8/18/2010
Archpriest Victor Potapov
The real life of a parish arises from the depths of the human soul, forged into unity by shared spiritual experiences and conjoined in the sacraments and prayers carried out under the shared roof of one sanctuary.
Giving thanks to God brings us abundant grace, protecting us from the sin of ingratitude.
Great Lent proclaims the Good News that man is a child of God, by which God has forever united Himself with His creation.
“Love emanated from Brother Jose’s grave; all around is darkness and cold rain, even our souls would not find warmth and here—Paschal fire emanating from the grave, calling us to spiritual awakening and love."
What we know of God has been given to us through revelation. While remaining unfathomable to the human mind, God revealed Himself to us and gave us the fullness of the truth and the promise of eternal life through His Son, Who became the Son of Man to share our fate and save us from the power of sin and death.
But what is behind this question? It is distrust in God.
We were assigned double rooms, and I ended up sharing a room with the future Vladyka Hilarion—known simply as Igor then.
If one were to fulfill God’s Law, as he ought, the contents of his life would be of quite a different composition.
Brother Jose and the Montreal Icon were inseparable. Together they left us. The miracle of the original icon has returned to us sinners—and the memory of Brother Jose must be returned.
Christ’s word is eternal. The parable of the evil workers of the vineyard bears a relation not only to the leaders of the people of Christ’s time, but also to us, people working in the new vineyard of Christ—in the Church.
My wife and I serve God and the people. Without her, I wouldn’t have any kind of success. I remember how Archpriest Vladimir Rodzianko said during a pre-marriage conversation with us just before our wedding that on the day of a man’s ordination to the priesthood, his wife is as if ordained along with him.
Why do we call the time of Great Lent a time of bright sorrow?
When holy things, such as icons and the temple, are censed, that censing is directed toward God, giving Him due honor and glory. When the censer is turned toward people, it bears witness to the fact that the Holy Spirit is poured out onto all the faithful, for they have within them the image of God.
The Great Canon is more astonishing than any other liturgical text encountered during Great Lent. It is a marvel of liturgical hymnography, with texts of amazing power and poetic beauty.
It is just to such reflection that the Church calls us during the pre-Lenten period: to take a look at our sins and consider—have they not become the reason we are sad, despondent, bereft of joy, feeling that God is not as near as He had been before?
If our parish life flows peacefully and well, if we possess the spirit of truth, good will and love, then through these we participate in the betterment of life on earth.
Rating: 9|Votes: 12
The Church celebrates the Apostles Sts. Peter and Paul both on the same day, first of all because they are living symbols of two ways different ways of apprehending God and had two different visions of the Apostolate.
Rating: 9.1|Votes: 15
Achievement of balance, calm and collectiveness in all of a human being’s function is the goal of wisdom, the goal of what is known as “chastity.”
Rating: 9.5|Votes: 42
We present for your consideration responses to several questions that come up in connection with the podvig of Great Lent.
Rating: 8.9|Votes: 23
The art of freeing ourselves from all that interferes with our communion with God is called asceticism, something that is most sharply manifested in monastic podvig, spiritual struggle.
Rating: 9.2|Votes: 11
The parable of the Good Samaritan teaches us that any human individual, any man - be he sick, poor, a thief, an enemy - is higher in value than an abstract idea of good, an abstract idea of the common, public welfare, an abstract idea of churchliness, generally accepted traditions, regulations and canons.
Rating: 10|Votes: 14
One must increase the talents received. But how?
Rating: 9.6|Votes: 11
The Pharisees constantly said that the Jews are God's chosen people and that the coming Kingdom of God is intended only for them. The people got so used to this prejudice that it was offensive to them to hear in the parable of the workers in the vineyard...
Rating: 9.2|Votes: 12
The parable of the Prodigal Son is inexhaustible. It contains such a multitude of themes, that it is difficult to enumerate them. Each man, who delves into it with reverence, finds the answer for himself to questions about his own spiritual condition.
Rating: 9.5|Votes: 43
On this snowy morning at about 6:30 a.m. when we opened the door of our temple and came into the vestibule, the reader and myself were engulfed in the sweet fragrance of roses in the hot summer sun. I questioned the fragrance, which seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at the same time.
Rating: 9.8|Votes: 43
Thirty-five years ago Jose Munoz-Cortes, an Orthodox Spaniard, was called by the Lord to a special ministry.
Rating: 9.9|Votes: 17
What for us is the Protection of the Theotokos, the symbolic appearance of which was revealed to St. Andrew, Fool for Christ, in Constantinople’s Blachernae church?
Rating: 9.5|Votes: 29
Then they decided to have a recess, and to go to the cathedral and pray to St John of Shanghai before his very relics. A draft resolution was placed on his chest, along with a list of names of the delegates of the Council. Fervent prayer then instilled in us the confidence that everything will happen according to God’s will.
Rating: 8.7|Votes: 6
Not only did Christianity not abandon ritual, but in time, in its historical development, it established its own complex system of worship. Does this constitute a self-contradiction? Is not private prayer sufficient for a Christian?
Rating: 9|Votes: 14
The saint loved with intense fervency his native land, its history, and its sacred shrines. He was filled with profound anguish over Russia’s enslavement to antichristian forces and was completely irreconcilable with the godless government. Nevertheless, love for his earthly fatherland did not limit his archpastoral service to care only for his own people.
As with all the sacred events celebrated by the twelve great feasts, the Meeting of the Lord also is rich in content that is difficult immediately to grasp. Let us dwell in thought only as it were on the historical meaning of the event.
Rating: 9.1|Votes: 8
These, then, are the two different states - on the one hand, there is the prayer beginning with thanksgiving: God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are. This is seemingly an invocation of God, but in actual fact it is a confirmation of his "ego", for the core of pride, according to Venerable John Climacus, is "the shameless parade of our labours".
