Sunday January 4, 2026
By Fr Nicholas Karipoff
The Sunday before Christmas is dedicated to the Old Testament Holy fathers, some of whom are mentioned by name in the genealogy of Jesus the Christ which we heard today. It is the opening passage in the gospel of Matthew. In the Hebrews passage preceding the gospel today (chap 11), we see a vast panorama of these Old Testament heroes. When Paul remembers each of them it is preceded by a something of a refrain from him: By faith they did their heroic feats, and they were protected by God by faith.  What faith is St Paul talking about?  It was their faith in the coming Saviour of the world, the Messiah. We live two thousand years after His coming and we have a vast tradition, scripture and culture of the New Testament, as well as the saints who knew the Risen Lord through their life in Christ.  We should marvel at their great faith of these Old Testament heroes who looked towards the bright day of the Lord.  Their faith should inspire us who are weak in our faith, even though we have all these witnesses and saints and teachings. 
Now all of us together are coming to Bethlehem with the Lord, His holy Mother and His ostensible father.  As a side note, Matthew gives the genealogy of Joseph because that was the Jewish practice, while Luke gives the genealogy of the Mother of God. 
Each great feast, especially Christmas and Easter, are prepared by prayer and fasting, and is an event that has two dimensions.  Firstly, it is a historic rememberance.  This is easy to understand.  Secondly, it is our entry into participating in the event’s eternal dimension. Our door into this reality is our faith.  
The church is the life in Christ.  Christ is in our midst.  Christmas is not just a celebration of Christ’s birthday is His absence.  Oh no! It is not just an event of ancient history.  We may sometime think it would have been wonderful to have lived in the time of Christ when the Lord was here on earth, to have seen and heard Him, or even to have touched Him. Remember though, among the Old Testament fathers like Moses and the great prophets, very few experienced any clarity of vision of the coming Saviour. Yet they persevered in their faith. They could never have said the words of St Paul: no longer do I live but Christ lives within me. (Gal. 2:20) We can understand what this means.  Everything in the church teaches us that Christ is with us. 
Matthew begins with the genealogy of Christ and ends with Christ’s words to His disciples – and through them to us all: I am with you until the end of the ages, Amen.

Wednesday January 7, 2026 Nativity of Christ
AI study of the Shroud of Turin
by Fr Nicholas Karipoff
Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ; God in the flesh. The angel tells Joseph in a dream to call the Holy Virgin’s son, “Jesus”, which in the context means “God the Saviour”. He is also called “Emmanuel”: God is with us.  Not long before the Lord’s passion, the Apostle Peter declares: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. (Mat.16:16) Jesus Christ speaks as God. When officers are sent to arrest Him, they come back empty-handed saying, No man ever spoke like this Man. (Jn.7:46)  Jesus Christ speaks as God even when he is silent. 
Here are two examples. The first is when He looks silently from the cross and His loving gaze shocks and transforms a hardened criminal, hanging on the cross next to Him.  The Good Thief recognises God the Saviour in the dying man.  
Secondly, Christ God has left a silent witness for us of little faith, two thousand years after His resurrection.  The Silent Witness is the title of a documentary from 1978 on the Shroud of Turin.  Now there is a new documentary titled AI found something impossible in the Shroud of Turin. Scientists are terrified to explain.  You can watch this video below.   Jesus Christ speaks as God from the pages of the gospel.  You must read the Gospel; Christ God is speaking to you!  Those who have ears to hear, let them hear, He says.  Christ is born, glorify Him.  Merry Christmas!
About the Shroud of Turin
There was much excitement in the aftermath of the scientific studies of the Shroud in the 1970s. Many Christians at that time saw the 1978 documentary, ‘The Silent Witness’.
The Shroud is one of the countless holy relics plundered by the Crusaders from Constantinople in 1204 and the following decades. Brought to Europe by a secretive monastic order of Crusader knights, it was eventually transferred to Turin, Italy. Modern interest in the Shroud began with the first photos of the relic taken in the late 19th century by a photographer in Turin. When he developed his plates, he realised that the Shroud itself is a negative photograph on a large linen cloth. His negative plates revealed for the first time in history a clear positive image of the face and body of the Man Who had suffered scourging with Roman whips, a crown of thorns on His head, wounds from the nails in His hands and feet, and piercing of His side with a Roman lance.
In 1988 ten years after ‘The Silent Witness’ documentary three independent studies ‘proved’ that the relic was a 14th century ‘fake’, based on radioactive carbon tests. The dating however could not explain how a medieval European artist could have procured a piece of linen produced in Palestine near Jerusalem (shown by pollen in the material) woven according to the style of weave popular there before 70AD, and how he could have known about photography, negatives, as well as many other things only discovered centuries later. Nevertheless, atheistic scientists and their followers were gloating: another nail in the coffin of religion. Eventually it was revealed that all three groups of scientists took a patch from the Shroud sown on after a fire in the 14th century.
Now we come to recent studies using huge computer power – AI. Please watch this 21-minute film. You may want to read and/or see other material like the 1978 documentary.​
https://youtu.be/ADJ6i6mgdwo?si=maj3AeND3dVAobeI
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​Sunday January 18, 2026. Eve of Theophany
By Fr Nicholas Karipoff
John the Forerunner, as we hear, came preaching repentance and baptising in the wilderness.  Why did all the land of Judea, and all those from Jerusalem come to him to confess their sins and be baptised in the River Jordan? When we look at the beginning of Mark’s gospel, it says AS it is written on the prophets.  Behold I send my messenger before Your face to prepare your way before you.  The conjunction “as” is the Greek word “os”, but in the best ancient manuscripts of the gospel another word “kathos” which means “according to”. The difference is that the prophets said this WOULD happen. It seems like a tiny nuance, but it explains why people came en masse to the Jordan.  John’s appearance was not unexpected, quite the contrary.  Only an extraordinary intensity of expectations could have produced this effect of huge crowds coming to the Jordan so quickly.  
Nearly thirty years before this there was an event that we have just celebrated, the Nativity of Christ.  Echoes of the rumours spread by the shepherds at that time had spread. People had not forgotten.  Those of us who are older can easily remember what happened thirty years ago! The same can be said of the visit of the Magi to Jerusalem, because it caused such excitement, as well as negative feelings from Herod which led to the Slaying of the Innocents.  These events would have been in the memory of the people, who could have calculated that the Messiah was approaching the age of thirty, an age when He could begin His ministry.  According to the Law you had to be thirty before you could become a teacher, a rabbi.  John the Baptist announced with his booming voice that the Messiah was at the door.  The intensity of a prophet who even looked like the fiery Elijah broke through even the hardened hearts of people.  At that time Israel was in crisis.  There was a lot of tension between the ruling elite and the common people.  The elite had acquiesced to Roman occupation because Rome protected them and gave them considerable internal autonomy.  But the common people preserved the religious expectation that the Messiah would come and deliver them from all oppression.  They looked forward to the Messiah.  
Cynical politicians say Don’t waste a good crisis!  Lenin said, the worse it is, the better it is!  God, too, does not waste a crisis! What does the word crisis mean?  It is the Greek word for judgement.  Judgement wakes people up.  When we wake up, we are ready not just for water but for the Holy spirit, according to the words of John the Baptist.  The question is: are we awake? Are we ready for Christ?

