The Mysterion (Sacrament) of Repentance and Confession (Part II)

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.

+

THE MYSTERION (SACRAMENT) OF REPENTANCE AND CONFESSION (Part II)

The Two Dimensions of Repentance

Divine Initiative

Repentance is not a self-contained act: it is a passing over, a Pascha from death to life, a continual renewal of that life. It consists of a reversal of what has become the normal pattern of development, which is the movement from life to death. To experience this reversal in repentance is to have tasted of the glory and beauty of God: it is the mark of man's presence before God in the abundance of His mercy. "Set Your compassion over against our iniquities, and the abyss of Your lovingkindness against our transgression." It is the awareness of God's beauty that makes one realize the chasm that separated one from His gratuitous grace. The initiative belongs to God, but presupposes man's active acceptance, which is a way of perpetually receiving God within the heart, of God, being embodied within man, of Divine Incarnation. Here God calls man, and man, responds to God and in doing so gains salvation and life abundant: "sorrow working repentance to salvation not to be repentant of" (2 Corinthians 7:10). In repentance it is man's total limitation and insufficiency that is placed before God, not simply particular wrongdoings or transgressions.

The "dialectic" of beginning and end underlying repentance is important...To repent is not merely to induce a restoration of lost innocence but to transcend the fallen condition. Indeed, the greater the fall, the deeper and more genuine the repentance and the more certain the resurrection. Man is "enriched" by his experience even if it has been crippling and tormenting. The Holy Fathers of the Church appear to express greater love - almost a preference - for the more sinful person, inasmuch as thirst for God increases in proportion to the experience of one's debasement and abasement (Romans 5:20).

The word for "confess" in Greek (εξομολογούμαι, ομολογώ) does not bear the contemporary meaning peculiar to it. When we say "confess" we imply that we accept, recognize, or witness an event or fact. But this is not the original meaning. The point is not of admitting, more or less reluctantly, a hitherto "unrecognized" sin, but an acceptance of and submission to the Divine Logos/Word (exomologesis) beyond and above the nature and condition of man. It is this Logos, the Word of God, that man seeks to regain, or rather to commune with. To confess is not so much to recognize and expose a failure as to go forward and upward, to respond from within to the calling of God. Created in the image and likeness of God, man bears before himself and in himself that image and likeness. In repenting he does not so much look forward as reflects and reacts to what lies before and beyond him.

However, repentance is also a way of self-discovery: "Open to me the gate of repentance." Metanoia is the gateway to oneself, to one's fellowman, and to heaven. It leads inwards, but it also leads outwards by leading inwards. The word ceases to rotate the self and begins to gravitate towards the other - the divine and the human other. Sin has the opposite effect. It blocks the way both inwards and outwards. To repent and to confess is to break out of this restriction, "to accept with joy," in Saint Isaac the Syrian's words, "the humility and humiliation of nature," to transcend and to recover oneself. The world thereupon ceases to rotate around "me" and begins to gravitate towards the other, centering on God. Then, everyone and everything no longer exist for me but for the glory of god, in the joy of the resurrection. One is then able to comprehend more clearly the positive dimension of even sin, suffering, death, the devil, and hell. Then, one discovers the depth of love crucified, the presence of the Lord in our midst - even "when the doors are shut" (St. John 20:19, 26). One is not, however, demanded to love God from the outset, but rather to know "that God so loved the world that He gave his only Begotten Son" (St. John 3:16). Nevertheless, the love of God is implicit in His very nature. God, Himself is the Archetype of Divine Love. When Saint John the Theologian says that "God is love (Agape)" (1 John 4:8, 16), love is seen as an established ontological category of both divine and humanity in His Likeness. In fact, the beauty and loving freedom of the human person is, in the words of Saint Nicholas Berdiaev, God Himself. It is He, "the Creator of all...Who out of extreme erotic love moves outside Himself...burning with great goodness and love and eros." It is He Who is "the fullness of erotic love." And it is this supreme love that moved God to create human nature in His Image and Likeness. "As Lover, He creates; and as Loved, He attracts all towards Him". "As a mad Lover He desires His beloved human soul," says Saint Nilos. "Herein is love, not that we loved God but that He loved us (1 John 4:10). (Source: Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America)

