On this festal day, brothers and sisters, the Holy Orthodox Church invites us all to share the joy of the Most Holy Theotokos and the Righteous Symeon the God-Receiver: “Rejoice, O Virgin Theotokos, full of grace, for from thee hath shone forth Christ our God, the Sun of righteousness.” The Holy Church will glorify and exalt the Most Holy Virgin with these words of the troparion yesterday, today,... 

Human perception is an extraordinary thing. We are very often inclined to accept a given piece of information as true simply on the grounds that, in modern terms, it has a high citation index. In other words, one and the same text, with slight variations, wanders from publication to publication and from blog to blog. And the more often it is reproduced the more readily we take it on faith on the grounds... 

Sermon delivered by Bishop Hilarion of Vienna and Austria during the Divine Liturgy, celebrated at the Three Hierarchs Chapel at St Vladimir’s Theological Seminary on 30 January 2004, by His Beatitude Metropolitan Herman of All America and Canada. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ! There is much in common among the three hierarchs and great ecumenical teachers whom we commemorate today: Saints... 

On the Feast Day of the Theophany or Baptism of the Lord it is not superfluous for every Orthodox Christian to remember another Baptism, the Baptism that was celebrated over each one of us, Orthodox Christians, a Baptism at which each one of us, through the mouths of our godparents, vowed to God always to renounce Satan and his works and always to be conjoined and “united” with Christ. This,... 

The follow sermon was delivered by His Holiness during the Divine Liturgy on the Feast of the Theophany, 2011, in the Theophany Cathedral in Yelokhovo, Moscow. Your Beatitude, Your Eminences, and Your Graces! Dear Fathers, Brothers, and Sisters! I offer my heartfelt congratulations to you all on this Great Feast of the Theophany and on the parish feast day of the cathedral church of the city of Moscow.... 

On the Feast of the Lord’s Theophany, whether it is 100 degrees below zero or 90 degrees hot, the Orthodox of all countries hurry to sources of water after the Liturgy. “Therefore, O King, lover of mankind, be present now too through the visitation of Thy Holy Spirit, and sanctify this water.” Whether 100 below or 90 above, all present are called to the purification of soul and body, the cleansing... 

Christianity Saw God as Father The first gift given to Christian people was the right of direct appeal to God, the right to address God with the familiar “Thou.” Today it seems natural to us that the religious person would pray to God. But in the pre-Christian world praying to God was impossible. One had to pray to a lord: in pagan theology the supreme god was inaccessible, or powerless, or even... 

Archpriest Alexei UmniskyIn the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit! Christ is born in Bethlehem. The Son of God – infinite, unseen, beyond comprehension – comes to earth and becomes a man, bound by flesh and bearing all the hardships and sorrows of this world. He is born today in a cave in Bethlehem, to be rejected and persecuted by this world in order that mankind – and... 

Christmas Message of His Holiness Patriarch KIRILL of Moscow and All Russia to the Archpastors, Pastors, Monastics and All the Faithful Children of the Russian Orthodox Church Your Eminences the archpastors, honourable fathers, God-loving monks and nuns, dear brothers and sisters! On this radiant and joyful feast of the Nativity in the flesh of our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ I cordially... 

Vladyka Benjamin was one of the best-known ecclesiastical writers of the twentieth century. He was born in the Kirsanov district of the Tambov province. In 1907, after having completed the Tambov Seminary and the St. Petersburg Theological Academy, he was ordained a hieromonk. From 1911 to 1917 he was the Rector of first the Taurida and then the Tver Seminaries and was elevated to the rank of archimandrite....