Rating: 6|Votes: 4
The Holy Gospel reveals a Truth of which many are not aware. In order to be good, one must be with the Source of Good. In order to be strong, one must be with the Source of Strength. In order to be spiritually powerful, one must be with the Source of Spiritual Power. In order to be spiritually beautiful, one must be with the source of Beauty.
Rating: 10|Votes: 4
So I stood there awkwardly, no young people near, I couldn’t understand the services, in fact I didn’t even speak very good Russian at the time… But then during the services something in my soul changed. It was just one incident, but it turned everything upside down in me.
Rating: 2|Votes: 2
The miraculous Kursk Root Icon of the Mother of God visited several parishes and many of the faithful over the Thanksgiving weekend in Washington, D.C.
The parable of the sower, the first of Christ's parables in time, is a prophecy of how mankind accepts the Gospel is good tidings in different ways, and how this Gospel acts differently on them, depending on the condition of their souls.
Fr. Alexander F. C. Webster, James George Jatras, and Archpriest Victor Potapov
As longtime friendly colleagues in the pursuit of a faithful Christian public moral witness in America, we are profoundly saddened and shocked at your unfounded, insulting accusations against the moral integrity of the senior leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church since the Ukrainian crisis erupted in February 2014.
Rating: 4.5|Votes: 6
The parable of the ten virgins shows that only a man's earthly life in God, in accordance with the testaments of Christ and therefore consonant with the Kingdom of Heaven, will justify him both at the particular judgment (after death) and at the general Dread Judgment. But all "formal" Christians, who live out of contact with God and care not about their salvation, prepare for themselves rejection.
Rating: 10|Votes: 3
"We magnify Thee, O Christ the Giver of Life, Hosanna in the highest and we cry aloud to Thee, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord!" With these words, the Holy Orthodox Church invites all of us, on the Feast of the Entry into Jerusalem to also magnify and greet our approaching Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Rating: 9.9|Votes: 8
Why did we imagine that without Him, without communing of Him, we could live and accomplish anything? Why did we imagine that without communing of Christ, we could rid ourselves of our sins, of our sorrows and disappointments, of our despondency, our coarseness and despair? Why did we imagine that we could obey His commandment and love one another without communing of His Body, which is also His Church?
Rating: 2.5|Votes: 6
The parable of the rich man and Lazarus shows us a foolish misuse of material goods. It raises slightly the curtain covering certain mysteries about man's portion beyond the grave. We encounter this parable in the Gospel according to Luke (Luke 16:19-31).
Ordinary human consciousness, drawing only on the experience of earthly existence and its physical laws, can no more comprehend Christ’s Ascension than it could His Incarnation or His Glorious Resurrection from the dead. Even the disciples who saw the empty Tomb, who saw the Risen Christ, who witnessed His Ascension, had mixed feelings about everything they had seen. They vacillated between exaltation over the miracles they had witnessed and misunderstanding and doubt.
Anyone who has read A.I Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago or the works of Shalamov, Solonevitch, and other authors who have written about horrible pages from the history of Lenin’s and Stalin’s enslaved Russia can probably call to mind names of gloomy "islands," state concentration camp Gulags, such as Turukhansk, Igarka, Dudinka, and Norilsk...
Archpriest Victor Potapov, Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh
Rating: 2.6|Votes: 10
We are entering into difficult days today: days when we recall the Passion of Christ; days when it will be difficult for us to come to church and endure long services, to pray. Many ask themselves: is there any point in coming to services when we are so physically tired, when our thoughts are flying here and there, when we have no inner concentration and true participation in what is going on? Remember what happened during the days of Christ’s Passion: how many people there were—both good and terrible people, who would have given anything to break away from the horror and exhaustion of those days.
Rating: 7.5|Votes: 15
Forgiveness Sunday is a day a day of strict self-examination, a day on which we examine the extent our spiritual maturity: are we capable of following after Christ, of obeying all of His directions? Many of us know well from personal experience that it is far easier to forgive than to ask forgiveness of one whom we have somehow offended, for our pride interferes with our admitting guilt. The Church constantly teaches that it is only through repentance, spiritual struggle, and efforts toward great abstinence that what had been lost through sin may be sought, found and restored.
Archpriest Victor Potapov, Ilya Agaev
Rating: 10|Votes: 1
First of all, for the Orthodox Christian, social service is the fulfillment of God’s commandment, the second part of the one that says “thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” When we serve our neighbor, we serve the Lord Himself. You know that the Gospel says “for I was ahungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: naked, and ye clothed me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.” So if we serve our neighbor, we fulfill Christ’s main commandment-to love.
Rating: 5.6|Votes: 5
And yet, the Bible is not merely a history of the people of Israel. It is also a great chronicle of the soul of mankind, of the souls which would repeatedly fall and stand up again before the face of God, which repeatedly fell into sin and repeatedly repented. If we were to examine the lives of those mentioned in the Bible, we would see that each of them is presented not so much as a historical figure, an individual that did such and such, but as an individual standing before the Living God.
Anyone who has read Alexander Solzhenitsyn's GuLag Archipelago or the works of Shalamov and other authors who have written about horrible pages from the history of Lenin's and Stalin's enslaved Russia, can probably call to mind names of GuLags, state concentration camps, such as Turukhansk, Igarka, Dudinka, and Norilsk. From July 6 to 13 of this year, and with the blessing of the Very Most Reverend Metropolitan Hilarion, First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, your author and his matushka visited this part of Eastern Siberia at the invitation of the Very Most Reverend Archbishop Antony of Krasnoyarsk and Yeniseisk; the occasion of this journey was the 20th Anniversary of the rebirth of the enormous Krasnoyarsk Diocese.
