Culture

Sacred Serbia

I’ve been to Serbia before, but only for a few brief visits. I must admit that I knew about the distinctive local flavor of this Balkan country and the idiosyncrasy of its people mostly from the movies of Emir Kusturica, the world renown Serbian filmmaker. His imaginative work is often based on organically intertwined manifestations of human nature, such as birth and death, happiness and sadness, faith and superstition, mercy and cruelty. Kusturica’s movies truthfully capture the broadness of the Serbian soul. Perhaps, that is what makes us Russians so close to the Serbs?

Ukraine cancels citizenship, deports bishop as he returns from speaking to US Congress about persecution in Ukraine

His Grace Bishop Gideon (Kharon) of Makarov, the abbot of the persecuted Monastery of the Tithes in Kiev, has been deported to America, his Ukrainian citizenship canceled.

Meeting with US Congressmen

Bp. Gideon was, in fact, just returning from a trip to America where he spoke to members of Congress about the persecutions the Ukrainian hierarchy, clergy, and faithful are experiencing now at the hands of schismatics and nationalists. His Grace also holds US citizenship.

Sermon for the Three Hierarchs

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Today, we celebrate the Feast of the Great Patrons of all Seminarians throughout the world: St. Basil the Great, St. John Chrysostom, and St. Gregory the Theologian. These three Saints not only had a profound knowledge of the deep mysteries of God but also were granted tremendous ability to elucidate these mysteries to us with utmost clarity, teaching us by their words and their deeds. All three of these Saints had an amazing grasp of the things of heaven and also of the created world, using philosophy, science and other fields of secular learning to build up the Church and eloquently convey the Truth, thereby showing us that a balanced well-rounded education is not to be disdained but rather is to be used for the glorification of God, the spreading of the Gospel, and is to be sanctified by Christ through prayer, ascesis, humility and submission to the Church and to God-ordained authority.

Isha's Voice

Author: Dcn. Stephen Muse; Illustrated by: Dimitra Psychogiou; Published by: Sebastian Press

Isha loved to sing and her daddy loved to listen. What happens when Isha loses her voice? Will her father be able to bring singing and joy back to their lives? What path will the journey take?

An adventurous story about how we lost everything, and, above all, how we are able to recover it. 

Fr. Dn. Stephen Muse, PhD, is a deacon in the Orthodox Church, a pastoral councelor, and marriage and family therapist. He and his wife Claudia have been married for 37 years and have four children. They have lived in Columbus, Georgia for the past 27 years, where Fr. Stephen conducts pastoral psychotherapy and directs the Clergy-in-Kairos program for clergy and spouses at the Pastoral Institute. Is work has been translated into Serbia, Russian, Greek, Swedish and Rom.

Theology As a Surprise: Patristic and Pastoral Insights

In this book, His Grace Bishop Maxim (Vasiljevic) offers us a breath of fresh air. This is not a book of theology in the form we have become accustomed to expect: a systematic examination of the usual topics of theological reflection; it is much more than that.

Bishop Maxim draws upon Scripture, the Fathers, and Liturgy to address perennial and yet very contemporary questions: our experience of time and history, our existence as human persons and the complexities of sexuality and gender, our life in the polis and the ekklesia, and the relational presence of an icon in a world saturated with digital images.

You can purchase it on this link.

Source: Diocese of Western America

Saint Sava Academy in Karlovac

After three decades, Saint Sava Academy held in Karlovac, Croatia

With the blessing of His Grace Bishop Gerasim of Gornji Karlovac and under auspices of the Serbian Orthodox Church-school community in Karlovac and of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Government of the Republic of Serbia (The Office for Cooperation with the Diaspora and Serbs in the Region), a solemn Saint Sava Academy was held in the great hall of the City theater “Zorin dom” in Karlovac on 26 January 2019.