________________

"Glory Be To GOD For All Things!" - Saint John Chrysostom

+++

With sincere agape in His Holy Diakonia (Ministry)
The sinner and unworthy servant of God

+Father George

July 20 - The Holy Prophet Elias

My beloved spiritual children in Christ Our Only True God and Our Only True Savior,
CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST! HE WAS, IS, AND EVR SHALL BE.

+

ON JULY 20th OUR HOLY ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN CHURCH COMMEMORATES THE HOLY AND VENERABLE PROPHET ELIAS

A man who saw God, a wonderworker, and a zealot for faith in God, Elias was of the tribe of Aaron, from the Tishba, whence he was known as 'the Tishbite'. When Elias was born, his father Sabah saw Angels of God around the child, swaddling it with fire and feeding it with flames. This was foreshadowing of Elias' fiery character and his God-given fiery powers. He spent his whole youth in prayer and meditation, withdrawing often to the desert to ponder and pray in tranquility. At that time, the Jewish Kingdom was divided into two unequal parts: the Kingdom of Judah consisted only of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, with its capital at Jerusalem, while the Kingdom of Israel consisted of the other ten tribes, with its capital at Samaria. The former kingdom was ruled by the descendants of Solomon, and the latter by the descendants of Jeroboam, a servant of Solomon's. The Prophet Elias came into the greatest conflict with the Israelite king. Ahab, and his evil wife Jezebel, for they worshipped idols and turned to the Syrian god, Baal, and appointed many priests to the service of this false god. Prophet Elias performed many miracles by the power of God: he closed the heavens, that no rain should fall for three years and six months; called down fire from heaven to consume the sacrifice to his God, while the pagan priests of Baal were unable to do this; brought rain from the heavens at his prayers; miraculously multiplied corn and oil in the widow's house at Zarephath, and restored her dead son to life; prophesied to Ahab that the dogs would lick up his blood, and to Jezebel that the dogs would devour her--which came to pass. He talked with God on Horeb and heard His voice in the calm after the great wind. At the time of his death, he took Elisha and appointed him his heir as a Prophet; he parted the Jordan with his mantle and was finally borne to heaven in a fiery chariot drawn by fiery horses. He appeared, together with Moses, to our Lord Jesus Christ on Mt. Tabor. At the end of the world, Elias will appear again, to break the power of antichrist (Revelation 11).

Author's note: In the Greek Lives of the Saints, the following miracle of the Holy Prophet Elias is recorded: a certain Paisius, Abbot (Egoumenos) of the Monastery of Saint Elias in Jerusalem, went to Constantinople and from Constantinople to Belgrade, Rumania, at the time that Patriarch Paisius was staying there. At that time, there was an Orthodox Christian living in Belgrade, married to a Latin wife. On Saint Elias day, the wife planned to make bread, but her husband said to her: 'You must not work.' His wife replied that the feast had been two days earlier (according to the Roman Catholic Calendar). And so a dispute arose between them. The stubborn woman kneaded the dough, but then a marvel! The dough became stone in her hands! At that, the neighbors gathered around, and each of them took a piece of the stone. Paisius took a piece of it, as a witness to God's miracle, and took it with him to Jerusalem. He laid this piece of stone in front of the holy icon of the Holy Prophet Elias in his monastery  (This is recorded in Dositheus Book XII, Ch. 11, Para. 2, p. 1192)

