The Catalog of Good Deeds

As a genre of Christian hymnography, an akathist is special not only because of its structure but also because of its joyful mood. It can be explained by the real circumstances under which the first akathist was written. It was written in honor to the Mother of God after the victory over the Persians and Avars besieged Constantinople in 626 under the command of shah Khosrau. The akathist was supposed to be sung for the whole night on Saturday of the fifth week of the Great Lent.

The capital was surrounded both from the sea and land. The position was desperate. The Mother of God revealed Her miraculous power and saved the city ("To Thee, the Champion Leader, we Thy servants dedicate a feast of victory and of thanksgiving as ones rescued out of sufferings"). In gratitude for that protection the feast of the Laudation of the Most Pure Mother of God (Saturday of the Akathist) was instituted.

The word “rejoice” repeated many times is taken from Gospel. With that word Archangel Gabriel greeted the Mother of God when he brought the message about the further birth of Messiah: “Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!” (Luke 1:28). In akathists devoted to saints, which were modelled on the example of the first akathist, there is also repeating appeal “rejoice”. The reason for this can also be found in Gospel. With their feats of faith and life, the saints became honored with the reward about which the Savior said: “Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matthew 5:12).

Gregory of Pisidia, the deacon of the great Church of Constantinople, is the one who is considered to be the author of the akathist to the Mother of God. At first, the service was served only in the Church of St. Mary of Blachernae in Constantinople, where the miraculous image of the Mother of God Odigitria, the robe and the belt of the Mother of God were kept at that time. In the 9^th century, the feast of the Praising of the Mother of God was included into the tipicons of the Monastery of Stuodios and St. Sabbas the Sanctified Monastery, and later into the Triodion. This is how this special feast became universal for the whole Orthodox Church.

Besides the Saturday on the fifth week of the Great Lent, the akathists to the Savior, the Mother of God and saints are usually read outside of fasts, during which Christians should pray much for forgiveness of their sins. Most commonly, we read akathists in the moments of special joy and grateful mood, or when we need to ask the Lord or the Mother of God for help in certain difficult circumstances.

Source: http://dishupravoslaviem.ru/pochemu-v-akafistax-postoyanno-povtoryaetsya-radujsya

Readers of these columns have expressed regrets several times that although there are columns describing myself as evangelical, pre-Orthodox and Orthodox, there's really no one column describing my transition journey. In response to another request for such a narrative today, I wrote the following.—"Theo"

Dear Mary —,

I'm glad to share what I can of my journey to Orthodoxy with you.

Most of it is told in the articles on my Theophilus and Friends website, though perhaps the "nodes" are all there but some of the lines connecting them are missing.

After seeing the movie about C.S. Lewis, Shadowlands, in late December (I believe it was) 1993, I started reading Lewis in earnest for the first time in my life, though I had known of him for over 30 years. Reading Lewis made me realize that my own Christian life was very shallow and lacking, though I was in church every Sunday and often teaching and for a time serving as a guest preacher (I'd been ordained and worked in campus and youth ministry almost 20 years). I also was reading through the Bible beginning with the new year ('94) and when I got to the book of Leviticus, though I had read it before this time it really came to life. I found myself saying "I can't believe that the God I have known all my life wanted to be worshipped in this way," with incense and carved cherubim and seraphim and a structured liturgy. "Did God change how He wants to be worshipped in the New Testament?"

I was attending a large community church that had grown out of the Bible church movement (an offshoot of the well known Peninsula Bible Church in Palo Alto)—several thousand members, all kinds of weeknight programs, excellent and erudite preaching that was largely Calvinistic...but after being there two years I still didn't feel that I belonged. I was an observer. In fact, the church having gone to Willow Creek to learn how "seeker friendly" churches operate, I felt that the whole program was intended for observers more than participants, and certainly more than worshippers. Although they had a "worship committee," I never saw anything that seemed like worship to me. Still, by everything I had been professing all my adult life, I had to say it was a "great church." I even toured England, Wales, and Ireland with the pastor and his wife and a busload of other members in May-June and had a great time.

