Homily on Great Thursday, Before the Communion of the Holy Mysteries (St. Innocent of Kherson)

Homily on Great Thursday, Before the Communion of the Holy Mysteries
 
By Saint Innocent, Archbishop of Kherson and Tauride

“My time is at hand; I will keep the Passover at your house with My disciples” (Matt. 26:18).

Thus it was commanded to say to the master of that house in which the Savior intended to perform His last Passover. Who this blessed householder was is not said, and those sent had to recognize him on the spot. For the betrayer was seeking in every way an opportunity to accomplish his design; therefore it was necessary to conceal the place of the Passover until the very time of its celebration. After it was accomplished, without doubt, all learned at whose house it was performed; however, even afterwards not one Evangelist told us the name of the blessed householder. The interpreters of Holy Scripture present various reasons for this concealment. But we also shall not err if we say that the name of this man is passed over in silence because he represents every true follower of Christ.

And especially, brethren, he cannot but represent you, who intend to approach the communion of the Holy Mysteries. You wish to partake of the Passover of the Lord, to receive the Body and Blood of your Savior; and your Savior and Lord wishes to keep the Passover with you, to communicate Himself “most closely” with your spirit and body, to unite Himself with each of you forever. Do not marvel at this and do not consider it some turn of phrase invented by me. The Apostle did not play with words, but spoke the truth, when he wrote that since “the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise partook of the same” (Heb. 2:14). The Savior and our Lord partook of the flesh and blood of all mankind, by taking upon Himself our nature. But He now wishes to communicate with the spirit, flesh, and blood of each of us; He wishes to make all of us His temple and dwelling, wishes to be the beginning of our life, to occupy our mind and heart. To this very mystical communion I dare to invite you on behalf of the Lord! The words will be mine (if, indeed, we who converse with you have anything of our own), but the thoughts will be taken from His conversations with the disciples. If you are His true disciples, or at least wish to be them, you will not consider them foreign and not belonging to you.

Prologue in Sermons: April 9

Spiritual Fasting

April 9

(Word on Fasting, and on Slander, and on Judgment)

By Archpriest Victor Guryev

Some of the simple Christians think that fasting must consist in abstinence from food and drink, and only this. Not to eat fish during the fast or not to partake of oil and wine — by this, in their opinion, the whole commandment of fasting is fulfilled. But is it so? No. To fast bodily, indeed, is necessary, but with bodily abstinence there must necessarily be joined also spiritual fasting. Thus also the Holy Church teaches. She says: “Brethren, let us fast bodily, let us fast also spiritually.”

What then is this spiritual fasting, and why is it necessary?

The Holy Fathers define it thus: “If you fast, show it by your works. What works? Seeing a poor man, have mercy; be reconciled with your enemy; do not envy a man who is in prosperity; do not look upon a woman shining with beauty. Fast without hypocrisy; fast also with the eyes, and with the heart, and with the ears, and with the hands, and with all your members… Restrain the hands from taking what does not belong to you, the feet from going to spectacles; hold back the hearing from listening to slander and falsehood, and let your mouth also fast, refraining from judgment” (Prologue, April 9).

Homily on the Sinful Woman Who Anointed the Lord with Myrrh, and on the Pharisee (St. Amphilochios of Iconium)

Homily on the Sinful Woman Who Anointed the Lord with Myrrh, and on the Pharisee 

Discourse 4

By St. Amphilochios of Iconium

Christ sufficiently delighted us before, dining at the house of Zacchaeus; for where Christ is entertained and reclines together with men and partakes of drink and of table that is ours, all things are transformed into the condition of joy.

For who, whether of tax collectors or of harlots or of those who have worked unspeakable evils, seeing the Maker of heaven and earth having come under a tax collector’s roof, and the Giver of the ears of grain taking bread of men into His hands, and the Provider of the clusters blessing the winepresses by participation in the drink, would not judge the matter to be a feast and a festival?

This is truly a feast, this truly the gladness of an angelic banquet: to see the Master with servants, God with men, the Judge with those under judgment, partaking of a common table.

For this reason He came upon the earth, not having left heaven deserted, and became man, not having stripped off being God, in order that, sailing also upon the sea, He might draw up from the depth of sin those storm-tossed in the sea of life, and going about villages and cities, running through narrow ways and paths and roads, He might lead back to His own flock those wandering at the crossroads like sheep without a shepherd.

Great Wednesday: The Tears of Repentance (Elder Ephraim of Arizona)

 

Great Wednesday: The Tears of Repentance 

By Elder Ephraim of Arizona

Time is constantly shortening; it is continually diminishing. Every day that passes is another step toward death. Know this: even a single tear is equal to a cleansing bath. Just as a bath refreshes the body and washing cleanses a garment, so the tears of a repentant soul purify the heart, purify the mind, purify the body, purify life, purify speech, and even purify every expression of a person.

We should kneel and pray with great humility. To every repentant soul is given a word; it is given enlightened prayer. We see this in the sinful woman of the Gospel on Great Wednesday. How did she, a woman of the streets, know how to pray? Yet from the moment she decided to repent and began to turn toward the light and toward the truth, the spirit of prayer was given to her.

