Orthodox Christianity Forum

The Triodion. We’re just past the Theophany and already our attention turns to the Great Lent and Pascha - the feast of feasts! As part of this preparatory season you’ll hear references made to the “Lenten Triodion,” or just the “Triodion;” so what is it, exactly? It actually refers to two distin

The Book(s) of Needs - Great and Small. In Greek the term is euchologion “book of prayers;” in Slavonic we call it the trebnik - “book of needs.” Either title is appropriate, but the latter tends to make more sense to me personally because with a few exceptions, the services in the Book of Nee

When was Christmas? Every year around this time the articles and memes start popping up, trying to convince us that our celebration of Christ’s Nativity is at best in error, and at worst, promoting paganism. The most common ones indicate that it’s actually Saturnalia, Sol Invictus, the Winter Sols

Christ in Hades?! There are three mentions of Hades in the Divine Liturgy - one in the proskomedia, one during the 6th Hour in Psalm 54, and one just after the Great Entrance, where echoing the first the priest says (referring to Christ), “In the grave bodily, but in Hades with Thy soul as God; in

Monasticism. I am fond of saying that our beloved monastics are the heart of the Church because they have separated themselves from the world to focus on praying for those of us stuck here in the world. That said, there is a lot of confusion about what monastics are, what they do, and how we ough

Monasticism. I am fond of saying that our beloved monastics are the heart of the Church because they have separated themselves from the world to focus on praying for those of us stuck here in the world. That said, there is a lot of confusion about what monastics are, what they do, and how we ough

Monasticism. I am fond of saying that our beloved monastics are the heart of the Church because they have separated themselves from the world to focus on praying for those of us stuck here in the world. That said, there is a lot of confusion about what monastics are, what they do, and how we ough

The episcopal vestments. I thought it might be interesting in the next several weeks to do a bit of an exploration on the stuff clergy wear - an explanation if you will, of why we wear what we do. This week we’ll look at the vestments unique to the episcopacy. Because the bishop is a priest also

I mentioned the week before last (and then forgot to follow up on it) the classification of feasts in the Church, so we’ll cover that now. In Orthodoxy, we rank our liturgical celebrations throughout the year according to a hierarchy of classifications, numbered first through fifth. So first and f

Before and After. This Sunday is the afterfeast of the Dormition, but just what does that entail? We look in the calendar (or at least we ought to) and see forefeasts, afterfeasts, and occasionally an apodosis; this week we’re going to talk about what each of these is, means, and requires of us.