Zephaniah – Zechariah – same difference
In the process of preparing text to be sung in our services, I often run across questions about the meaning. I try my best to reword unclear passages so they will make sense to the hearer, who, in almost all cases, will only get one chance to hear that particular text, and that, sung by […]
Updating Hymnography for the American Saints
We prepare to celebrate All Saints of North America this Sunday. The hymnography is mostly fine, but needs two major updates. One, relatively easy to fix: it is quite limited in the names it mentions, probably a product of when the service was written. That is fairly easy to fix, and not necessitating a mention […]
A Problematic Viewpoint of Monks in Missions
“If you are called to be in the monastery, you better not go [into missions], and if you are called to go, you better not be in the monastery.” How these words came from the mouth of an Orthodox Christian deeply involved in missions, I cannot understand. In context, it was clear that this viewpoint […]
The Secret Gifts of St. Nicholas
Even in our modern understanding of Saint Nicholas, that is, in all the movies and stories about Santa Claus, we have not forgotten one of the most important things about St. Nicholas, something that he did so much and so often, that it helps us know why he is such a shining star and saint […]
A Few Glimpses beyond Death
Here are some stories of what happens beyond the death of this body, and not mere stories, but ones passed down to us from the experience of the saints. A great place to start is to read the life of St. Theodora of Constantinople. But there are several more which are well worth mentioning…