When I got home, the letter that's on the website from the "San Jose attorney," Jeff Rickard, was awaiting me. My initial interest in it was entirely "professional." Here was the biggest "story" that I as a journalist had ever been handed. Everyone in greater San Jose who had any interest in religion at all would want to know the inside story of what happened at Los Gatos Christian Church, why Jeff's father had left its ministry after building it from around 100 to 4000 members. But out of professional ethics I called him and asked, "are you sure you want to publish this?" He was sure, and invited me to come to his office and go to lunch to discuss it further.

I was intrigued by his conversion to Orthodoxy, but after all he had just been through a traumatic upheaval, his mother's brother was a high-profile Orthodox priest, so it didn't seem that unusual. His purpose in writing the letter was to attract others to Orthodoxy, not turn them against evangelicalism. He sent me away after lunch with two books, Franky Schaeffer's Dancing Alone and (I believe the other was) Becoming Orthodox, a collection of personal testimonies of converts. I thoroughly disliked Schaeffer's book. It played fast and loose with the historical truth of the Reformation and Anglo-American history, I thought; it flew in the face of the main points his father's apologetic had made throughout his life, and I found that distasteful to say the least (no one had appreciated Francis Schaeffer's apologetic ministry more than I). But nevertheless, Franky's testimony came through and between the "errors" a strong apologetic for Orthodoxy was made.

Shortly before finishing Dancing Alone, the pastor of the local Orthodox church that Jeff Rickard belonged to, Fr. Charles Bell, sent me a copy of his little book, Discovering the Rich Heritage of the Orthodox Church (that's at least close to the title!) and it appealed to me much more. Fr. Charles had earned his doctorate at a Presbyterian university and was not only steeped in Reformed theology and faith but was still very sympathetic toward it. He treated Calvin and Luther not with the snarling contempt of Frank Schaeffer, but with respect and love. That was much more fitting.

I finished his little book a small step closer to Orthodoxy, but still telling friends "there's no way I'm going to convert." At the same time, though I've never been "charismatic" myself, I had started attending a kinship group of the local Vineyard Christian Fellowship that had grown up where the one that had converted to Orthodoxy (Jeff Rickard's and Fr. Bell's church) used to be! Some of the people who'd been on the England-Wales-and-Ireland trip were in the kinship, and after a few Wednesdays of prayer and fellowship with them, I also started attending the Sunday services, which were held in the evening and so didn't conflict with the morning services at the evangelical megachurch that I was in.

I began reading Timothy Ware's books, The Orthodox Church (considered one of the best histories) and The Orthodox Way (the author has since been made a Greek Orthodox bishop in England and given the name Bishop Kallistos). Then I read Fr. Alexander Schmemmen's history of Orthodoxy, and continued from one book to another. I accepted Jeff Rickard's invitation to attend Sunday service at his uncle's church 30 or 40 miles away, and was greatly impressed. I had, however, attended liturgical churches several times earlier in my life. When I was a student at the Reformed Episcopal Seminary, weekly chapel attendance was required. Later, while ministering at Stanford, my family and I tried the local Anglican Orthodox Church, which is high-church episcopal. In both of those cases I found that once the liturgy was so familiar as to be virtually memorized, it became almost meaningless.

I bought and started to use the Orthodox Study Bible, reading all of the notes and study aids to pin down as much of the theology as I could, and found it could serve as a virtual catechism (Orthodoxy had no catechism comparable to the Westminster, Heidelberg, or Baltimore Catechisms at the time). By this time, my main quest was to find something that would convince me Orthodoxy was or had once been apostate, a false and unfaithful bride of Christ. If it had once apostatized (as I have no doubt Catholicism has, with its sale of indulgences, doctrine of papal infallibility and the immaculate conception and other issues), even if it had reformed itself enough to be "a" true church, that was short of its being "the" true church. If it was just another denomination, I wouldn't be compelled to join it. If it were still the same church Christ and the apostles founded, I now had to concede (though certainly others aren't as compelled on this point as I was and remain) that it would behoove me to join it.

