Medical Mission in Sumatra

In November 2014, a team of 9 volunteers from the Greek Orthodox Christian Society (Greek Archdiocese of Australia) went on a ten-day medical mission trip to Sumatra,Indonesia.

Blessed the New Year 2015

On January 1st we commemorate the Circumcision of Our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ; and, Saint Basil the Great, Archbishop of Caesarea.

2014 Patriarchal Encyclical for Easter

Come, brethren and children in the Lord, receive the light from the unwaning Light of the Phanar, the Holy Center of the Orthodox, and let us all together and jointly glorify “Christ, Who is risen from the dead.”

As We Prepare To Celebrate Pascha

We already find ourselves to be before Great Week and the cosmo-salvific feast of Pascha. Today is Palm Sunday, in which we celebrate the palm-bearing entrance of our Lord into the Holy City.

To What Purpose this Waste?

Holy Wednesday faces us with the contrast between two figures, two states of the soul. It is devoted to the remembrance of two actions: the action of the woman who, at Bethany, came to pour a jar of precious ointment on Jesus’s head, and the actions of the disciple who betrayed his Master.

How to Interpret Holy Scriptures as an Orthodox Theologian

Augustine, however, set aside the experience of the glorified and replaced the experience of the glorified with two things: the Church and Holy Scripture, that is to say, books, written texts. He shifted the authority in the Church.

The Celebration of Christmas (5 of 5)

The Orthodox Church does not celebrate birthdays. Rather, we celebrate our rebirth/regeneration in the Lord. This regeneration is associated with the new name God gave a person, not with the birth of a person.

The Celebration of Christmas (4 of 5)

4. Should Christians Have Holidays? And now we come to the second point, where they say that in the Bible, especially in the New Testament, feast days are not mentioned, nor that Christians are to celebrate holidays, except the celebration of the “Lord’s Supper”. First off, we want to mention that Holy Scripture is full […]

The Celebration of Christmas (3 of 6)

3. Pagan Origins? We will consider first the objection that holidays in general (including Christmas) have pagan and non-Christian origins, and that they are accompanied by actions such as drunkenness and prostitution. It is true that it may seem some holidays may coincide at a time when ancient peoples celebrated their own holidays. It seems […]

The Celebration of Christmas (2 of 6)

2. Objections to the Celebration of Christmas However, there are many who are called “Christians” who refuse (as strange as it may seem) to celebrate this moving yet joyous event in the history of mankind. We have in mind the so-called Jehovah’s Witnesses who raise their objections about whether to celebrate this event of the […]