Homily on Thomas Sunday (St. Justin Popovich)

Homily on Thomas Sunday 

(John 20:19–31)

By St. Justin Popovich

(Delivered in 1965 in the Monastery of Ćelije)

...¹

Christ is risen!—and to all of us He gave meaning to life and showed what God is and what man is. The Lord Christ showed us that man without God remains in death, is entirely dead, entirely mortal. And He, the God-man, behold, rose from the dead, conquered death for our sake; by His Resurrection He secured immortality for man, to the human being He gave what no one has given. His Resurrection indeed is the most important event in the history of all worlds. The Resurrection of the Lord Christ is the most important event in the history of the human race. It is the most important event both for me and for you in the history of my life and in the history of your life.

What would the history of my life be if the Lord had not risen? A short path from cradle to grave, a path full of thorns, full of sufferings and horrors. But with Him, the Risen One, everything changes. Both I and you change; suddenly we become immortal people, immortal beings, beings that are stronger than death. Behold, man has become stronger than death! That is victory—the only true victory in this world. And the Lord is therefore the only True Victor in all worlds because He conquered death. If the Lord had not risen, everything would be in vain. What use are suns, what use heavens, when I and you end with death, when our last station is the grave! If the Lord Christ did not rise, says the Holy Apostle, “our preaching is in vain, in vain also our Gospel, in vain also our faith”².

Homily Five for the Sunday of Saint Thomas (St. John of Kronstadt)

Homily Five for the Sunday of Saint Thomas  

By St. John of Kronstadt

Today, my beloved brothers and sisters in Christ, I wish to offer you a word on today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles. Its content is as follows: 

"By the hands of the Apostles many signs and wonders were done among the people (that is, those who were in Jerusalem); and they were all with one accord in Solomon’s Portico. None of the outsiders dared join them, but the people magnified them. And more and more believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of men and women, so that they even carried the sick out into the streets and laid them on beds and couches, so that at least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them. Also many gathered from the surrounding cities to Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those afflicted with unclean spirits, and they were all healed. But the high priest rose up, and all who were with him (that is, the sect of the Sadducees), and they were filled with jealousy; and they laid hands on the apostles and put them in the public prison. But an Angel of the Lord by night opened the prison doors and brought them out, and said: Go, stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this life" (Acts 5:12–20). 

Here the reading from the Apostle ends.

Sunday of Thomas, or Antipascha (Prof. John Fountoulis)

Sunday of Thomas 

By Professor John Fountoulis

The celebration of Pascha continues throughout the entire week that follows it, the Renewal Week, the new week. All of this is regarded as one paschal day, during which “we celebrate this life-giving Resurrection of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ,” according to the Synaxarion. And the week is concluded with the eighth day, the New Sunday, otherwise called the Sunday of Thomas or Antipascha.

This is the type of the eighth day of the age to come, “for it is appointed as an image of that endless day, of the one in the age to come, which will be both first and one, not interrupted by night,” according to the Synaxarion.

However, the Sunday of Thomas is not an image of the age to come simply and only because it is the eighth day from Pascha. It is also because it is the day of Christ’s presence in the midst of the circle of the eleven disciples, of the confirmation of the fact of the Resurrection, of the removal of every doubt, of personal communion and the touching of the Risen One. And precisely this presence and this touching are a type of the eternal presence of Christ in the age to come in the midst of His Church. Then nothing will hinder the longed-for vision of God, of Christ, and personal communion with Him. Then the barriers of unbelief will fall, and together with Thomas the people of God will confess the saving confession: “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28).

Prologue in Sermons: April 19

Our Firmness in the Faith Causes Even our Enemies to Respect Us

April 19

(A word from the Paterikon about the widow whom the prince had mercy on because of the humility of her son.)

By Archpriest Victor Guryev

Why is it, brethren, that it often happens that even many good Christians avoid us, do not fulfill our requests, and despise us? It often happens because good Christians see in us bad Christians who do not keep the commandments of God; they see us limping on both knees. But if we were to live differently, if we showed before all our firm faith and a life according to faith, then things would be different.

The Kollyvades Fathers: Reformers Through Tradition (Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Mani)

By Metropolitan Chrysostomos III of Mani

The venerable Kollyvades Fathers were not “arteriosclerotic monks,”* as some who were ignorant in spiritual matters called them, but Spirit-bearing teachers and instructors of souls, traditional monks who created a truly reformative climate within the Orthodox Church. Their support was the biblical and patristic teaching and sacred Tradition.

Mainly in the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century, this spiritual movement of the Kollyvades Fathers, beginning from Mount Athos and then in other monastic centers on the islands, throughout the whole Aegean Sea, developed and strengthened Orthodox Christian culture. It was indeed a difficult period for all Hellenism, since the French Revolution and the Enlightenment of the West had created a negative influence of alienation from the Orthodox Christian ethos in the Greek lands. Nevertheless, the Kollyvades Fathers struggled, taught, wrote, admonished the people, and preserved the Orthodox faith. Thus there were revealed great figures such as Neophytos Kavsokalyvites (†1784), Makarios Notaras (†1808), Nikodemos the Hagiorite (†1809), Athanasios Parios (†1813), Hierotheos of Hydra (†1814), and others.

