The Apostle Peter, who witnessed the Lord’s Transfiguration, writes: We did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father … we were with him on the holy mountain. Divine power has granted to us all things through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and virtue… that through these you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world.

The Apostle John, who also witnessed the Lord’s Transfiguration, writes: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… in him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness hasn’t overcome it. The Word became flesh and lived among us. We saw his glory, such glory as of the one and only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth. We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as the Savior of the world. That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we saw, and our hands touched, concerning the Word of life …This is the message which we have heard from him and announce to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.

Divine Liturgy for the feast of the Holy Transfiguration will be on Thursday, August 6 at 9am. Blessing of grapes & fruit to follow.

In a close-knit family, word that its mother is on her deathbed brings normal life to a halt. Otherwise important things (parties, TV, luxuries, personal desires) become unimportant; This is how one author has described the purpose of the Dormition Fast. He continues: It is the same with the Orthodox family; word that our mother is on her deathbed, could not (or at least should not) have any different effect than the one just mentioned. So, we can say that Just as the apostle’s gathered around Panagia -the Mother of God- at her falling asleep, so do we.

So much of our Christian life is patterned in imitation of the apostles and according to their instructions, how they lived, and of course, their lives were patterned after the Lord himself. And this is no mere ‘remembrance’ of some past events. In the church the Liturgy and sacraments make present the Lord and by the grace of the Holy Spirit the event commemorated, giving us the opportunity to take part in the event itself. Keeping the commands and teachings of the Lord always before us: this is the ministry of the church and the purpose of our daily commemorations and the liturgical cycle of feasts and fasts.

For this reason the Church, through the Paraklesis Service, gives us the opportunity to gather at the side of Panagia during this season and eulogize and entreat the woman who bore God and who is our chief advocate at His divine throne. This is also the reason we fast. Fr. Thomas Hopko once said that it was Mary the Theotokos who heard the word of God and kept it so well, that she of all women in history was chosen not only to hear His Word but give birth to Him.

So then, this is the purpose of the first two weeks in August: to fast in contemplation of her life, & simultaneously to prepare ourselves to live a life in imitation of her. Fasting, in its full sense (abstaining from food, evil thoughts, actions and desires) accomplishes this. Less time in leisure or other pursuits leaves more time for prayer and reflection on the one who gave us Christ and became the first and greatest Christian. Reflecting on her life gives us a model of Christian living: We see how she embodies Christ’s response to that woman in the Gospel who cried out that Mary was blessed because she bore Him: blessed rather -the Lord said- are those who hear His word and keep it. Our Panagia did this better than anyone.

The dormition fast also calls us to unity: to unite ourselves to the Church, the Orthodox Christian faith, which means nothing less than unity with Christ Himself. The Apostle Paul speaks about unity and schism [division] in the Church. He pleads with the brethren/Christians to be like-minded, he says to “speak the same thing,” that there may be -he says- “no divisions among you.”

The word that he uses here to warn them in the original Greek is “skismata,” schism. We would do well to heed his words also. Often -instead of enjoying ‘unity of faith’- there are other things that become more important to making up our identity, whether political, ethnic, economic, or other, these are things that divide us from one another, causing great harm to our unity in the faith and the mission of our Church, hindering our healing in Christ, stumbling, disheartening, and leading many astray.

But, this is nothing new. Orthodox Christians have faced it countless times before, even in the 1st. c., the Apostolic Age. In fact, the Seven Great Ecumenical Councils of the Church, and many more synods besides, were called throughout the first millennium to deal with threats to the unity of the Faith, challenges to the timeless truth that IS Christ and His revelation to us.

The question is: what is it that we love most? This is the heart of the matter and it’s from where our unity or division is born. The Lord once said that what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. Out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander: These are what defile a person!

Unity must first become a reality within us – in the inner man. If our lives are not harmonized with the Gospel, and yet we call ourselves Orthodox, the result will be chaos that spills from our own hearts and minds into the community we’re apart of. The Gospel always calls us to unity and communion.  And this unity first begins with the healing of each person.