Monday January 19, 2026. Theophany
By Fr Nicholas Karipoff
When Jesus came from Galilee to the River Jordan, John the Baptist tried to argue with Him about His baptism. He perceived Jesus as the master and himself as a servant, so how could he baptise the Master? The Lord stops John’s resistance by saying that it was fitting to fulfill all righteousness.  The word used in Matthew’s original is dikaiosini which, in the New Testament, has a dozen different meanings!  Yet John immediately understood what the Lord meant.  He stopped arguing and baptised the Lord. 
The event at Jordan River had the significance of Theophany, the manifestation of God. It was also the declaration by two witnesses, the Father with His booming voice, and the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, that Jesus is the Beloved Son from eternity and from His incarnation. Jesus begins His ministry of redemption as the Christ.  While John saw Him as the master, the Lord wanted to begin the economy of salvations as a slave. Pride was the thing that had separated Adam from God, and now the extreme humility of the Saviour was the foundation of Adam’s return to the bosom of the Father.  We can understand from this what the Baptist meant when he said, I did not know Him. John the Baptist had not known Him before, on a superficial level, but his comment reveals there was more to it.  John expected, like the rest of the Israelites, that the Messiah would appear as a master.  Suddenly the words of Isiah the prophet, which John quoted, acquired a completely new and deeper meaning:  Behold the Lamb of God.  Isaiah speaks in chapter 53 of the meek and humble Christ who takes our sins in suffering and in His sacrificial death.  
The Feast of Theophany every year is also an important opportunity for us to rethink and contemplate our own baptism.  Christ’s humility and our acceptance of that image is a declaration of war on the sinful and proud ego. In the drowning of sin, there is a foundation made for a constant reconciliation with the Lord.  In our connection to Christ, the True Vine, we receive the potential to become a royal priesthood, members of the holy nation of God, as we hear in the writings of the apostles and the holy fathers. The Holy spirit is received for us in the mystery of Chrismation.  The Father then declares us to be His beloved child. The whole scene of Christ’s baptism is repeated in our life and baptism.  All this is truly magnificent! But let us not fall into the trap of thinking that this is easy.  It is not easy!  It is not just about accepting an idea.  We have to actually live it.  Baptism in the Jordan, for Jesus Christ, is the beginning of His journey of love.  What is love?  Love is the cross. The Lord says:  And he who does not take his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. (Mat.10:38)

Sunday December 4, 2025, Presentation of the Mother of God.
by Fr Nicholas Karipoff
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Today the young Virgin Mary enters the temple to become the temple of the Word of God. This gives an opportunity to contemplate two things for us; firstly, what the temple can offer and secondly, how to use these gifts to follow the example of the Mother of God in becoming the living temple of the Lord. 
The Lord said to Nicodemus that it is necessary to be born again, to become children of God. In the literal sense, young parents and young people thinking of marriage should have this image before their eyes because there are so many advantages in being taught about Christ when we are little children. Children’s hearts are so receptive to the things of God. Look how the future Mother of God absorbed and learned the things about God. It is precisely because she was such a diligent student of these things that later, as a teenager, she was chosen to be the facilitator of the Incarnation, the Mother of God. Life in and around the church - the temple - offers many opportunities to learn. We learn in the services, we learn outside the services, from our brothers and sisters and we get ample opportunities to train in humility and meekness through being patient with other people. It is not easy, but it works with God’s help.
The temple gives us food and drink for our spiritual life, without these we can only try to supress our bad thoughts, feelings and words but we cannot obtain healing. Instead, we just bottle things up and cannot do anything truly good. Public worship in the temple teaches us to live the trinitarian life, where we are helped by others and help others to reach their unique beauty in the unity of love. Let us love one another that with one mind we may confess the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the Trinity one in essence and indivisible.  Most holy Mother of God, teach us and help us.

Sunday December 14, 2025
by Fr Nicholas Karipoff
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
It is not uncommon for parishioners to expect the church to be an enjoyable and easy-going “God club” and that is certainly the perception of the man in today’s gospel story (Luke 18:18-27).  He is living a comfortable life and feeling content. But Christ shocks him with the suggestion to sell everything and follow Him. The Lord does this, not because he expects him or anybody else to do it, unless they really want to, but to get him out of that smug state of self-satisfaction and to understand that life in the kingdom is warfare. It is a war on our ego, which is fed by the passions. Passions make us vulnerable to attacks from the demons; unseen enemies work through the passions, both our own passions and the passions of the people around us. This is what St Paul writes about in today’s passage from Ephesians in Chapter 6 which we heard before the Gospel. The Christian must apply the strength given by Christ to conduct this warfare. St Paul asks the Ephesians to pray for him to give him help in this battle. The whole armour of God is needed to conduct against the fight against the devil. 
While we do not wrestle with flesh and blood, we wrestle with the unseen enemies. Flesh and blood in Paul’s historical context are the people who are antagonistic towards Christianity, people who act as instruments of the demons without realising it. St Paul’s interest in this letter to the Ephesians was to address the problem of the worldly resistance to the spread of the gospel. This resistance was inspired and activated by the demonic world. The Holy Fathers also speak of this warfare in a broader sense, applying  not only to the people outside of the church but also to all of us inside the church.  The Fathers teach us to hate the sin and the demonic energy that causes it while loving the sinner. The sinner is often ignorant of the spiritual process, not realising how he is manipulated by the evil one. St Paul describes spiritual weaponry as the armour of righteousness.  He was referring to the large shield that Romans used that covered the whole body. St Paul used this image in referring to the shield of faith, to protect against the fiery darts (or arrows) from the evil one, and the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. This armour makes us completely protected and ready for battle. 
We need to reject the flippant attitude of the man in today’s gospel story. The battlefield is not a place for a picnic. Anyone with the picnic attitude will not survive very long at all. We live in a time where there is so much readily accessible literature on the internet, masses of recordings of talks, audio and video; there is so much we can learn about this teaching of the holy fathers about unseen warfare. If we are not so good at reading, a skill our society is losing, we can listen instead. We must be diligent in learning about all these things if we seriously desire to win in this battle with Christ. 

