The Catalog of Good Deeds

A fragment of the meeting of the Sisterhood with Fr. Andrew Lemeshonok devoted to the 20^th anniversary of the Sisterhood

Fr. Andrew: Recenlty we celebrated the feast day of St. Catherinethe . On the same day in St. Peter and Paul Cathedral the 25-anniversary of the first service was celebrated. 25 years ago the first moleben took place there, in the building which had been served as an archive-office for many years. Since that day the new life of the cathedral began. Several months later God brought me there as well, so that I served there as a deacon and later as a priest. On the feast day of St. Catherine our convent also had a cause for celebration. 20 years ago Metropolitan Philaret vested the first sisters of mercy during the service. That was really solemnly! I think that was unforgettable for the sisters who were there. I cannot remember how much of them was there…

The Sisters: Twelve.

Fr. Andrew: You see, there were twelve of them… The number of the apostles. The Sisterhood existed already, and we visited the patients of the hospital, but on the feast day of St. Martyr Catherine that finally the point was made.

Everything is rather simple and clear in the Sisterhood. And this simplicity is what we are looking for in our life, because our world confuses and deforms everything. You need at least ten years to understand what you want and what to do next. It is just madness… There is a tendency in the world today – not to let people to come to themselves, to rethink or understand something. Anyway, we continue our struggle. Every other day is more difficult than the previous one. The Convent, the Sisterhood – one big organism which suffers from many diseases, and it even seems that there is no way to cure them. But then there are the remedy and the Healer. And these are our hope, which gives us strength to live and to move forward and think about our future. One needs courage and an effort. Each sister and each brother should do their best, because our ministry is cooperative and everyone makes a contribution to our work.

Everything changes. Some people have left us, others have passed away… At the same time some new people have joined our ministry. Only God is always the same. We have overcome a lot of challenges already, but there will be even more of them to endure. Perhaps they will be the most difficult for us and will demand even more responsibility. You know that children have their own tasks and requirements, while for adults the requirements are different. It is because adults have different criteria and abilities. Let us hope that everything that we have started there will have further development. The only thing we should remember about is that we must not trust in sin, which is sometimes rather persuasive in its arguments… Perhaps, someone else wants to say something?

Sister Helen: I would like to ask the sisters, who were the first of us, to step forward. I was in the Sisterhood when Metropolitan Philaret blessed us for the second time. I remember that he was crying from happiness, because our sisters could not get permission for their service for a long time. So it was natural, that we all were happy. I felt like as if I was in Heaven, as if I found the exact place where I had to be and needed nothing more. I knew how to live, I had a spiritual father, I had God, and all my sorrows had gone. God gave us strength. You know, I have a weak heart, and I suffer from this for all my life. But then I could sleep only two hours and nothing hurt, nothing bothered me. What is more, physical exertion is bad for my back, as I have spinal discs disorder. So what?..

Fr. Andrew: These are just the little things of life.

Sister Helen: I remember that the sisters and I, who are nuns now, had to sleep between the boxes, because there was no other place for us. We fell asleep because of exhaustion, but we had little time for that. We had to rest quickly and continue our work then. We cared for each other and God strengthened us. Today everything is fine, although our work became much more difficult.

Fr. Andrew: It is harder to live today, because earlier we had God’s grace helping us. Now we have to work on ourselves, as we see our own weaknesses and faintness.

Sister Helen: If there is no necessity, then you will not change yourself. It is definitely true. But we do not want to. How do we want to live? Quietly, in joy and peace. Need to pray? Well then, I can read the morning or the evening prayers, or maybe even an akathist or something else… No, this is simply unacceptable! We should always pray and should do it wholeheartedly.

And what concerns the sisters… I am happy to see them all. And the convent itself is the source of life for me. Thanks to the Convent and our ministry I remain alive. This is the only way to live for me, and I just cannot live differently…

20.12.2016

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The Vestments

The Orthodox clergy wear two kinds of robes, non-liturgical and liturgical. The non-liturgical robes are the ordinary daily clothing of the clergy, worn underneath ‘liturgical robes’. Liturgical robes, or ‘vestments’, are worn during church services.

