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Blueprints for the Little Church: Creating an Orthodox Home By Elissa Bjeletich and Caleb Shoemaker Published by Ancient Faith, 2016   Blueprints for the Little Church addresses the critical question parents face: how do we provide our children with the spiritual foundations that will keep them close to Christ throughout their lives? A child’s spiritual nurturing comes through their involvement in the life of the Church, both in the parish and at home – the ‘Little Church’. Creating an Orthodox home is about raising saints: ‘It’s not about manners – it’s about holiness. It’s not about ‘good behaviour’ – it’s [...]

The Genealogy of Jesus Christ (Matthew 1:1-17)   The first passage we read in the first chapter of the first Gospel of the New Testament is the genealogy of Jesus Christ. St Matthew begins his Gospel by calling Jesus the Christ - which means the anointed one - “the son of David, the Son of Abraham” (v1). The first title, “Son of David” is echoed throughout the Gospel of Matthew, because the Evangelist was writing primarily to the Jewish community to impress the fact that Jesus is a descendant of King David. This would have immediately identified Jesus as this [...]

How do we preserve our Orthodox Faith in a multicultural society?   Collectively, Australians speak over 200 languages. Other than English, the most common languages spoken today are Chinese, Italian, Greek and Arabic. So many cultures and so many beliefs! Christianity is the most commonly reported religion (52.1% of the population). The Islamic population with 2.6% of the total population is the second largest religion, closely followed by Buddhism (2.4%). However, as many as 30% of Australians reported that they had ‘no religion’. How can we preserve our Orthodox Christian Faith in such a multicultural society? In a MONOcultural society, [...]

Holy Martyr Themistocles of Myra (Commemorated 21st December)   Themistocles was a shepherd during the reign of Emperor Decius in the 3rd century, quietly attending to his sheep in the mountains of Lycia. It was at this time that the governor of the region, Asclepius, began to persecute Christians. Dioscorides was a fellow Christian from the city who appeared at Themistocles’ door seeking refuge. Just minutes behind him were Asclepius’ soldiers. They commanded Themistocles to give him up, but Themistocles asked them to show mercy: “Let him go, brothers… Don’t hand him over to the judge, and you’ll have given [...]

What was wrong by voting "NO"?   On November 15, the results of the plebiscite concerning SSM (Same Sex Marriage) were announced, showing a majority for the Yes vote at 61.6%. At the same time, the campaign was conducted more or less respectably on both sides, and accepted as won by the Yes advocates. What has become a matter of contention since the publication of the results is the continuous comments by the print and electronic media, discussing the fact that of the 17 national electorates who voted No, 12 were in NSW, whilst 7 of these were in Western [...]