In order to bring together our fragmented minds, to heal our divided hearts and to unite our disordered strength; in order to do all this, the Lord Jesus reveals the one thing needful, the one goal, and one only: the Kingdom of God.  Christ the Wonder-worker strove to direct -to turn- the eyes of all people to this one point, to God; to one feeling: to love; to one yearning: to draw near to God/to come to know Him.

Remember the words that the Lord spoke to Martha: “Martha, you are careful and troubled about many things, but one thing is needful”. These are, in fact, said as a warning and a notice -not just to Martha- but to all people in every generation. And the one thing needful is the Kingdom of God. All that the Lord ever said & did was done with this aim in view: to gather all together – to gather all into the Kingdom- all the world’s travelers as we wander through the whirlpools of this transitory life.

Dear Christian brothers and sisters, the dormition fast calls us to unity, to contemplation of the life of our Most Holy Theotokos, and to prepare ourselves to live a life in imitation of her. We fast not to get what we want, but to prepare ourselves to receive what God wants to give us. We fast in order to bring ourselves more in line with another Mary, the sister of Lazarus, who was mindful of “the one thing needful.”

Fasting allows us to put God first and not our own desires. This way we can do God’s will, like Moses who fasted in his flight from Egypt and on Mt. Sinai, like the Lord when he fasted in the wilderness. Fasting turns us away from ourselves and toward God; it helps us become like the Theotokos, an obedient servant of God, who heard His word and kept it better than anyone else has or could.

Ultimately, we fast because we believe. Fasting expresses belief, and when lived out, Belief transfigures our lives, producing holiness, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness and self control, in other words,  a pure heart with which we will see the Lord.

by Archimandrite Symeon Kragiopoulos

Jesus Christ is God. There is no other god apart from Him. Do you want to find the true God? In Christ you will find Him.

If, then, we place Christ within us and we believe in Him in this way, my Brethren – I am saying this with all my heart – this very moment something will happen within our soul and we will be much changed from what we were in that previous moment.

The Fathers of the 4th Ecumenical Council who we celebrate today said concerning Christ that He is God and man, and is two natures in the one person of Christ, united without confusion and indivisible; not divided, but two natures in one person, and without any mingling of the one nature with the other. Human nature is human nature, divine nature is divine nature. And they formulated the dogma definitively that Christ is perfect God and perfect man. He is perfect God and perfect man united in the person of Jesus Christ…. Read more

By Metropolitan of Pisidia Sotirios

In our reading from the Letter to the Romans, St. Paul lays before us two basic truths, which are of particular interest for us today. The first, is that we should desire and seek the salvation of our people with all of our hearts. Not only those close to us, but all people. Second, the Holy Apostle tells us that the salvation offered by Christ is open to all, and is within reach for those who turn to Him. Read more

The Lord’s signs and wonders certainly prove Him to be what He claimed to be: The Son of God! The healing of the Centurian’s servant, which we read this Sunday, is not intended just to demonstrate the Lord’s power to heal. The healing of the centurion’s servant contains several short lessons that characterize the life in Christ. Christians who hear this small section of the Gospel –that’s us- must pay close attention to the way in which these instructions may be applied to their own lives.

The basic elements of the story are few. First, the centurion, a Roman commander of 100 soldiers, has complete confidence that Jesus is able to heal his servant. Second, the Lord expresses willingness to go to the centurion’s house, which in the eyes of the Jews would make Him unclean. Third, the centurion declares himself unworthy of such a visit and displaying great humility, declines. Fourth, the centurion reveals profound faith in Jesus: “Speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.”  At this Jesus marvels, as He declares that He has not found such great faith in Israel; (one other time He marveled, it was at the unbelief of the people of His hometown Nazareth). A final element: Jesus declares that those chosen to be the children of the kingdom would be cast out and replaced by others. After this, He tells the centurion to go his way and that his servant is healed.

