Faith | Melkite
Children and the Church Today
by | Mar 28, 2023 | Faith, Sunday Scriptures, Feast Days, Great Fast & Holy Week
FROM ARMENIA TO EVERY CORNER of the Middle East Palm Sunday is celebrated as a feast for children. Describing Christ’s entry into Jerusalem, St Matthew’s Gospel highlights the participation of children in the event. “When the chief priests and scribes saw the...
The Fast of the Theotokos in the Home
by Max Massell | Aug 1, 2022 | Excerpt, Religious Education
As we know, the Great Fast and the Great Week before Pascha are the most diligently observed fasts in the Church. After that, the most thoroughly kept fast is that before the Dormition, which in our Tradition lasts from August 1 through August 14. Like the Great Fast,...
The Forerunner in Hades (August 29)
by Max Massell | Aug 29, 2021 | Faith, Sunday Scriptures, August, Feast Days
The Gospels depict St John the Baptist as the “forerunner” or herald announcing the imminent coming of God’s saving work in Jesus Christ. In the Gospel of Mark, for example, we read, “There comes One after me who is mightier than I, whose sandal strap I am not worthy...
The Dormition of the Theotokos (August 15)
by Max Massell | Aug 15, 2021 | Faith, Sunday Scriptures, August, Feast Days
An increasing number of Byzantine churches are observing the Feast of the Dormition by conducting the Burial Service of the Theotokos. This observance comes to us from the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the traditional site of her death and burial. On the morning of...
Transfiguration (August 6)
by Max Massell | Aug 1, 2021 | Faith, Sunday Scriptures, August, Feast Days
Towards the end of Jesus’ public ministry He began preparing His disciples for His approaching death and resurrection of Lyons, and Clement of Alexandria all taught that Christ had descended into Hades. We find the . In Matthew 16 this scene concludes with the...
The Samaritan Woman
by Max Massell | May 2, 2021 | Faith, Sunday Scriptures, Pentecostarian
The story of the Lord’s encounter with the Samaritan woman contains one of the most misunderstood and misused sayings of Christ in the Gospels. The woman raises the question: which is the proper place to worship God, in Jerusalem or on Mount Gerizim? Jesus responded,...