On Friday evening, January 6th, His Eminence Metropolitan Nektarios served the Divine Liturgy with double hymns and readings for the great feasts of Christmas (old Calendar) and Theophany (new Calendar). After the Liturgy he celebrated the Service of the Great blessing of the Waters. On Sunday, January 8, His Eminence Metropolitan Nektarios celebrated the [...]
1. Theophany or Epiphany and Christmas. Theophany is one of the great Feasts of the Lord of the ecclesiastical year. It is also called Epiphany and the Day of Lights and is celebrated on the 6th of January. The names of this Feast indicate the understanding of [...]
PREAMBLE: The Month of January is marked by the Great Dominical Feast of Theophany (or Epiphany), which commemorates the Baptism of our Lord Jesus Christ. This provides us with the occasion to consider both the Baptism of our Lord and also our own Baptism. The text published here is from [...]
1. THE FEAST OF EPIPHANY. On the 6th of January Eastern Orthodox and Western Christians celebrated the great Feast of Epiphany (Western) or Theophany (Eastern). This Feast introduced a new period of liturgical celebration, which is still with us – a celebration that goes right back to Christian beginnings and [...]
St. Basil the Great
Celebrated January 1st

Very few of us realize that the beginning of the Church calendar does not start on January 1st. Actually, our Church calendar begins on September 1st. In our daily living, however, with our friends and neighbors [...]
Christmas Holiday Services Schedule
Saint Luke Orthodox Cathedral, Hong Kong
(704 Universal Trade Center, 3 Arbuthnot Road, Central, Hong Kong Tel: (+852) 25738328)
Note: All the Services will be held at Saint Luke’s Orthodox Cathedral. The Service of the throwing of the Holy [...]
On Monday, November 21, 2011, His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew presided over the Divine Liturgy with members of the Holy and Sacred Synod and other Hierarchs on the occasion of the feast of the Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple. The service was held at Panagia of Pera in Istanbul, where [...]
The special services known as Mikro Minima and Mega Minima (the official announcement of election) were held on Saturday, November 18, at the Patriarchal Cathedral of St. George in Constantinople. In the presence of Hierarchs of the Ecumenical Throne the Great Ecclesiarch Archimandrite Benjamin read the official decision of the election followed [...]
On Thursday, November 3, 2011, the Holy and Sacred Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, presided by His All-Holiness, elected three new Metropolitans at the Patriarchal Church of St. George: Archimandrite Arsenios Kardamakis, former chancellor of the Holy Metropolis of France, was elected Metropolitan of Austria; Bishop Savas (Zembillas) of Troas [...]
On Thursday and Friday, September 1-2, 2011, His All-Holiness presided over deliberations for the Synaxis of the Heads of the ancient Patriarchates and the Autocephalous Church of Cyprus at the Patriarchal Church of St. George at the Phanar. In attendance were
Patriarch Theodoros II of Alexandria and All Africa, Patriarch [...]
Christians have a very serious relationship with our dead ones. We often speak to them and we continuously talk to God about them.
To be more precise, for us, these who have left their body are not dead but alive (metaphorically we call them “sleeping” and this is [...]
On Monday, August 15, 2011, His All-Holiness celebrated the Feast of Dormtion of the Theotokos at Soumela Monastery in Trabzon for the second time ever since its closure 9 decades ago. Hundreds of pilgrims from all over the world, including Greece, Russia, Georgia, America and Australia, attended the Divine Liturgy.
The historic Monastery of [...]
On August 15, Orthodox Christians celebrate the greatest of all the religious festivals which the Church established in honor of the All-Holy Virgin Mary (Panagia), the feast of the Dormition (Koimêsis) of the Theotokos.
The feasts of the Virgin Mary (theomêtorikai eortai) are second in importance after those [...]
The Feast of the Dormition (Koimesis): The Feast of the Dormition (Falling asleep) of the All-holy Theotokos, celebrated on the 15th of August every year is the greatest among several others which commemorate her Blessed person and life. As such, this Feast marks the completion of her [...]
In the Orthodox understanding of the Church there is no contradistinction between clergy and laity. Clergy and laity are necessary, because both are members in the Church, which is One Body, the Body of Christ, the unique Head of which is Christ Himself. Both clergy and laity are members in [...]
