Why do the nations so furiously rage together, and why do the peoples imagine a vain thing? (Psalm 2:1)
I can’t hear these words without also hearing the furious music Handel wrote for them in the Passion section of his Messiah. The Psalm is read on Holy Friday at the First Hour. The book of Acts quotes these words (4:25-26), as the…
…His delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.
He is like a tree planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither.
(Psalm 1:2-3)
Over the last year and a half or so I’ve been reflecting very briefly, when time permits, on the daily readings from…
“So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all his work which he had done in creation.” (Genesis 2:3)
This holiday weekend marks three commemorations. Labor Day is on Monday 9/2, but Sunday September 1 is both the start of…
“For a great and effective door has opened for me and there are many adversaries”
(1 Cor 16:9)
“I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places shall be made plain, and the crooked…
Last Saturday afternoon in Ottawa, before the closing banquet where he was honored, Father Thomas Hopko finished his series of reflections on stewardship by speaking about Christian action. But action requires money. There is little that can be done to significantly spread the…
From time to time during the Canadian Assembly Fr Thomas Hopko is giving brief theological reflections on church administration. Now that may sound deadly, but for anyone charged with the usually thankless tasks of admin from…
This will be a short diary entry today from Ottawa/Gatineau and the Archdiocese of Canada Assembly.
Yesterday the clergy synaxis began with hierarchical divine liturgy at 7:00 am presided by Bishop Irenee. The centrepiece…
For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. (1 Cor 12:12)
For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them. (Matt 18:20)
We Orthodox…
Dormition at the Chancery began yesterday morning with the Divine Liturgy celebrated by Metropolitan Tikhon. Jessica Linke as usual…
Neither the tomb, nor death could hold the Theotokos, / Who is constant in prayer and our firm hope in her intercessions. / For being the Mother of Life, / She was translated to life by the One who…
Last Thursday and Friday the OCA’s internal auditors, Michael Strelka, Vera Bozko Summer, and Karen Simons Durkish were at the chancery reviewing accounts with Treasurer Melanie Ringa.
As an…
Most of us are familiar with the traumas of moving day. Boxes everywhere, mess, chaos. This past weekend was the fourteenth time my wife and I have moved house in thirty-four years of marriage. Stuff from Canada, from the house we were renting in Long Island, from departed parents,…
It has been a week since Metropolitan Tikhon and the OCA delegation returned from Belarus after ten days of travels, visits, church services and celebrations surrounding the 1025th anniversary of the Baptism of Rus’. As always happens, normal life quickly takes over as everyone starts…
The official program was over but we still had a day of excursion and visits in Minsk. In the morning we went to the Saint Elizabeth Convent on the outskirts of Minsk to see something of the awe-inspiring…
The full day of celebrations in Minsk (Belarus) of the 1025th anniversary of the Baptism of Rus’ began with an outdoor Divine Liturgy celebrated in the Old Town square with some 50,000 people. The square was once the site of the oldest church in Belarus, the church of the Nativity of…
The Sunday Liturgy, commemorating Saint Vladimir (old calendar) was the height of the 1025th anniversary celebration in Kyiv. It was held outdoors at the Kyiv Caves Lavra in the square adjoining the Dormition Cathedral. With nothing to do but stand in the line of vested priests from…
Yesterday began with a service of prayer (moleben) for the 1025th anniversary at St Vladimir’s Hill overlooking the Dnieper River where the people of Rus’ were baptized in 988. Among those present were the presidents of Ukraine, Russia, Moldova and Serbia. Most moving amid the impressive…
At 10:00 am yesterday morning patriarchs, metropolitans, archbishops, bishops and delegates from the autocephalous churches boarded a special private train to Kyiv, sponsored by Vladimir Yakunin, the president of the state-run Russian Railways company. His Beatitude was with the heads…
Yesterday was a day of immense contrasts. A quiet hospital visit with a 90-year woman. His Beatitude and the heads of church delegations meeting President Vladimir Putin for dinner and conversation at the Kremlin. A television interview with Metropolitan Tikhon. Then a spectacular sound and…
Yesterday was the centerpiece of our stay in Moscow: the Divine Liturgy at Christ the Savior Cathedral commemorating the 1025th anniversary of the Baptism of Rus’. But one of the themes of the celebration is also the second baptism that has been taking place these past twenty-five years.…