The Catalog of Good Deeds

Fervor is boiling water, which is poured into the Chalice after the transmutation of the Holy Gifts. The boiling water is poured into the Blood of Christ. It happens immediately after the altar curtain above the Royal Door is closed and after the priest exclaims, “Let us be attentive! The Holy Gifts for the holy people of God.” These words precede and begin the communion of the faithful, from the clergy in the sanctuary to the flock in the nave. The act of closing the curtain symbolizes the locking of the Lord’s Tomb with a rock, sealing it with the high priest’s seal, and appointing the guards. Similarly, the entrance with the Chalice signifies the Resurrection of Christ.

The words “Let us be attentive! The Holy Gifts for the holy people of God” mean the following: we are called to be extremely attentive to what is happening. The Holy Body and Blood of Jesus Christ are distributed among the holy people, i.e., those Orthodox Christians who have properly prepared to receive them.

After that, the fervor is poured into the Chalice, which is sitting on the Holy Table. The rubrics stipulate the following (according to the Archieratikon): the priest must pour the fervor into the Chalice with care, “with caution so as not to overwhelm the wine, that is, so as there isn’t more water than wine in the Chalice.”

The fervor is first blessed by the priest with the following words, “Blessed is the fervor of Thy saints always, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.” Then it is poured into the Chalice so as to make the sign of the cross, with the words, “The fervor of faith, full of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

These prayers point at the following theological symbolism of the fervor…

The first symbol is mentioned by Archimandrite Cyprian (Kern), a renowned liturgical scholar, in his book titled The Eucharist. He quotes Saint Niketas Stethatos, who was St Symeon the New Theologian’s disciple, “… Also, when we drink his living and hot Blood mixed with water that poured out of his side, we are cleansed of every sin and filled with the Spirit, who is warm, for, as you see, the Blood that we drink from this Cup is as warm as the blood that poured from the Lord’s body…” That is, the fervor symbolizes the life in the Blood of Christ — the life for the entire world. On the other hand, it is our participation in the act of Redemption, as if we were standing by the Cross at the time of Crucifixion and if the Lord’s heart was still beating…

The other image is mentioned by Holy Righteous Nicholas Kavasilas, a Greek liturgical scholar of the 14th century: “The hot water was touched by fire, and as such it reminds of the Holy Spirit, who is like fire (Acts 2:3-4) and who is said to resemble water (Is. 44:3; John 7:38-39). It is poured into the Chalice after the consummation of the Sacrament and the consecration of the Holy Gifts to signify the descent of the Holy Spirit onto the Church. The Holy Spirit descended onto the Church after the slaughter and subsequent resurrection of Christ, which marked the fulfillment of the act of salvation. The Holy Spirit always descends after the consummation (of the sacrifice), for the Comforter comes to those who partake of the Sacrifice with dignity.”

That is why we should purify ourselves by fasting, prayer, and confession in order to reach for the Chalice of Christ with the fear of God and to partake of the Body and the Blood of Christ regularly, so as to bring the saving and life-giving fervor, sanctified by the Holy Spirit, into our human nature corrupted by sin.

By Fr. Andrei Chizhenko

Translated by The Catalog of Good Deeds

Nun Juliania, a choral conductor and Church composer, is well-known both in her home country Belarus and abroad. In the past years Nun Juliania’s choir recorded several beautiful albums of Liturgy chants.

The current album You Simply Have to Love represents a great collection of non-Liturgical Orthodox music which belongs to the spiritual heritage of various Christian nations, including Belarus, Russia, and Greece.

Agni Parfene, a classical hymn dedicated to the Mother of God, is probably the most recognizable non-Liturgical chant of Eastern Christian tradition. The song Creeping over the Water tells a touching story about a girl who prefers a monastic cassock over bridal dress. Listening to O, Wondrous Isle of Valaam one cannot help imagining the majestic domes of the monastery surrounded by the pine tree forest and nicknamed the Athos of the North. The Belarusian spiritual folk-song Three Angels reminds us that narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it (Matthew 7:14). Finally, You Simply Have to Love is a true masterpiece composed by Nun Juliania with lyrics by Archpriest Andrew Logvinov who calls upon us to love and forgive everyone.

It is not a secret that there is some prejudice toward choral music regarded by some as old-fashioned and boring. I think the most obvious advantage of the album is a careful selection of songs which can appeal to a general audience. Moreover, some of the songs presented in the album can be performed even by small choirs. This may be an opportunity for those who love spiritual choral music to make it more popular in the modern society and educate the young generation obsessed with listening to pop artists.

The album You Simply Have to Love gives us an excellent chance to reflect on eternal values, such as faith, joy, hope, love, and mercy while enjoying the best examples of spiritual music.

You can visit the Catalog of St. Elisabeth Convent to listen to a short preview of the album.

By Vladimir Sypchu,

a chorister from the parish of

the Entry of the Most Holy Mother of God into the Temple,

Minsk, Belarus

Catalog of Good Deeds, 2018

Many people, especially those who are far from the Church and its many-sided life often blam the Church of Christ for the fact that it does not accept and include in the Holy Scripture numerous so-called “gospels” and “letter of the apostles”, considers them false, calls them apocrypha and the works of gnostics. The fathers of the Church and ancient Christians, who denied such books as false and spiritually danger ones, are accused of dull thinking, religious fanaticism, and intolerance towards other views and disrespect towards other people’s opinion. However, is it really? We can easily check this with the example of apocryphal “Childhood Gospel of Thomas”, the book that is not accepted by the Church and falsely attributed to Apostle Thomas, whom we commemorate on October 6 (October 19).

