RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CATHEDRAL OF ST.JOHN THE BAPTIST

Miscellaneous Thoughts

• The Origin and Meaning of the Paschal Greeting

  In accordance with the rite established by the Church, we exchange a Paschal kiss during Matins on the first day of Holy Pascha. The rite is both important and comforting.

• On the Resurrection of Christ

  “Pascha, the Pascha of the Lord!” By His Resurrection, the Lord has brought us from death to life, and that Resurrection the “Angels in Heaven cry,” [for they have] seen the light of deified human...

• from the Prologue from the Orchid, by Bishop Nikolai Velimirovic

  The Apostle gave this injunction in connection with Christ's Resurrection. Having given voice to many proofs of the Lord's Resurrection, he firmly enjoined the faithful to awake to righteousness...

• The Resurrection

  The Father accepts the Son's sacrifice " "by economy" ("po domostroitelstvu"): "man had to be sanctified by God's humanity" (St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 45, On the Holy Pascha)

• CHRIST’S GLORIOUS RESURRECTION

  Certainly, these are words of greeting referring to the days immediately following the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. 

• On the Glorious Ascension

  That our flesh should be seated in the heavens and be worthy of worship by the Angels, Archangels, Seraphim and Cherubim is truly a great, astonishing and marvelous thing. On contemplating that, I...

• THE ASCENSION OF THE LORD

  Throughout the 40 days following the Feast of the Resurrection of Christ, Paschal chants sound within our churches and in the hearts of the faithful.  The Risen Christ spent that period of...

• The descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles – mankind draws its first breath of the Spirit of God

  The descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles was mankind’s first inspiration of breath from the Spirit of God. Remember Ezekiel’s prophecy about the valley full of human bones (Ezekiel 37:1-14...

• Pentecost (Holy Trinity Day) (1989)

  The true beginning of the history of the church and its birth was on Pentecost, 33 A-D.

• The Feast of Pentecost (1995)

  The descent of the Holy Spirit, the feast which this year we commemorate and experience again on the 11th of June, is an event which happened in a definite place and time.

• The Feast of Pentecost (2005)

  On June 19, the Orthodox Church will commemorate a great event in human history – the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles, an event the Church celebrates on the day of the Holy Trinity (...

• HOLY PENTECOST.Most-holy Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia

  In Old Testament [times], on the 50th Day following the Jewish Pascha, the Old Testament Pentecost would be celebrated.  It was pleasing to God that on the 50th Day after the Pascha of His...

• The Mystery of the Nativity

  In the deep mystery of a silent winter night, in a remote little provincial town located at the farthest border of an enormous Mediterranean Empire, God’s promise to save perishing mankind is...

• "'TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS"

  We print an Orthodox priest's reworking of an unknown author's adaptation of the classic Christmas poem, 'Twas the Night before Christmas.

• A Biography of Abbot Nikon

  Abbot Nikon (in the world, Nikolai Nikolaevitch Vorobiev) was born in 1894 into a large peasant family, in the village of Mikshino, Tver Province. Ever since childhood, he excelled in seriousness...

• The Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ

  Today we celebrate the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ. There has been no event in the history of the world more amazing than the Nativity of Christ.

• Nativity Epistle (1962)

  "Thou, Who art the God of peace and the Father of compassions, didst send unto us the Angel of Thy great Counsel, granting us peace."

• On the Night of the Nativity

  Pure is the present night, in which the Pure One appeared, Who came to purify us! Let our hearing be pure, and the sight of our eyes chaste, and the feeling of the heart holy, and the speech of...

• GOD HAS ENTERED THE BOSOM OF HUMAN LIFE

  Truly, God has been born as Man, on earth! Why? – “That we might live through Him” (I John 4: 9). For without the Incarnate God, the God-Man Lord Jesus Christ, human life is overall, a completely...

• The Baptism of the Lord

  The Lord came to the Jordan, and was baptized of John not because he was in need of that cleansing, but so that He might fulfill all that was attributable to human nature, which He had assumed,...