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.…

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…

On most feasts of our Church year we display an icon which depicts the event commemorated and explains its theological meaning. This is not the case on the Feast of Mid-Pentecost which is observed this week. To be sure, the icon shows Christ preaching in the Temple but that does not give us a hint of the depths of meaning contained in this feast. This feast is observed on the 25th day of our 50 day Paschal season: the actual mid-point of this observance. It serves to turn our minds towards the climax of these fifty days, the outpouring of…

The New Testament says nothing about the early life of Jesus’ Mother. But in the Church’s tradition, Mary, like other significant people in the history of Israel, was born by the direct intervention of God. According to the second-century Protevangelium of James, her parents, Joachim and Anna, were righteous but childless. Once when Joachim, a rich man, went to the temple to offer his gifts to the Lord, he was not allowed to do so, because he had not raised up offspring in Israel. Saddened by this rejection, he researched to see whether all the righteous in Israel had had…