It will be enough for us to mention just several episodes from this pseudo-Christian work. In the very beginning of the apocryphal story, it is described how little Jesus was playing with water and clay, when He decided to make some small birds figures of clay. That was happening on Sabbath. One boy, the son of the scribe, saw that. Then he took a branch of a willow and dispersed all the water. “And when Jesus saw what was done, he was wroth and said unto him: O evil, ungodly, and foolish one, what hurt did the pools and the waters do thee? behold, now also thou shalt be withered like a tree, and shalt not bear leaves, neither root, nor fruit. And straightway that lad withered up wholly, but Jesus departed and went unto Joseph's house. But the parents of him that was withered took him up, bewailing his youth, and brought him to Joseph, and accused him for that thou hast such a child which doeth such deeds” (The Infancy Gospel of Thomas, III).

As we can see, this short episode speaks for itself – its nonsense is not even worthy to be discussed. Any loving heart that confesses Jesus Christ as our Lord and God will never accept such story and will never believe in such controversial and cruel miracles that contradict the spirit of the Gospel of Christ.

There is another episode that only confirms the strangeness of the apocrypha in relation to the Christian tradition. “After that again he went through the village, and a child ran and dashed against his shoulder. And Jesus was provoked and said unto him: Thou shalt not finish thy course (lit. go all thy way). And immediately he fell down and died. But certain when they saw what was done said: Whence was this young child born, for that every word of his is an accomplished work? And the parents of him that was dead came unto Joseph, and blamed him, saying: Thou that hast such a child canst not dwell with us in the village: or do thou teach him to bless and not to curse: for he slayeth our children” (The Infancy Gospel of Thomas, IV).

Even the most cursory examination of the text of this apocryphal “gospel”, which contains no Good News at all, lets us understand at once why the Apostolic Church did not recognize that text as the one that related to the Holy Scripture of our tradition, and what is more, proclaimed it a fiction distorting the elementary understanding of good and evil. This is why Apostle Thomas just cannot be the author of this story, although his name is mentioned in its title. Christians were taught long ago by Apostle Paul that they had to recognize and differentiate the Word of God from fictive stories. Apostle Paul appealed to us then and appeals today as well: “not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come” (2 Thessalonians 2:2).

By John Nichiporuk,

a Bachelor of Theology,
specialized in Biblical Studies.

The Catalog Of Good Deeds

Life-Saving Splinter

When Archimandrite Pavel Gruzdev was in a prison camp, he made it his duty to get up an hour before the general wakeup call and wash the floor in the entire bunkhouse. After he was released and became the rector in a parish church, he always washed the floor in the church. One day, this humble habit rescued his life.

The brick vault of the dome in the main aisle of Holy Trinity Church in v. Verkhne-Nikulskoye, where Father Pavel Gruzdev served, collapsed. The church had long been in need of repair because its foundation and other buildings near the church were eaten away by the waters of Rybinsk water reservoir, which did a great deal of damage. Of course, the parish didn’t have enough money to restore and repair the church. Surprisingly, the way the vault fell in reveals God’s mercy and providence of His chosen one.

That was how it happened. Father Pavel was washing the floor in the central part of the church. Suddenly, a splinter pierced his hand. It was so painful that Father Pavel threw away the wash-cloth and went out of the church. It was at that very moment that the vault collapsed. Huge pieces of bricks made a hole in the floor at precisely the same place where Father Pavel had stood seconds before! When he returned into the church, he saw clouds of dust and a heap of stones on the place where he had stood… There was a hole in the dome, through which a clear blue sky could be seen. Amazingly, no one was hurt during the collapse!

A Forgotten Name Day

This is what happened in my family this winter. My relative’s son is in the army now. Lately, he called to congratulate his mom on her name day. He said that he had almost forgotten about the day: life’s busy in the army, you know. When they stood in the ranks in front of their barracks, an old lady approached him and said, “Sonny, I’m going to celebrate my name day today. My name is Nina. Congratulate me!” She singled him out of the entire rank for some reason.

His mother wasn’t too surprised when he told her about it. She later admitted to me: if a boy enjoys reading the Psalter in the army, everything’s possible. Indeed, her son reads the Psalter voraciously whenever he can. He found this book in the barracks library, in the leisure room. That’s how things go in our army nowadays.

By Alexander Tkachenko

A Raven’s Pie

Saint Kuksha of Odessa was 63 in 1938, when he was thrown into a prison camp for five years as a “cult minister”. Like all other convicts, he was made to work as a tree logger 14 hours a day and subsist on a meager ration. The elderly hieromonk endured the life at the prison camp patiently and complacently, and he even tried to support other prisoners spiritually. Unfortunately, sometimes he felt completely exhausted. The Lord came to his help, sometimes miraculously.

This is what the elder wrote in his memoirs: “It was on Easter. I was weak and hungry. The sun was shining and birds were singing, and the snow was already melting. I walked along the barbed wire fence and I desperately wanted to eat. On the other side of the fence, I saw cooks carrying pans with pies for the guards, and ravens flying over their heads. I begged, ‘Hey, raven, you fed Prophet Elijah in the wilderness, please bring me a piece of pie, too.’ All of a sudden, I heard a loud ‘Caw’ over my head, and a pie fell to my feet: the raven had stolen it from a cook’s pan. I bent over to take the pie, thanked God tearfully, and ate it.”

Translated by The Catalog of Good Deeds

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What Is the ‘Fervor’ Used during the Liturgy?

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"Infancy Gospel of Thomas": Could Apostle Thomas in Fact Be the Author of This Apocrypha?

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