I think I found the house for me! LOL!! I really like this little house. It was once a Russian Orthodox Church. What do you think about a Church being turned into a house? We are discussing it on www.Orthodoxchat.com. Click HERE to see the thread.
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Month: April 2006
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I hope everyone is having a wonderful Bright Week (no fasting this week). We enjoyed steak on a Wednesday, how decadent!
And now the rest of the story!
Pascha 2006
CHRIST IS RISEN!
TRULY HE IS RISEN!
Photos from Holy Week and Pascha 2006 including six Chrismations during the Paschal Liturgy.
The photos are best viewed as a slide show.
Enjoy!
View Pascha 2006
If you have any questions about the pictures just let me know.
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Christ is Risen! Truly He is Risen!
Photos from Pascha(Easter) 2006
~Good Friday~
Maria~Angelica in the hat and dress her Nounadis (Godmothers) bought her. Thank you!
~HOLY SATURDAY MORNING~
I am tired. I will post the rest of the story in the morning. If you have any questions about any of the photos , what is what and why it is happening , just let me know.
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CHRIST IS RISEN!
“Christ is Risen from the dead: trampling down death by death,
and upon those in the tombs bestowing Life!”
“Xristos anesti ek nekron,
thanato thanaton patisas,
ke tis en tis mnimasin,
zoin xarisamenos.”
The Paschal sermon of St John Chrysostom is read aloud in every Orthodox parish on the morning of the Great and Holy Pascha of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
According to the Tradition of the Church, no one sits during the reading of St John’s sermon, but all stand and listen with attentiveness.
If any man be devout and loveth God,
Let him enjoy this fair and radiant triumphal feast!
If any man be a wise servant,
Let him rejoicing enter into the joy of his Lord.
If any have laboured long in fasting,
Let him how receive his recompense.
If any have wrought from the first hour,
Let him today receive his just reward.
If any have come at the third hour,
Let him with thankfulness keep the feast.
If any have arrived at the sixth hour,
Let him have no misgivings;
Because he shall in nowise be deprived therefore.
If any have delayed until the ninth hour,
Let him draw near, fearing nothing.
And if any have tarried even until the eleventh hour,
Let him, also, be not alarmed at his tardiness.
For the Lord, who is jealous of his honour,
Will accept the last even as the first.
He giveth rest unto him who cometh at the eleventh hour,
Even as unto him who hath wrought from the first hour.
And He showeth mercy upon the last,
And careth for the first;
And to the one He giveth,
And upon the other He bestoweth gifts.
And He both accepteth the deeds,
And welcometh the intention,
And honoureth the acts and praises the offering.
Wherefore, enter ye all into the joy of your Lord;
Receive your reward,
Both the first, and likewise the second.
You rich and poor together, hold high festival!
You sober and you heedless, honour the day!
Rejoice today, both you who have fasted
And you who have disregarded the fast.
The table is full-laden; feast ye all sumptuously.
The calf is fatted; let no one go hungry away.
Enjoy ye all the feast of faith:
Receive ye all the riches of loving-kindness.
Let no one bewail his poverty,
For the universal Kingdom has been revealed.
Let no one weep for his iniquities,
For pardon has shown forth from the grave.
Let no one fear death,
For the Saviour’s death has set us free.
He that was held prisoner of it has annihilated it.
By descending into Hell, He made Hell captive.
He embittered it when it tasted of His flesh.
And Isaiah, foretelling this, did cry:
Hell, said he, was embittered
When it encountered Thee in the lower regions.
It was embittered, for it was abolished.
It was embittered, for it was mocked.
It was embittered, for it was slain.
It was embittered, for it was overthrown.
It was embittered, for it was fettered in chains.
It took a body, and met God face to face.
It took earth, and encountered Heaven.
It took that which was seen, and fell upon the unseen.
O Death, where is thy sting?
O Hell, where is thy victory?
Christ is risen, and thou art overthrown!
Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen!
Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice!
Christ is risen, and life reigns!
Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in the grave.
For Christ, being risen from the dead,
Is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.
To Him be glory and dominion
Unto ages of ages.
Amen.
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Kali Anastesi!
Today is Holy Saturday. Here is a link to get you ready for the Anastesi (Resurrection) . You can practice how to say Christ is Risen in 250 languages!
Great and Holy Saturday
Great and Holy Saturday is the day on which Christ reposed in the tomb. The Church calls this day the Blessed Sabbath.
“The great Moses mystically foreshadowed this day when he said: God blessed the second day. This is the blessed Sabbath This is the day of rest, on which the only-begotten Son of God rested from all His works….”
(Vesperal Liturgy of Holy Saturday)
By using this title the Church links Holy Saturday with the creative act of God. In the initial account of creation as found in the Book of Genesis, God made man in His own image and likeness. To be truly himself, man was to live in constant communion with the source and dynamic power of that image: God. Man fell from God. Now Christ, the Son of God through whom all things were created, has come to restore man to communion with God. He thereby completes creation. All things are again as they should be. His mission is consummated. On the Blessed Sabbath He rests from all His works.