How beautiful are her words before the Savior! She knelt before Him and surely entered into an inner dialogue with Him. With her whole heart she expressed her repentance, because it had been revealed to her that He alone was her Savior and that all others had deceived her. She saw that only Jesus Christ could give her light, relief, joy, and the forgiveness of her many sins.

Holy Wednesday: The Offering of the Nous and the Heart to God

Archimandrite Kyrillos Kostopoulos, 
Preacher of the Sacred Metropolis of Patras

On Holy and Great Tuesday, a great multitude of people hastens to the churches in order to hear, with deep emotion, the hymn of the hymnographer Kassiani, which refers to the sinful woman of the Gospel and her profound repentance. Yet only a few from this crowd truly enter into the depth of the event, deciding to imitate the change of life and the love that the sinful woman showed toward the God-man Lord.

This sinful woman realized her sinfulness and the mire of immorality into which she had fallen, and, recognizing that the One before her was the Redeemer and Savior of souls and bodies, she decided to approach Him. She gave up her possessions and bought the most precious myrrh of that time in order to anoint His feet, thus showing her faith and love for Him.

Coming to our own time and to the personal life of each of us, let us ask ourselves: what do we offer to God as a sign of love for Him and of sincere repentance for our disobedience to His will? Do we offer Him, instead of myrrh, what is most precious to us? And the most precious thing a person possesses is his heart, that is, his inner world and his nous.

Ten Misconceptions About the Mystery of Holy Unction

There are quite a few common misconceptions about Holy Unction (Ευχέλαιο, literally Prayer Oil) in the Orthodox Church — some wrong but harmless, others spiritually misleading and serious. Most come from reducing a deep Mystery into something external or “automatic.” Here are the main ones, explained clearly:

1. “Holy Unction is mainly for physical healing”

Misconception:
People often think Unction exists primarily to cure illness or prevent disease.

Reality:
Physical healing can happen, but the primary purpose is healing of the soul — forgiveness of sins, spiritual strengthening, and restoration of the whole person.

👉 The Church prays for both body and soul — but always prioritizes the soul.

Two Examples, One to Imitate and the Other to Reject (Great Wednesday) - Fr. George Dorbarakis

By Fr. George Dorbarakis

“The harlot loosened the hair of her head for You, the Master. Judas stretched out his hands to the lawless. The one, in order to receive forgiveness of her sins; the other, in order to receive money” (Aposticha).

This evening (Holy Tuesday) our Church sets before us two examples: one positive and one negative. One to imitate, the other to reject. A harlot woman and a disciple of the Lord. And, obviously, one might say that the positive and good example would be the disciple of Christ, while the negative would be the harlot woman. But things, as we all surely know, are reversed: the harlot is presented as the one we must imitate — even throughout our whole life — while the disciple is presented as the one we must turn away from, lest we too be led, like him, to destruction.

And this is understandable: the harlot is the one who became the timeless model — not of her immorality, of course, but of the repentance she showed when she felt the grace and love of the Lord. The disciple Judas is the one who is rejected throughout the ages — not, of course, because of his enviable position of being beside the Lord as His disciple, but because of the betrayal he ultimately chose toward his Teacher.

Prologue in Sermons: April 8

A Great Reward Awaits the Person Who Saves his Neighbor from Bodily and Spiritual Death

April 8

(A story about a maiden who showed mercy to a debtor who was about to hang himself.)

By Archpriest Victor Guryev

You will certainly agree with me, brothers, that a great reward awaits the person who saves his neighbor from bodily death. But do you know that a double reward awaits the one who saves his neighbor from a double death — that is, from both bodily and spiritual death? If you do not know, we will now explain this to you.

In Alexandria of Egypt, after the death of her parents, a young maiden was left alone with great wealth. One day, while walking in her garden, she saw a man who had prepared a noose and was about to hang himself.

“What are you doing?” the maiden asked in horror.

The unfortunate man replied: “Leave me, maiden, for I am in great distress!”

The maiden said: “Tell me the cause of your distress, and I will help you as much as I can.”

He answered: “I am overwhelmed with debts, and my creditors give me no rest, demanding that I repay what I owe. No, better for me to die than to live such a miserable life!”

Homily One for Holy Tuesday (St. Innocent of Kherson)

Homily One for Holy Tuesday
 
By Saint Innocent, Archbishop of Kherson and Tauride

“As the Lord was going toward His voluntary Passion, He said to the Apostles on the way: ‘Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered up, as it is written of Him.' Come then, let us also go with Him, purified in mind, and be crucified with Him, and put to death for His sake the pleasures of this life, that we may also live with Him.” (Vespers, Sticheron 1)

When the Lord said to His disciples, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep,” one of them cried out on behalf of all: “Let us also go, that we may die with him!” (John 11:11, 16). Now, brothers, the time has come not for the death of Lazarus, but for the death of our Lord Himself, who says that “after two days is the Passover, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified” (Matt. 26:2).

Will any of us hesitate to say: “Let us also go, that we may die with Him”? But it is not enough merely to say this — we must fulfill it in reality. With Lazarus, one could avoid dying; but with our Lord and Savior, we must certainly die.