night of this present life. Naturally, the churches are called lampstands, because, as the luminaries, they “have the word of life” according to the Apostle. The lamps and lampstands are gold because of the honor and purity of the faith in them. An angel has stood guard for each of these, just as the Lord says,44 and Gregory the Theologian had understood the present chapter: he figuratively called them “stars” because of the brightness and clarity of their nature.

• St. Bede.   stars. That is, the rulers of the Church. For the priest, as Malachi says, is “the angel of the Lord of hosts.”

Malachi 2:7.  “for the lips of a priest should keep knowledge, and people should seek the law from his mouth, for he is the messenger (malakh/angel) of the Lord Almighty.”