The non-liturgical robes are called cassocks (Greek rason, Slavonic podriasnik) and outer cassocks (Greek exo-rason, Slavonic riassa). Cassocks are floor-length garments that have long sleeves fitted like shirtsleeves. Outer cassocks are also floor-length garments, but they’re more loosely fitting, with very large sleeves.

In the Russian tradition, because monastic clergy wear dark colored cassocks (usually black, dark blue, or dark brown) and married clergy wear whatever color cassocks they have (often lighter colors), they’re referred to as black clergy and white clergy. In Russia, before the Revolution of 1917, this color scheme was true of both under and outer cassocks. Also, the color of sleeve lining of the riassa [outer cassock] signified the rank of the priest. In modern Russia, the clergy use dark colors for riassas, using other colors only for under cassocks. They no longer use colored sleeve linings to denote rank. However, since Russian-tradition Churches outside Russia were not affected by the changes in the Soviet Union after 1917, many Russian-tradition clergy outside Russia, especially in America, continue the pre-1917 styles of dress to the present day.

The practice of wearing colored cassocks comes from the times called Turkocracia, the Turkish rule, or ‘Turkish yoke’. Moslem clergy reserved the right to wear white or black thinking to humiliate the Christian clergy by forcing them to wear bright colored clothing. Once the Greek Church was free of Turkish rule, they dropped the practice of wearing colored cassocks. But the Russian clergy had copied the practice of the Greek clergy and it had become part of the Russian style.

By the way, Greek-tradition clergy wear colored under-cassocks in the tropical and equatorial climes. Cream, gray, and tan are popular. Also, blue under-cassocks are not uncommon (no matter what climate zone).

It is proper to wear a belt on the under-cassock. In the Greek tradition, the belt’s no more than a ribbon or cord tied around the waist. But in the Serbian and Romanian Churches, these belts signify the rank of the priest. In the Russian Church, the belt is often quite elaborate. The late Archbishop John (Garklavs) of Chicago seemed to always wear belts embroidered with roses.

Wearing the under- and outer-cassocks is common to bishops, priests, deacons, monks and nuns. Permission to wear a cassock is often given to seminarians, monastic novices, and sub-deacons and readers in parishes.

As for vestments, when the Typikon says anything about them at all, it only specifies ‘light’ or ‘dark’ vestments, so local tradition is the only ‘standard’. In the Orthodox Church, six liturgical colors are used: white, green, purple, red, blue, and gold. Later, black vestments also came into use. In some places, scarlet orange or rust color is used.

You could assign meanings to the different colors: white for the pure light of God’s energy; green, the color of life, for the Holy Spirit and the wood of the cross; purple for the suffering of Christ; deep red for the blood on the Cross, blood of the martyrs; blue for the Mother of God; and gold for the richness of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and bright red for the fiery flame of the Spiritual Host. Black is traditionally the color of death and mourning in the West, but in the far East white is the color of death and mourning. In Russia, red is the color of beauty, brightness and joy. None of this is written down in the rules, and different colors obviously have different meanings for different peoples.

It is therefore easier to describe various customs than it is to say what are ‘proper’ and ‘improper’ colors to use. Below, we give the most common uses for colors in the Orthodox Church, especially in the Russian (Moscow) and Carpatho-Russian, Ukrainian, or ‘Little Russian’ tradition.

The Colors

Here is what the Russian Church’s Nastol’naya Kniga Sviashchenno-sluzhitelia says about colors:

The most important Feasts of the Orthodox Church and the sacred events for which specific colors of vestments have been established, can be united into six basic groups:

1. The group of feasts and days commemorating Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Prophets, the Apostles and the Holy Hierarchs. Vestment color: Gold (yellow) of all shades.

2. The group of feasts and days commemorating the Most Holy Mother of God, the Bodiless Powers and Virgins. Vestment color: Light blue and white.

3. The group of feasts and days commemorating the Cross of Our Lord. Vestment color: Purple or dark red.

4. The group of feasts and days commemorating martyrs. Vestment color: Red. [On Great and Holy Thursday, dark red vestments are worn, even though the church is still covered with black and the Holy (Altar) Table is covered with a white cloth.]