FOR CONSIDERATION

Writing about the life of his sister Macrina, Saint Gregory of Nyssa refrained from enumerating her miracles, saying: '...that I may not bring weak men to the sin of unbelief'. He calls those weak who do not believe. And, indeed, there is none weaker than the man without faith. A man without faith believes in the power of dead things but does not believe in the power of God or of the men of God. That is spiritual obtuseness, and that obtuseness is equivalent to spiritual death. Thus souls that believe are alive and those that do not are spiritually dead. Living souls believe in the mighty miracles of the Prophet Elias; these miracles delight and encourage them, for they know that they are revelations of the power of God. If God can reveal His power through dead things and elements, can He not reveal it through the living and holy men? That which gives the greatest joy to the believer is that the Prophet Elias appeared alive on Mount Tabor at the time of the Lord's Transfiguration (Metamorphosis). During his earthly life, this Great Prophet gave proofs of the existence of the one, living God, and, after his death -- several hundred years after it - his appearing on Mt. Tabor gave to men a living proof of life after death. (Source: The Prologue from Ochrid)

___________________

"Glory Be To GOD For All Things!" -- Saint John Chrysostom

+++

With sincere agape in His Holy Diakonia (Ministry)
The sinner and unworthy servant of God

+Father George

The Mysterion (Sacrament) of Repentance and Confession

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.

+

THE MYSTERION (SACRAMENT) OF REPENTANCE AND CONFESSION

The Sacrament of Repentance and Confession is in decline and repentance is misapprehended. The decline and the misapprehension cannot be easily qualified, but they are unmistakable at least inasmuch as they are considered to be no more than incidental practices in the life of the Church today. The "traditional" way of thinking of sin and forgiveness has collapsed among a growing number of Christians. Nothing less than a theological and pastoral renewal is necessary in order to rediscover the living meaning of repentance and confession.  

Repentance is indeed an act of reconciliation, of reintegration into the Body of Christ, which has been torn asunder by sin. For "if one member suffers, all suffer together" (1 Corinthians 12:26). "Therefore, confess your sins to one another - that you may be healed (Saint James 5:16). The whole Church expresses a search for repentance in the repeated words of the Psalmist, commonly known as the "miserere" (Psalms50[51]). It is through the faith of the community that the individual is readmitted and forgiven. "When Jesus saw their faith He said, 'man, your sins are forgiven'" (St. Luke 5:20; St. Matthew 9:2; and St. Mark 2:5). "Justification" in the New Testament does not mean a transaction - a kind of deal; and repentance defies mechanical definition. It is a continual enactment of freedom, a movement forward, deriving from renewed choice, and leading to restoration. The aim of the Christian is not even justification but a reentry by the sinner and saint into communion in which God and man meet once again and personal experience of divine life becomes possible. Both prodigal and saint are "repenting sinners."

Repentance is not to be confused with mere remorse, with the self-regarding feeling of being sorry for the wrong done. It is not a state but a stage, a beginning. Rather, it is an invitation to new life, an opening up of new horizons, the gaining of a new vision.  Christianity testifies that the past can be undone. It knows the mystery of obliterating or rather renewing memory, of forgiveness and regeneration, eschewing the mystery fixed division between the "good" and the "wicked", the pious and the rebellious, the believer and the unbeliever. One repents not because one is virtuous, but because human nature can change, because what is impossible for man is possible for God. The motive for repentance is at all times humility, unself-sufficiency - not a means of justification for oneself, or of realizing some abstract idea of goodness, or of receiving a reward in some future life. Just as the strength of God is revealed in the extreme vulnerability of His Son on the Cross, so also the greatest strength of man is not to embrace his weakness: "for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I render glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me" 2 Corinthians 12:9). To be flowed is the illogical, perhaps supernatural characteristic of humanity in which one encounters God.

The Greek word for repentance, metanoia, denotes a change of mind, a reorientation, a fundamental transformation of outlook, of man's vision of the world and of himself, a new way of loving others and God. In the words of a second-century text, "The Shepherd of Hermas, it implies "great understanding", discernment. It involves, that is, not mere grief of past evils but a recognition by man of darkened vision of his own condition, in which sin, by separating him from God, has reduced him to a divided, autonomous existence, depriving him of both his natural glory and freedom. "Repentance", says Saint Basil the Great, "is salvation, but lack of understanding is the death of repentance."