Continuation and End of the Festal Homily for the Friday of Renewal Week and the Zoodochos Pege (Elder Philotheos Zervakos)

CONTINUATION AND END OF THE FESTAL HOMILY FOR THE FRIDAY OF RENEWAL WEEK

(Part 2 of 2: continued from part one)

And the remaining portion of the Reading.

Bless, Father.

Through the prayers of our holy fathers, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us. Amen.

By Archimandrite Philotheos Zervakos

Since there are some who, although they believe in the miracles spoken of concerning the Zoodochos Pege, nevertheless do not accept or are not persuaded that there are also other holy waters honored in the name of the Mother of God and of other saints, nor that signs occur elsewhere except only at the Zoodochos Pege outside Constantinople — the one discovered by Emperor Leo I, as we have said — thus ignorantly and impiously limiting to one place the indescribable grace and power of her who was counted worthy to become the Mother of the Incomprehensible God. Let such people investigate, and they will find within this same Constantinople another miracle-working and sign-bearing holy spring of the all-immaculate Theotokos, namely that at Blachernae, where even to this day innumerable miracles take place, not only for the faithful but even for unbelievers; and many other illnesses and afflictions are healed there. Especially those suffering from fever, if they go there with faith and drink from the holy water, are quickly delivered from the disease.

Homily for the Resurrection of the Lord (St. Cleopa of Sihastria)

Homily for the Resurrection of the Lord 

By St. Cleopa of Sihastria

"Christ has risen from the dead, being the firstfruits (of the resurrection) of those who have fallen asleep" (1 Cor. 15:20)

"Christ is risen!"

Beloved faithful,

Today we celebrate the feast of feasts and the festival of festivals. Today there is spiritual joy everywhere in the Christian world. Today our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ has illumined all things by His Resurrection. Heaven and earth rightly rejoice, for the light of the Lord’s Resurrection has filled heaven and earth and Hades with light, and those who were held in the bonds of death He has brought, through the descent of the Savior into Hades, to eternal joy with the hope of the resurrection. Today Christ, our life, has laid a new foundation for the human race by His Resurrection and has crowned all the glorious miracles He performed on earth.

Today is the day of the Resurrection of the Lord, the victory of reconciliation, the overthrow of war, the destruction of death, and the defeat of the devil. Today it is fitting for us to repeat the words of the Orophet Isaiah: "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?" (Hosea 13:14; 1 Cor. 15:55). Today the Lord Jesus Christ has shattered the bronze gates and has even changed the very name of death, for it is no longer called death, but "sleep." Before the coming of Christ and the dispensation of the Cross, even the very name of death was greatly feared. For the first man, after he was created by God, was threatened with death: "From the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat; for in the day you eat of it, you shall surely die" (Genesis 2:17).

Sunday of Holy Pascha (13-15 of 15)

...continued.

13. Bright Pascha on Mount Athos

There is no feast for Christians more solemn and more joyful than Pascha. And Athos, removed from the world, celebrates on this day an especially solemn feast. Wearied from the labors and ascetic struggles of the Holy Forty Days, the Athonite monk, after partaking of the modest portion offered on Great Saturday at sunset — bread and figs with a small cup of grape wine — cheerfully and joyfully hastens to the katholikon church to listen to the reading of the Acts of the Apostles, in expectation of the sacred midnight and of the infinitely joyful, fully understandable only to the Christian, triumphant exclamation.

Meanwhile, until midnight, amid dead silence and half-light, the voice of the reader of the Book of Acts sounds peacefully and quietly. On Athos, according to Greek custom, at this time the Holy Epitaphios does not stand in the middle of the church (it has already, since the morning of Great Saturday, after the procession at Matins around the church, been placed upon the holy altar). Half an hour before midnight the Canon of Great Saturday begins to be sung, after which the clergy gathered and waiting in the altar, in bright vestments, all holding candles, and the superior with the Holy Gospel, come out with the singing of “Your Resurrection…” and the rest into the church narthex (the procession around the church, as with us, does not take place at this time), and here, before the closed doors of the church, perform the usual beginning of the Paschal service.

April: Day 18: Teaching 1: Venerable John, Disciple of Saint Gregory of Decapolis

April: Day 18: Teaching 1:
Venerable John, Disciple of Saint Gregory of Decapolis
 
(On How We Can Participate in Spreading Truth and Goodness)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. Venerable John, commemorated today by the Church, was a disciple of Saint Gregory of Decapolis (whose memory is kept on November 20). From his youth he loved the ascetic life, came to Gregory, and struggled under his guidance. Venerable John and Gregory lived in the 9th century, during the iconoclastic heresy. Both of them left their place of safety and came to Constantinople, where the heresy was especially strong, in order to strengthen the faithful in Orthodoxy. There Saint Gregory soon reposed; but John continued his ascetic labors until his own death, which occurred in the year 820.

We see, brethren, that during the persecution of the holy icons by the iconoclast emperor (Leo the Armenian), Venerable John left his safe solitude and went to the capital of the Greek Empire in order to strengthen the faint-hearted and those wavering in the truth of the Orthodox teaching concerning the veneration of holy icons. Thus clearly he understood his moral duty to teach others the truth and a virtuous life.

The example of Venerable John reminds us also, brethren, of our duty to take part in spreading truth and goodness among our neighbors and among all who have departed from truth and piety.