5. The group of feasts and days commemorating monastic saints, ascetics and fools for Christ. Vestment color: Green. The Entrance of Our Lord into Jerusalem (Palm Sunday), Holy Trinity Day (Pentecost) and Holy Spirit Day (Monday after Pentecost) are, as a rule, celebrated in green vestments of all shades.

6. During the Lenten periods, the vestment colors are: Dark blue, purple, dark green, dark red and black. This last color is used essentially for the days of Great Lent. During the first week of that Lent and on the weekdays of the following weeks, the vestment color is black. On Sundays and Feast days of this period, the vestments are of a dark color with gold or colored ornaments. Funerals, as a rule, are done in white vestments.

In earlier times, there were no black vestments in the Orthodox Church, although the everyday clothing of the clergy, especially the monastics, was black. In ancient times, both in the Greek and in the Russian Churches, the clergy wore, according to the Typikon, "Crimson Vestments": dark (blood) red vestments. In Russia, it was first proposed to the clergy of Saint Petersburg to wear black vestments, if possible, to participate in the Funeral of Emperor Peter II [1821]. From that time on, black vestments became customary for funerals and the weekday services of Great Lent.

Colors According to Various Local Customs

White is worn for the feasts and post-feasts of Epiphany, Transfiguration, and Pascha. In antiquity, Christmas and Epiphany were celebrated as one feast, Theophany of the Lord, so, in some places, white is worn on Christmas day, but gold is worn from the second day of Christmas until Epiphany. In Muscovite custom, the Church and the vestments of the priest are changed to white at the prokeimenon of the Holy Saturday Liturgy. And then white is worn until the end of Paschal Matins, and bright red is worn at the Paschal Liturgy and throughout the Paschal season. In some places in Russia, white is worn from Ascension to Pentecost, but in other places, gold is worn for those days. In Carpatho-Russian style, in the Paschal season, white, exclusively, is worn. White, the color of the Resurrection is worn at funerals and memorial services. Also, interestingly, in Russia, at liturgy on Holy Thursday, a white altar cover is used to represent the linen tablecloth of the Last Supper [the priest wears dark red, and the church remains in black until after the liturgy, when the priest’s vestments return to black].

Green is worn for Pentecost and its post-feast, feasts of prophets, and angels. In some places, green is worn for the Elevation of the Cross in September. In Carpatho-Russian practice, green is worn from Pentecost until the Saints Peter and Paul fast. Green is often worn for Palm Sunday.

Gold is worn from Christmas to Epiphany, and in some places, during the Nativity fast. Gold is worn when no other color is specified. In one tradition, gold is worn on all Sundays (except when white is worn), including even the Sundays in all the fasting periods. In Carpatho-Russian style, gold is worn from the eve of Ascension to the eve of Pentecost.

Red, especially dark red or ‘blood red’, is worn for the Saints Peter and Paul fast, the Nativity fast, Elevation of the Cross (Sept 15), and for all feasts of martyrs. Bright red would be worn for Saints Peter and Paul feast, and for the Angels. In Moscow style, on Mount Athos, and at Jerusalem, bright red is worn on Pascha and on the Nativity.

Blue is worn for all feasts of the Virgin, Presentation of the Lord, Annunciation, and sometimes on the fifth Friday of Lent (Akathist). In Carpatho-Russian parishes, blue is worn for the Dormition fast and feast, and then is worn until the Elevation of the Cross, sometimes even until the Nativity fast.

Purple is worn on weekends of Lent (black is worn weekdays). In some places, purple is worn on weekdays of Lent (gold on weekends).

Black is worn for weekdays in Lent, especially the first week of Lent and in Holy Week. In Carpatho-Russian, formerly Uniate parishes, black is worn on all weekdays for funerals and memorial services and liturgies, as is done in the Roman Catholic Church, though this is not universally true any more.

Orange or rust is worn in some places for the Saints Peter and Paul fast, and in other places for Saints Peter and Paul feast through the Transfiguration.

Please note that ‘feast’ refers to the period from the vigil of the feast until it’s apodosis, or ‘putting away,’ usually called the ‘post-feast’. The lengths of these post-feasts vary and are given in the Liturgical Calendar and Rubrics. Generally speaking, there is a post-feast of about a week for each of the twelve major feasts.

