February 18, 2020
The meeting between St. Leo the Great, Pope of Rome, and Attila the Hun was brief. The story of what led up to that meeting takes somewhat longer to tell. It started in the year 450. Honoria, the older sister of Valentinian III, emperor of the western Roman Empire,...
February 16, 2020
I once heard a homily for the Sunday of the Prodigal Son, in which the priest explained that the parable is dangerous. We might be tempted to see in the father the example of a loving parent. But any parent that, in real life, acted as the father of the prodigal son...
September 25, 2019
On September 25, 1776, the monk Dositheos, recluse of the Kiev Caves, died at his prayers. That was the end of his life. It was not what anyone would have expected at the beginning. Daria and her grandmother In 1721, in a little town east of Moscow, a child was born...
September 11, 2019
There are many saints named Theodora. This Theodora lived in Alexandria in the fifth century. She was married to a man named Paphnutius, and by all accounts they had a happy marriage, living together in harmony and love. Theodora’s temptation Theodora was beautiful....
August 11, 2019
Orthodox Christians treasure the stories of our saints. The Holy Scriptures, the Creeds, our prayers and our hymns, tell us what we believe. The lives of the saints tell us how we should live. We look to them to guide us and to show us by their examples the Christian...
February 17, 2019
Little children often learn a song about Zacchaeus. You might remember it. It starts like this: Zacchaeus was a wee little man, and a wee little man was he. He climbed up in the sycamore tree, for the Lord he wanted to see. And maybe it’s because so many of us sang...