Articles for tag: audio, Ecumenical Council, Fathers, First Ecumenical Council, Holy Fathers

GIVING WITNESS TO THE TRUE CHURCH

Orthodox Christians all over the world have received the unchanging Christian Faith, passed down from the Holy Apostles to their successors, and continue to practice it today in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church – The Orthodox Church.
%%tb-image-alt-text%%

Sunday of the Holy Fathers [Audio sermon]

This sermon by Fr. Emmanuel Hatzidakis was delivered in 2008 at St. Luke the Evangelist Greek Orthodox Church in Columbia, Missouri.

Apolytikion of the Holy Fathers

You are most glorified and most praiseworthy, O Christ our God,
Who established on the Earth as bright stars our God-bearing holy Fathers,
and who through them,
have guided to the true faith all Orthodox God-fearing Christians.
O most merciful, glory to You!

Epistle Reading — Acts of the Apostles 20:16-18, 28-36

In those days, Paul had decided to sail past Ephesos, so that he might not have to spend time in Asia; for he was hastening to be at Jerusalem, if possible, on the day of Pentecost. And from Miletos he sent to Ephesos and called to him the elders of the church. And when they came to him, he said to them: “Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God which he obtained with the blood of his own Son. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears. And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. I coveted no one’s silver or gold or apparel. You yourselves know that these hands ministered to my necessities, and to those who were with me. In all things I have shown you that by so toiling one must help the weak, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, ‘it is more blessed to give than to receive.’ ” And when he had spoken thus, he knelt down and prayed with them all. Source

Gospel Reading — The Holy Gospel According to Saint John 17:1-13

At that time, Jesus lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him power over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work which you gave me to do; and now, Father, you glorify me in your own presence with the glory which I had with you before the world was made.

“I have manifested your name to the men whom you gave me out of the world; yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you; for I have given them the words which you gave me, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you did send me. I am praying for them; I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are mine; all mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. And now I am no more in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me; I have guarded them, and none of them is lost but the son of perdition, that the scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you; and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.” Source

GIVING WITNESS TO THE TRUE CHURCH

Orthodox Christians all over the world have received the unchanging Christian Faith, passed down from the Holy Apostles to their successors, and continue to practice it today in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church – The Orthodox Church.
%%tb-image-alt-text%%

Imitate the Saints! — Sunday of the Fourth Ecumenical Council

Three times a year our holy Church commemorates our Fathers in the Faith. On the Seventh Sunday after Pascha we commemorate especially the Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council; on the First Sunday after the 11th of October we commemorate especially the Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council; and today, First Sunday after July 12, we honor the Fathers of the first six Ecumenical Councils, but especially the 630 holy Fathers of the Fourth Ecumenical Council, convened in Chalcedon in the year 451.

The Fathers of the Fourth Ecumenical Council went into great pains to safeguard and preserve the faith of the Church concerning the Person of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The Church stayed clear of two heresies: the one maintaining that Christ is merely human (an extolled human being, higher than any other creature, yet nevertheless creature, “unequal” with the Father); the other heresy preaching that the Word of God “appeared as” a human being, although the divinity had absorbed entirely the humanity, annihilating it. In either case salvation would not be possible.

If God did not “assume” our human nature, becoming one of us, then He never reached us, He never saved us, according to the patristic principle, “what is not assumed is not healed”. And if Christ in becoming man did not retain His divine nature then He would not have been able to elevate us beyond our fallen human nature, unite us with God, and deify us. So the Church proclaimed that in Christ both natures are preserved “without confusion and without change, but also without division and without separation”, united in the Person (hypostasis) of Christ.1

The Fathers of the Church are beacons of light. “You are the light of the world!” said the Lord to His Disciples (Mt 5:14). By following them, by imitating them, we are led to Christ, the Light of the world. “Be my imitators, as I am of Christ”, said St. Paul. By imitating the Saints, we imitate Christ.

Read the lives of the Saints and their writings. Reading the holy scripture is good; reading the works of the Fathers and their holy lives is better! Imitating their lives is best!

The Church continues to produce Saints who guide us to Christ. Saint Luke the Surgeon and Fr. Dimitri Gagastathis are two such modern-day luminaries we should follow and imitate.

Through their holy intercessions may our Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on us and save us. Amen.

Fr. E.H./1995

  1. Read about Christ’s human nature in Jesus: Fallen: The Human Nature of Christ Examined from an Eastern Orthodox Perspective
Item added to cart.
0 items - 0,00 $