The history of the determination of the date when to celebrate Pascha (Saint Nikodim Milash)

 

That the Ebionites (a second-century Jewish Christian sect) celebrated the Passover on the day when it was commanded to the Jews under threat of a curse ( Ex. 12:6, 14, 18 ; Lev. 23:5 ; Deut. 27:26 ), i.e., on the fourteenth day of the first month (Nisan), we have seen in the commentary on the 7th Apostolic Canon. This belief of the Ebionites, that it was precisely on this day, any day of the week, that this feast was to be celebrated, was shared by many Christians of the East, who were otherwise, generally speaking, Orthodox, especially in the churches of Asia Minor. In the West, and especially in the Roman Church, the custom was established for a time of celebrating this feast on the first Sunday (die Dominico, χυριαχή ήμερα ) after the fourteenth day of the same first month.

CHAPTER 13 - THE TRUE ORTHODOX (From the book "Women in Soviet Prisons")

"Women in Soviet Prisons" is a powerful biographical memoir written by Latvian author Helēna Celmiņa and published in English in 1985 by Paragon House Publishers. The book provides a rare, vivid, and highly detailed first-hand description of the daily realities, systemic cruelties, and unique subculture experienced by female inmates inside the post-Stalinist Soviet Gulag system.

*Note: True Orthodox in USSR was the canonical Russian Orthodox Church that followed St Patriarch Tikhon and rejected the apostate and schismatic Metropolitan Sergius and his declaration of 1927 of submission to the communists.

Lives of Saints Constantine and Helena (4th century)

 

Saint Constantine, known in history as the Great, was born in the third century A.D. to Constantius Chlorus, the Roman emperor, and his wife, Helena. Constantine's father, Constantine, followed the rites of the state Roman religion and was considered an idolater. However, unlike others, he was not committed to pagan religions; instead, he strove to know the true God. Pious in his outlook, he raised his son Constantine well, teaching him to turn to God and seek help from above, not from idols. Merciful, he treated Christians with compassion, who were then being tortured by other unbelieving emperors. He not only refrained from persecuting Christians but also sought to protect them from persecution. Christians in the western lands under Constantine's rule were therefore at peace, while in the east, Diocletian and Galerius persecuted them in every possible way.

Letters to my sister (Saint Ignatius Brianchaninov)

No. 1. On earthly life and humility

I tell you sincerely—you are happy because you are walking the path to salvation, because you have come to understand that man must seek his happiness not in the temporal and earthly, but in the Divine and eternal. What is man on earth? A traveler. What is death? The era from which our real life begins. Wandering long in this darkness of night, amidst weaknesses and temptations, guided by the light of true faith, we finally reach the boundary that separates light from darkness. Happy is the man who has become a true Christian.

Epistle of Apostle Barnabas

 

According to the unanimous testimony of the ancient Fathers, the author of the epistle was the Apostle Barnabas, a companion of the Apostle Paul. However, modern patrologists largely reject his authorship based on an analysis of the text. The work was written after 70 CE. In ancient times, many Fathers included the text of the epistle in the canon of the New Testament. In the Codex Sinaiticus, it is placed after the Apocalypse.

The epistle resolves the contentious issue of Christianity's relationship to Jewish law: the author seeks to demonstrate that Judaism has been abolished by the Lord's saving work, as foreshadowed by the Old Testament prophets. The epistle contains 21 chapters; with the exception of the introduction and conclusion, it is divided into two unequal parts, the first (2–17) dogmatic, the second (18–20) moral.

The first part reveals the essence and meaning of the Old Testament. The Jews misunderstood the law, which must be interpreted not by the letter, but by the spirit. The evidence of the Old Testament declares the sacrificial cult instituted by Moses and the Jewish ritual services to be of no significance and invalid. The author then explains the purpose of the incarnation of the Son of God and the atoning death of Christ.

The author then examines Old Testament ordinances in detail. Thus, Old Testament circumcision should be understood spiritually—as the circumcision of a person's hearing and heart. Dietary laws have a moral and mystical significance: the prohibition against eating the meat of certain animals implied abstinence from the sins embodied by these animals. The Jews misunderstood what was said about the Sabbath and the temple: the Lord spoke of the Sabbath that would be celebrated at the end of time; as for the temple, the Lord spoke of the temple of our hearts, in which God dwells.

The second part of the epistle contains a teaching on morality, exemplified by two opposing paths of life—the path of light and the path of darkness (eternal death). On one are the angels of God, on the other, the angels of Satan. The path of light consists of loving the Creator and Redeemer and keeping His commandments, confessing one's sins, praying with a pure heart, and so on. The path of darkness is all that destroys the souls of men.