By mid-summer I had decided that I'd take a couple of years and read all about it and, if not persuaded that it had gone apostate, I might join it. By November, every book I was reading was just another confirmation of the dozens of books already read, so I decided my earlier course decision was already pretty much fulfilled. In early October I wrote to a number of respected leaders in the Reformed faith, including the retired former missions secretary of the Presbyterian Church in America, asking if they could pinpoint a time or issue on which Orthodoxy had gone apostate. None of them could supply such a time or point. The missions secretary said he had often worshipped in Orthodox churches while in Europe and found it acceptable within his belief structure, but that for him becoming Orthodox would mean a betrayal of this own ethnic roots (!). He essentially "gave me permission" to become Orthodox.

By October 20 I'd made my decision and was so spiritually enthused about it that I wrote my Christmas letter to my "list" at that time, explaining the transition from evangelical to Orthodox to them. I knew this would be one of the most difficult tasks and that while I was so enthused I should do it, even though I had no intention of mailing it until December, and every intention of rewriting it if I found impediments to converting in the meanwhile. I was already enrolled in catechism class, though as an observer not an official catechumen.

The Sunday before Christmas, 1994, I was chrismated into the Holy Orthodox Church. I'm still in the same parish—St. Stephen's Antiochian Orthodox Church—and though it has good and bad points like any local church, I have never doubted that becoming part of the "denomination" that our Lord himself established was the best decision I've ever made. The liturgy has not become tedious or lost its freshness; it is still 100 percent worship.

That's my story in a nutshell, Mary —. If you have questions about any specifics, like "how did you resolve the conflict between this and that" teaching of my former church and Orthodoxy, please feel free to ask.

Best wishes on your journey, and may the Lord of light lead you into all truth.

Source: http://www.nantyglo.com/theophilus/r31.htm

Sometimes I wish I’d become an archaeologist. Imagine discovering something like, oh, I don’t know, Naboth’s vineyard from 1 Kings.

Here at BreakPoint, we love to tell you about the ways that archaeology is confirming the biblical narrative, and, judging by the response, you love to hear about it.

Well, the latest discovery is one of the coolest yet. It’s possible confirmation of one of the most memorable stories in the Bible: Ahab and Naboth’s vineyard.

First Kings 21 tells the story of Naboth the Jezreelite who had the misfortune to own a vineyard near king Ahab’s palace.

Ahab coveted Naboth’s vineyard and offered to either buy it outright or exchange it for what he deemed a “better vineyard.” When Naboth, in keeping with the Law of Moses, refused, Ahab sulked, “lay down on his bed and turned away his face and would eat no food.” You gotta chuckle at Ahab’s reaction. My goodness.

At any rate, his Phoenician wife, Jezebel, then hatches a successful plot to kill Naboth and seize his land. But their triumph is short-lived: Elijah pronounces God’s judgment on them and their dynasty, which will end in a gruesome fashion.

Since 2012, a team led by Norma Franklin of the University of Haifa and Jennie Ebeling of the University of Evansville in Indiana have led an excavation in the Jezreel Valley, which lies south of our Lord’s native south Galilee.

It’s a region that figures prominently in the Bible, especially the Old Testament. It’s where Gideon defeated the Midianites and the Amalekites in the book of Judges. It’s where Meggido, from which we get the word “Armageddon,” is located.

And it’s the site of the vineyard Ahab coveted.

Five years ago, Franklin and her colleagues, using what’s known as “LiDAR,” a surveying “method that measures distance to a target by illuminating that target with a pulsed laser light,” discovered “several features that had remained hidden for centuries.” These features suggested the presence of an “early winery installation.”

Excavation revealed “several wine and olive presses, including the largest ancient winepress in Israel found to date.” They also found “over 100 bottle-shaped pits carved into the bedrock,” which Dr. Franklin theorizes were used to store wine.

