A Priest's Photo Report: In Preparation for Pascha
1. Great
Saturday
On that day, full of services and worries, I just had
no time to take photos. But I could not but take my camera and try to save
several beautiful moments as a remembrance of that Holy Saturday.
2. In the
Church
We were telling about the symbolism of the Paschal
food.
…Once Mary Magdalene visited Roman Emperor Tiberius
and told him, the persecutor of Christians, that Christ had been risen from the
dead. The emperor took an egg that was lying before him and exclaimed, “It is
impossible for Christ to resurrect just like it is impossible for this egg turn
into red!” The egg in his hand immediately became red.
Since ancient times, faithful people colored eggs and gave
them each other.
And here is a Paschal kulich. Earlier pagans cooked in
the beginning of spring a sweet flavorful bread that symbolized the joy of
awakening from winter and darkness to summer and warm.
However, Christians reconsidered that tradition. They
began to bake tasty bread for Pascha as a symbol of paschal joy and festivity.
We know that Pascha is the beginning of a new era, the sign of a new life’s
beginning. The same is with the Paschal bread: kulich is a foretype of the
bread of our future beatitude.
Cheese Pascha in the shape of a pyramid is the symbol of
Christ’s Church. What is cheese? It is milk that have changed. Who is a Christian?
It is a person transfigured by the Holy Spirit. A cheese Pascha means all of
us, changed by the Holy Spirit and gathered into the Body of Christ – the Church.
3.
Painted eggs
Our loyal parishioners, who come every year to consecrate
their Paschal food, bring their gracefully painted eggs.
4. What a
Beauty!
5. Prayer
This woman is just praying before the icon for something
what is important to her…
6.
Preparing for Consecration
Children are not dormant, while their parents are
placing their dishes so that a priest can consecrate them.
7.
Children
Those children were eating the peels from the kulich
(which is of quite a strange shape), while their mom got distracted.
8.
Consecration
Our priests were consecrating paschal foods until the late
at night. Then we had an hour’s rest… And then the feast of light and joy
began: Christ is risen!
Source: https://azbyka.ru/parkhomenko/foto/prochee/podgotovka-k-pashe/1/image/fotor6197/
"There Is no Death!": a Short Paschal Sermon
By Fr.
Andrew Lemeshonok
There is no death! You see?! And we need to live with
this because life on the brink of a grave turns into hell. When people live hiding from themselves, their existence becomes just unbearable. When a
person is lying to himself and is getting confused in simple things, then his
whole life turns into torture and suffering. We cannot avoid sufferings, but
still they can be different: some of them lead a person to eternal life, while the
others bring him to his death.
Today we have entered the joy of the Lord. However, we
cannon feel joy all the time. We can be in pain, we can lose other people,
something can vanish or ruin in our lives – these things are unavoidable. People love
each other and cannot stop thinking that they will bury each other sooner or later and that there
will be nothing more than that… It is important for us to understand that we will not
split up, we will be together forever because the Kingdom of Heaven is the
victory over loneliness, over the life, in which a person is trapped in his
shell but keeps thinking that his life is wonderful.
A person may have money, fame, respect, a position in this
world, but all these achievements of his life are temporary, they will go
eventually. With what is the soul of a person left then? This is why we need to
gather God’s gifts and become rich in God (Ref. Luke 12:21). Today’s night is
our small contribution to our heavenly life. We did not sleep, we got tired –
and this is good! We made that for God. How often we got tired because of our
own foolishness, how often we work without any reason, without understanding what
we do this for and without getting anything! But here we have worked for God. Serve
the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling (Psalm 2:11).
Today we need to share this small drop of love, this
particle of God's grace, with everyone who is around us, to give to everyone –
then we will not be alone. How many people there are around us! We all are like small
torches, which will spread all over the city and will bing light to the homes where we go and to the people to whom we will say, “Crist is risen!”
April 8, 2018
St.
