Culture

Welcoming the Christ Child

Journey through the Old Testament with 40 wonderfully illustrated Bible readings, one for each day of the Nativity Lent. These short, beloved stories from Scripture include questions and answers to encourage family discussion, and can be used any of time of year, to assist parents in their efforts to bring the Holy Orthodox Faith to life in their homes, increasing understanding and inspiring love for Christ and His Church. Old Testament events and prophecies—many of which are shown to point the way to the birth of the Christ Child—together with New Testament events leading up to and including Christ’s Nativity, all serve to help Orthodox families enter more deeply into the spirit of the Nativity Fast, and to celebrate the feast of Christmas with greater understanding and inspiration.
Elissa Bjeletich is a wife and mother, raising five daughters and working in the Sunday school at Transfiguration Greek Orthodox Church in Austin, Texas

In the Mirror: A Collection of Iconographic Essays and Illustrations by Fr. Stamatis Skliris

This collection of iconographic essays and illustrations by Fr. Stamatis Skliris is an anthology of his articles, translated into English, in which he combines adherence to the teachings of the Church Fathers with a vibrant expression of faith through the experience of Christ in the Church. The book is adorned with more than 200 of his striking icons and illustrations. Fr Stamatis is one example of an synthetical, Neopatristic approach in the arts. Although he basically employs a dark Byzantine under-painting, adding to it light “accents” (illuminations), he still plays with colors in such an impressionist manner that his work gains a “non-determinism of color.” Stamatis articulates a dialogue with modern art by evaluating the brush strokes of Van Gogh Cézanne, Monet’s colors, Matisse’s forms, Picasso’s Cubism, and Post-modernism. Stamatis reminds us of the times when Church had the ability to shape the culture; yet, he does not copies ready-made solutions from the iconographic past but researches everything anew; a strong experimental sense is at his disposal, and he combines strictly traditional elements with those that are modern; e.g., The Mighty Protectress (Theotokos) is strongly traditional, but Christ has the movement, the colors, and brush deposits of modern, expressionist art.

The One and the Many: Studies on God, Man, the Church, and the World Today

This volume offers a collection of Zizioulas articles which have appeared mostly in English, and which present his trinianatarian doctrine of God, as well as his theological account of the Church as the place in which freedom and communion are actualized. The title, The One and the Many, suggests the idea of a profound relationship that exists between the Persons in the Holy Trinity, between Christ and the Church, between one Catholic Church and many catholic Churches.

On each of these levels of communion, each one is called to receive from one another and indeed to receive one another. And while this is understandable at the Triadological and Christological levels, it raises all sorts of fundamental ecclesiological questions, since the highest point of unity in this context is both the mutual ecclesial-eucharistic recognition and agreement on doctrine and canonical-eccelesiological organization.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06Y1MQ8DS

Source: Western American Diocese

The Beheading of the Holy Glorious Prophet, Forerunner, and Baptist John

The Beheading of the Prophet, Forerunner of the Lord, John the Baptist: The Evangelists Matthew (Mt.14:1-12) and Mark (Mark 6:14-29) provide accounts about the martyric end of John the Baptist in the year 32 after the Birth of Christ.

Following the Baptism of the Lord, Saint John the Baptist was locked up in prison by Herod Antipas, the Tetrarch (ruler of one fourth of the Holy Land) and governor of Galilee. (After the death of king Herod the Great, the Romans divided the territory of Palestine into four parts, and put a governor in charge of each part. Herod Antipas received Galilee from the emperor Augustus).

The Assembly of the Enlighteners and Teachers of Serbia

Commemorated August 30 in the Orthodox Christian Menaion

From the Prologue

On this day are commemorated, not all the saints of Serbia in general, but several archbishops and patriarchs:

St Sava, the first Archbishop of Serbia, called equal to the apostles.

Arsenius, St Sava's successor, a great hierarch and wonderworker.

Sava II, son of King Stephen the First-Crowned, who lived a long time in Jerusalem and was called 'like to Moses in meekness'.

Apostle Titus of the Seventy and Bishop of Crete

Saint Titus, Apostle of the Seventy was a native of the island of Crete, the son of an illustrious pagan. In his youth he studied Hellenistic philosophy and the ancient poets. Preoccupied by the sciences, Titus led a virtuous life, not devoting himself to the vices and passions characteristic of the majority of pagans. He preserved his virginity, as the Hieromartyr Ignatius the God-bearer (December 20) testifies of him.

For such a manner of life the Lord did not leave him without His help. At age twenty Saint Titus heard a voice in a dream, suggesting that he abandon Hellenistic wisdom, which could not provide salvation for his soul, but rather to seek that which would save him. After this dream, Saint Titus waited yet another year, since it was not actually a command, but it did guide him to familiarize himself with the teachings of the prophets of God. The first that he happened to read was the Book of the Prophet Isaiah. Having opened it to the 47th Chapter, he was struck by the words, speaking as it were about his own spiritual condition.