THE TRANSITION
Holy Saturday is a neglected day in parish life. Few people attend the Services. Popular piety usually reduces Holy Week to one day – Holy Friday. This day is quickly replaced by another – Easter Sunday. Christ is dead and then suddenly alive. Great sorrow is suddenly replaced by great joy. In such a scheme Holy Saturday is lost.
In the understanding of the Church, sorrow is not replaced by joy; it is transformed into joy. This distinction indicates that it is precisely within death that Christ continues to effect triumph.
TRAMPLING DOWN DEATH BY DEATH
We sing that Christ is “…trampling down death by death” in the troparion of Easter. This phrase gives great meaning to Holy Saturday. Christ’s repose in the tomb is an “active” repose. He comes in search of His fallen friend, Adam, who represents all men. Not finding him on earth, he descends to the realm of death, known as Hades in the Old Testament. There He finds him and brings him life once again. This is the victory: the dead are given life. The tomb is no longer a forsaken, lifeless place. By His death Christ tramples down death by death.
THE ICON OF THE DESCENT INTO HADES
The traditional icon used by the Church on the feast of Easter is an icon of Holy Saturday: the descent of Christ into Hades. It is a painting of theology, for no one has ever seen this event. It depicts Christ, radiant in hues of white and blue, standing on the shattered gates of Hades. With arms outstretched He is joining hands with Adam and all the other Old Testament righteous whom He has found there. He leads them from the kingdom of death. By His death He tramples death.
“Today Hades cries out groaning:
I should not have accepted the Man born of Mary.
He came and destroyed my power.
He shattered the gates of brass.
As God, He raised the souls I had held captive.
Glory to Thy cross and resurrection, O Lord!”
(Vesperal Liturgy of Holy Saturday)
THE VESPERAL LITURGY
The Vespers of Holy Saturday inaugurates the Paschal celebration, for the liturgical cycle of the day always begins in the evening. In the past, this service constituted the first part of the great Paschal vigil during which the catechumens were baptized in the “baptisterion” and led in procession back into the church for participation in their first Divine Liturgy, the Paschal Eucharist. Later, with the number of catechumens increasing, the first baptismal part of the Paschal celebration was disconnected from the liturgy of the Paschal night and formed our pre-paschal service: Vespers and the Liturgy of St Basil the Great which follows it. It still keeps the marks of the early celebration of Pascha as baptismal feast and that of Baptism as Paschal sacrament (death and resurrection with Jesus Christ – Romans 6).
On “Lord I Call” the Saturday Resurrectional stichiras of Tone 1 are sung, followed by the the special stichiras of Holy Saturday, which stress the death of Christ as descent into Hades, the region of death, for its destruction. But the pivotal point of the service occurs after the Entrance, when fifteen lessons from the Old Testament are read, all centered on the promise of the Resurrection, all glorifying the ultimate Victory of God, prophesied in the victorious Song of Moses after the crossing of the Red Sea (“Let us sing to the Lord, for gloriously has He been glorified”), the salvation of Jonah, and that of the three youths in the furnace.
Then the epistle is read, the same epistle that is still read at Baptism (Romans 6:3-11), in which Christ’s death and resurrection become the source of the death in us of the “old man,” the resurrection of the new, whose life is in the Risen Lord. During the special verses sung after the epistle, “Arise, O God, and judge the earth,” the dark lenten vestments are put aside and the clergy vest in the bright white ones, so that when the celebrant appears with the Gospel the light of Resurrection is truly made visible in us, the “Rejoice” with which the Risen Christ greeted the women at the grave is experienced as being directed at us.
The Liturgy of St Basil continues in this white and joyful light, revealing the Tomb of Christ as the Life-giving Tomb, introducing us into the ultimate reality of Christ’s Resurrection, communicating His life to us, the children of fallen Adam.
One can and must say that of all services of the Church that are inspiring, meaningful, revealing, this one: the Vespers and Liturgy of St Basil the Great and Holy Saturday is truly the liturgical climax of the Church. If one opens one’s heart and mind to it and accepts its meaning and its light, the very truth of Orthodoxy is given by it, the taste and the joy of that new life which shines forth from the grave.
Rev. Alexander Schmemann -
Fr. and the boys, Maria~Angelica is napping so I am home, just left for the Apokathilosis service, the taking down of Christ from the cross, and there was a HUGE bang of thunder. It never fails that it is rainy and stormy on Good Friday.
The Vespers of Friday afternoon are a continuation of the Royal Hours. During this service, the removal of the Body of Christ from the Cross is commemorated with a sense of mourning. Once more, excerpts from the Old Testament are read together with hymns, and again the entire story is related, followed by the removal of Christ from the Cross and the wrapping of His body with a white sheet as did Joseph of Arimathea.
Photo courtesy of John Thomas and used with permission.
