Discourse on the Prefeast of Lights (St. Theodore the Studite)

On the Forefeast of the Feast of Lights 

Oration 3 

 

By St. Theodore the Studite

Come, let us survey the forecourts of the Feast of Lights with luminous divine visions. Let us also enter the waters, so that we may become partakers of their abundant divine radiance. And having become luminous in form through the Holy Spirit, let us praise with wholehearted thanksgiving Jesus, the Cause of light, the Radiance of the Father’s glory.

Formerly the Israelites purified themselves before drawing near to the mountain blazing with fire, seeing it full of darkness and tempest; yet even then they did not ascend, because it was not safe, but remained below, terrified by the manifold threats of God. Moses himself removed his earthly sandals when he wished to approach the God-trodden ground, at the time when he was wondrously initiated into the lofty vision of the fire-bearing bush, which prefigured a greater mystery. Likewise Joshua the son of Nun received a command from the angel not to approach that ground at all while wearing sandals, out of reverence for the holy land. And what did the three youths do? Did they not expose themselves to the all-devouring fire with souls and bodies purified, when the burning force was transformed for them into refreshing coolness? With what a great miracle did God reward these saints: that at one and the same moment these two opposing energies should coexist around them! And Daniel, the “man greatly beloved in spirit” — had he not prepared himself by purifying fasting, and thus remained in the den with the lions, again receiving his body completely unharmed?

Homily on the Sunday Before Theophany (Archimandrite John Maslov)

Homily on the Sunday Before Theophany

By Archimandrite John Maslov 

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! 

The voice of one crying in the wilderness: "Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight" (Mark 1:3). These words of Holy Scripture speak of how the great Prophet and Baptist of the Lord prepared the people to receive Christ the Savior. This great chosen one of God was destined to prepare the way for the Only Begotten Son of God, coming into the world, to dispose and prepare people to accept Jesus Christ through his preaching of repentance. He invited all who came to him in the desert to repent of their sins and to change their way of life. And the Savior Himself, upon entering upon His public ministry to the human race, first addressed the people with a word of repentance. "Repent," He cried, "and believe the gospel" (Mark 1:15).

The repentance preached by Saint John the Baptist in the desert and demanded of people by the Savior Himself refers not only to the temporary confession of sins, but to repentance as a virtue, as a constant disposition, a constant effort to acknowledge one's sinfulness, to purify one's heart through contrition and the pursuit of virtue. We must view repentance as our essential duty, which must be a constant and unceasing struggle throughout our earthly life. No one can avoid sin. Such is the lot of fallen man. Saint John the Theologian speaks of this: "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us" (1 John 1:8). The Apostle Paul said of himself that he was "the chief of sinners" (1 Tim. 1:15) and "accursed" (Rom. 7:24). As for us, it is difficult to express how great and how heavy is the burden of our sins.

Homily on the Sunday Before Theophany (Righteous Alexei Mechev)

 

Homily on the Sunday Before Theophany*

By Righteous Alexei Mechev

(Delivered on January 4, 1914)

“John came baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins” (Mark 1:4).

All of you, dear ones, undoubtedly reverently revere John, the Forerunner and Baptist of the Lord. But have you truly delved into his preaching, which once moved the entire land of Judea to the banks of the Jordan and prepared the people to receive the Savior? He is a great teacher of repentance not only for his time, but for all times. His words have great power to humble hearts and dispose them to accept saving grace. "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matthew 3:2) – this is the beginning of the Forerunner's preaching.

The Kingdom of God is near us all, but it depends on our own will for it to come to us, for it to truly come into our lives. The first condition for accepting the grace of salvation is repentance. Laying aside pride, forgetting all worldly honors and privileges, each of us must acknowledge that we have gravely sinned before God, that unless the Lord extends a helping hand, as He once did to Peter when he was drowning, we will perish in the abyss of sin. With this awareness, we must direct all our hearts to Him, the only Intercessor for our salvation, with the hope of mercy and deliverance.

