Fr. Roman Planchak

242 Posts
Feb
08
2015
By Fr. Roman Planchak
Everything You Wanted to Know About Lent but were Afraid to Ask:

Everything You Wanted to Know About Lent but were Afraid to Ask:

Christian Life, Featured Articles
EVERYTHING YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT LENT BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK: The Great Fast or Lent – there are three others on the Byzantine calendar: before Christmas, before the Dormition (August 15) and before Ss. Peter and Paul (June 29) – is the seven week period of preparation before the celebration of Pascha (Easter). It is like a retreat held by the whole Church: a time of spiritual renewal, a time of repentance. ISN'T LENT KIND OF MORBID AND NEGATIVE? Repentance is not “giving up”: it is a turning back to God whom we realize is the very source…
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Aug
27
2014
By Fr. Roman Planchak
A Priest’s “BELIEVING WIFE”

A Priest’s “BELIEVING WIFE”

Featured Articles
St. Paul was under attack, not by Jews or Romans, but by some of those whom he had evangelized and who thought that they should be leaders in the community. Paul pointed to his own way of life in order to show them what leadership really is. St. Paul earned his own living while laboring as an apostle, living simply and without a family of his own. He compared his practice to that of the other apostles including Peter (Cephas) and the brothers of the Lord (James, Jude, etc.) “Do we have no right to eat and drink? Do we…
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Aug
17
2014
By Fr. Roman Planchak
Bowing before Your Image

Bowing before Your Image

Faith, Featured Articles
Many Americans are familiar with the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, miraculously imprinted on the cape of a Nahuatl Aztec in sixteenth-century Mexico. Such an image is called “not made with hands,” meaning that its origin is spiritual or even divine. The Guadalupe cape is not the first image of this sort in Christian history. The most famous icon not made with hands is the image of Christ’s holy face known as the Mandylion (sometimes translated as “towel” or “napkin”): Its history is fascinating and not altogether clear. The Image of Edessa From at least the sixth to the…
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Aug
10
2014
By Fr. Roman Planchak
Honoring Her who Shows the Way

Honoring Her who Shows the Way

Featured Articles, Liturgy
Summer, in our world at least, is a time for sun and fun: cookouts, the beach, pool parties and the like. Yet in the midst of summer – in the week which has been compared to the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning –we are called to fast. The first two week of August are observed in the Byzantine Churches as the Fast of the Theotokos, in preparation for the Feast of her Dormition on August 15. In the early Church the Dormition Fast was generally observed in both East and West. Pope St.…
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Aug
03
2014
By Fr. Roman Planchak

The First Athenian to Believe

Faith, Featured Articles
When we read the Acts of the Apostles we may feel that the apostles had success after success. That wasn’t always the case. St Paul had the following experience in Athens, the intellectual capital of the Greek world, recorded in Acts 17:16-34. He was waiting for Silas and Timothy to rejoin him and continue their journey when, as the Scripture says, “…his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols.Therefore he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the Gentile worshippers, and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to…
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Jul
27
2014
By Fr. Roman Planchak
Jewel of the Martyrs

Jewel of the Martyrs

Faith, Featured Articles
Few Christians have not heard of Mother Teresa of Calcutta. After living in India for twenty years, teaching in a (middle class) girls high school, she received what she termed “a call within a call” to devote the rest of her life to caring for the sick poor while living among them. At her death there were over 4500 sisters in the religious community she founded. Mother Teresa is a modern example of what our Tradition calls “Unmercenary Healers,” people – usually physicians – who cared for the sick without pay, offering their skills back to God as their sacrifice…
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Jul
20
2014
By Fr. Roman Planchak
The Pillar of the Prophets

The Pillar of the Prophets

Faith, Featured Articles
The Scriptures are filled with writings of the prophets, particularly the fifteen books named after the most celebrated Hebrew prophets. Nevertheless, the one most revered as “the pillar of the prophets and their leader” (aposticha) seems to have written nothing, except a letter to King Jehoram of Israel, which was delivered sometime after the prophet had left this world (cf., 2 Chronicles 21:10-12). Elijah (Elias) the Thisbite lived in the ninth century BC, in the northern kingdom of Israel during the reign of King Ahab. Five hundred years had passed since Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt. Several generations…
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Jul
18
2014
By Fr. Roman Planchak
Vehicles for Unity

Vehicles for Unity

Faith, Featured Articles
Many Christian Churches in America were founded by a pastor who had a Bible, a microphone and a conviction that God wanted him to preach. So he gathered a few followers (often his own relatives), rented space and scheduled services. Americans see nothing unusual in this – after all freedom of speech and individual initiative are hallmarks of the American way of doing things. Why not in the Church? The historic Churches (those of the first centuries) saw things differently. Many of these Churches had, in fact, been founded by one of the apostles or their co-workers. They emphasized that…
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Jun
30
2014
By Fr. Roman Planchak
Peter the Rock of Faith

Peter the Rock of Faith

Christian Life, Faith, Featured Articles
Most of the Epistles found in the New Testament are attributed to St. Paul. In addition there are three Epistles of St John, one each of James and Jude, and two of St Peter. Since these are not read at a Sunday Divine Liturgy, we may be less familiar with them. They are all read at weekday Liturgies in the time between the Theophany and the beginning of the Great Fast. In addition portions of 1 Peter are read at Great Vespers on June 29, the feast of Ss. Peter and Paul. 1 Peter is addressed to Christians in “Pontus,…
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Jun
23
2014
By Fr. Roman Planchak
Harbinger of the Sun

Harbinger of the Sun

Featured Articles, Liturgy
Our Church Calendar remembers many events in Christian history: martyrdoms, ecumenical councils, miracles, and even earthquakes. There are only three births celebrated, however: that of the Theotokos (September 8), the nativity of Christ Himself (December 25) and the birth of St John the Forerunner (June 24). We do not know where or when this feast was first observed, but it is mentioned in writings of fourth- and fifth-century Fathers in both East and West (Saints Ambrose, Augustine and John Chrysostom). The oldest shrine of the Forerunner, at Ain-Karem, home of his parents Zachariah and Elizabeth, was destroyed during the fifth-century…
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