Friday December 19, 2025
by Fr Nicholas Karipoff
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 
At last night’s vigil we heard the gospel from St John where Christ speaks of himself as the Good Shepherd, the reading which is in honour of holy hierarchs because today we honour the memory of one of the greatest holy hierarchs, St Nicholas. For us, St Nicholas is an image of Christ translated and filtered through the specific prism of his personhood.  We see so many different facets and qualities of what Christ’s love is about in the image of St Nicholas. The troparion to the saint tells us that the truth of things revealed thee to thy flock as the rule of faith, an icon of meekness, a teacher of temperance, it speaks of humility and riches of poverty. He is the image of the great Good Shepherd himself, a tuning fork for his flock because this is what the pastor does, he must project the tune of heaven. What is Orthodoxy? It is singing in tune with heaven, and the holy ones have always given that correct tune, the correct note for us to be able to sing, with our hearts, our souls, if we, ourselves, want to sing that tune. 
Recently our bishop, Vladyka George, shared with us a talk by the American Antiochian Metropolitan Sabas who speaks of the role of the pastor. Metropolitan Sabas bemoans how difficult it is to move an unresponsive flock, and quotes Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk, an 18th century hierarch who also complained of this difficulty. 
On a day like this, and especially when we have St Nicholas as the patron saint of two priests here, it is an opportunity to think of and to pray for us pastors, because we massively need your prayers as we are always attacked. The higher the position of responsibility within the church, in ministry, the more attacked this person is. Also, it is a very important thing for the flock to be aware of who we are supposed to be – Christians. Of course, great pastors like St Nicholas educated their flocks by giving that example of the Christ-like virtues as we hear in the troparion. The Church is the Body of Christ and we all affect each other.  There is a Russian saying that goes something like this, ‘one man in the battlefield is hardly a warrior’.  That means that you need to collaborate with and help others. 
St Nicholas gives us the tone and the teaching, but there is a need for reciprocal support. The Church cannot operate with just the pastor.  There must be a sense of harmony with us all singing that tune of Heaven. We should pray to St Nicholas and ask for his help, and every time we have a celebration it is an opportunity for us to think about our particular church family and the life within. Glory be to God for that!
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Sunday December 21, 2025
by Fr Nicholas Karipoff
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
The gospel story today is about the Ten Lepers who were healed (Luke 17:12-19).  It was preceded by a passage from Colossians Chapter 1 which also speaks of thanksgiving. The passage begins: Giving thanks to the Father who has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the Kingdom of the Son of His love in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. 
The story of the Ten Lepers illustrates Christ’s deliverance from the power of darkness.  Our forefathers were warned that the moment they transgressed, they would die. Death would enter them. The Lord, Himself and the New Testament fathers, beginning with the apostles, explain that death entered humanity with sin as an illness.  Sin is a loss of God-given wholeness. Leprosy is a terrible image of a slowly approaching death. It was a dreaded disease in ancient times.  Christ’s deliverance of the lepers is a tangible image of His redemption of the whole human race.  
It would be natural to assume that the ten lepers who received healing would come back to thank the Lord for this wonderful gift, but only one did. This one was a Samaritan, and the other nine were Israelites. The others took this healing for granted, as most of humanity - including us - does during the greater part of life. Why was the one leper able to acknowledge the great gift that he had received, and not the other nine?  It was because he did not see it as his right, as the Israelites did.  The Israelites thought it more important to ‘tick the box’ of seeing the priest and being declared clean, as the law demanded.
We Christians come to the Eucharist not only as a source of the fruits of Christ’s redemption but also that we may learn about a different attitude to life.  We learn to change our thinking.  If we train ourselves in the Eucharistic consciousness, thanking God for everything – the good things  and the hard things, each day, we will establish a relationship with Him.  Our senses and our spirit will not become jaded and insensitive to the things of God. 
I would like to turn one of St Paul’s sayings back to front.  In First Thessalonians 5:16, St Paul writes:  Rejoice always, pray without ceasing and in everything give thanks.  But I would like to put to you that the spiritual logic is the other way around:  In everything give thanks. This is the beginning. Secondly, pray without ceasing, which means to try to have a memory of God.  Without remembering God, you are no different to an atheist. Thirdly, rejoice always.  With this attitude, God will give you joy even in difficulties and sorrows, so that you will feel strong and not crushed.
 
Sunday of the Forefathers, 28 December 2025
By Fr Nicholas Karipoff
Today’s readings from Luke (14:16-24) and Colossians (3:4-11)* speak of God’s calling, God’s invitation to enter into a proper relationship with Him.
There are formidable internal problems-challenges- to be overcome. These concern our whole being: the body, the soul, and the spirit. That is shown in the responses of the first three people who are invited. They decline, giving excuses that point to the enslavement of the body, the soul, and the spirit. 
The plot of land symbolises the body which is material- taken from “the earth”. The five pairs of oxen could indicate the five senses which supply information to our consciousness-our soul-about the environment-physical and psychological. The wife indicates a selfish, possessive love that excludes God as much-or more-than the other passions. Here the spirit worships the idol of the selfish ego; worships the octopus of the eight passions. The spirit does not respond to the invitation to participate in a bilateral, loving relationship.
In Colossians the great Paul explains why earthly things should not be the focus of a Christian’s life. Earlier in his life Paul had explained in the letter to the Romans that those who were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into His death (Rom. 6:3). Now he exhorts the Colossians: “…put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanliness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness which is idolatry”. Further he adds: “…anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language, and lies” (Col. 3:5,8). Why does he call these things our “members”? Because these passions have become like parts of our body, like aspects of our soul. The tentacles of the octopus.
“Put off the old man” - rip off the giant octopus with its tentacles- “put on the new man” (Col.3;9,10) according to the image of Christ. In our renewal we should forget about the national and social advantages and distinctions, writes Paul. Christ is the focus of the Christian. Not the earth, not the oxen, and not the possessive eros.
Our life is a struggle uphill to freedom in knowing the Truth (Jn.8:32). There on Mount Tabor we are invited to the never-ending Supper of the Lord. Today we can say together with the person who prompted the Lord to give His parable: “Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God!” (Lk.14:15)

Sunday November 2, 2025
by Fr Nicholas Karipoff
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
The parables of the Lord usually focus on one important issue and for that reason certain things may be intensified to make the point very clearly. This can be said about today’s parable of the rich man and Lazarus. We see a juxtaposition of extreme egotism of the rich man and the complete lack of selfishness in Lazarus. Abandoning egotism is also the topic of today’s Epistle from St Paul to the Galatians.  St Paul writes, ‘I have been crucified in Christ; it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the son of God who loves me and gave Himself for me’.  (Gal 2:20) By being crucified with Christ, St Paul refers to such a commitment to Christ that he no longer feels the dominance of the ego which feeds from the passions. 
In the parable, the Lord shows that the rich man is completely ruled by his ego and selfishness, which are fed by the excesses of his life.  According to the teachings of the Fathers, these excesses are the passions, He is so self-centred, that over the years, he does not notice that there is a suffering man just outside the door of his house. He continues to live happily, but his inability to love anyone except for himself, lands him in hell. Lazarus, on the other hand, is an image of death with Christ of which we hear in Galatians today. He is like many of the Christian strugglers, the ascetics, who worked intensely at dying to the ego of the passions and rising to the beauty of our unique personhood in Christ.
Let us not be put off by the extreme images of today’s parable, thinking, Well there is no way that I am as egoistic, selfish and insensitive as that rich man in the parable - no way! and Neither am I ready to live the life of a Lazarus who has no ego but then he is a complete beggar, he has nothing!  Our Christian life is not a solitary pursuit; the life of the church is the life of a spiritual family. Just like in our physical family, we are fed and educated by the spiritual family.  This means that we can grow towards that state that St Paul talks about: “no longer do I live, but Christ who lives in me”. It does not mean Paul has disappeared, but it means that the ego has disappeared. 
Surely none of us would like to share the rich man’s afterlife, yet the fact that there is hell shows that God is love, according to the words of St John Chrysostom. The rich man begins to lose his selfishness in hell, he begins to think and to care about other people. He wants to help his brothers; that is a huge step forward.
Brothers and sisters, the Lord Jesus Christ has enabled us to live in the heaven of love here and in the age to come, that heaven is the life of grace. The life of the church opens more as we cooperate with our Savior who says, ‘For my yoke is easy and my burden is light’.  Amen.