Homily Two for the Sunday Before Theophany (St. John of Kronstadt)

Homily Two for the Sunday Before Theophany  

By St. John of Kronstadt

And he (John) preached, saying, "There comes One after me who is mightier than I, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to stoop down and loose. I indeed baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit" (Mark 1:7-8)

With the New Year of the Lord’s goodness I greet all of you and sincerely wish everyone renewal in spirit, in faith, in hope, in love, in one’s whole life, so that all may become a new creation, according to the Apostle: "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation" (2 Cor. 5:17). The bright feast of the Nativity of Christ has passed; another bright feast is approaching — the Feast of Lights, the Baptism of Christ — which took place thirty years after the Nativity of Christ. From that time it was fitting for Jesus Christ to enter upon His open and glorious ministry for the salvation of the human race.

Prologue in Sermons: January 4

Against Blasphemy

January 4

(A Story from the Leimonarion, About a Miracle Concerning Children Who Served)

By Archpriest Victor Guryev

In the Prologue, in the "A Story from the Leimonarion, About a Miracle Concerning Children Who Served," two truths are revealed with extraordinary clarity: the first is that God cannot be mocked, and the second is that the sin of blasphemy is a terrible sin. To prove both truths, let us turn to a case. 

In one village, children were tending sheep. Children, of course, are children everywhere, and when the opportunity arises, they always try to take advantage of the time to indulge in childish games. This was the case with the aforementioned child shepherds. But games are not all the same, and some games are even beneficial for children, while others can be very harmful to them. The child shepherds indulged in this latter game. They decided to arrange the following: "Let's celebrate the Liturgy and partake of Communion," said one of them, "just as a priest does in church." The proposal was accepted. 

 

Things To Look Forward To In 2026

Dear Readers:

Christ is Born!

As 2025 comes to a close and with 2026 drawing near, I wanted to bring to your attention some of the things I have been working on and will be working on in the new year.

First I wanted to update everyone on the present and future of each of my thirteen websites that currently make up as a whole the Mystagogy Resource Center. Some I have only sparsely worked on this past year, but will focus on them more in the new year. I especially want to focus on making the many thousands of pages of material on each site more accessible and easier to reference specific articles, which is an enormous and time-consuming task but necessary.

1. Honey and Hemlock

I established this website to focus mainly on subjects dealing with the arts and culture, among other such relevant topics. Not only do I plan on posting more here, but my primary focus is to fix up this website, with its 656 posts as of right now, and categorize them better.

2. Orthodox Youth Resources

This website of 128 current posts was created to address topics dealing specifically with young people that are not addressed elsewhere on my other sites and can be useful not only to Orthodox youth, but also to anyone who works in youth ministry or even just parents and teachers in general. There is a lot of material I have for this website which I will focus more on posting, but again this website needs to be more accessible and better categorized in 2026.

3. Orthodoxy and World Religions

This past year I gathered a lot of material on various world religions and the topic of religion in general for this site of what is now 132 posts. Currently my focus has been on translating a Russian text titled "The Christian Commandment of Love Is a 'New' Commandment," which shows how the topic of love as taught by Christ is radically different from any teaching about love in any other previous religion or philosophy. After I finish this, I will focus on publishing more and categorizing better.

4. Bio-Orthodoxy

At 397 current posts, this website also needs to be better categorized and fixed up. The purpose of this site is to focus on scientific issues, including those issues related to Christianity, and right now I am translating a text by St. Luke the Surgeon of Crimea titled "Science and Religion." Next I will be translating a series of homilies by St. Neophytos the Recluse on the first few chapters of Genesis.