The author concludes the epistle with a request to follow his instructions and a reference to the imminent coming of the Lord. He demonstrates that the Law of Moses has eternal significance in its spiritual meaning, making it binding on Christians as well.

* The title of the essay in Greek – Βαρναβα ἐπιστολή.

One Hundred Words about the Love of Truth (Saint Nikolai Velimirovich of Serbia)

 

1. The Lord said: "Repent, and believe in the Gospel" ( Mark 1:14-15 ). True repentance is not simply regret for the sins committed, but a complete conversion of one's soul from darkness to light, from earth to heaven, from oneself to God.

2. Without this complete conversion, repentance is nothing more than playing with God and one's soul. But one does not play with God. He has mercy on the repentant, but He severely punishes those who do not repent, or who repent incompletely and insincerely. And when He wounds, the wound is deep, and no one but He can heal it.

3. The pinnacle of repentance and faith in the Gospel is revealed by two passages of Holy Scripture . What is man? "I am a worm, and not a man" ( Psalm 22:7 ), says the prophet David. And what should man be? "You are gods and sons of God" ( Psalm 82:6 , John 10:34 )—these words came from the lips of Christ the Savior Himself. To turn a worm into a god and a son of God is the pinnacle of repentance and faith in the Gospel.

4. What does it mean to believe in the Gospel? It means to believe in the Good News that the heavenly messenger, the Son of God, brought to mankind. In other words, it means to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and His Revelation. And Christ's Revelation is the greatest discovery since the creation of the world. It alone can transform a worm into a man who is God and the Son of God.

5. Why did no one before Christ proclaim the Good News? None of so many sages, philosophers, teachers, lawyers, kings, and prophets? None of them could have known the Good News or proclaimed it. Because they were earthly and of the earth, and they spoke earthly things (cf. John 3:31 ). They spoke like sons of earth, not like sons of heaven. And they spoke of heaven—as far as they spoke—while looking at the earth and dragging themselves along the earth.

6. Therefore, all religions and philosophies before Christ were gloomy and pessimistic, wavering and vague. So it was in Hellas, and in India, and in Egypt, and in Persia. So it was in earthly, balanced China. So it was in ancient Mexico among the Incas, and indeed among all the peoples of that time who did not know God. None of those faiths and philosophies deserves to be called Good News. The most brilliant poet of antiquity, Homer, once said: "It is better to live as a shepherd in this world than as a king in Hades." As a man of earth, he could neither see clearly nor speak joyfully.

7. Only the "Son of Man who came down from heaven" ( John 3:13 ) could testify to what is in heaven—what God is like , what spiritual things are like in that world, what the spiritual world is like, and what happens to human souls after death. He testified to what He saw and heard. His testimony was entirely empirical on the spiritual plane. He did not testify according to earthly logic or the conclusions of the human mind, or according to the wisdom and philosophizing of earthly man, but according to what He saw and heard. He was a heavenly messenger of heavenly things. He came into the world to testify to the truth (see John 18:37 ), which no one born on earth could faithfully testify to. And He called His testimony the Good News.

On the thirst for Truth and on blind faith and that the essence of life is holiness according to the words of the Lord: seek first of all the Kingdom of God

From Orthodox Church Teaching: Forgotten Thoughts by Saint Andrew of Ufa said in 1903

One of Russia's finest sons, I.S. Aksakov, titled one of his articles discussing church life: "Some Outrages of Russian Life and, in Particular, the Causes of the Spread of Stundism." In this article, he writes, among other things: "We classify the appearance of the Stundists in the Kherson province as an instructive outrage... This society was founded by those workers who lived with the colonists (i.e., the Germans)." Having become accustomed to observing neither the holidays nor the fasts sanctified by the Orthodox Church, they maintained this custom upon returning to their native villages... An investigation into this matter began several years ago..." Aksakov believed that an investigation was necessary, but not a police one, nor one targeting the Stundists... "Why not find out," he wrote at the time, "from what parishes these workers, infected with the teachings of the colonists, came... Did any of these unfortunate workers even know the Lord's Prayer before joining the colonists , and not only in the Novorossiysk region... but also here in central Russia, we propose making just one test: how many parishioners know the Lord's Prayer accurately, without distorting it ?! " In Aksakov's opinion, the result then would have been extremely shameful. Such are the opinions of I.S. Aksakov, an expert on Russia and Russian needs. In our opinion, the result now would not have been better either.