It is clear that what is at stake is not particular acts of contrition, but an attitude, a state of mind, "For this life," states Saint John Chrystostom, "is in truth wholly devoted to repentance, penthos and wailing. This is why it is necessary to repent, not merely for one or two days, but throughout one's whole life."

Any time within oneself or distinction between the "time to repent" and the "rest of one's time" is, in the language of the Orthodox Church, attributed to the demons. The role of these demons is extortionate, offensive - "diavallo", the word "devil", means to tear asunder. We cannot be deprived of true repentance or diverted from its path by the deception of demons. Yet the demons can work through virtue, working to produce a kind of spurious repentance. By nature we are destined to advance and ascend spiritually, but the demons divert the course by simulating advance in the form of a fitful movement, a wobbling from side to side, like crabs. One can test the quality of repentance by ascertaining whether it is fleeing or fluttering. Inconstancy and inconsistently are a danger signal; lastingness is auspicious.  One is being tempted by the demons when one is caused "at times to laugh, and at other times to weep."  (Source: Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America)

(To be continued: The Two Dimensions of Repentance)

____________________

"Glory Be To GOD For All Things!" -- Saint John Chrysostom

+++

With sincere agape in His Holy Diakonia (Ministry)
The sinner and unworthy servant of God

+Father George

The Desecration of the Hagia (Holy) Sophia

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.

+

THE DESECRATION OF HAGIA (HOLY) SOPHIA BY THE INFIDEL TURKS

The Great Church dedicated to the Holy Wisdom of God (Hagia Sophia) Αγία Σοφία, will be turned into a Moslem mosque by the recent decision of the Turkish government and president Erdogan.

The official statement of His Eminence Archbishop Elpidoforos says the following: "On Friday, July 24th there will be an 'inauguration' of this program of cultural and spiritual misappropriation and a violation of all standards of religious harmony and mutual respect, we call upon all the beloved faithful of our Holy Archdiocese to observe this day as a day of mourning and of manifest grief we urge you to invite your fellow Orthodox Christians and indeed all Christians and people of goodwill to share in the following observances:

We ask that every church toll its bells in lamentation on this day. We call for every flag of every kind that is raised on church property be lowered to half-mast on this day. And we enjoin every church in our Archdiocese to chant the Akathist Hymn in the evening of this day, just as we chant it on the Fifth Friday of the Great and Holy Fast.

Let us, in this time of grief and mourning appeal to the Most Holy Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary. She is the "only Hope of the hopeless" and as we chant to Her in the Akathist, "the Repository of the Wisdom of God, the Treasury of His Foreknowledge".

Therefore, with complete faith in the Foreknowledge of Our Trinitarian God, and in the Divine Plan for our salvation (οικονομία), we entrust the future of our beloved Αγία Σοφία to His Wisdom, and we supplicate She who is the very Treasury of that Knowledge and the Repository of that Wisdom to intercede for us, to comfort us, to give us Her strength, and to manifest to us Her counsel, that we may ever do and say that which is pleasing in the sight and in the hearing of Her Son, our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ, to the glory of God the Father, Who together with the Holy Spirit is worshipped One God, unto the ages of ages. Amen!"

A BRIEF HISTORY OF HAGIA SOPHIA, THE GREAT CATHEDRAL OF CHRISTIANITY

Hagia Sophia was built in six years, being completed in 537 A.D. One of the Architects was Isidorus of Meletus  The Hagia Sophia combines a longitudinal basilica and a centralized building in a wholly original manner, with a huge 32-meter (150 foot), main dome supported on pendentives and two semidomes - one on either side of the longitude axis. In planning the building is almost square. There are three aisles separated by columns with galleries above and great marble pies rising up t support the dome. The walls above the galleries and the base of the dome are pierced by windows which in the glare of daylight obscure the supports and give the impression that the canopy floats on air.  