5. Daimonologia

Unfortunately this website has 673 posts, and I haven't even begun to categorize them, except for some Resource Pages, so there is a lot of work to be done here in 2026. Daimonologia focuses more on darker subjects of culture and thought, and is shaping up to become a very comprehensive Demonology. Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko wrote a lot on this subject in the 19th century, especially exploring the topic of poltergeists, so I am in the process of translating what he wrote. He also wrote an Angelology, but I will probably translate that for my main page. In 2026 one of my goals is to also translate the short stories of Alexandros Papadiamantis that deal with "paranormal" subjects.

6. Eschatologia

This website also lacks any categorization, despite having 308 posts, making anything to find here a burdensome task. My hope is to rectify this in 2026. So if you are interested in a topic dealing with life after death, the end times, biblical prophecies and modern day trends in these subjects, you should find it much more easier in the coming months to find the topic you are looking for.

7. New Myriobiblon

Book reviews are the sole topic of this website, practically on any subject. Sometimes I offer my own book reviews, and will eventually focus more on that, but currently I either translate interesting book reviews or I gather book reviews that I think are interesting or important, such as, for example, all the book reviews written by Fr. George Florovsky. These also need to be categorized and more accessible in 2026, though I have only posted 41 book reviews so far.

8. Erotapokriseis

I always thought it would be important to have a website devoted only to questions and answers, so this is it. Up to now I have given brief answers to 214 questions, but I decided to change my approach to how I do this. The reason for this change is because the questions I started getting focused only on controversial topics, and I am not interested in solely addressing controversial topics. For this reason in 2026 I will continue to do the question and answer format, but I will translate texts, both ancient and modern, all Orthodox, where the question and answer format was used. Perhaps every once in a while I will address some questions posed to me, but I haven't decided yet. And yes, this site desperately needs categorization for easier referencing.

9. Know Thyself

I have only posted less than 20 posts here, so it is severely under developed, considering the wealth of material I have on the subject of morals and ethics, which this site is devoted to. There will be an increase of posts to this site in 2026.

10. Salvation of Sinners

My original idea for this website has changed, so in 2026 I will figure out what to replace this with and change the name. I have a few ideas floating in my head. Right now I am leaning towards the topics of heresies and apologetics. I tend to avoid posting on these subjects because they seem out of place on my other sites, so instead of continuing to sit on the rich treasure of material I have on these topics, it may be the right time to bring them out. Another idea I had was a website dedicated solely to historical subjects, or even one dedicated to philosophical subjects. I will be making my decision in early 2026.

11. Praxis and Theoria

Another website I have neglected was originally created to post my own random thoughts and experiences, however because I am usually occupied with my other more important websites and this one is last in my priorities, I hardly post here. My intention for this website in 2026 is to post at least two thoughts and experiences from my own personal life once a week, or maybe once every two weeks. I don't like talking about myself, but I think its important when publishing the material of so many others that I have some personal connection to my writing, to bring something out from within instead of always internalizing what is not my own. I probably won't be advertising what I write here on social media, so you will have to check in for updates. I will post it in my daily newsletter, which requires a paid subscription.

12. Orthodox Christianity Then and Now

This was my original main page, which I decided to retire and make into an archive a few years ago when it reached over 16,000 posts. This will remain an archive, but it still needs a lot of work to become an effective archive. Categorization is essential for more than 16,000 posts, and to do so the right way will require hundreds of hours. Many pages also need to be edited since it was reformatted, and I wouldn't mind deleting a few hundred irrelevant posts I made early on when I was less focused and more random in my posts.

13. Mystagogy Resource Center

This is my current main page, and where I have consistently posted daily. Since January 2023 I have made 2,429 posts, and there are many thousands to go. I won't even get into all the things I am doing and will be doing in 2026 for this website, there is just so much, and there isn't enough space right now to get into it. I will save it for a future date. And yes, this needs to be categorized too. 

Besides these thirteen websites, I also plan on opening a bookstore where I will not only publish some books I have worked on over the years, but where I will offer every month a new booklet. In December I am offering a booklet I translated by Fr. George Florovsky, titled "Did Christ Live? Historical Evidence of Christ". This booklet is $20. If you have already ordered, it will be mailed this week. I will also offer some of my previous booklets for sale again. My next booklet will be available some time in January. 