Sunday November 9 2025    
By Fr Nicholas Karipoff
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 
In preparation for baptism, the priest turns to the catechumen and asks, ‘Do you renounce Satan and all his angels, and all his service, and all his pride?’ and the catechumen answers, ‘I do renounce him’. Our baptism opens the potential of total liberation from Satan. Satan is always ready and willing to torment every human being, just like the man in the country of the Gadarenes that we heard about in today’s gospel reading. We see the liberated former demoniac sitting at the feet of the Saviour, shining with the beauty of God’s image. 
Today’s gospel story shows these two polarities of the human life in the example of the person who was liberated from the hell of self-destruction. We hear in the Orthodox funeral service ‘I am an image of thy unspeakable glory even though I carry the wounds of transgressions’. Unless we understand the presence together of God’s beauty and the ugliness of sin in every one of us, we understand nothing about humanity and about salvation in Christ. Alas, even Christians often remain in the confines of moralism. This means that every person is viewed as either being good or bad, and our judgement of if a person is good or bad usually depends on whether we like the person! That is moralism.
In today’s Epistle reading from Galatians, we hear how St Paul speaks out strongly against those who want to practise this superficial type of Christianity. He speaks of the Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ as the only true transformative force that enables us to die to the world and to come alive to God. Then Satan cannot torment us, or other people through us. We often torment other people but fail to see it.  
Brothers and sisters, let us focus on seeing and working against the destructive forces within us; envy, jealousy, anger, vainglory and other passions which come from our pride, and our worship of the ego. When Christ sees that we have a serious intention to work against a particular passion He comes to our aid. It is easier to see the failures and ugliness in other people than to see and acknowledge it in ourselves. The Holy Fathers teach us to remind ourselves constantly of the beauty of God that is present in every person. It might be hidden beauty, but it is indestructible. As for ourselves, let us accept the cross of Christ. We have a responsibility to participate in our liberation from these demonic destructive forces. When we renounce Satan properly, we too will sit at the feet of Christ as this man did at the end of the gospel story. We will sit in all the beauty of God’s image as His followers clothed in the robe of righteousness (baptism) in our ‘right mind’, not a chaotic and aggressive, passion-filled mind.

​Sunday November 16, 2025
by Fr Nicholas Karipoff
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
The parables of the Lord usually focus on one important issue and for that reason certain things may be intensified to make the point very clearly. This can be said about today’s parable of the rich man and Lazarus. We see a juxtaposition of extreme egotism of the rich man and the complete lack of selfishness in Lazarus. Abandoning egotism is also the topic of today’s Epistle from St Paul to the Galatians.  St Paul writes, ‘I have been crucified in Christ; it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the son of God who loves me and gave Himself for me’.  (Gal 2:20) By being crucified with Christ, St Paul refers to such a commitment to Christ that he no longer feels the dominance of the ego which feeds from the passions. 
In the parable, the Lord shows that the rich man is completely ruled by his ego and selfishness, which are fed by the excesses of his life.  According to the teachings of the Fathers, these excesses are the passions, He is so self-centred, that over the years, he does not notice that there is a suffering man just outside the door of his house. He continues to live happily, but his inability to love anyone except for himself, lands him in hell. Lazarus, on the other hand, is an image of death with Christ of which we hear in Galatians today. He is like many of the Christian strugglers, the ascetics, who worked intensely at dying to the ego of the passions and rising to the beauty of our unique personhood in Christ.
Let us not be put off by the extreme images of today’s parable, thinking, Well there is no way that I am as egoistic, selfish and insensitive as that rich man in the parable - no way! and Neither am I ready to live the life of a Lazarus who has no ego but then he is a complete beggar, he has nothing!  Our Christian life is not a solitary pursuit; the life of the church is the life of a spiritual family. Just like in our physical family, we are fed and educated by the spiritual family.  This means that we can grow towards that state that St Paul talks about: “no longer do I live, but Christ who lives in me”. It does not mean Paul has disappeared, but it means that the ego has disappeared. 
Surely none of us would like to share the rich man’s afterlife, yet the fact that there is hell shows that God is love, according to the words of St John Chrysostom. The rich man begins to lose his selfishness in hell, he begins to think and to care about other people. He wants to help his brothers; that is a huge step forward.
Brothers and sisters, the Lord Jesus Christ has enabled us to live in the heaven of love here and in the age to come, that heaven is the life of grace. The life of the church opens more as we cooperate with our Savior who says, ‘For my yoke is easy and my burden is light’.  Amen.

Sunday November 23 2025
by Fr Nicholas Karipoff
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 
The Lord teaches that the greatest commandment is the one that tells us to love God and to love our neighbour as ourselves. This is what he tells the lawyer in today’s gospel reading (Luke: 10:25 – 37)). But the lawyer then asks the question, “And who is my neighbour?” To answer that question, the Lord gives the moving parable of the good Samaritan. This parable teaches us that those who think that they are keeping the law of God are, in reality, insensitive to their neighbour. The beaten-up man, lying there, cannot give anything to the first two people that passed. They illustrate those who feel that they are the centre of the universe and are incapable of feeling the pain of anyone else who is not in a close orbit of that centre. That sort of person asks the question:  What’s in it for me?’ Why is it that the Good Samaritan notices his suffering neighbour? He is humble. Compassion is possible only if our pride shrinks to the level where we begin to understand that we are not the centre of the universe.  This is easy to understand with the head, but not with the heart.
The parable speaks in the broadest possible sense about loving our neighbour but today I would like to focus on one aspect only of that love: patience with our neighbour, and the ability to restrain our irritability and anger. To illustrate this, I would like to read an excerpt from Abba Dorotheus of Gaza in his Maxims on the Spiritual Life, Chapter 22 (English Translation): ‘It is impossible for a man to be angry with anyone unless his heart is first lifted up against him, unless he despises him and esteems himself superior to him’. Our immediate reaction to hearing such words might be, I do not feel that I am superior to that person, but I still cannot cope with this rising emotion of irritability and anger, I cannot cope with it. In all truth, such a reaction means, I am still only understanding only intellectually, that I am not the centre of the universe but not existentially with all my heart, not with all my soul. 
The beginning, the first step, in our fight against irritability and anger is to keep our feelings to ourselves, or at least not to let this poison out.  We have an inner brake, which of course, has to be worked on and kept in proper shape with a lot of help from Christ. Then it becomes a power assisted brake! Most of you are too young to know about cars that did not have power assisted brakes – there is a big difference!  The Holy Fathers put it this way: Love is the bridle of irritability. A bridle is what you put in a horse’s mouth when you rein the horse in. Again, St Dorotheus says that if anyone offends you or saddens you, pray for them, as ones who have given you great benefit. Through this your irritability will begin to diminish.
Through the prayers of the Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us.  