How did they know where to look in the first place? Well, they used the biblical text itself. Writing in Biblical Archeology Review, Franklin said that the details provided in the account of Naboth and the subsequent fall of Ahab’s dynasty at the hands of Jehu provided “valuable information regarding the vineyard’s location.”

In fact, it was the correspondence between the physical evidence and the biblical account that led Franklin and her colleagues to ask if they found evidence of Naboth’s vineyard.

Her answer is a lightly-qualified “yes.” As she told Breaking Israel News, “the story as described in the Bible quite probably could have occurred here in the Jezreel.”

Stories like this should not come as a surprise. A year ago, John Stonestreet told you about evidence that lent historical credence to the Bible’s account of Jehu and the fall of Ahab’s dynasty: a toilet used to desecrate what the Bible calls “the high places.” As 2 Kings 10:27 says, Jehu “demolished the pillar of Baal, and destroyed the temple of Baal, and made it a latrine to this day.”

As we never tire of telling you, “the Bible is the best-attested book of antiquity. Nothing else comes close. That’s as it should be because our faith is firmly rooted in history, not some “once upon a time.”

And that’s something we can say with complete certainty.

Source: http://www.breakpoint.org/2017/10/discovering-naboths-vineyard/

By Fr. Demetrius Basalygo

From now on, a human being does not only have the opportunity to know the true God, to love him, and talk to him in prayer. From now on, he can be united with him, too. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity but He connected us to himself when He became the Son of Man. You cannot imagine Christ the Son of God without the Father and the Holy Spirit; likewise you cannot imagine the Lord without his Body, without the Church, without you and me.

We are one in Christ, and therefore are able to aspire for the Kingdom of God. It has come in power, albeit in a concealed form, because its goal is to ensure unity of all in God. Apostle Paul expressed it brilliantly when he wrote, "that God may be all in all" (1 Cor. 15: 28). This Kingdom of God is called The Church. It is a new way of being where God and human are together, where He embraces us and gives us a life beyond limits. Neither time nor distance nor death can prevail against us any longer. By the grace of the Holy Spirit, we are one in Christ. (Sermon after the Divine Liturgy on June 4, 2017)

By Fr. Andrew Lemeshonok

We should believe that God and the Mother of God are with us. If God is with us, who can be against us? We must not act like everyone else. Our prayer and our life today must be a testimony of Christ, so that many people who watch us closely right now would come to church, so that young people do not fall for the insanity of sin but instead cling to the Holy Chalice of Christ. This is what the future of our earthly homeland and our nation depends on. (Sermon Before The Monastic Tonsure on March 15, 2017)

The Lord has called us to life. Our physical birth and the paths that we tread today are temporary. Sooner or later, it shall pass. This is why we follow Christ into the Heavenly Kingdom. This is why we keep saying that the most important mission for a person is not becoming a general, not doing something great in order to achieve fame but rather defeating death and living forever. The victory over death is the key. Death is caused by our fall. Our nature is infected by sin and is therefore unfit for the Kingdom of Heaven. This is why we mortals struggle with the sin that dwells inside us and around us. The whole world lieth in wickedness (1 John 5: 19). We see that people are going insane, indeed. What are they doing? They chase pieces of paper, bling, cars, and fail to think about their immortal souls. This is why our goal is to let God dwell inside us. If there is God inside us, our souls will part with our bodies when we die and go to the paradise. Some people in the know have said that it's very good to be in the paradise.

One needs to learn to live with God in order to get into the paradise. This isn't hard to do. Our young students should obey their teachers and be honest and reliable. They shouldn't be cunning or deceitful. Our dear sisters and brothers who have families should love other people and sacrifice their time and efforts to them. We all should help those people who need our help and whom the Lord sends to us on our life journey.