The original church on the site of the Hagia Sophia is said to have been ordered to be built by Emperor Constantine the Great in 325 A.D. His son, Constantius II, consecrated it in 360 A.D. It was damaged in 404 A.D. by a fire that erupted during a riot following the second banishment of Saint John Chrysostom, then Patriarch of Constantinople. It was rebuilt and enlarged by the Roman Emperor Constans I. The restored building was rededicated in 451 A.D. by Emperor Theodosius II. The church was burned again in the Nika Insurrection of January 532 A.D., an opportunity given to Emperor Justinian I to envision a splendid replacement. The structure now standing is especially the 6th-century edifice, although an earthquake caused a partial collapse of the dome in 558 A.D. (restored in 562) and there were further collapses. It was restored again in the mid-14th century.

For more than a millennium it was the Cathedral of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. It was looted and desecrated in the year 1204 by the Venetians and the Roman Catholic Crusaders during their Fourth Crusade.

After the Turkish conquest of Constantinople in 1453, Mehmet II had it repurposed as a Muslim mosque, with the addition of a wooden minaret (on the exterior, a tower used for the summons to prayer), a great chandelier, a mihrab, (niche indicating the direction to Mecca), and a minbar (pulpit).

In 1934 Turkish President Kemal Ataturk secularized the building, and in 1935 it was made into a museum. Art historians consider the building's beautiful mosaics to be the main source of knowledge about the state of mosaic art in the time shortly after the end of the Iconoclastic controversy in the 8th and 9th centuries. The Hagia Sophia is a component of a Unesco World Heritage Site.

FOR CONSIDERATION

Vladimir, Prince of Kyiv, sent ambassadors to the neighboring states of Bulgaria, Khazar, and Byzantium to examine their beliefs. The ambassadors brought back their findings and evaluation of the various religions to Prince Vladimir and based on their information he rejected Judaism of His Khazar neighbors. As for German Catholicism, the ambassadors described it as plain and dour. Their impression of the faith of their Orthodox neighbors to the south is altogether different, however. Upon attending the divine service at the Glorious Hagia Sophia Cathedral in Constantinople, they report:

"And we went into the Greek lands, and we were led into a place where they serve God, and we did not know whether we were, in heaven or on earth. All we know is that God lives there with the people and their service is better than any other country."

And, therefore, Prince Vladimir accepted the Orthodox Christian Faith for his people. The Russian Orthodox Church is the largest of all Orthodox Churches today, with approximately 165 million Orthodox Christians.

Let us all pray for the protection and preservation of our beloved Orthodox Cathedral of Hagia Sophia. Kyrie Eleison!

________________________

"Glory Be To GOD For All Things!" -- Saint John Chrysostom

+++

With sincere agape in His Holy Diakonia
The sinner and unworthy servant of God,

+Father George

July 17 - The Feast Day of the Holy Martyr Marina

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.

+

ON JULY 17th OUR HOLY ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN CHURCH COMMEMORATES THE FEAST OF THE HOLY MARTYR MARINA