Sunday  November 30 2025
by Fr Nicholas Karipoff
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 
The Lord said this parable of the rich man’s plentiful harvest (Luke 12:16 – 21) in response to a jarring, intrusive and dissonant request.  This came from a man who wanted to get the Lord to influence his brother to share the inheritance of property. In response to this, the Lord offered this short parable and warned, “Take heed and beware of covetousness for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses”. In other words, life is not about material things. The great Saint Paul today explains what true life, the life of Christ’s kingdom, is about.(Eph 4:1-6): “I,  therefore the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling of which you are called, with all lowliness (humility) and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavouring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling: one Lord, one faith, one baptism…”
The unity of the spirit in the bond of peace is possible only if we have the direction that Christ indicates further in His speech (the Sermon on the Mount): ”Seek ye the kingdom of heaven and all of these things will be added to you”. The message is simple; there is a hierarchy of values. Eternal, spiritual riches should come first, then the rest of our life should be accepted as a gift from God, not as our right of possession. We come to church to thank God, but even more than that, we come to learn to change our attitude to life and the world around us.  The rich man is enslaved by his passion for possessions. He thinks that he possesses his riches but of course, they possess him. When human beings worship any idol, but especially mammon, the idol of wealth, they cannot enter into the life of unity of grace and love which Christ gives. The fathers explain that the idol of wealth is especially pernicious because greed firstly disunites us from each other and secondly, it enables the person to to exercise their sinful will through the passions as they seek to pamper the passions much more. What is even more tragic is that you do not have to be a wealthy person to worship the idol of earthly possession, you can be a poor person and still be worshipping that idol. It is all about the focus and hierarchy of values. Even a materialistic person understands that there are things in our life that are more valuable than possessions, such as our physical health, the happiness of our children, harmony in marriage and family. 
Christ teaches us that life with Him enables us to endure the challenges to our peace, whatever they are. And as the holy martyrs, and all the saints, have shown, even death does not cancel life when we live our life with Christ. But if we fail to live this life then, as Christ shows in the parable, death cancels everything. 

Sunday October 12, 2025
By Fr Gennady Baksheev

​In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. 
 In the symbol of faith, we say that we believe in one God, the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. Compared to the invisible world, the visible created universe is easier for our eyes and mind to comprehend. We see the sun going up in the morning and setting in the evening, the planets orbiting the sun and the movement of stars in the night sky. There is a sense of order and predictability in the physical universe. This is because God created everything good, and modern science continues to develop our understanding of the laws of nature that govern the world. These laws of nature can be expressed in mathematical form, which even if we can’t understand the equations, we can appreciate how they operate in our everyday lives.  If there is a place for laws of nature to govern our world, that also must mean that we need spiritual laws to govern our lives. 
 
Today’s gospel reading is taken from St Luke’s account of the Sermon on the Mount. In His first public preaching, Christ appears as the Incarnate Lawgiver. He comes to give us spiritual laws to live by. The last verse calls us to ‘be merciful, just as our Father also is merciful.’ This speaks to us of a beatitude: Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. 
We hear these beatitudes at most liturgies; we heard them just moments earlier during the small entrance, when the deacons, priests and altar servers come out of the altar and onto the ambo. At this time, the Gospel is brought out. In the beatitudes, Christ lays out what His disciples and followers should be like. That is, He lays out a character of a Christian. These beatitudes are the hallmark of an authentic follower of Christ. The beatitudes are a Christian definition of a blessed person, and they are a stark contrast to what the world thinks a blessed person should be. There is a double blessing for each beatitude. Christ says that you will be blessed to have the character that pertains to each of the beatitudes, and you will also have a reward for living in the way that is described by each beatitude. 
 
The first three of the beatitudes, that is, the poor in spirit, the blessed mourner and those with meekness, describe the inner character of a Christian before the presence of God. This is the most fundamental description of a Christian. The fourth beatitude speaks about hungering and thirsting after righteousness. What is the mercy beatitude about? The most repeated phrase that we use in our services is Lord have mercy. This is the heart’s cry within our communal life as a parish. We stand in the presence of God and ask for mercy. The heart of our private life is the Jesus prayer, where we say, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner. Mercy is the summation of our call to God, both privately and publicly.  
 
Christ not only taught these beatitudes but also modelled them for us in His life. The very act of Christ’s descent into our world is an act of mercy. The whole movement of God sending His son, conquering our enemies and joining us to Himself is about granting mercy to mankind. Mercy can be seen in so many acts of Christ during His life. Christ bowed down heaven to be with people and even showed mercy to those who crucified Him. He is the model of mercy and teaches us to do likewise. 
 
Mercy is fundamental with God Himself, and this is how we act like Him. When we imitate Christ and express the character of a Christian, we are being merciful like God Himself  and we show God’s face in our interactions. Showing mercy to people around us triumphs over judgment, and it gives relief to our conscience. This means that we need to look for mercy for ourselves from God and also share in the burdens of those around us.        Mercy is not just a disposition of emotion but needs to be expressed in concrete ways in our lives to provide relief to others. In the gospel from the Sunday of the Last judgement, Christ gives us specific ways to show mercy: visiting the sick, clothing the naked, going to prisons, feeding the hungry, and showing hospitality to homeless people. These actions involve showing mercy with our hands. We can also show mercy spiritually, by admonishing a sinner, counselling a doubtful person, comforting a sorrowful person, bearing wrongs that are done to us patiently, forgiving every injury and praying for the living and the departed. These are all ways to show mercy.
 
And what is the reward? We hear in the beatitude, ‘For they shall obtain mercy’. We shall obtain mercy from God that is far greater and superior to any kind of mercy that we can show to people. While we show mercy towards others as people, we will receive mercy from the God of all. God’s mercy is not the same as man’s mercy.  
 
Earlier I said that we can see the fruit of the laws of nature and comprehend them by the mind through the operation of the created visible world. In like manner, we can also observe the fruit of living according to God’s commandments in the saints. Today, the church celebrates the uncovering of the relics of St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco, which took place in 1993, only 27 years after his death (1966). He is a much-loved bishop of the Russian church, whose life was governed by the standards of the spiritual life. To this day, his relics remain incorrupt. If we sow sparingly, we will reap sparingly. If we sow bountifully, we will reap bountifully. Amen.  
 
Sunday October 19, 2025
By Fr Nicholas Karipoff
 
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 
Today’s short narrative of the great miracle of the Lord raising the young man, the dead boy, the only son of a widow, raises some questions. Firstly, one might ask, how can this story possibly connect with me, or relate to me? Are we going to start raising people from the dead? While it is a story about the great divine power of Christ, we must always remember the gospel stories are not just historical narratives.  They are intended to speak to us today. In today’s story the Lord is confronted with the terrible grief of a widow who has lost her only son. Christ’s response in this instance has a connection with the story of the paralysed man, by telling him, ‘Your sins are forgiven’. In this case, He says to the mother, to the widow ‘Do not weep’. 
 
God has given us a great and powerful gift of the word, but our sinfulness has resulted in this word losing its power. Imagine how offensive and banal it would be for us to say to someone, in that tragic situation, ‘don’t cry’. Yet the Lord’s word is full of divine power. He forgives the paralytic, and the paralytic is healed. He says, ‘Do not cry’ and He raises the dead boy. 
 
What can we learn from this story? Luke writes that when the Lord saw her, He had compassion on her, and then He said, ‘Do not weep’. The Lord’s compassion was an expression of His divine power of love, and by this He raised the boy. If our words are filled with just a tiny fraction of that divine compassionate love we will perform miracles. Maybe we would not raise people from the dead but maybe we could raise a dead soul. (There is a novel by Nikolay Gogol called Dead Souls.) A dead soul is a soul that does not know God, and to raise one up is a great miracle. 
 