St. Ambrose sees the healing by the Lord’s word alone as proof of His equality with the Father. He says: “as the Father spoke the Son made, so too, the Father works and the Son speaks”. And St. Basil the Great emphasizes that it was the Savior’s word and NOT His presence that healed the sick man.

The centurion is a striking figure. When he meets Jesus in Capernaum, he is a man already possessed of a deep faith in Jesus’ power to heal, even by a word. How the centurion came to his faith is NOT explained by St. Matthew, but we have other details in St. Luke’s account of the same miracle. It should be recalled at this point that although the synoptic Gospels – Matthew, Mark and Luke – sometimes differ in detail when reporting the same incident, those differences do not diminish their authenticity. In St. Matthew’s gospel he simply relates what went on between Jesus and the centurion. St. Luke tells us details that immediately took place before, such as how the centurion sent his Jewish friends to plead his case. “I did not even think myself worthy to come to you”, he says. The centurion’s frequent contact with the Jews must have given him some familiarity with their faith; perhaps he experienced the holiness of their worship -worship of the one true God- and maybe he was even aware of their messianic expectations. It’s unlikely that Jesus and His work among the people could have escaped his attention. His own faith -forcefully portrayed in just a few words- may have arisen from a strong sense that Jesus was the very one awaited by the nation he had come to love.

Another detail from St. Luke’s account tells us that the man’s Jewish friends – identified as elders – considered him worthy of Jesus’ good favor (although they are impressed by something other than his faith) saying: “the one for whom He should do this was deserving, for he loves our nation, and has built us a synagogue”. In other words, he held an important position, and was a big donor to their synagogue, and so they brought his plea to Jesus.

However, the things that really matter – the centurion’s humility, faith, and concern for another – seem NOT to have made much of an impression on them. It’s not difficult to see the similarity between the mindset of those religious leaders and that of some of our own people. And not a few priests/bishops have heard requests on behalf of others who were deemed worthy just because they had position, authority or money.

Clearly, when the centurion speaks to Jesus of his position and rank, he’s not boasting. Quite the contrary. “I am a man placed under authority.” That is the key expression. He derives his authority from another and applies it in the line of duty. St. John Chrysostom describes the implications: “’I am a man placed under authority’(the centurion says): that is, You are God, and I man; I under authority, but You not under authority. If I, therefore, being a man, and under authority, can do so much; far more He, both as God and as not under authority”. The same saint is certain that this Roman Gentile, unlike his Jewish friends, suspects Jesus’ divine dignity – recognizes that He is the Son of God (not the last Roman centurion to realize this).

The Christ preached by the Apostles was the Christ who gave Himself out of love for mankind. He is the One who receives all who come to Him in faith and humility, i.e. those who love Him. He is NOT moved to respond to our petitions because of some supposed worthiness on our part. Our accomplishments, position, wealth, and fame do NOT commend us to Him. Neither does our belonging to a particular race or nation, and neither does membership in His Church, IF we make NO effort to live in accordance with His will, IF we have NO faith or humility, IF we think of ourselves as deserving His salvation, or IF we think only of ourselves and never earnestly desire the well-being of others.

This is the Christ that the apostles and disciples proclaimed as they undertook their great missionary work after having been filled with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. This is the same Christ our Church proclaims today, so let’s pay close attention to the faith and humility of the centurion. And to his approach. One of the great communion prayers that our church gives us as we approach Christ bears the same words as the humble centurion: ‘I know, O Lord my God, that I am not worthy that you should enter under the roof of the house of my soul.” But recognizing the Lord and His goodness we say, “but since You in Your love desire to dwell in me I take courage and approach.” Let us then take courage and approach and taste and see that the Lord is good! +

Based on a homily by Archbishop Dmitri Royster found in ‘The Miracles of Christ’. St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press. Crestwood (NY), 1999.