Free Republic

O my beloved and greatly-desired brethren who have gathered in the Holy Church of God, in order to serve the Living God in holiness and righteousness, and, with fear, to partake of the holy, most-pure, and immortal, awesome Mysteries of Christ: Hearken unto me who am lowly and unworthy. For it is not I who am speaking to you and instructing you; rather the grace of the Most-holy and Life-giving Spirit; for I speak not from myself, but as I have been instructed by the divine canons, and the God-bearing Fathers, as the Church received instruction from the divine Apostles...

"First and foremost, concern for the welfare of children, including their health, is entrusted by God to their parents. The state and society should respect the priority of parental rights""It is well known that, along with the risk of infectious diseases, there is also a risk of serious complications — even death — as a result of prophylactic vaccination. In such a situation, it is the patient himself who should make the choice. In the case of a child, the parents should make the choice . . . . No one has the right to make this choice for them...

The Orthodox faithful of the Romanian capital continued their annual tradition on Saturday, filling the streets by the thousands in honor of the Lord’s Entry into Jerusalem. The throng of clergy and people started their holy procession from Radu Voda Monastery, where palm branches and pussy willows were blessed by His Grace Bishop Timothy of Prahova, reports the Basilica News Agency. The procession was then led by Bp. Timothy as the Romanian faithful made their way to the Patriarchal Cathedral, chanting hymns as they marched along the streets of the capital. An icon of the great feast of Palm...

Although it is the world’s oldest continually operating library, dating back to the 6th century, the collection of manuscripts at St. Catherine’s Monastery at the foot of Mt. Sinai is no stranger to the latest technology. In 2012, they began spectral imaging on many of the manuscripts to discover the texts beneath the texts. Many of the manuscripts are palimpsests, meaning a previous text had been erased so the scribe could reuse the valuable parchments. Traces of the original texts remained, however. Now the monastery has begun a high-tech process of digitizing its 4,500 manuscripts—a process that could easily take...

The Saturday before Palm Sunday is known as Lazarus Saturday among the Orthodox, and they celebrate Christ raising him from the dead just prior to His entrance into Jerusalem (gospel of John). It is a feast that offers something of a preview of Christ’s resurrection, and a foretaste of the General Resurrection at the End of the Age. Some years back I sat in a cave that is purported to be the grave of Lazarus. I could not help but think of him – but of him in Hades rather than the tomb. It is said in the Fathers...

With Constantine's turn toward Christianity in AD 312, the systematic persecution of Christians within the Roman Empire came to an end. However, at the same time Christianity was enjoying increasing imperial favor in the Roman world, a great persecution erupted in the neighboring kingdom of Persia, starting about the year AD 339. Constantine himself had written a letterto the Persian king, Sapor II, lauding the Christian religion to his fellow ruler and asking him to protect the Christians among his subjects. But some within the Persian court—and eventually Sapor himself—came to view the dramatic rise of Christianity as a dire...

Death is a mystery. It is our third birthday. I will be honest—a day does not go by when I don’t think about death. But it is impossible to fathom the depths of that word’s meaning and the experience of the event itself. I can think about how I will lie in the grave, but what the soul will experience simply doesn’t fit into my awareness. Any funeral rite—for a layperson or an infant—is simply unfathomable in its meaning. But there is a special funeral rite for monastics—it is extraordinarily profound in essence, significant for the soul and at the...

Mount Athos on a peninsula off the cost of Greece is one of Europe's last remaining secrets: a monks' republic. Access to women is strictly prohibited and in order to keep unwanted tourists out, visas are granted only to pilgrims and workers. For the first time, a filmmaker was given access to all forms of monastic life on the holy mountain. (appx 1:35 hrs)

The weak, vacillating and ultimately cruel and cowardly figure of Pontius Pilate is one of the most enigmatic figures in Sacred Scripture. From the Gospel accounts, he seems to be a man who almost wants to be a hero, to defend the innocent victim, Jesus, against the murderous lynch mob besetting Him. Indeed, Pilate is urged by his wife to "have nothing to do with that just man." In the end, however, he lacks the courage to act virtuously. He condemns Christ to a horrible death, despite knowing with certainty that He is innocent. But who was Pontius Pilate? Did...

Moscow, April 16, Interfax - The Russian Culture Minister will encourage Russian museums and citizens to arrange a fundraiser to help rebuild the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris that has been devastated by a fire, the director of the ministry's museums department, Vladislav Kononov told Interfax on Tuesday. "We will invite museums and all citizens who are not indifferent to what happened to organize a fundraiser to support the restoration, the rebuilding of Notre-Dame de Paris. I think it will be right. We will hold consultations with our museum institutions, and I think that they will support such an initiative....

