(February 9th)

At the end of St. Matthew’s Gospel, before He ascends to heaven, Jesus Christ says: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.” (Mt 28:19-20) All nations – in other words Christ is telling us that Christianity is not only for certain nations or certain nationalities, but for all people. So we see today that Orthodoxy is growing in Africa, in Latin America, in Asia, including China. Recently a Chinese man was ordained as an Orthodox priest for the first time in sixty years, and there are other signs of the rebirth of the Orthodox Church in China.
The saint we are commemorating today, Saint Innocent of Irkutsk, was supposed to be the first bishop of the Orthodox Church in China, although things did not go as planned. The Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Beijing was officially founded in 1715 by a command of Tsar Peter the Great, although there was an Orthodox presence even before that. Saint Innocent was born in 1680 and educated at the Kiev Theological Academy and ordained as a hieromonk. He held several important posts in Russia, then was consecrated a bishop in 1719 and appointed to the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Beijing. He made the long journey to China, but due to political factors the Chinese government would not let him in. He spent three years in very difficult conditions on the Chinese border. Finally the China plan was abandoned and the Holy Synod appointed Saint Innocent the bishop of the diocese of Irkutsk. Saint Innocent’s diocese was an ethnically mixed one, having for example Buryats and Mongols. It was a poor diocese and Saint Innocent labored with very little financial support. Nevertheless, he was tireless in building up Orthodoxy in that diocese bringing the Gospel of Christ to the very diverse members of his diocese, as well as building schools and churches. He died at the age of 51 in 1731. Years after his death his relics were found uncorrupt and many miracles occurred after people prayed to him. He was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1800. In 1921 the relics of Saint Innocent were seized by the Soviets and returned in 1990 to the cathedral in Irkutsk.

Fr. John

(February 1st)

As we know, the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church are separated from each other, and have been so for almost a thousand years. But this means that they were one for close to a thousand years with some temporary schisms during that time.

This one-time unity has many dimensions. One dimension is that many of the saints of the first thousand years are venerated by both the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches. For example, there are many popes who are commemorated on the Orthodox calendar, as well as Archbishops of Canterbury. St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco, a twentieth century wonder-worker, when he was bishop in Europe and later in America, strongly encouraged the Orthodox to remember and celebrate the memory of these western saints of the first millennium to remind us that Orthodoxy is not a religion only for certain nationalities or countries, but for all people.

Today the Orthodox Church celebrates the memory of the Venerable Bridget (also spelled Brigid or Bride) of Kildare, an Irish nun who lived c. 453 to c 524. Her mother had been baptized by Saint Patrick, Enlightener of Ireland. She herself was a friend of St. Patrick. At some point she became a nun and in 480 she founded two monasteries in Kildare, one for men and one for women. She also founded a school of art, teaching metal work and book illumination. St. Bridget, as Abbess, had a great deal of influence on monasticism in Ireland. She fell asleep in the Lord on February 1, 524.

St. Bridget’s relics had been housed in a church in Lumiar, a suburb of Lisbon, Portugal. In 1929 a small portion of her skull was brought back to Ireland and placed in a reliquary in the cathedral in Killester, near Dublin.  At the time it came as a great surprise to the majority of Irish people that this relic existed, and even more so that it had been preserved in Portugal, where for hundreds of years the Portuguese had venerated her.

The life of St. Bridget and countless other saints of the first millennium remind us of a lost Christian unity, which we should pray and try to overcome, so that the unity among Christians which Christ willed is restored.

Fr. John

​(January 24)

There is a tendency to think that the Liturgy of the church is something that the clergy and that lay people are passive. But this is not true. The Liturgy is something done by clergy and laity together. The priest chants or reads prayers, the choir sings and the people sing or recite prayers. For example, the Creed, the Our Father, Lord have mercy, or the prayer before Communion. People send in prosphora with lists of names to be prayed for. Of course the laity light candles and pray for people on their own. This shows that the laity participates in the Liturgy and in the Orthodox Church a priest cannot serve the Divine Liturgy on his own; there must be someone else present.
​This is reflected in today’s Epistle (1 Corinthians 12:7-11) taken from St. Pau’s first letter to the Corinthains. St. Paul writes: “…the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all (1 Cor 12:7)” And then St. Paul points out the different gifts of the Spirit; some people have the gift of wisdom, others knowledge, still others may have the gifts of prophecy, healing, miracles and so on. But we see that there is no clergy/laity division here. We all have gifts of the Spirit. St. Paul continues “…one and the same Spirit works in all these distributions to each one individually as He wills.” So all Christians have gifts of the Spirit and all of us are necessary for the church, not only in the celebration of the Liturgy but in the whole life of the parish, diocese and national church. St. Paul writes “A charism is a gift of the Holy Spirit given for the benefit of others. But no one person possesses all of the gifts (1 Cor 12:11 – Orthodox Study Bible, pg. 395)” So we see that the life of the church is a synergy, a working together of God and the believers and a synergy of clergy and laity.

Fr. John

Most people even if they are not Christian have a favorable view of Jesus Christ (although we remember the hatred of Christianity in the Soviet Union and other places). Many people will acknowledge Jesus as a great moral teacher, a highly spiritual person and so on. These things are true, but the fundamental Orthodox belief is that Christ is God, the second person of the Holy Trinity.
This is a belief strongly defended by the saint of the day, Saint Athanasius, Patriarch of Alexandria (c. 296-373 AD). In the early third century, a priest in Alexandria, Egypt, named Arius was teaching that Jesus Christ was not God in the true sense. Arius was willing to say that Jesus was the son of God in some sense, but he was fundamentally a created being, the greatest of all God’s creatures. Soon people in the church realized what a threat this was to the Church. Even the most holy person could not free us from the power of sin, death and the devil; only God can. So a meeting of bishop s was called at the city of Nicea and Saint Athanasius attended the council as a deacon and assistant to the then Patriarch of Alexandria. At this council the bishops adopted the Creed we sing at every Divine Liturgy, when we say “I believe…. in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only-begotten, begotten of the Father before all ages. Light of light; true God of true God; begotten, not made; of one essence with the Father, by Whom all things were made…”   After the council of Nicea, Saint Athanasius became Patriarch of Alexandria and strongly defended the Nicene Creed. Unfortunately, many bishops would not teach the Creed and these bishops, using the power of the Roman Emperor, forced Saint Athanasius out of Alexandria and into hiding. He was patriarch for 45 years, seventeen of which he spent in hiding. Nevertheless, Saint
Athanasius proclaimed the Nicene Creed, forcefully taught that Jesus Christ is “true God of true God,” which has been the belief of Orthodox, Roman Catholic and many Protestant Christians since his death. He is known as one of the great defenders of Orthodoxy.

Fr. John