***

A true life is where God is, where love is, where light is. It is where people really understand and love each other. An individual who lives with God is satisfied with everything and thanks God for all things. Death is when a person lives alone, when he is sullen and resentful, and when he does not love anyone. (Sermon after the Divine Liturgy on March 3, 2017)

By Fr. Andrew Malakhovsky

We can hurt someone when we don't pity them. We can hurt someone when we are indifferent. We can hurt someone when we put our own interests above the troubles of another person. We can take up the cudgels for them, making their pain more bearable. When we ignore the pain of our neighbours, it is the Cross of our Lord that we ignore. (Sermon after the Passion Service on March 19, 2017)

By Fr. Valery Zakharov

When one schemamonk was yet a boy, he would pull out weeds on a beetroot field. He was chopping the weeds under the blazing sun; and when he looked up, he saw that the field's edge was far away, close to the horizon, near the woods. He was exhausted and ready to give up. Someone advised him to work without looking up. He kept on working, and when he looked up again some time later, he saw that the forest was much closer. We also need to move forward in spite of what we observe in our hearts. It will allow us to get to our destination fast enough. (Sermon before the Confession in the Boarding Home for Children with Special Needs on March 3, 2017)

We should be aware of the fact that this penitential mood, which is natural for the Lent, must not evolve into depression or despair. The Lord came into the world to save sinners (1 Timothy 1:15; cf. Luke 19:10). We must put our trust in him. Of course, the effort that we use to stand up against temptations or rise up after a fall (each person has his own amount of effort required to do so) is not enough but God's love spreads over everything, and it is this love that we must acquire. Learning to forgive, thank, and never give up; learning to look at God instead of ourselves, and stepping towards him — this is our chief aim, I believe. (Sermon after the All-Night Vigil on March 11, 2017)

The Lord allows us breaks in the days of hard work, prayer, and fasting. He feeds us with his bread and the ever-shining light. He gives us who stay in the sinful darkness the light that can lead us out of all dead-ends. The Lord can do anything. It's us humans who run into dead-ends. This is why we come here asking him to help us. We must do our best to see our sins to the extent that the Lord lets us see them, without adding or inventing anything. We must open our hearts to him.

***

We must meet God here on earth. Those who haven't met him here, will hardly meet him there. I would like us not to lose sight of God after we met him. With this in mind, we should work hard to keep this vigil lamp of faith burning inside us and to fill it up with holy oil. To do so, we have to have the oil at hand, and that's exactly what the Lenten season is for. (Sermon after the Divine Liturgy on March 10, 2017)

The Lord can do everything. Our prayer can rise people from the dead and heal the sick not by our own power but by the power of God who dwells inside us. We must not forget it. We are called by God to be holy: ye shall be holy; for I am holy (cf. Leviticus 11:44). We must remember it and live accordingly. (Sermon after the Divine Liturgy in the Boarding Home for Children with Special Needs on March 11, 2017)

By Fr. George Glinsky

Our lives must be in opposition to sin, and regardless of how hard it might be for us, we should strive to keep going and not to give up. We should seek help from Him who is the Source of healing, who is the Source of Life, and who feeds us with his Body and Blood, and leads us towards the eternal life and the Heavenly Kingdom.

***

The Lord calls us to put God's truth into practice. We must demonstrate by our own example that the Lord has changed us, that the grace of God transforms us when we approach Christ who wants to save us. We must share with other people this Good News about Christ and his Resurrection that changed the entire world. We can have this opportunity when we partake of the Sacraments of the Church. Naturally, we claim that the Lord has saved us by his Resurrection. He has given us this chance but it is up to our free will and our reasoning to come to accept this chance. Like a loving father, God expects us to take after him, to carry his image. He expects our spiritual growth to cause further expansion of this image into his full semblance, and, as Holy Fathers put it, to make us into gods by grace when in our lives and in our spiritual beauty we start to resemble him who created us and gave us this life, who gave us the opportunity to be happy and comforted by his love, and who did not abandon us when our forefathers made a mistake, who saved us from our sins, and who is leading us into the blissful life here in the Church of God. We can already feel what the Kingdom of Heaven is like right here through sacramental grace, because this Kingdom is born inside us, as the Lord says. (Sermon after the All-Night Vigil on June 5, 2017)

