St. Paul’s counsel to the Ephesians delivers a direct and powerful message to his spiritual children: ‘and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you’ (Eph 4:32). With this year’s synthima, we are called to challenge ourselves in christotis. Experientially, Christotis means to make room in my own life for Christ to come in, and transform me from my old self. Literally, ‘xρηστοί’ means, ‘honourable, virtuous, moral’. Elsewhere, it translates as useful, helpful, obliging, or benevolent. Beyond logically understanding what christotis means, our challenge is to ask ourselves if we have experienced christotis [...]

Living the Liturgy by Stanley S. Harakas Published by Light & Life, 1974. Full of meaning and undoubtedly relevant to today’s Christian community, the book “Living the Liturgy” contains the answers to one of the most common dilemmas faced in the Orthodox Faith. This book aims to help many Orthodox Christians who struggle to find the meaning of going to Church and participating in the Divine Liturgy. In the introduction we find out about three keys which open the door to understanding the liturgy. In the first chapter, we find out about the first key which is understanding what the [...]

YOUTH AND SOCIETY   HOW TO FACE THE NEW YEAR   A New Year is just around the corner. Yes, it is a time for joy and celebration, but these last a matter of days. The excitement of Christmas, the presents, and the holidays, subside, and are succeeded by the previous routine. It is then, that young people face the New Year with trepidation and uncertainty. You might wonder, why should they feel like that? The adolescents and the people who enter the period of early adulthood, have a very critical and penetrating mind, and understand that every day of [...]

The Divine Liturgy For us today, the Divine Liturgy is a weekly staple of our Christian lives. We drive to church on a Sunday, walk into a great building with flickering candles and hand-painted icons, gold leaf and carved wood, embroidered vestments, burning incense and chanting filling every corner of the church. In the early Church, attending services was not a weekly event. For the ancient Christians, the Divine Liturgy was seen as such a sacred cornerstone of the Faith that it was held every day. No more than fifty Christians would gather together. They had no churches. Liturgies were [...]

What we Hear in Church Ode 9 of the Katavasies of Christmas   The incarnate presence of the God amongst us is not just the greatest event of human history; it is also the greatest mystery for Christians to behold. It is beyond our human understanding to comprehend and interpret. This is the sentiment the hymnographer St Cosmas of Maiouma wishes to impart in this hymn. In doing so, he borrows the opening line from the most well-known of St John Chrysostom’s five Sermons on Christmas, “I see a new and wonderful mystery”.  St Cosmas then attempts to poetically interpret [...]