The compassion and love of the Lord are absolute. But our problem is that sin separates us from our neighbours, and we cannot feel the same love and compassion for them. We are unable to fulfil the commandment to love your neighbour as yourself. Perhaps our ego is scared to let God in when we are touched sometimes with compassion. Why? Our ego knows if that we let God in properly the ego will die and it does not want to die! It is very tenacious.  Yet there are many accounts of sinners being touched by compassionate love and performing miracles. There is an ancient story of a harlot that just walked out from spending time with a client, and she saw a mother with a baby that had just died. She was moved with such compassion that she prayed to God and raised the baby. Can you imagine that? We have no excuse saying, ‘Well, I am not a saint’ because sinners have performed miracles and we can perform miracles, of a different type, a spiritual type.
 
Religions give laws and morality but only Christ reveals the power of God’s love that transforms our life, that raises us from the dead,  from the death of mundane godlessness. It gives us the power to transcend any tragedy, grief and sorrow. Amen.
 
Sunday October 26, 2025                                           
By Fr Nicholas Karipoff
 
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 
Today the Lord speaks to us about our heart.  Our heart should be receptive to His word but often it is not. The parable of the Sower, that we just heard, speaks of different states of the heart; totally unreceptive; shallow and unstable; enslaved by the passions; and finally deep fertile, and receptive soil of the heart.
 
In the stories of the lives of saints we often see how they responded and committed themselves to a life in Christ after just one word, or just one hearing of the gospel in church. There is a famous story in the life of St Anthony the Great, the founder of monasticism, how he had heard the word of the gospel addressed to the rich young man and immediately after the service he sold all his possessions and went into contemplative life. To our shame we can probably remember times when we heard the word of God in church, and it may have registered in our consciousness and then immediately disappeared.
 
Who are these ‘birds’, the ‘rocky soil’ and the ‘weeds’ that prevent the word of the Sower to grow in our heart?  The ‘birds’ are the unseen enemies of our salvation, the demons. They do not want us to get any benefit from our attendance in church so they will work at getting our attention to shift from what is going on at the service to anything else.  Our thoughts go from the divine to mundane things, such as wow what a great outfit that person is wearing, or why is that person is always acting in such an annoying fashion, or here is someone I haven’t seen in church for ages, I will go and say hello immediately. Do you recognise these things?! After the service, ask yourself what the gospel reading was about. If you can remember what it was about then you have survived the ‘birds’, to some degree. 
 
“Rocky soil” is when people get all fired up, inspired to fly, but after a very short while they nosedive down. When I first started seminary there was a young man who later became a good priest. When Great Lent came he got fired up and said, “I am not going to eat anything in the first week”, but in several days he got to such an irritated state that drove a car to MacDonald’s and had everything that he wanted! We can recognise that sort of attitude too. It is easy to get inspired.
 
Now an explanation about “the weeds”. God warned Adam about these. He told him that the soil of his heart would bring about these ‘weeds’. Nothing good comes without the sweat of the brow. During liturgy we make efforts for a good hour to lay aside all earthly cares, as we sing in the cherubic hymn.  Afterwards there is a need to be entertained, to gossip, to talk about very worldly things as soon as the service has ended.  But maybe on some occasion we put in a little bit of sweat of the brow. Maybe the soil of our heart has been ploughed up by a bit of pain- physical or mental. Maybe our own pain has enabled us to respond to the pain of another person, as we discussed last week. No pain, no gain. It is a very Christian saying! 
 
The public worship of the Liturgy, the word of God, will bring fruit. It will not be hard to remain focused during the service, and there will be no need to rush out of church immediately and engage in all kinds of things that are more entertaining for us in the pursuit of our worldly happiness. There will be a desire to find people who are on the same wavelength so we can talk about more serious things with them. 

Sunday September 14, 2025
Fr Gennady Baksheev
 
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. 
The Church gives us many things for our contemplation today. 
In the Church calendar, today is the 1st of September and marks the beginning of the Church new year. This is also known as the Indiction, which comes from a Latin word meaning, “to impose.’ This originally referred to the imposition of taxes throughout Egypt and then the Roman empire. It is also on this day that Christ entered a synagogue on a Sabbath day and read the following words from the Prophet Isaiah: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed Me ... to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord" (Luke 4, 18:19). And so to commemorate these events, the holy fathers of the First Ecumenical Council decided to begin the New Year on the first of September.

The parable in today’s Gospel reading speaks about the disobedience of the chosen nation of Israel. I will not focus on this today, but will rather focus on its relevance to us.  

There is a common theme that unites today’s epistle reading, Gospel reading and the commemoration of Sts Peter and Fevronia. The epistle reading was from St Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, where he writes about God anointing us with ‘the seal’ which ‘gives us the Holy Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee’. This is from Chapter 1 verses 21 and 22. This seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit is given to us in the sacrament - or better known in the Orthodox Church as the mystery of chrismation. This mystery is performed together with baptism. The mystery of baptism joins us to Christ, and gives us a new birth into eternal life. It is also the formal entrance into the Church and the communion of believers. The mystery of Chrismation activates that life within us. We hear the following words during a prayer at this mystery: ‘keep the person in your holiness, confirm him in sanctification, confirm him in the Orthodox faith, keep him from the evil one, preserve his soul that he may please God.’ These words about defeating the devil and preserving holiness within us. This begins our path of spiritual growth.

For growth to occur, we need nourishment. We eat and drink food, but this is to our death. In today’s parable, God calls us to a joyous occasion, to that of a wedding feast where Christ is the bridegroom and the Church is the bride. We are called to a feast that is laden with spiritual nourishment, and we are given fattened calves, which are the loaves that we offer to God on the altar table and are given back to us as the Body and Blood of Christ. This is the mystery of mysteries in which we grow in our personal relationship with Christ. We have not done anything worthy to be called to this feast. The entry into the wedding takes place for all people without distinction, for people both good and bad. Let us tremble however, and understand, that we need to lead a pure life after entering the Church as there will be a careful examination by the King. The mysteries are given to us as a means of divine – human union, but what we do with them matters. They don’t circumvent our will. That is, something is expected of us. We need to co-labour with Christ in producing fruit, such as prayer, repentance and virtue. 

The Church gives us an example today of a married couple that lived a life of virtue. I encourage you to read the full life of Sts Peter and Fevronia at home. St Peter became sick one day with leprosy, and when hope of a cure was diminished, he was told in a dream to seek out Fevronia who could heal him. She was of remarkable beauty and goodness, studied plants and had the gift of healing. Peter fell in love with Fevronia and gave his word to marry her as soon as he recovers, but failed to keep his promise when his health was restored by Fevronia. He became fearful as Fevronia was from a lower class. 
Then the same disease returned to Peter, and Fevronia did not refuse to help him again.   Peter repented of breaking his promise, married his benefactress, and was happy with her to the end of his days. As tradition has it, the couple honored one another throughout their lives, and lived honestly, in peace and harmony. They did not have an easy life however but they  were able to overcome all obstacles through their love for each other. For example, there was a time when Peter ascended the Princely throne of the city of Murom but decided to leave his position in the face of slander against his wife. Even in exile from their own city, the wise princess never lost heart, and always found a way out of a difficult situation, and supported her crestfallen husband. Peter in turn never ceased to treat Fevronia with great tenderness and never once reproached her with the fact that she was the cause of their exile. Tradition also has it that they not only died on the same day, but in the same hour. Their commemoration is on July 8th, but this always falls in the Apostles’ fast and so weddings are unable to be served on this day. So another feast day was established to fall on the Sunday closest to the 16th September, as many young couples want to have their wedding take place on the feast day of these two heavenly patrons of married couples. 
 Let us also take up this call to lead a holy life, as did Sts Peter and Fevronia. Amen.

