Holy Tuesday Holy Week: A Liturgical Explanation for the Days of Holy Week 3. MONDAY, TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY: THE END These three days, which the Church calls Great and Holy have within the liturgical development of the Holy Week a very definite purpose. They place all its celebrations in the perspective of End Times; they remind…

St. Innocent of Alaska Saint Innocent (Veniaminov), Metropolitan of Moscow and Kolomensk (August 26, 1797—March 31, 1879), was glorified by the Russian Orthodox Church on October 6, 1977. He was born in the village of Anginsk in the Irkutsk diocese. The Apostle of America and Siberia proclaimed the Gospel “even to the ends of the…

Great and Holy Monday Holy Week: A Liturgical Explanation for the Days of Holy Week 3. MONDAY, TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY: THE END These three days, which the Church calls Great and Holy have within the liturgical development of the Holy Week a very definite purpose. They place all its celebrations in the perspective of End Times;…

Venerable God-Bearing Father John of Sinai, called Climacus Saint John of the Ladder is honored by Holy Church as a great ascetic and author of the renowned spiritual book called THE LADDER, from which he is also called “of the Ladder” (Climacus).  There is almost no information about Saint John’s origins. One tradition suggests that…

Entry of Our Lord into Jerusalem Palm Sunday Palm Sunday is the celebration of the triumphant entrance of Christ into the royal city of Jerusalem. He rode on a colt for which He Himself had sent, and He permitted the people to hail Him publicly as a king. A large crowd met Him in a…

Venerable Father Diadochus the God-Bearer, Bishop of Photike in Epirus “…he who only believes and does not love, lacks even the faith he thinks he has: for he believes merely with a certain superficiality of intellect and is not energized by the full force of love’s glory.The chief part of virtue, then, is faith energized…

The Raising of Lazarus Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday Visible triumphs are few in the earthly life of our Lord Jesus Christ. He preached a kingdom “not of this world.” At His nativity in the flesh there was “no room at the inn.” For nearly thirty years, while He grew “in wisdom and in stature,…

Holy Martyr Eustratius the Faster, of the Lavra of the Kiev Caves Martyr Eustratius of the Caves was born in the eleventh century at Kiev into a wealthy family. As an adult, he received monastic tonsure at the Kiev Caves monastery, after giving away all his possesions to the poor. Saint Eustratius humbly underwent obediences…

Holy Martyr Matrona of Thessalonica The Holy Martyr Matrona of Thessalonica suffered in the third or fourth century. She was a slave of the Jewish woman Pautila (or Pantilla), wife of one of the military commanders of Thessalonica. Pautila constantly mocked her slave for her faith in Christ, and tried to convert her to Judaism.…

Synaxis of the Archangel Gabriel, servant of the ineffable, supernatural and divine Mystery of the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ The Archangel Gabriel was chosen by the Lord to announce to the Virgin Mary about the Incarnation of the Son of God from Her, to the great rejoicing of all mankind. Therefore, on the…