A Short and Reverent Memorial to the Venerable Iakovos Tsalikes (1920-1991)

By Fr. George Dorbarakis

The blessed elder Iakovos Tsalikes fell asleep in the Lord on November 21, 1991, the feast of the Entrance of the Theotokos, while he was hearing the confession of a believer.

Elder Iakovos, abbot of the Sacred Monastery of Venerable David the Elder in Evia, was a rare personality who, during his lifetime, was the support and hope for thousands of people around the world. He was literally what our Church calls an “Elder,” that is, a spiritual guide, a charismatic leader, who opens roads and paths, where human logic is unable to provide any explanation. Thousands of people have numerous testimonies to give regarding the resolution of their various problems, which referred not only to the sphere of their spiritual life, but also to their everyday life and immediacy.

What was it that made the blessed elder have these abilities? Was it some special psyche or some other natural qualities? Certainly not. The answer lies in what constituted a qualification of every saint of every era in our Church: the grace of God. In other words, Father Iakovos, we are certain, was a divine man, a graceful soul who was richly irrigated by the graces of the Holy Spirit. This presence of the Spirit of God within him made him discern the otherwise indiscernable problems of people. For it is a common belief of our Church that, when the Spirit of God illuminates people, then they acquire the virtue of discernment, which enables them to directly discern good from evil, divine energy from demonic energy.

Holy Apostle Philemon and Those With Him in the Hymnography of the Orthodox Church

By Fr. George Dorbarakis

Saint Philemon, like the Holy Apostles Apphia (probably Philemon's wife), Archippus (perhaps the son of Philemon and Apphia) and Onesimus (Philemon's slave, who escaped and was sent back as a Christian by the Apostle Paul), who are celebrated with him today, lived during the reign of Nero and were disciples of the Apostle Paul. They were martyred in the city of Colossae in Phrygia, near Laodicea. That is, when the pagans were celebrating Artemis in her temple in Colossae, these Apostles were praising God in the most holy church, together with other Christians. From a raid that the pagans made there, the Christians retreated and hid, but the Apostles were left alone, along with Apphia who was also a faithful Christian, because they desired martyrdom for Christ. They were therefore arrested and led to Androcles, the ruler of Ephesus. After being beaten by him, and because they were not persuaded to sacrifice to the idol called Menas, they were thrown into a cistern up to their waists. In this state they were stoned, after having been previously pierced by children with needles.

Prologue in Sermons: November 22

 

The Parable of Saint Barlaam about the Life and Death of Man

November 22

By Archpriest Victor Guryev

We all, brethren, are well aware that after our death, only our deeds remain for those who will outlive us, bringing either curse or blessing, and only these deeds will we bear on the shoulders of our soul to the judgment of God. Furthermore, we all know that in this life it is necessary to enrich ourselves with that which will accompany us into eternity, namely, good deeds, and that you are the dreadful enemy of yourself if you live as if you were never to die. We all know this well, yet we live as though there were neither God, nor future life, nor anything that exists, ever existed, or will exist. Therefore, it is necessary to constantly remind ourselves of what we know well and continually speak to ourselves about the need to enrich ourselves with good deeds, by which alone we can be blessed in the life to come. In view of all that has been said, we also remind you of what you know well but do not fulfill.

The Entrance of the Theotokos and the Impossibility of the "Ordination-Priesthood of Women"

By Protopresbyter Angelos Angelakopoulos, 
Rector of the Church of Panagia Myrtidiotissa, Piraeus

November 2012

The Entrance of the Lady Theotokos into the Temple of the Law causes a wondrous and universal celebration for Orthodox Christians, because it happened in a strange way and is a prelude to the greatest and most awesome mystery of the incarnation of God the Word, which was to happen in the world through the Theotokos. The occasion for the feast of the Entrance was the following incident. The most-illustrious Saint Anna, because she spent almost her entire life barren, without giving birth to a child, begged the Lord of nature together with her husband, Saint Joachim, to grant them a child and, if they succeeded in their desire, they would immediately dedicate to God the child they would give birth to. And so, Saint Anna gave birth, paradoxically, by promise and with the seed of a man, to her who became the bringer of the salvation of the human race, the reconciliation and harmony of God with mankind, the cause of restoration, resurrection, and the divinization of the fallen Adam, that is, the Most Holy and Lady Theotokos Mary. Therefore, when she was three years old, her parents took her and, after gathering the virgins of the neighborhood, who accompanied the Panagia with torches, offered her on this day in the Temple. And, fulfilling their promises, they dedicated their daughter to God, who gave her to them. That is why they handed her over to the priests and even to the then high priest, the prophet Zechariah, the father of Saint John the Baptist, who began to praise both the Virgin and her parents, Joachim and Anna, who, addressing the prophet Zechariah, said to him: “Receive, High Priest, my daughter, rather the daughter of God. Receive her pure and undefiled and higher than heaven. Put her in the Temple, because that is where she should reside. She is the Temple of God, in a Temple it is fitting for her to reside. She is holy, put her in a clean place. Deliver her into the hands of God. Add her to a holy place, so that she may be sanctified. Take, Zechariah, my daughter and dedicate her to the Temple, for so we have ordered.” When Zechariah heard that she had been offered to God, he took her to the Altar. There were the jar of Moses, which once held the manna, Aaron's rod, the golden censer, and the tablets on which the law was written. As soon as the Panagia entered, they all fell down and venerated her. So when Zechariah received her, he placed her in the innermost part of the Temple, where the high priest entered alone once a year. And he did this according to the will of God, who was soon to be born of her, for the correction and salvation of the world.

The Entrance of the Most Holy Theotokos Into the Temple in the Hymnography of the Orthodox Church

 

By Fr. George Dorbarakis

There are many hymnographers of this feast of the Mother of God, the event of which is not recorded at all in the New Testament. The incident of her entrance into the Temple is found in the so-called Apocryphal Gospels, as is the case with other feasts of the Panagia, in texts that our Church did not consider valid, due to the heresies or even fabrications inherent in them. However, within these there are also true events, which our Church does not hesitate to retrieve and celebrate, seeing not only their truth, but also their usefulness. And this is an element that reveals the absolute self-awareness of the Church, as the “pillar and bulwark of truth,” a self-awareness such as gives it the right and the comfort to choose what it considers true and good, even if this comes from texts that are not considered canonical.