​Saturday,  September 27, 2025: Exaltation of the Cross
by Fr Gennady Baksheev
 
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
The power of the cross was foretold to us in the Old Testament. We can read about the time when Moses held out his arms  raised in the form of a cross during a battle, and giving victory to the Israelites of the Amalekites. He also divided the Red Sea by a blow of his rod on the ground and a blow along the horizon of the sea, making the sign of a cross, which gave the Israelites safe passage from Pharaoh’s army. 

During the time of the Roman empire, the Cross was used as an instrument of punishment, something that would evoke fear and aversion. After Christ’s death however, the Cross becomes our instrument and sign of salvation. Through the cross, Christ destroyed the kingdom of the devil. After His death, Christ descended with His soul into hell so as to raise up from it the souls who were awaiting Him. By the Cross, Christ opened the doors of paradise which had been closed after our first ancestors, Adam and Eve, had been banished from it. The Cross was sanctified by the Body of Christ which was nailed to it when He gave Himself over to torments and death for the salvation of the world and the cross itself was then filled with life-giving power. The cross is our weapon and  a sign of Christ’s victory. Invisibly and unceasingly Divine grace gushes forth from the cross to save the world.
 
When Emperor Constantine went into battle against Maxentius, who was in control of Rome, he and his soldiers marked their armour with the sign of the cross and put an end to the persecution of Christians. The emperor’s mother, Queen Helen, embarked on a journey to Jerusalem to restore the holy places and to find the cross. She found the cross around Easter time in 326AD. Then the Cross was erected on a high place, so that the people could see it and render honor to it. At first, the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross was celebrated on the second day of Easter. After the consecration of the Great Church of the Holy Resurrection on September 13, 335AD, it was decided to celebrate the feast of the Holy Cross on the following day, September 14, and this has continued to this day. Today, of course, is September 14 in the Church (old) calendar.

Now we continue to raise crosses in churches and monasteries. We use the sign of the cross across our whole lifespan, from the time that we put a cross on around our neck at our baptism through to the end of our lives when crosses will be placed upon our graves. But these are external crosses. Let us continually raise our spiritual crosses, mortifying the passions and the sinful desires of our flesh so that we may die to sin with Christ and also become partakers in His glorious Resurrection. Amen.  
 
Sunday September 21, 2025: Nativity of the Mother of God
by Fr Peter Sheko
 
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. 
Dear brothers and sisters,
Today we celebrate the first great feast of the Church year, the Nativity of the Most Holy Mother of God. In the troparion of the feast we sing: 
“Thy nativity, O Virgin Theotokos, * hath proclaimed joy to all the world; * for from Thee hath shone forth Christ our God, the Sun of righteousness, * Who, having annulled the curse, hath given His blessing, ** and having abolished death, hath granted us life everlasting.” 
Just as the dawn announces the coming of the sun, the birth of the Virgin Mary announces the coming of Christ, the Sun of Righteousness. Her nativity is joy for the whole world for it ends humanity’s long and hopeless waiting. Through her, the One who brings salvation will come. 
The Fathers often call Christ the “Sun of righteousness” (cf. Malachi 4:2). Just as the sun scatters darkness and brings life to the earth, Christ scatters sin and death, bringing true life to the world.
The troparion speaks of the curse, which recalls Genesis: the curse of death, hard work, and separation from God. Christ, born of the Virgin Mary, overturns this curse. Where Eve was disobedient, Mary is obedient. Where humanity was cast out of Paradise, through Her we are offered the blessing of union with God. The Nativity of the Mother of God is the first step in undoing Adam’s fall. 
This is the heart of today’s feast: through the birth of the Mother of God, the way is prepared for Christ’s victory over death. Death, once final, is now transformed into a passage. And eternal life is not a mere extension of earthly days, but communion with God in His Kingdom. 
In the Akathist to the Mother of God we hear: “bridge that conveys us from earth to Heaven”. Today that bridge has been created. God’s plan for the salvation of humanity is revealed, through Her, God becomes Man, and through Her, mankind is raised to God.
The kontakion of the feast reminds us: “Joachim and Anna have been freed from the reproach of childlessness”. In St John of Shanghai and San Francisco’s book “The Orthodox Veneration of Mary the Birthgiver of God”, he explains that Joachim was of the royal line of David, and Anna of the priestly line. Yet they were burdened by grief, disdained by their people for being childless. In their sorrow, they prayed: Joachim on the mountain after being rejected in the Temple, and Anna in her garden in tears. To both, an angel appeared, announcing the birth of a daughter whom they promised to consecrate to God. 
This feast shows us two important truths. First, that God hears the prayers of the faithful, even when all hope seems lost. Joachim and Anna were not abandoned. Their patience and trust became the doorway for the greatest blessing in history. Second, salvation begins in humility. Mary was born quietly, in a modest household, without earthly power or glory. Yet from Her came the Saviour of the world.
What can we learn from this feast? Firstly, to trust God with patience, like Joachim and Anna, especially in times of difficulty. It’s important to remember that God’s timing is not our timing, He never forgets us, His children, and gives when it is the most beneficial for our salvation. Secondly, to learn from the humility of the Holy Virgin Mary. God can only help us when we acknowledge that we need it and when our hearts are pure and humble.
So, as we celebrate today, let us give thanks to God for the gift of the birth of His Mother, the beginning of our salvation. And let us pray with confidence, for She who was born today is our intercessor, quick to hear and to help us.
Through the prayers of the Most Holy Mother of God, may Christ our true God have mercy on us and save us. Amen.