The service of the tossing of the Holy Cross into the sea at the Blake Pier, Stanley in Hong Kong!
Diving for the cross in the Tarpon Springs lagoon on the great feast of Theophany. An excerpt from the 1953 film, Beneath the Twelve Mile Reef.
On Friday evening, January 6th, His Eminence Metropolitan Nektarios served the Divine Liturgy with double hymns and readings for the great feasts of Christmas (old Calendar) and Theophany (new Calendar). After the Liturgy he celebrated the Service of the Great blessing of the Waters. On Sunday, January 8, His Eminence Metropolitan Nektarios celebrated the [...]
On Sunday, November 27, 2011, His Eminence Metropolitan Konstantinos of Singapore presided over the Divine Liturgy with Metropolitan Eusebius of Samos and Ikaria and Metropolitan Nektarios of Hong Kong. The service was held at Annunciation Church in Piraeus, Greece.
photos: Giannis Zarganis
On Monday, November 21, 2011, His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew presided over the Divine Liturgy with members of the Holy and Sacred Synod and other Hierarchs on the occasion of the feast of the Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple. The service was held at Panagia of Pera in Istanbul, where [...]
The Enthronement of His Eminence Metropolitan Konstantinos of Singapore and South Asia will take place on Sunday, February 12, 2012 at CHIJMES HALL in Singapore.
Program
Sunday, February 12, 2012
09.00-11.00a.m.
Divine Liturgy
11.00a.m.-12.00p.m.
Enthronement Service
Metropolitan Nektarios’s visit at Saint Sophia School in Medan.
Metropolitan Nektarios during his stay in Medan visited the Monastery of Dormition of the Theotokos. The Monastery is the first Orthodox monastic foundation in Indonesia.
BOOK I CHAPTER I
That the Deity is incomprehensible, and that we ought not to pry into and meddle with tire things which have not been delivered to us by the holy Prophets, and Apostles, and Evangelists.
No one hath seen God at [...]
1. Abba Dorotheos used to say, “It is impossible for the person who trusts in his own prudence or his own thoughts to submit himself or pursue the good of his neighbour”.
2. He also used to say, “since we are impassioned [...]
I see here a joyful company of Christian men met together in ready response to the call of Mary, the holy and ever-virgin Mother of God. The great grief that weighed upon me is changed into joy by your presence, venerable Fathers. Now the beautiful saying of [...]
Europe as a laboratory for Global Governance
(Wien,10/12/2011)
Your Excellencies, distinguished participants,
Since the 15th century, Europe has been the protagonist in the unification of the Oecumene, the ‘inhabited world’. If we further take into account Europe’s overseas offshoots, globalization is, in [...]
On Tuesday, November 29, 2011, Vespers of the Feastday of St. Andrew, His All-Holiness invested the distinguished historian and researcher, Dimitrios Apostolopoulos, in recognition of his personal and scholarly work, as Archon of Panaghia Pammakaristos Brotherhood.
Photos by N.Manginas
His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew welcomed the Hon. Joseph Biden, Vice President of the United States to the Sacred See of St. Andrew, First-called of the Apostles. The historical first visit of a sitting Vice President of the United States took place on Saturday, December 3, 2011, at the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul, [...]
On January 25, 2012 Greek Orthodox Hieromonk Basilios Nassar was shot by an armed terrorist group in Hama, Syria on the second day of heavy fighting there. Fr. Basilios was at the Metropolis when he was informed by a phone call that a parishioner of his was shot and needed [...]
This icon of Saint Anthony is the work of an American monastic named Anthony. The unique situation of Anthony is that he does not live in a monastery, but in a Maximum Security Prison in Colorado.
Anthony has never entered an Orthodox church, nor has he attended “live” [...]
The word of God gives us very precise warnings about self-proclaimed prophets and spiritual deceivers. “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves” (Mt. 7:15). We have to follow the Lord’s injunction: “Take heed that no man deceive you” (Mt. 24:4). [...]
COUNTING THE DEAD. About 40 persons were killed and 240 reported missing in Iligan City alone after a flashflood hit 11 of its villages at about 12:30 a.m. Saturday following rains spawned by Storm “Sendong”. The military, police, and medical teams have been conducting rescue and retrieval operations since the weekend when [...]