Elisabeth Convent
Orthodox Christian Tradition: Paradise and Hell
Christ
revealed to us that He will come at His Second Coming to judge the living and
the dead. There is a well-known passage in Holy Scripture about the future
Judgment, in which He will separate human beings, as a shepherd separates the
sheep from the goats, and after an exchange of words, the righteous will go
"into eternal life" and the sinners "into everlasting
punishment" (St. Matthew 25:46). In the Creed (Symbol of faith) we
confess, "And He shall come again with glory to judge the living and the
dead."
Before
the Second Judgment the bodies of human beings will be resurrected. The first
and second resurrections were mentioned earlier. The first resurrection is
experienced through Baptism and Holy Communion, and the second resurrection is
after Christ's Second Coming, so that the whole human being may live 'eternal
well-being' or 'eternal distress.'
The
iconography of the Second Coming of Christ shows what Paradise is and what Hell
is.
"Please
go and find the icon of the Second Coming, and you will see that around Christ
are those who are in Paradise. They are in a golden light; the light
surrounding them is golden. This same golden light, as it gets further away
from Christ, begins to change color, and gradually, the further away it goes,
it turns from gold to red; and in the red light are the damned. The saved see
Christ in a golden color, and the damned also see Christ from a distance, but
they see the Light of Christ as red, because for the former it is the glory of
God and for the latter it is the eternal fire, outer darkness and 'the
consuming fire.'"
From this
point of view, therefore, we Orthodox Christians agree with the most liberal
people in the world. No message can be more liberal than that of the Holy
Fathers of the Church, who not only stress that, 'Son, we'll all go to the same
place', as an old lady told me, but also emphasize that God loves everyone
equally: the damned and the saved, the glorified and the saints, Angels and
devils, good and bad, prostitutes and chaste...God loves all human beings
equally, He loves everyone without distinction. From God's point of view, God
saves everyone. He wants the salvation of all human beings, and he has
preordained salvation for all.
How do we
know this? Because even Hell is salvation (the human being is preserved) and
Hell is a way of making perfect, but it is Hell and not Paradise. Because the
one who is damned is incapable of progress, he is unable to accept progress
towards perfection. Why? Because his conscience has been hardened, his heart has
grown hard. He remains so egoistic and self-centered that his personality
cannot develop from selfishness to unselfishness. Since he cannot develop
anymore, he is perfected in his selfishness. Even Hell is evil for him.
Although it is not punishment from God's point of view, it is punishment from
the human point of view.
In other
words, the man has remained uncured. Why? Because his heart needed to be cured,
his heart or his nous (soul) was sick, and they did not receive treatment. But
where does this treatment begin, how does it take place and how a human being
secure it? In the Orthodox Christian experience, treatment begins here in this
world."
In the
Western (Roman Catholic and Protestant) tradition about Paradise and Hell, we
see view that differ from the Orthodox Christian teaching.
"Augustine's
teachings about absolute predestination Hell and Paradise were based on those
perceptions that he had, his legalistic views about the Fall of man and sin,
combined with his neoplatonic perception of Paradise. He introduced into
Christianity the idea that Hell is the subterranean regions underneath the
earth, where people go to be punished. Paradise is outer space.
In those
days they believed that things that were immutable were beyond the heavenly
bodies, where there is no movement and no development, and that here on earth
is the place of testing. So if we are good boys and girls we shall go to
Paradise above the stars and the sky; and if we are bad we shall go under the
earth to be punished in the subterranean regions."
Paradise
in the Western (Latin or Roman Catholic) tradition was connected with the
soul's happiness and the satisfaction of its desires.
"In
the Orthodox Christian Tradition there is nothing like this. Why? Because man's
destiny is not happiness; it is not satisfaction of his desires. The Holy
Fathers do not teach that God will become man's possession or that man can use
God--let alone his fellow human being--for his own happiness.
The
capitalistic foundations that exist within the philosophy of medieval feudalism
originate from Augustine, but mainly from the ancient Greeks. The teaching
about the pursuit of happiness (eudemonism) started from the ancient Greeks,
from Plato and Aristotle, with some opposition from the Stoics and the Epicureans.
In the Christian tradition of the West, however, Aristotle and Plato prevailed.
These elements do not exist in patristic theology."
