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Nativity Schedule

Monday, December 23rd 6 PM – Royal Hours of Nativity

Tuesday, December 24th 1 PM – Vesperal Liturgy of St. Basil for Nativity

Tuesday, December 24th 6 PM – Matins of Nativity

Wednesday, December 25th 8:30 AM – Hours

Wednesday, December 25th 9 AM – Divine Liturgy of Nativity

Sunday, December 29th, 10 AM – Reader Service: Hours and Typica

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New Location

St. Jacob Now Meets at a New Location!

We have moved into our new location. We now meet at the new Agia Sophia Coffeehouse and Bookstore. It is located at 155 NE Greenwood Avenue, Bend, OR 97701

UPDATE: Notice this post is from 2019. We have since moved into our own building at 62855 Powell Butte Hwy, near Bend Airport.

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Holy Week & Pascha (Easter)

The Eastern Orthodox Church around the world celebrates Pascha on April 28 this year. Called Easter in Western Christianity, we journey to Pascha, observing the Divine Services that take us from the raising of Lazarus from the dead, His Entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, through each day of Holy Week as our Lord approaches His Last Supper, betrayal, anguish in the garden, capture, trial, mocking scourging & torture, Crucifixion, Burial and finally His Resurrection.

Visitors are welcome to join us for any and all services – here is the schedule of the approaching Feast of Feasts:

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Theophany – God Reveals Himself!

The Manifestation of God in Trinity

Great Blessing of the Waters of Central Oregon. The living waters of the Deschutes River at Drake Park, under the cover of a gentle snowfall – water above and below being consecrated by the Baptism of Christ and Theophany of God!!

Theophany is the Feast which reveals the Most Holy Trinity to the world through the Baptism of the Lord (Mt.3:13-17; Mark 1:9-11; Luke 3:21-22). God the Father spoke from Heaven about the Son, the Son was baptized by Saint John the Forerunner, and the Holy Spirit descended upon the Son in the form of a dove. From ancient times this Feast was called the Day of Illumination and the Feast of Lights, since God is Light and has appeared to illumine “those who sat in darkness,” and “in the region of the shadow of death” (Mt.4:16), and to save the fallen race of mankind by grace.

     The origin of the Feast of Theophany goes back to Apostolic times, and it is mentioned in The Apostolic Constitutions (Book V:13). From the second century we have the testimony of Saint Clement of Alexandria concerning the celebration of the Baptism of the Lord, and the night vigil before this Feast.

     There is a third century dialogue about the services for Theophany between the holy martyr Hippolytus and Saint Gregory the Wonderworker. In the following centuries, from the fourth to ninth century, all the great Fathers of the Church: Gregory the Theologian, John Chrysostom, Ambrose of Milan, John of Damascus, commented on the Feast of Theophany.

     The monks Joseph the Studite, Theophanes and Byzantios composed much liturgical music for this Feast, which is sung at Orthodox services even today. Saint John of Damascus said that the Lord was baptized, not because He Himself had need for cleansing, but “to bury human sin by water,” to fulfill the Law, to reveal the mystery of the Holy Trinity, and finally, to sanctify “the nature of water” and to offer us the form and example of Baptism.

     On the Feast of the Baptism of Christ, the Holy Church proclaims our faith in the most sublime mystery, incomprehensible to human intellect, of one God in three Persons. It teaches us to confess and glorify the Holy Trinity, one in Essence and Undivided.

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What is Orthodox Christianity?

A good place to start is to understand ‘what Orthodox Christians do and believe’.

  • Worship God, the Holy Trinity, every Sunday and throughout our daily lives? 
    Of course, . . . the world got its concept of ‘Sunday Services’ from us. 
  • Bible-based? 
    Absolutely,  . . . we gave the world the Bible it uses, and it is the backbone of our 2000 year history.
  • Preach Jesus Christ? 
    Like no one else, we know the Lord, God who became man, that all men may be saved. 
  • Saved from what?
    Death.  We, who were created in His Image, should not know death.  He did not come to make bad men good, He came to make dead men live; to be restored to the fullness of His Glory.

Look at the following quotations of Sacred Scripture:

  • “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…And the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us ….” (John 1:1&14)
  • “But as many as received him, to them He gave power to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name” (John 1:12); 
  • ” . . . in order that all may be one; even as you, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be one in Us . . . the glory that You have given Me, I have given them, so that they may be one, even as We are one: I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected into one. . . .”  (John 17:21-22)
  • “. . . you may become partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). 
  • Christ will “transform the body of our humiliation [i.e., our fallen, animal-like body]  that it may be conformed to the body of His Glory . . . ” (Philippians 3:21)
  • “We know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” (1 John 3:2)
  • And, in John 10:34, Jesus defends himself against a charge of blasphemy by stating: “Is it not written in your  law, ‘I said, You are gods.’ ?” It is widely believed that Jesus is referring to Psalms 82:6 in saying “Ye are gods and children of the most high.”

Saint Athanasius summed them up thus: “The Son of God became man so that we might become God” 

How then was it given to His disciples, and to us now, to live in the fulfillment of this Gospel? And what does this mean in light of St. Paul’s admonition to “continue to work out your salvation “, as well as the commission that Jesus’ teaching and Sonship be preached “even unto the ends of the earth”?

Continue reading “What is Orthodox Christianity?”