As you can see, there is great variety in ways of doing things. In the Western Church, six colors are used: white, red, rose, green, purple and black. Blue and gold are not used. Black is worn on Good Friday, and at requiem masses.

In many parishes the covering on the altar and other tables, other cloths and hangings, the curtain behind the Royal Doors, and even the glass containers for the vigil candles are changed to the liturgical color of the season.

In parishes of the Greek tradition, it is customary for the vigil glasses and curtain behind the Royal Doors to remain red in color at all times. Because of the association of the Gospel story of the curtain in the temple being ‘torn in two’ at the time of the earthquake when our Lord was crucified, and the story of the eggs carried by Pontius Pilate’s wife all turning red (and our use of red eggs at Pascha) the custom is for the curtain behind the Royal Doors to remain red. Remember that this rich deep reddish purple color is also the ancient color of royalty, and for that reason, it is used behind the Royal Doors and as a drapery on the Golgotha and in other places associated with our Lord and His Mother.

Source:

Nastol’naya Kniga Sviashchenno-sluzhitelia, Volume 4, Moscow, 1983, Translated in The Messenger of St. Andrew’s Russian Orthodox Cathedral, Philadelphia, June, July-August, September, 1999.

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If the Christmas story has a villain, it would be King Herod. In the passion story, the main villain would be Judas Iscariot, with possibly the High Priest Caiaphas and his Sanhedrin running a close second. But there is no close second in the Christmas story when it comes to villains. Herod has the field all to himself.

Even children seem to recognize this. In the Christmas classic, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson, the Herdman family first comes to hear the Christmas story when they force their way into the main roles at the local church Christmas pageant. To describe the Herdmans as “secular” would be an understatement. They were such barbarians that they made Attila the Hun look like a civilized Oxford don. But their sense of justice and fair play remained intact. And when they heard what Herod tried to do to the Baby Jesus and how nothing much ever happened to him by way of divine retribution, they were indignant. So indignant that they wanted to hang him or burn him alive. Even the Herdmans knew that Herod was a villain.

In fairness to Herod, he had more insight into the significance of Jesus than do most moderns. Most secular people today think that Jesus and Christianity are moderately important, and Jesus is often classed with other great religious teachers. Buddha and Gandhi are often named as being in the same class. But Jesus and Christianity cannot be moderately important. If Jesus’ claims are true, then His life is not moderately important but supremely important, and if they are not true then they are of no significance at all. We didn’t need Jesus to learn of the Golden Rule. We knew before Jesus was ever born that we should love our neighbour. Our problem is not ignorance of the Golden Rule but our utter incapacity to begin to fulfil it. We don’t need education so much as we need forgiveness and healing. The one thing therefore Jesus cannot be is moderately important. Either He is our Lord and should be worshipped, or a deceiver and should be rejected.

Or, Herod might have added, killed. Herod saw clearly that Jesus was a threat to the existing social and political order in general, and to his own royal authority in particular. Herod was king in Judea, and his regime and succession depended upon the political deal he had cooked up with the Romans. There was no room for another king in this cozy situation, especially if that king might begin to act as the readers of the Prophets said He would. Prince of Peace indeed.

One imagines that Herod had no precise theology in mind when he sent out his soldiers to kill all the toddlers in Bethlehem two years of age and under. Did he really believe that he was murdering the Messiah? Certainly he thought he was murdering someone who might claim to be Messiah, or whom people might later come to think was Messiah. Theological precision was not one of his gifts. Where he was gifted was in detecting threats to his rule. Maybe too gifted: it is recorded that in his paranoia he had members of his own family murdered, including his beloved wife Mariamne. For Herod, detecting any whiff of threat was enough to have you killed. If his own wife and family were not immune, a few toddlers in a small town like Bethlehem wouldn’t stand a chance. So many were Herod’s atrocities that the slaughter of few dozen children doesn’t even show up in the stats.