Today is Spy Wednesday, when the Church traditionally remembers the initiation of the betrayal of Jesus by his apostle, Judas Iscariot. It is interesting in the Gospel of Matthew that Judas approaches the chief priests with his proposal of conspiracy immediately after Our Lord rebukes the disciples for false compassion: And when Jesus was in Bethania, in the house of Simon the leper, There came to him a woman having an alabaster box of precious ointment, and poured it on his head as he was at table. And the disciples seeing it, had indignation, saying: To what purpose is this...

Moscow, April 16, Interfax - Russian specialists with an extensive record of restoring medieval monuments may help rebuild Paris' Notre Dame Cathedral devastated by fire if necessary, the Kremlin said. "It's true that we have some of the world's best specialists who have a vast record of restoring medieval monuments. Therefore, should such a need arise, we will be ready to dispatch them," Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday. When asked whether Moscow is considering extending financial assistance to France or providing timber to help rebuild the cathedral, Peskov said, "I don't doubt that, if any...

We use many words and concepts in our daily lives without bothering to consider their true content. In my experience, few words are less examined than “justice.” It is a word that is foundational in the modern world with deep roots in religious tradition. Most people would agree that the desire for justice is virtually innate in human beings. However, it has a dark side of which very few seem to be aware. In the religious tradition, justice is usually grounded within God Himself. Some associate this justice with God’s demand for right conduct from His creation. There is also...

The Church of Santa Maria Maddalena is one of the most beautiful sanctuaries in the Holy Land. Its architecture attracts tourists and pilgrims from all over the world. (appx 4 mins)

The Bulgarian Orthodox Church’s governing body says that while a meeting between Patriarch Neofit and Pope Francis is possible during the Pope’s May 2019 visit to Bulgaria, the church will not participate in any joint services or prayers. The decision was announced by the governing body, the Holy Synod, on April 3. The Holy Synod said that it had decided to write to Anselmo Guido Pecorari, the Apostolic Nuncio to Bulgaria, saying that because the invitation to Pope Francis to visit Bulgaria had come from the state authorities, it was appropriate for the main events related to the visit to...

Moscow, April 4, Interfax - A delegation of the Interreligious Working Group for aid to the Syrian population under the Presidential Council for Cooperation with Religious Organizations visited the Barzeh neighbourhood in Damascus in which there is a general education school damaged by the military actions. It has been chosen as the first target of the project for restoration of the Syrian social infrastructure to be realized by the Working Group, the communication service of the Synodal Department for External Church Relations reports. This project has been initiated by Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia. It was discussed and...

April 9 is the traditional feast day of the little known saint, Eupsychius of Caesarea in Cappadocia. Though he lived after the time of Constantine, Eupsychius was a martyr who suffered during the reign of Julian the Apostate. His crime, apparently, was his role in the destruction of the Temple of Fortune in Caesarea ca. AD 362 immediately after the accession of Julian to the imperial throne. The historian Hermias Sozomen, writing about 80 years after the event, provides the only close-contemporary account of Eupsychius’s death: It is said that about this period, Basil, presbyter of the church of Ancyra,...

Among the remarkable documents found inserted into the 4th century AD work known as the Life of the Blessed Emperor Constantine by Eusebius Pamphilus, one of the most intriguing is a letter penned by Constantine himself to Shapur II, the young king of Persia. The reliability of this document is fairly well established. A detailed scholarly discussion of the authenticity, dating, and purpose of this letter may be found in this excellent article by David Frendo. In his Vita of Constantine, Eusebius introduces the letter as follows: The king of the Persians also having testified a desire to form an...

2,300 trays with hundreds of thousands of broken fragments of wall paintings from the Church of the Transfiguration on Ilyin in Veliky Novgorod are currently being stored in the Novgorod Museum. And now researchers are planning to restore the frescoes. “It’s an unthinkable number—almost 260,000 fragments. And all of it is Theophanes the Greek!” the head of the Center for the Restoration of Monumental Paintings, Tamara Anisimova commented on the project to RIA-Novosti. The frescoes of St. Theophanes the Greek from the Church of the Transfiguration were considered lost until the 1970s, when the Soviet historian and archaeologist Mikhail Karger,...

Russian state deputies have again raised the issue of renaming Sverdlovsk Province, which is currently named in honor of Yakov Sverdlov, who played an important role in planning the October Revolution and is widely believed to have participated in the slaying of the Royal Martyrs on July 17, 1918. The proposal came during a closed meeting of provincial Governor Evgeny Kuyvashev with the federal parliamentary deputies from the region on the preparations for the celebration of the 300th anniversary of Ekaterinburg, reports URA.RU. “In his speech, Pavel Vladimirovich [Krasheninnikov],” the head of the Committee for State Construction and Legislation, “among...