If anyone donates $60 a year or $5 a month (Paypal or Patreon) you will also be enrolled in receiving my daily newsletter, which will start having some exclusive content. If anyone subscribes $25 a month or more, you will qualify to receive my monthly booklet, but you have to inform me you want the monthly booklet. My free weekly newsletter will resume beginning in January, which you can sign up for from this website.

The only reason I am able to offer what I offer free of charge, despite the enormous amount of work and time it takes, is because those of you who have benefited in some way from this ministry want to see it continue and thrive. For that I am grateful and hope that you can continue supporting the work of the Mystagogy Resource Center in 2026. 

A blessed new year to all!

John Sanidopoulos.

 

The Hunger of the Poor and the Greediness of the Rich, According to Saint Basil the Great

By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou

(Address of His Eminence to the Educators of the Metropolis, delivered at the event of the Metropolis for the Feast of the Three Hierarchs in 2011.)

Saint Basil the Great was a great personality and exercised a profound influence not only on his contemporaries but also on later generations, down to our own time. Many people, when they wish to engage with theological, pastoral, ascetical, as well as scientific matters — namely medical, astronomical, and educational issues — turn to Saint Basil and refer to his texts, which are remarkable and possess a timeless relevance.

From an ecclesiastical perspective, Saint Basil was truly great. The title “the Great” was first bestowed upon him by his friend Saint Gregory the Theologian, with whom he studied in Athens and with whom he maintained a friendship and shared path in the years that followed. It is significant that this lofty eagle of theology — Saint Gregory the Theologian — recognized Saint Basil and called him “Great.” One can imagine what an extraordinary personality St. Basil was.

Saint Ephraim "Breathed Into My Shoulder Where There is an Artery"

On November 8th 1993, the feast of the Archangels Michael and Gabriel, Eldress Makaria Desypris, who had discovered the relics of Saint Ephraim of Nea Makri after a revelation from the Saint himself in the 1950's, was sitting in her cell when she “quite unexpectedly,” as she herself said, felt "a bitter pain in my heart, and before the first one had even passed, immediately a second, and a third (i.e., pain).

I realized that the end of my life had drawn near — or rather, that this indeed was the end of my life — and I turned, so that I might make the sign of the Cross and commend my spirit to my Lord. Before I managed to form the first movement of the Cross, however, I saw Saint Ephraim bent over me.

Holy Martyr Gordius in the Hymnography of the Orthodox Church

Martyr Gordius of Cappadocia. Fresco in the Church of the Theotokos in the Studenica Monastery, Serbia. 1568.

By Fr. George Dorbarakis

Saint Gordius was from Caesarea of Cappadocia and lived during the reign of Emperor Licinius. He held the rank of count and was the commander of one hundred soldiers. Because he could not bear to see the insolence of the impious and their blasphemies against Christ, he arose and departed, going into the mountains, where he lived among the wild beasts. There he kindled his longing for Christ and gained courage against the error of idolatry. Then he came rushing like a lion from the desert into the city, seeking to tear apart the devil, the patron of deceit. He entered the theater and glorified Christ, with the result that the crowd turned its attention to him and the presiding ruler was struck with amazement at his boldness. His amazement turned into rage, and he therefore ordered that he be put to death by the sword.

Saint Theophanes, the Hymnographer of the Canon of Saint Gordius, first interprets the martyr’s withdrawal from the world: he turned toward the eternal, laying aside transient vanity. That is, Saint Gordius preferred to live with the angels rather than with people who had lost the element of humanity, having become — because of their impiety toward God — worse than wild beasts. His withdrawal from the world, therefore, was the fruit of his faith and his love for God, and not a sterile denial of it. Proof of this is the fact that in the desert he enkindled his love for Him.