Born in Pisidian Antioch of pagan parents, Marina only heard of the Lord Jesus at the age of twelve, of His Incarnation of the Most Pure Virgin Mary, His many miracles, His death by crucifixion and His Glorious Resurrection. Her little heart was inflamed with love for the Lord, and she vowed never to marry and, further, desired in her soul to suffer for Christ and be baptized with the blood of martyrdom. Her father hated her for her Christian faith, and would not regard her as his daughter. The imperial Governor, Olymbrius, hearing of Marina and learning that she was a Christian, at first desired her for his wife. When Marina refused, he ordered her to sacrifice to idols. To this, Marina replied: "I shall not worship nor offer sacrifice to dead idols, lacking the breath of life, which have no awareness of themselves and are not even aware of our honoring or dishonoring them. I will not give them that honor that belongs to my Creator alone." Then Olymbrius put her to harsh torture and threw her into prison all wounded and bleeding. Marina prayed to God in the prison, and, after she had prayed, there appeared to her first the devil in the form of a terrible serpent, which twined itself about her head. When she made the sign of the Cross, the serpent split asunder and disappeared. Then she was bathed in Heavenly Light; the walls and roof of the prison disappeared and a Cross was revealed, resplendent and lofty. On the top of the Cross was perched a white dove, from which there came a voice: 'Rejoice, Marina, thou dove of Christ, daughter of Sion that is on high, for the day of thy joy is drawing near!", and Marina was healed by the power of God of all her wounds. The demented judge tortured her the next day by fire and water, but Marina endured it all as if not in her own body. She was finally sentenced to death by beheading. At the moment of her death, the Lord Jesus appeared to her, accompanied by Angels. She was beheaded in the time of Roman Emperor Diocletian but remains alive in soul and in power in heaven and on earth. One of her hands is preserved in the Monastery of Vatopedi on the Holy Mountain. Even in Albania, in the Langa mountains overlooking Lake Ochrid, there is a monastery of Saint Marina with some of her wonderworking (miracle-working) holy relics. Numerous miracles have been wrought in this monastery and still are, witnessed not only by Christian but also by Moslems. The Turks have such a veneration for this holy place that they have never laid hands on either the place or the monastery's possessions. At one time, a Turk was the caretaker of the monastery.

FOR CONSIDERATION

Until Christ becomes to the soul all that has any lasting and unchanging worth; until then a man cannot come to suffer for Christ. How was Saint Marina, a fifteen-year-old girl, able to follow, this path? Because Christ was everything to her. How was Saint Julitta able to rejoice, seeing her three-year-old son Kyricus dead for the Christian faith? Again, because Christ was everything. Here is how Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk speaks, in detail and in the form of a conversation between Christ and man, of how Christ is everything to man: 'Do you desire good for yourself? All good is in Me. Do you desire blessings? All blessings are in Me. Do you desire beauty? What is lovelier than I? Do you desire a noble birth? What birth is nobler than that of the Son of God and the Virgin? Do you desire rank? Who is of higher rank than the King of Heaven? Do you desire glory? Who is more glorious than I? Riches? All riches are in Me. Wisdom? I am the Wisdom of God. Friendship? Who is a greater friend than I -- I Who laid down my life for all? Help? Who can help but I? Happiness? Who can be happy without me? Do you seek consolation in distress? Who will console you but I? Do you seek peace? I am the peace of the soul. Do you seek life? In me is the fount of life. Do you seek light? I am the light of the world.' (Source: The Prologue from Ochrid)

_________________

The Divine Service of the Paraklesis will take place at our sacred chapel of the Holy Dormition of the Theotokos at New Carlisle.

Time: 10:00 a.m.

_________________

"Glory Be To GOD For All Things!" -- Saint John Chrysostom

+++

With sincere agape in His Holy Diakonia (Ministry)
The sinner and unworthy servant of God

+Father George

Death, The Threshold to Eternal Life (Part III)

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.

+

DEATH, THE THRESHOLD TO ETERNAL LIFE (Part III)

God's Judgment

The judgment of the soul according to its faith and deeds on earth, is an unquestioned teaching of the Gospel it is also a self-evident demand of human nature and reasoning. The Christian Church places this judgment at the very moment of the death of the individual for two reasons:

1. Any moral progress of the soul is excluded after its separation from the body; and

2. There is no hope of repentance or betterment after death.

The moral progress of the soul, either for better or for worse, ends at the very moment of the separation of the body and soul; at that very moment, the definite of the soul in the Everlasting Life is decided (see Androutsos Dogmatics p. 409). It will be judged not according to its deeds one by one, but according to the entire total results of its deeds and thoughts. The Orthodox Church believes that at this moment the soul of the dead person begins to enjoy the consequences of its deeds and thoughts on earth - that is, to enjoy the life in paradise or to undergo the life in hell. There is no way of repentance, no way of escape, no reincarnation and no help from the outside world. Its place is decided forever by its Creator and Judge.