But after all, Herod did have a point: if you let Jesus live and if He becomes King, then everything is changed, and the status quo is gone forever. History has proven Herod right. Jesus did live, and did become King, sitting in power at the right hand of God, and the old status quo is indeed gone forever. And good riddance to it — the status quo before Christ involved all mankind sitting in darkness and the shadow of death. Now we can come out into the light, and live forever. It means, of course, surrendering our hearts and autonomy to the King, and becoming His servants, and giving up once and for all the mad Herodian dream to control our own lives. But that’s okay. Our own lives weren’t so great anyway, and were going to end in the dust of death. Now that Christmas has come and Jesus reigns, all will not end in death. It will end where the Christmas story began, with peace on earth and glory to God in the highest.

An article by Fr. Lawrence Farley

Source: https://oca.org/reflections/fr.-lawrence-farley/in-fairness-to-herod

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The Nativity Journey Infographic

Saint Spyridon reposed in the Lord in the year 348 in his native Cyprus. It was observed soon after that his revered relics remained incorrupt and became a source of many miracles, to the glory of God. For three hundred years after his repose, his sacred relics remained in Cyprus, and in the seventh century, according to his biographer Bishop Theodore of Paphos in 655, they were placed in a church in Trimythous of Cyprus.

Due to the Arabic raids on Cyprus, the sacred relics of Saint Spyridon were transferred to Constantinople at the end of the seventh century, probably in the year 691 by order of Emperor Justinian II (685-695, 705–711). In Constantinople the relics were kept in a female monastery, according to testimony from a twelfth century manuscript (Cod. Paris. Gr. 1594), next to the male Monastery of Christ Philanthropos, probably in the Convent of the Panagia Kecharitomene, which were both founded in the eleventh century by Irene Dukas, wife of Emperor Alexios I Komnenos (1081–1118), and were separated by a wall.

The Russian traveler Anthony of Novgorod records in 1200 that he saw the relics of Saint Spyridon below the altar of the church in the Monastery of the Most Holy Theotokos the Odegetria. It then appears that the venerable relics of the Saint were brought to the grand Church of the Holy Apostles, which was founded by Emperor Justinian I around 550 A.D. and was second in grandeur only to that of Hagia Sophia. Stephen of Novgorod (1350), Ignatius of Smolensk (1389-1405) and the writer Alexander (1393) say that they venerated the relics of Saint Spyridon in the side chapel of the Church of the Holy Apostles, while Deacon Zosimas (1419-1421) confirms that "in this church (of the Holy Apostles) the great Spyridon rests."

A few months prior to the fall of Constantinople to the Turks, on December 12th of 1452, a festive Liturgy was celebrated in the Church of Hagia Sophia to celebrate the union of the Orthodox and the Papists, and the sacred relics of Saint Spyridon were processed amidst much pomp in honor of his feast.

The sacred relic of Saint Spyridon was said to have been brought to Kerkyra in 1456. Initially it was believed that the Priest George Kalohairetis brought the relics of Saint Spyridon and Saint Theodora (Feb. 11) to Kerkyra by enclosing them in two sacks filled with straw, after traveling through Greece on a donkey without incident. This opinion was recorded by Nicholas Voulgaris and first published in Venice in 1669 (Vera relatione del thaumaturgo etc. Venetia MDCLXIX), and he based this on the various writings of his family. But Bishop Methodios of Kerkyra and Paxos discovered in 1808 a manuscript from the fifteenth century that told another story, which was published in Greek in the Service of Praise and the Life of Saint Spyridon and placed as a footnote in The Great Synaxarion. Bishop Methodios says:

"The sacred relics of Saint Spyridon were not transferred to Kerkyra by the Priest George Kalohairetis, but by decree of the duke of the Council of the Ten Democracies of Venice. The transfer out of Constantinople took place on the 14th day of May, in the year 1489. The relics were brought to Paramythian, Epirus where they stayed for a time. The Priest Gregory Polyefktos who was there, in 1496, then brought the relics to Kerkyra. Once on the island, he found them and gave them to the Priest George Kalohairetis. Father George's son, Luke, then was bequeathed the relics, which he passed on to his neice, Asemine, the daughter of Philip, who was also Father George's son. Supposedly it was given to her as part of her dowry when she married Stamatios Voulgaris. In a document dated the 25th day of November, in the year 1571, the sacred relics were deposed of by will to her sons and descendents."

