413. Saint Lawrence of Rome: Smart-aleck Martyr

But first: Next Tuesday is August 15, the great feast of the Dormition / Falling Sleep / Kimisis (κοίμησις) of our Lady the Theotokos and Ever-virgin Mary, when we celebrate her Entrance into Heaven. Let me refer you back to two Posts I wrote in 2019 titled “Why do we honor the Mother of God? […]

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412. The Transfiguration: the other forgotten feast

This week I took three days away. Then we’ve had family in town. Therefore this is a reprint, word for word (except to correct a few misspellings and impenetrable phrasings), of a Post from a few years ago. 412. The Transfiguration – The Other Great Forgotten Feast The Holy Transfiguration, August 6, is one of […]

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411. The adventures of an old happily-retired priest suddenly called back to work

Retired The old retired priest is me, of course, and this will be a very personal story. I don’t think I’ve ever written anything quite like this before. There will be very few images this time, because who wants to look at me? Every time I stand before a mirror I think “Who’s that old […]

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410. The Many Concerns of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew

1) The new conservative ecumenical coalition, 2) Secularized education, 3) The Environment, 4) Ukraine and Patriarch Kirill, 5) Abortion? Homosexuality?  Introduction I greatly admire His All-Holiness Bartholomew, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. Please understand that I am a priest of the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese of North America, answerable directly to His Eminence Metropolitan Saba and […]

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409. The Role of Women in the Church: The witness of Three (let’s make it Four) Saints – Part Two

Forgive me again. This week I’m a day late. * Personal note: I’m ok, Carlos. As I said last week, I’m writing here about something I don’t know much about. A man pretending to understand women? Nonsense. (I hope that wasn’t a sexist comment…) Therefore in these two Posts we’re trying to learn directly from […]

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