In our
own Holy Tradition, the human being is eternally advancing to higher stages of
perfection. For us history never stops
There is the history of the saints and there is also the eternal history
of man. The fact that Christ was Resurrected with His Body and that Christ is
fully human until now and for ever and ever means that Christ, His Body and His
human nature, is part of history. Has His Body not acted continually until this
day? There has been a succession of actions; the energies of the Body of Christ
have not ceased. So the Body of Christ is an inseparable part of history, which
is a guarantee that history is eternal. History will not come to a halt;
although a number of theologians who believe in Plato say nowadays that history
will cease. No, history will not come to a halt. Why will history not cease?
Because the Body with which Christ was resurrected will exist for ever, and we
shall be resurrected with bodies. We shall not be merely souls in paradise. We
shall be complete human beings.
Then
Westerners speak about Paradise and Hell from the standpoint of justice. This
is sociological interpretation of eternal life...
"...Holy
Scripture uses the words 'light' and 'dark cloud' to describe the state of the
just, and the words 'fire' and 'darkness' to describe the state of sinners. We
know, however, that the light is different from the dark cloud that covers the
light. And fire is the opposite of darkness, because fire chases away darkness
and illuminates the surroundings.
This
shows that there are not created words to express uncreated reality absolutely.
The Eternal Divine Light and the Eternal Life are uncreated. They are the
energy of God that is experienced by human beings as illuminating or burning
energy, depending on their spiritual state.
"All
human beings will see the glory of God, and from this point of view they have
the same end. Everyone will certainly see the glory of God, the difference
being that, whereas the saved will see the glory of God as sweetest light
without evening, the damned will see the same glory of God as consuming fire,
as fire that will burn them. It is a true and predictable fact that we shall
all see the glory of God. Seeing God, that is to say, His glory and His Light,
is something that will happen whether we want it or not. The experience of this
Light, however, will be different for the two categories.
The work
of the Church and the priests is not to help us to see this glory, because that
will happen in any case. The work of the Church centers on how each one will
see God. Not on whether he will see God. In other words, the task of the Church
is to preach to people that the true God exists, that God is revealed either as
light or as consuming fire, and that at the Second Coming of Christ all of us
will see God. And it must prepare its members so that they see God not as fire
but as light."
The
Church does not send anyone to Paradise or to Hell, but it prepares the
faithful for the vision of Christ in glory, which everyone will have. God loves
the damned as much as the Saints. He wants all to be cured, but not all accept
the cure that He offers.
Paradise
and Hell do not exist from the point of view of God, but from the point of view
of human beings. God will love everyone equally. He will send His grace to all,
in the same way as He will send His grace to all, in the same way as He
"makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the
just and on the unjust" (Saint Matthew 5:45). But everyone will not accept
God's grace in the same way. Some will see God as Light and other as fire. The
same will happen as with Holy Communion. For those who prepare themselves
appropriately, Holy Communion is "for eternal life", but for those
who have "not been purified, Holy Communion is for judgment and
condemnation…"
"...When
someone reaches the point of seeing the glory of God after having gone through
purification of the heart and reaching illumination, this illuminated human
being sees the glory of God as light. But when someone who has not reached this
Light, he sees it as consuming fire. Instead of seeing God as Light, he sees
God as consuming fire."
"We
know that if an Orthodox Christian who does not prepare himself correctly and
reaches the point that his heart is hardened, he will see God as a consuming
fire."
"Contrary
to Augustine's ideas about Paradise and Hell, according to the other Fathers of
the Church in both East and West, Hell and Paradise are the same thing. There
is no difference at all. When someone sees God's glory with unselfish love, he
sees God as paradise, and this is paradise…"
"The
uncreated glory, which Christ has by nature from the Father, is paradise for
those who self-centered and selfish love has been cured and transformed into
unselfish love. However, the same glory is uncreated eternal fire and hell for
those who have chosen to remain uncured in their selfishness."
By Father John Romanides
Source: http://saintandrewgoc.org/home/2015/4/17/paradise-and-hell-according-to-the-orthodox-church
3 Answers from Father Andrew: Why Did Jesus Have to Die in Order to Save Man?
Archpriest Andrew Lemeshonok, the spiritual
father of St. Elisabeth Convent, answers various questions of the parishioners.