Edwin Mora
October 10, 2011
CNS News
There is not a single, public Christian church left in Afghanistan, according to the U.S. State Department.
This reflects the state of religious freedom in that country ten years after the United States first invaded it and overthrew its Islamist Taliban regime.
DEVASTATING rains have triggered floods in southern Pakistan, affecting at least 700,000 people and forcing 60,000 from their homes, officials have said.
Villages have been flooded and crops destroyed in Pakistan’s bread basket of Sindh province, one of the worst-hit areas in the unprecedented floods of 2010 that affected 21 million people and caused [...]
Many monks contributed much toward a more just and moral society. From the ranks of the monks emerged the earliest condemnation of slavery. Gregory the Theologian, bishop of Nazianzus first, and later Patriarch of Constantinople, denounced the practice of holding slaves. His friend Basil of Ceasarea did [...]
Saint Cyril, Archbishop of Alexandria, a distinguished champion of Orthodoxy and a great teacher of the Church, came from an illustrious and pious Christian family. He studied the secular sciences, including philosophy, but most of all he strove to acquire knowledge of the Holy Scriptures and the truths of the [...]
His Life
Born and raised in Alexandria, St. Cyril succeeded his uncle Theophilus as bishop of the city in 412. His early career (412-428) was dedicated to the exposition of the Scriptures and the refutation of heretics and unbelievers. The second period [...]
Oration XXI.
On the Great Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria.
The reference in §22 to “the Council which sat first at Seleucia…and afterwards at this mighty city,” leaves no room for doubting that the Oration was delivered at Constantinople. Further local [...]
Athanasius was born in Alexandria in the year 296 A.D. and from his early childhood had an inclination to the spiritual life.
He was a deacon to Archbishop Alexander and accompanied him to the First Ecumenical Council [Nicaea, 325 A.D.]. It was [...]
1. When the holy Abba Anthony was living in the desert, he was in a state of melancholy (ακηδια) and his mind was darkened by a multitude of imagined things (λογισμων), and he said to God, Lord, I want to be saved, but these thoughts will not [...]
Perhaps the most effective tactic adopted by the adversary of man’s salvation has been to blind man to the reality of the spiritual warfare being waged for possession of his soul. We have consequently become spiritually flabby and easy prey for the enemy. To escape such a perilous condition we would do well [...]
On the 17th of January, a day our Church honors the feast of St. Anthony the Great, it was also the day that the New Martyr George, at the age of 30 in 1838 came to a martyr’s death by hanging in the city of Ioannina. The gallows were set up [...]
Confession of sins is very much a part of Biblical Faith and especially Biblical Christianity, and was closely related to the worship of the True God. From the Old Testament on, it is clear that men should confess their sins, and this practice, though often neglected and denigrated by scoffers, [...]
By St. Nikolai Velimirovich
Because John’s main role in his life was played out on the day of the Epiphany (Theophany), the Church from earliest times dedicated the day following Epiphany to his memory. To this feast is also linked the incident with the hand of the Forerunner. The Evangelist Luke desired to [...]
By St. Nikolai Velimirovich
Nina was a relative of St. George the Great Martyr and Juvenal, the Patriarch of Jerusalem. Her parents belonged to the nobility in Cappadocia and since they both were tonsured in the monastic state, Nina was educated under the tutelage of Patriarch Juvenal. Hearing about the [...]
January 20, 2011 Associated Press
Just months before the official opening of one of Christianity’s holiest sites to visitors, the area where John the Baptist is said to have baptized Jesus remains surrounded by thousands of land mines.
Israel says the sites visited by pilgrims and tourists in an area [...]
By Professor Ioannes Fountoulis
On January 6th our Church celebrates the great despotic feast of “Theophany” or “Epiphany” or “Holy Lights”. The forefeast begins the day after New Years, January 2nd. In this preparatory period is found the “Sunday Before the Lights”. This fits into the functional forefeast preparation. In the Gospel reading [...]
The Twelve Great Feasts
1. The Great Feast of Theophany. Read online
Theophany
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“The Censer”, Online Magazine 2011
Summer 2011. Read online
CENCERSUMMER2011
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Autumn 2011. Read online
CENSERAUTUMN2011
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