Articles Section

This section of our website has articles about Orthodoxy and our church. These articles are also currently subdivided into three categories:

  • Orthodox Church, a collection of articles about the Orthodox Church. We hope the articles in this section will be helpful to both inquires of Orthodoxy, and to those who are members of the Church.
  • Worship, a collection of articles about services, prayers, and worship of the Orthodox Church.
  • Saints and Icons, a collection of articles about saints, their relics, or their icons. We hope to include articles, of special interest to our parish, on the saints who are depicted on our icons, or whose holy relics rest here. Articles on our feast day icons will be included here also.

Also see our Salvation History Section and our list of Videos.


Archpastoral Letter for the Great Fast 2019

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Sunday of Forgiveness, March 10, 2019

Dearly Beloved of Our Diocesan Family:

Christ is in our midst! – He is and ever shall be!

What is the Church, if not a place where the sick meet their physician?

Those sick from sin come to confess their sickness to God the Physician, and to find medicine and healing from Him who is the true Healer from

all human suffering and weakness, and the Giver of all good things.

-- St. Nikolai (Velimirovich) of Zhicha

 

At sundown on Forgiveness Sunday, we Orthodox Christians begin our annual observance of Great Lent. This is a season provided by the Church as a time of our healing. As unbelievable as it may seem, we are commanded by Our Savior to “be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48) … and the Lord would not command us to do something that is impossible. Of course, it is not possible for us to become perfect on our own efforts; but with the power of the Holy Spirit, becoming like God (theosis) can be achieved.

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Archpastoral Letter for the Great Fast 2017

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Archpastoral Letter for the Great Fast 2017

Prot. No. 01-001/2017
Sunday, February 26, 2017

Dearly Beloved Members of our Diocesan Family:

Christ is in our midst! – He is and ever shall be!

Once again, the Church beckons us to begin the sacred season of Great Lent, providing us with the spirit with which we are to enter into it from the Vespers of Forgiveness Sunday: “Let us enter the Fast with joy, O faithful …”

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Archpastoral Letter: Supreme Court Ruling on Marriage - 06/26/15

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In a letter addressed to the clergy and faithful of the diocese regarding the recent Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriages, Archbishop Michael provides instruction and guidance. In part, he writes: "Today we have heard the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States to overturn all bans of same-sex marriages by states.  In doing so, it has declared such unions as being a constitutional right.  This means that same-sex marriages can be legally performed in all states of our country. Despite this announcement, nothing has changed the teaching of our Holy Orthodox Church."

 

Statement of the Holy Synod of the OCA on Sincerely Held Religious Beliefs Regarding Marriage

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Statement of the Holy Synod of the OCA on Sincerely Held Religious Beliefs Regarding Marriage

The following statement was approved by the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America during a session of the Holy Synod on June 16, 2016 at Dormition of the Mother of God Monastery in Rives Junction, MI. It is approved for posting and use by all dioceses, parishes, institutions and monasteries of the Orthodox Church in America.

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Ecclesiological notes

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Ecclesiological notes

By Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann

  1. One of the greatest "ecumenical" difficulties the Orthodox Church has is that her thought forms and "terms of reference" are different from those of the West. And, since the ecumenical movement was shaped primarily by Western theological presuppositions and antecedents, its Orthodox participants were, from the very beginning, forced to express their positions and points of view within a theological framework alien to, or at least different from, the Orthodox tradition. This is especially true of ecclesiology. The Orthodox East has not been challenged either by the politico-ecclesiological controversies typical of the Western Middle Ages or by the Reformation. It remained free, therefore, from the "polemical" and "definitional" ecclesiology which underlies the Western De Ecclesia, whether in its Roman Catholic or Protestant form, and which conditions to a great degree the ecumenical debate on the Church. In our own "sources"– the Fathers, the Councils, the Liturgy – we do not find any formal definition of the Church. This is not because of any lack of ecclesiological interest and consciousness, but because the Church (in the Orthodox approach to her) does not exist, and therefore cannot be defined, apart from the very content of her life. The Church, in other terms, is not an "essence" or "being" distinct, as such, from God, man, and the world, but is the very reality of Christ in us and us in Christ, a new mode of God's presence and action in His creation, of creation's life in God. She is God's gift and man's response and appropriation of this gift. She is union and unity, knowledge, communion and transfiguration. And, since apart from the "content" the "form" has no meaning (cf. the reluctance of Orthodox theologians to discuss problems of "validity"), Orthodox ecclesiology rather than precise definitions or forms, conditions and modalities, is an attempt to present an icon of the Church as life in Christ – an icon which to be adequate and true must draw on all aspects and not only on the institutional ones of the Church. For the Church is an institution, but she is also a mystery, and it is mystery that gives meaning and life to institution and is, therefore, the object of ecclesiology.

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Subcategories

  • Orthodox Church

    Articles about the Orthodox Church

    This section of our website, is a collection of articles about the Orthodox Church. We hope the articles in this section will be helpful to inquires of Orthodoxy, Catechumens, and to those who are members of the Church.

    Good starting points would be:


     

    Article Count:
    94
  • Worship

    Articles on services and prayers.

    This section of our website has a collection a collection of articles about services, prayers, and worship of the Orthodox Church.

    Good starting points would be:


    Article Count:
    82
  • Saints and Icons

    Articles on Saints and Icons

    This section of our website, is a collection of articles about saints, their relics, or their icons. We hope to include articles, of special interest to our parish, on the saints who are depicted on our icons, or whose holy relics rest here. Articles on our feast day icons will be included here also.

    Besides enhancing the beauty of our church, icons remind and instruct us in matters pertaining to the Christian faith. They can lift us up to the prototypes which they symbolize, to a higher level of thought and feeling, to help transform us and sanctify us. Icons can stimulate us to imitate the virtues of the holy personages depicted on them. They serve as a means of worship and veneration.

    Good starting points would be:


    Article Count:
    59
  • Videos

    Articles by Video

    This part of our website is where we post videos for now. They may be moved into other categories on the website, whatever seems best.

    (All  the 7 questions 7 answers vedios are noiw in this category.)


     

    Article Count:
    32
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