Why did Jesus have to die in order to save
man?
The
hardest, most painful and responsible phenomenon in our life is death. The
world wasn’t created for dying and for people to bury their dead (Cf. Matthew
8: 22), but for people and other living creatures to live and rejoice. When sin
entered this world and the man became mortal, only God was able to correct that
mistake and defeat death. The man could not do it because his nature was
corrupted by sin. That was why God became incarnated as a man and died for all
of us.
In fact,
God cannot die. The person who obeys God and fulfils his will by enduring
suffering till the end, will overcome death. That’s why the mystery of our
salvation is fulfilled on the Cross. The Cross was the most terrible and deadly
tool used for execution of criminals. So Jesus bore our transgressions and
liberated us from the curse of sin. This is why we say, I shall not die, but
live, and declare the works of the LORD. (Ps. 118: 17).
What do you mean by saying that Jesus took
our sins upon himself?
The
Lord’s human nature was without sin. He died for us on the Cross. He knew that
He had to offer a sacrifice. The prototypes of the sacrifice at the Calvary in
the Old Testament Church were lambs and doves, killed on the altar. The Lord
took the guilt of the entire humankind because He could do so as our Creator,
and He had the right to do so. He nailed the sins of the entire world to the
Cross.
Things
like these sometimes happen in our everyday lives, too: if someone is guilty
and the other person takes his guilt upon himself, then the guilty person is
released and the other person is punished instead. We know that Nun Maria
(Skobtsova) went to a gas chamber during the war instead of a woman who had
children. She died for the woman and her kids to remain alive. We know such
cases from history. However, only Jesus Christ—only God—could redeem everyone
and allow to choose between life and death. That’s what He did by dying on the
Cross.
How can a person who is unable to fully
appreciate church worship and joy during his earthly life be able to appreciate
it after he dies?
St Justin
Martyr quoted God as saying, “In whatsoever things I shall take you, in these I
shall judge you.” (Dialogue with Trypho, Chapter 47, cf. Matthew 24: 42). Right
now, we see things as if through a dim glass. We can’t experience the depth and
fullness of the spiritual realm but the small pieces that we can grasp really
change our lives. Although we lose God’s grace time and time again, some grace
is left inside our souls. It makes us hope that our souls, which have already
tasted the grace and seen the love of God, will be able to contain everything
the Lord has to reveal to them when they enter the eternal bliss.
There is
a battle going on right now. Sin desensitises us and separates us from the most
essential things. We keep losing that battle. We don’t know, we don’t see, we
don’t hear… Notwithstanding this fact, if our souls move forward and do not
want to stay in the darkness of sin; if we yearn for God, come to church and
participate in worship; if we partake of the Blood and the Body of Christ —
that’s when we may hope that we will ultimately be able to taste the delight of
love, which the Lord has prepared for those who love him (See 1 Cor. 2: 9).
April 4, 2018
St.
Elisabeth Convent
A Short List of the Bright Week Do’s & Don’ts
How long
have I been doing this, and yet I still didn’t remember (or didn’t know) all
the stuff in Orthodixie‘s list of Bright Week practices?
Specifically:
– During Bright Week, our prayers in church and
at home are sung and not read as we sing all week the feast of the risen
Christ: Christ is risen!
– During Bright Week, we do not read from the
psalter at home or in church for the prophecies have been fulfilled: Christ is
risen!
– During the entire Paschal season there is no
prostrating or kneeling permitted in church or at home for we stand with the
resurrected Christ: Christ is risen! [Ha! I did remember that one. Hooray!]
– During the Paschal season we begin all of our
prayers at home and in church by singing the troparion of Pascha: “Christ is
risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs
bestowing life!”
– During the Paschal season and extending to
Pentecost, we do not pray “O Heavenly King, the Comforter, the Spirit of
Truth…” for the Comforter comes on Pentecost. Christ is risen!
That last
one is harder than it sounds. You know how it is when you’re doing the
Trisagion Prayers first thing in the morning. If I don’t do “O Heavenly King,”
I may just sit there for a three or four minutes not being able to think what
comes next.
Source: https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/thissideofglory/2006/04/24/bright-week-dos-donts/
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