The mystery of Christian living is caused by a combination of human efforts and the action of Divine grace. This is what we call collaboration, synergy, cooperation with God for the cause of our salvation. We trust God completely. We believe that if we do our best, the Lord will support and help us; the seed of God's grace that was planted in our hearts on the day of our baptism will grow into the spiritual tree that we heard about in the Lord's parables — a tree, which will feed people around us with its fruit, and which will provide a shelter to birds, i. e., everyone we meet. (Sermon after the Divine Liturgy on June 6, 2017)

December 8, 2017

St. Elisabeth Convent

A riza (Ru: риза) is a metal covering for the surface of an icon, usually made from a precious metal. The English word “revetment” is sometimes used, though riza is the most common word used in iconography: even being used to refer to the metal coverings of icons from the Greek-speaking Byzantine Empire, where the practice originated. Why are icons covered?

The two Russian words used for these metal coverings – riza (риза) and oklad (оклад) – give the answer:

§ Riza means “robe”, and so it can be said that the covering is decorative, and used as a way to honour the icon. No one could look at a riza-covered icon and imagine it not to be an item precious to the person that possesses it.

§ Oklad means “covered”, and this word reveals the fundamentally practical reason for covering icons. They are used to help protect the painted surface of the icons from blackening caused by the soot and smoke from vigil lamps, candles, and incense used during church services.

And so a riza is used both for venerating an icon, and protecting the icon from damage caused by veneration.

The riza shown above was made for Andrei Rublev’s famous Icon of the Holy Trinity (the uncovered icon, as it appears today, is shown on the left. The riza covered the icon completely except for the angels’ faces, hands, and feet, and was reworked several times: the earliest elements (the frame, background, figurative plaques, and precious stone cabochons) The original was a gift of Tsar Boris Godunov in 1599–1600, and consisted of the frame, background, figurative plaques, and precious stone haloes. The angel in the centre wears a pendant that was a gift of Tsarevich Feodor, embellished with pearls and precious stones framing a re-used Byzantine sapphire cameo of Christ Pantocrator, originally from the 10th century (difficult to see at this resolution, but just about visible). The three crescent-shaped necklaces attached to the haloes were added by Tsar Michael I Romanov in 1626. Later details were embossed in 1754 by Moscow silversmith Ivan Grigoriev, at the monastery’s expense. The original covering, as well as the later embellishments, appear as though the main reason for adding it was in order to honour the icon (and therefore the prototype: the Holy Trinity). In this way, the riza could be seen as a form of votive offering.

A distinctive feature of some icons are tiny holes, regularly-spaced along the haloes and elsewhere, giving the impression of an attack by extremely organized woodworm. These are caused when the riza is removed from an icon, leaving behind holes where the metal was attached to the wood. Indeed, Rublev’s Icon of the Trinity shows evidence of small holes where the revetment once was. For this, and other reasons, not everyone likes the covering of icons with rizas.

Certainly the Holy Trinity icon by Rublev is best-known and loved as it is now, in its original and uncovered form. However, it could be argued that without covering it up at the beginning of the 17th century, this medieval icon would never have survived up until today in such good condition. The profoundly powerful image of the Holy Trinity was created by Rublev during dark times in Russia’s history, and so acted as a beacon to the faithful. It was covered during a time of general piety in Russia, when Christian spirituality flourished throughout the Russian Empire. The “uncovering” of the icon, along with other icons inspired by Rublev’s simple, faith-filled, style, occurred at the beginning of the 20th century, arguably a time when the world entered new “dark” and turbulent times. These icons “shone forth” again at just the right time, shining all the brighter in contrast with the surrounding shadows. We live in times when these icons still shine brightly, and still need to. But they can only do this because they were hidden beneath gilt metal rizas in the previous centuries of external peace and prosperity.

Source: https://iconreader.wordpress.com/2012/08/31/the-riza-in-iconography-protecting-and-venerating/

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