As the priest reads the Gospel, “and taking the body, Joseph wrapped it in a white cloth,” he removes the Body of Christ from the Cross, wraps it in a white cloth and takes it to the altar. The priest then chants a mourning hymn: “When Joseph of Arimathea took Thee, the life of all, down from the Tree dead, he buried Thee with myrrh and fine linen . . . rejoicing. Glory to Thy humiliation, O Master, who clothest Thyself with light as it were with a garment.” The priest then carries the cloth on which the Body of Christ is painted or embroidered around the church before placing it inside the Sepulcher, a carved bier which symbolizes the Tomb of Christ. We are reminded that during Christ’s entombment He descends into Hades to free the dead of the ages before His Resurrection.
The Scripture readings for the Vespers are: Exodus 33:11-23; Job 42:12-17; Isaiah 52:13-54:1; I Corinthians 1:18-2:2; and from the Gospels Matthew 27:1-38; Luke 23:39-43; Matthew 27:39-54; John 19:31-37; and Matthew 27:55-61.
Photos courtesy of John Thomas and used with permission.
Taken from goarch.org .
I have been watching the service live on ERT Greek Sat. TV. The Epitaphios services was live from the Phanar in Constantinople, the chanting of the lamentations was very beautiful . Here is a link to ERT they may have live internet streaming, I am not sure.
Here is a link to watch services on the goarch.org site.
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Today is Holy Thursday. Basil and Nicholas are helping Fr. at church, Jonah is at at my parent’s house and Maria~Angelica and I are enjoying the quietness and stillness of the house this Holy Thursday. The weather is beautiful and I have all the the windows opened. It is such a blessing to be able to enjoy the fresh breeze and the chirping birds. Glory be to God!
Great and Holy Thursday : The Mystical Supper
On Thursday of Holy Week four events are commemorated: the washing of the disciples’ feet, the institution of the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist at the Last Supper, the agony in the garden of Gethsemane, and the betrayal of Christ by Judas
“Of Thy Mystical Supper, 0 Son of God, accept me today as a communicant, For I will not speak of Thy Mystery to Thine enemies, Neither like Judas will I give Thee a kiss; But like the thief will I confess Thee: Remember me, 0 Lord, in Thy Kingdom.”
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Pictures from our our “big day”
Jonah being anointed with Holy Chrism. The Sacrament of Holy Unction is offered for the healing of soul and body and for forgiveness of sins. (Thank you Nouno Evan for taking this picture. )
The use of the Holy Chrism was introduced to the Christian Church from the existing Old Testament practice. It is stated that, “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Take the finest spices ‑‑ 12 pounds of liquid myrrh, 6 pounds of sweet‑smelling cinnamon, 6 pounds of sweet cane, and 12 pounds of cassia (all weighted according to official standard). Add one gallon of olive oil, and make a sacred anointing oil, mixed like perfume.”’ (Exodus 30:22‑25)
“For those of you who think that Orthodoxy does not honor or understand Scripture, consider the following readings from The Office of Holy Unction which was performed tonight as we prepare to mourn our Lord’s crucifixion and celebrate His resurrection: “
Taken from dostoevsky_had_it_rough‘s blog
Uncle Michael and Maria~Angelica
Celebrating Papou’s birthday at Benihana.
Papou and all his grandchildren; the best present of all!
Basil enjoyed meeting Cincinnati Red’s player Ken Griffey Jr.
My brother was walking the baby around Benihana’s when he started talking to Ken Griffey Jr. One by one the boys started to come in and Michael introduced his nephews to Junior.
Junior was very nice and spent a lot of time talking to my brother and the boys.
I told Junior I remember his dad during the Red’s heyday when I was a kid and “The Big Red Machine” Junior said “Yeah I tell my dad , ‘you were the mechanic of The Big Red Machine and I am the mechanic of the little red caboose’ .” LOL!
Basil wanted a picture with Junior’s car after Uncle Michael told him that car cost more than our house. I , on the other hand, would just be grateful for a mini van from this century!
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~Big Day Today!~
Today is Holy Wednesday and in just a few hours we will be going to Church for the Holy Unction service; where we will be annoited with Holy Oil for healing.
On Great and Holy Wednesday, the hymns of the Bridegroom Service remind us of the sinful woman who poured precious ointment on Christ’s head at Simon the leper’s house (Mt. 26:7).
The disciples complained about the wasteful extravagance, for the myrrh could have been sold and the money given to the poor. On this same day Judas agreed to betray the Lord for thirty pieces of silver. Because the betrayal took place on Wednesday, Orthodox Christians fast on most Wednesdays during the year.
On the other hand, the Savior declared that the woman’s actions would be remembered wherever the Gospel is preached (Mt. 26:13), for she had anointed Him in preparation for His burial (Mt. 26:12).
Today is also my Dad’s birthday!
Happy Birthday Dad! Many Years!
Maria~Angelica is 6 months old today!
Maria~Angelica shares her half-birthday with Papou and the boys are looking forward to celebrating after church tonight.
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