The Orthodox Church does not believe in indulgences as remissions from purgatorial punishment. Both purgatory and indulgences (a Roman Catholic dogma) are intercorrelated theories, unwitnessed in the Holy Scripture or in the Early Christian Church, and when they were enforced and applied, they brought about evil practices at the expense of the prevailing Truths of the Church. If Almighty God in His Merciful Loving-kindness changes the dreadful situation of the sinner, it is unknown to the Church of Christ. The Church lived for fifteen hundred years without such a theory.

The Last (Final) Judgment is not an act of overthrowing throwing the judgment of the soul at the time of its separation from the body, but rather to effect a union with the transformed, risen body with which the soul will continue to live forever. After the separation, the soul is conscious and consequently, feels, understands, and in general exercises all the energies of the soul (Revelation 6:9-10, 7:15; 1 Peter 3:19; Hebrews 12:23; Luke 16:27-28). The word "sleep", by which death is characterized, does not refer to the soul, but to the body. In Matthew 27:52, we read that many saints who had fallen asleep were raised. The Last Judgment (Final Judgment) will take place on the Second Coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, a strong belief of the Church recorded in the Creed that "He (Jesus Christ) shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead." The time of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ is not known and, according to the book of Revelation, cannot be conjectured by any means.

Christ is the Author of Salvation, Judgment, and Everlasting Life. In short, in regards to death we are confronted with salvation, judgment, and Everlasting Life in the Name of Jesus Christ. The Christian believer is assured of two things: that he will find the means of salvation in Christ and His True Church and that his future destiny depends upon his/her present life.

Burial Service
Outline of the Funeral Service

The Funeral Service of the Orthodox Church does not exclude private prayers and readings from the Holy Scripture, particularly those parts which refer to the hope, and the Everlasting Life we have in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The divine service itself consists of hymns, prayers, and readings from the Holy Scripture.

1. Trisagion (Thrice-holy) and selection of verses from the long Psalm 119.

2. Blessings (Evlogetaria): "Blessed are Thou, O Lord; teach me Thy statutes!" (Psalm 19:12).

3. Hymns: chants in various tones.

4. Readings: (a) from Saint Paul's Epistle: 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 and (b) from the Gospel of Saint John 5:24-30.

5. Small Ektenia: Prayers and Dismissal.

6. Similar chants during the viewing of the body.

Most of the material that the Church uses for the divine Funeral Service refers not only to the dead but to the living as well. It is, therefore, profitable for the Orthodox Christians to study the thoughts and prayers of the Church.

Man knows that he is mortal; he has seen many a relative and friend of his return back to the earth. The hymnologist again reminds us: "Earth thou art and unto the earth thou shall return."

Wealth, health, position, glory-all these earthly things are vanity. "All things are more fleeting than a shadow and succeeded by Death." Only one thing endures, that which makes one "In the Light of Thy countenance and in the sweetness of Thy beauty", one's faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Otherwise, alas! The soul is helpless; neither Angels nor men can aid it. O brethren, do you realize "the shortness of our life?" What are you striving to gather on Earth? You know that "all mortal things are vanity since after death they are not." "Wealth remaineth not, glory goeth not with us. Death comes suddenly, and all these things vanish utterly." What then remains? Only this: you in Christ, your Creator, and your Redeemer. Nothing of what you have can or shall follow you but everything which has constituted your being, your personality, your kindness, or your unkindness, your virtues, and vices, will follow you.

With these prayers and meditations at the very moment of the death of our relative or friend, we beseech Almighty God to save the soul. Let us, then, say with the sacred writer: "Blessed is the way in which today thou goest, for a place of rest has been prepared for you." (Source: Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America)

______________________

"Glory Be To GOD For All Things!" -- Saint John Chrysostom

+++

 With sincere agape in His Holy Diakonia (Ministry)
The sinner and unworthy servant of God

+Father George