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.
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ON NOVEMBER 14th OUR HOLY ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN CHURCH COMMEMORATES THE HOLY APOSTLE PHILIP
Saint Philip was born in Bethsaida near the Sea of Galilee, as were Saints Peter and Andrew. Instructed in the Holy Scripture (Old Testament) from his youth, Philip immediately responded to the call of Christ and followed Him (John 1:43). After the descent of God the Holy Spirit, Philip preached the Gospel with zeal in many regions of Asia Minor and in Greece, where the Jews sought to kill him but the Lord saved him by the might His wonders. The Jewish leaders, whose aim it was to kill Philip, were suddenly blinded, and found themselves in total darkness. There was a great earthquake, and the earth opened and swallowed up Philip's evil persecutors. Many other wonders (θαυματα) or (miracles) were wrought, especially the healing of the sick, by which many of the pagans came to faith in Christ. In the Phrygian town of Hierapolis, Saint Philip worked for the Gospel with Saint John the Theologian, his own sister Mariamni and the Apostle Bartholomew. There was in that place a dangerous snake, which the pagans fed with care and worshipped as a god. God's Apostle destroyed the snake with prayer as though with a spear. This called forth the fury of the benighted people, and the evil pagans seized Philip and crucified him upside-down on a tree, and then crucified Bartholomew also. At this, the earth opened and swallowed up the judge and many others with him. The terrified people ran to take the crucified Apostles down, but they succeeded only in taking Bartholomew down alive; Saint Philip had already breathed his last. Saint Bartholomew made Stachys bishop for those baptized in the city. Stachys had been cured of blindness and baptized by the holy Apostle Philip, having been blind for forty years. Saint Philip's holy relics were later taken to Rome. This wonderful holy Apostle suffered in the year 86 A.D., in the time of the pagan Roman emperor Domitian. (Source: The Prologue from Ochrid)
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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 (Ministry)
The sinner and unworthy servant of God
+Father George