In 1489 Philip Kalohairetis tried to bring the sacred relics of Saint Spyridon to Venice, but this did not take place and it remained in Kerkyra.

It should be noted that separate from the incorrupt body of Saint Spyridon is the incorrupt right hand of Saint Spyridon, also in Kerkyra. It is not known how or when the right hand of Saint Spyridon became separated from the rest of the body. According to a testimony, the arm was brought to Rome straight from Constantinople some time between 1592 and 1605, over a century after the body of the Saint was brought to Kerkyra. In the seventeenth century the relics of Saint Spyridon were seen in Kerkyra without the right hand. This was because it was in Rome in the Church of Santa Maria in Vallicella, to which it was given by Pope Clement VIII to Cardinal Cesare Baronio of the Oratory of Saint Philip Neri. There it remained until 1986 when the right arm of Saint Spyridon was brought back to Kerkyra, with great celebration.

The Great Synaxarion also footnotes that, at the beginning, the relics of Saint Spyridon were placed in the Church of Saint Athanasios, which was later pulled down by the French in 1808. Then, together with those of Saint Theodora, the relics were removed to the Church of Saint Lazarus, near the San Rocco. Later the relics of Saint Spyridon were transferred to the Church of the Archangel Michael in 1589, while those of Saint Theodora were situated in Saint Nicholas, where her relics remained until 1740, when they were then brought to the parish Church of the Archangel Michael. In 1841, when the Church of the Most Holy Theotokos Speliotissa was rebuilt and designated as a Cathedral, her relics were transferred therein, and they remain there until today.

Stamatios Voulgaris, two years after his marriage (1527), received permission from Nicholas Vragadino, an official, to build his own church to Saint Spyridon, near the Church of Saint Lazarus. After long judicial wrangling, the relics were transferred to the new church from that dedicated to the Archangel. In 1537, upon the attack of Sultan Suleyman, the relics were temporarily moved to the Chapel of Saint Kosmas and Damian in the old fort, where the Voulgaris family fled. In 1557, Artemios and Nicholas Voulgaris were compelled to bring the relics and the vessels of the Church of Saint Spyridon to the Church of Saint Nicholas in the suburb of Garitse, since the Venetians were leveling that area in order to fortify the city. In connection with this exchange, another church was raised up, consecrated in 1589, and completed in 1594, at which time the relics were deposited therein, and they remain there until today.

The reliquary is opened for general veneration in the church for three days during the feast of Saint Spyridon, that is, from the 11th to the 13th of December; then four days during the paschal season from Great Saturday to Bright Tuesday. All the Christians zealously gather together, hastening day and night while a vigil is conducted. During the Great Fast, every Great Saturday is distinguished to commemorate the arrival of a wheat-laden vessel in days of old, when the population was saved by divine providence from a universal famine.

It should be noted that there is a procession (liti) with the sacred relics of Saint Spyridon in Kerkyra four times a year. They celebrate events in which the Saint saved the people and the island. The most elegant and lengthy of all processions is the one that circles the entire city once. It is conducted on Palm Sunday on the occasion of the epidemic which struck in 1630. Another procession is also scheduled for the first Sunday in November, and was instituted in 1673 by the Venetians, due to a plague that swept the island that year. Another important procession is held on the 11th of August, in memory of the liberation of the island from the Turkish invasion in 1716.

Up until the year 1605, during processions, the relics were completely uncovered, borne in the arms of a single priest. This practice, however, was considered improper. Therefore, a silver reliquary was constructed in Venice, and gilded and partially covered with crystal, at the expense of Thomas Motsanega; in this the relics were placed. The case itself was then placed within a larger silver reliquary. During the processions, which are conducted with great splendor, the reliquary is borne about by the priest. In Venetian times, they were attended by all the civil authorities, often with the Latin bishop carrying candles. In days of old, two of the priests who carried the reliquary belonged to the Voulgaris family (who helped build the church), and two were members of the monastic order of Saint Basil (to which the Saint supposedly belonged). The magnificent order of the processions lasted into the period of the French and English rule and until Kerkyra was united with Greece.

An article by John Sanidopoulos

Source: http://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2014/12/the-fascinating-history-of-relics-of.html

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