My beloved spiritual children in Christ Our Only True God and Our Only True Savior,
CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST! HE WAS, IS, AND EVER SHALL BE. Ο ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΕΝ ΤΩ ΜΕΣΩ ΗΜΩΝ! ΚΑΙ ΗΝ ΚΑ ΕΣΤΙ ΚΑΙ ΕΣΤΑΙ.
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SERMON ON THE DORMITION (KOIMISIS) OF THE MOST HOLY THEOTOKOS (MOTHER OF GOD) (AUGUST 15TH)
By Saint John of Kronstadt
"Magnify O my soul, the honorable Translation of the Mother of God from earth to heaven." (Refrain for the 9th Ode of the Canon)
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Let us be happy, beloved brothers and sisters that we belong to the Holy Orthodox Church, worthily and rightly glorifying the Most Holy Sovereign Theotokos on this eminent day out of all the day of the year with special solemnity. There exists on earth many societies and entire governments that do not consider the need nor the obligation to call upon and glorify the Queen of Heaven and earth, the Mother of Our Divine Lord Jesus Christ, and other Saints and Angels; to submissively serve Her lovingly, as the True Mother of God.
Today the Holy Church solemnly glorifies the Honorable Dormition (Koimisis) or Translation of the Mother of God from earth to heaven. Her soul is taken up in the Divine hands of Her Son and carried up into the heavenly abode, accompanied by the sweet singing of Angels. And then, Her most pure body is transferred by the holy Apostles to Gethsemane where it is honorably buried, and on the third day it is resurrected and taken up to heaven. You see this on the holy icon of the Dormition of the Theotokos. On it is represented the life-bearing body of the Theotokos laying on a bier, surrounded by the holy Apostles and hierarchs, and in the center of the holy icon the Lord holding in His hands the Most Pure soul of the Theotokos. The translation (Gk. metastasis) of the Mother of God is a paradigm of the translation in general of the souls of Christians to the other world.
We say that our dead have "fallen asleep" or "passed away." What does this mean? This means that for the True Christian there is no death. Death was conquered by Christ on the Cross. But there is a translation, i.e., a rearrangement of his condition, i.e., his soul is in another place, in another age, in another world beyond the grave, eternal, without end, that is what is meant by "falling asleep." It is as if it were a temporary dream after which, by the voice of the Lord and the fearful yet wonderful trumpet of the Archangel, all the dead shall live and come forth each to his place: either to the resurrection of life or to the resurrection of condemnation (St. John 5:29). This is what the Christian means by translation. We should be ready for this translation, for the day of the General Resurrection and Judgment, for this indescribable world event, recorded in the Holy Scripture.
This preparation for the meeting of the Heavenly King before the dread Judgment Seat, after death, is essentially the person's preparation throughout the whole of his life. This preparation means a change in all of his thoughts, and the moral change of all his being, so that the whole man would be pure and white as snow, washing clean everything that defiles the body and spirit, so that he is adorned with every virtue: repentance, meekness, humility, gentleness, simplicity, chastity, mercifulness, abstention, spiritual contemplation, and burning love for god and neighbor.
Our preparation for meeting the heavenly King, and for the inheritance of Eternal Life in heaven, should consist of these things. The heavenly King desires souls adorned with immutable virtue, souls prepared so that the Very Lord Himself could abide in them. Do not marvel that the Very Lord wants to live in us. In fact the human soul is more specious than the heavens and the earth, for it exists in the image of God. And if one removes sins from the soul, the Lord of All will settle in it and will fill it with Himself. "We will come to Him and make our dwelling with Him" (St. John 14:23), says the Lord about the souls who love Him.
And so, ye participants in the Christian feasts, and especially the present feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God, ye who are brightly adorned with every virtue and translated to the heavenly Kingdom, to Her Son and God, proclaim to each and every one about preparing their souls to be the dwelling place of the Lord, about continued repentance and about the incorruptible adornment of Christian virtue. Let your death also be unashamed and peaceful, serving as the pledge of a good answer at the Dread Judgment Seat of Christ. Amen. (Source: Orthodox Church in America)
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Please note: The first 14 days of August are a strict fast. On August 6th, the feast of the Savior (Soteros) we permitted to break fast by eating fish.
There are the Paraklesis (Supplication) services throughout this holy season of Panagias.
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"Possessing so many spiritual gifts and natural endowments from her mother's womb, She did not take in any sort of additional knowledge -for this in my opinion is who we should regard what is learned from lessons - by studying with teachers. Instead, making Her Sovereign mind obedient to God in everything, She decisively abandoned human instruction and so received abundant wisdom from above, at an age when parents place children into the care of teachers and hand them over to schoolmasters, regardless of their own will, because they are so young. Within the inmost sanctuary, as though in a sublime palace, She was committed to God, as a Living Royal Throne, higher than any other, and provided with all the virtues appropriate to the Great King Who was to sit there" (On the Entry of the Theotokos into the Holy of Holies by St. Gregory Palamas)
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"Glory Be To GOD For All Things!"--Saint John Chrysostom
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With sincere agape in His Holy Diakonia,
The sinner and unworthy servant of God
+Father George