Sunday August 3, 2025
by Fr Nicholas Karipoff

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 
Today we have three things to think about.  First, the gospel reading from Matthew 14: 14 - 22, the story of the loaves and the fishes. Secondly, what proceeded was a wonderful passage from first Corinthians, chapter 1:10 -18. And I would also like to tell you a couple of little stories from  the life of one of today’s saints, St Symeon the fool for Christ and his co-faster, John. 
The gospel passage is the story of God’s love, feeding the thousands of people out there in the wilderness, the morning after that He spoke about himself as the heavenly bread. It is an image of the Eucharist, which is feeding us with the Lamb of God, with Christ’s love.
‘The church is a meal’, says a modern theologian. We cannot have the strength of love, without this meal. Love is selfless unity. The opposite of love is life according to the ego - that destroys unity and creates parties, religious parties, divisions in the community, all sorts of things. That is what St Paul is talking about in today’s passage, ‘Now I plead with you brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing and that there be no divisions among you. Each of you says ‘I am of Paul or I am of Apollos or I am of Cephas or I am of Christ’. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you or were you baptised in the name of Paul?’
Religion can tolerate parties because it is built on the ego, but Christianity cannot tolerate parties within community because Christianity is love.  Alas, while we cherish our ego we are constantly tempted in subtle and not so subtle ways to make a religion out of Christianity.
Religion is many things but very importantly, it is a quest to find the minimum of what I can do for God to feel decent, good and even righteous. What is the minimum? What can I do for God so that I can feel good, so that I am a good man or a good woman? It is not Christianity. This explains the unusual, even insane life of a large group of saints called Fools for Christ. They took upon themselves the incredible goal to destroy their own ego completely and to teach people to give up selfish religion, religion that ticks boxes and creates impressions for the benefit of other people and start living the life of love in Christ.
When I was at Seminary at Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, during our lunch and dinner times we heard readings from lives of saints, from the book of St Demetrius of Rostov, 12 volumes. In the handwriting of Archbishop Averky on top of the first page of the life of Saint Symeon the Fool for Christ and his co-faster John was written, ‘Do not read this in the refectory!’. It made us all very curious. Vladika Averky did not want to scandalise the women because the women were hearing this in the adjacent women’s refectory. Here are some of the things that St Symeon did which were quite amazing. 
St Symeon and his fellow ascetic, John, spent twenty-eight years together struggling as ascetics at the Dead Sea, one of them, Symeon, took upon himself a life of a Fool For Christ, he went up North to the city which used to be called Edessa, now it is a city in Syria called Homs, north of Lebanon. He spent the rest of his days there and died there. Some of the things that he did were so insane! For instance, he would take a large piece of meat on Good Friday, sit in the middle of the town square and eat it, to illicit a response of judgement, and criticism. People would say ‘He’s mad!’. He would dance provocatively with groups of prostitutes in the town, and he would turn to various people in the crowd and whisper their secret sins into their ears at the same time. He would sometimes accumulate large sums of money, and he would give these prostitutes money to stop the things that they were doing. They loved and respected him. 
There is a particularly  funny story, where Saint Symeon hid behind a column in the workshop of a Jewish man who was a glass blower. Each time the man  blowed the glass, the saint would make the sign of the cross and the glass broke. Then the man noticed Saint Symeon, and rushed out and beat him up badly. Saint Symeon said ‘Now that you’ve done not that not a single attempt will work’. The next day the man came to him, fell on his knees and said, ‘Forgive me, I want to be a Christian!’. That’s the power of the saints.
You might ask, what’s the point of this, why did fools for Christ act this way? They wanted to teach people not to live this sanitised bourgeois Christianity. That is not Christianity – showing off, ticking boxes. That is religion, not Christianity, and we must understand the difference. These people made their brothers and sisters think seriously about the soul and about salvation, not just creating impressions. 
Let us learn from St Paul and today’s great saint, St Symeon of Edessa, Fool for Christ. They are teaching us to live the real life in Christ through repentance and working on our egos until we destroy this ego or at last forget about it.  Otherwise we cannot live a Christian life. Let us forget about groupings and parties if we want to be serious about being led by Christ and not by demigods and gurus of all shades. Let us sit humbly at the feet of Christ as today’s thousands of people in the gospel sat down and they were fed with the love of Christ our God.

Sunday 10 August 2025
by Fr Nicholas Karipoff

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 
The scripture readings today speak of the processes of purification in the church as a whole and also within us individually as members of the living body of Christ. The gospel from Matthew (14:22-24) that we just heard, presents a powerful story of the storm at sea. This is the second story about a storm, and it is scarier and deeper in meaning than the first storm. In the language of the Holy Fathers, “stormy waters” is an image of the world of passions whipped up by the adversary. 
In the first gospel story about a storm, Christ is present in the boat, sleeping. The disciples become so scared of the storm that they wake Him up and He stops the storm. In this second story today, Christ is not in the boat. He seems to be absent from them until He comes walking on water. This occurs in the early hours of the morning, in the dark. Before it happens, the disciples are driven into a frenzy of terror and desperation. When Peter sees Christ walking on water, his response is excessively and unrealistically self-confident.  This experience of sin and pride is part of a delusional sense of our autonomy from God; it is part of fallen human nature. It is an illusion. It is not only Peter who has fallen for this delusion, the other disciples also did, and we do as well. As the Holy Fathers teach, starting from the scriptures, this is what is called our pride, our ego.
Christ gradually teaches his disciples, by using first a storm in His presence and then one in His absence. First, He lets Peter begin to drown because of Peter’s unrealistic self-confidence. Further, on Great Thursday night, speaking liturgically, the self-confidence of the disciples receives a crushing blow, and Peter denies His Lord three times and with an oath ‘I do not know this man’. 
Today’s Epistle (ICor. 3:9-17) connects with this theme of building the church from individual members. St Pauls writes, ‘That we can only build on the foundation of Christ’. We build from different materials, and they are tested by fire. Combustible materials are aspects of our life and work that come from the ego, just like in the story of St Peter and his self-confidence. The ego at work cannot survive the test of fire because this fire is the love of God that will burn.  
What is the meaning of all this for us? What material are we using ourselves to build with? If we see hay and straw within ourselves it must go, we must get rid of it. It is easier to do it now than later. It will burn to expose the beauty of God that is indestructible. 
Through experiencing storms and tribulations, the Apostles were taught to understand the words of Christ, ‘Without me you can do nothing’. When they came to that knowledge, they were able to defeat the world in themselves and in other people. Christ encouraged them by saying at the mystical supper, ‘In the world you will have tribulations but be of good cheer for I have overcome the world’. Amen
 
Sunday 17 August 2025
by Fr Nicholas Karipoff

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 
This coming Tuesday the church will celebrate the feast of the Holy Transfiguration. Today’s gospel reading from Matthew (17:14 – 23) is a story that tells us what happened when the Lord came down from the mountain after this glorious theophany on the mountain with his three disciples, Peter, James and John.
This story is not only covered by Matthew but by the other two synoptics, Mark and Luke. Mark describes that a group of pharisees were arguing with the nine disciples that remained at the foot of the mountain. We hear from the father of the sick boy that the apostles could not help him in the absence of the Lord, even though they had successfully done exorcisms and healings before. What a picture of chaos and helplessness here at the foot of the mountain!  The Lord teaches them, and us, that this kind is expelled only through prayer and fasting. 
To get up to the top of the mountain with Christ is an effort of prayer and fasting. St Isaac the Syrian, among several other holy fathers, teaches that our efforts in prayer and fasting are all about reaching a state or measure of humility.  This liberates us from the proud demons because they control us through our pride. Humility then opens us to the grace of God and in the story of Transfiguration, Christ shows us our potential transfiguration by grace. 
The chaos and helplessness at the foot of the mountain figuratively describes the world which is full of these two things. Chaos enters our consciousness especially with anxious thoughts. How does it feel when we have anxious thoughts and we cannot fall asleep at night? This is a visitation from chaos, a temptation to turn our gaze to these thoughts and to deal with them “logically”. Logic rarely works against anxiety. It is like saying, ‘don’t worry about it’; it is easier said than done.
Then what else could we do? We could go to the cupboard and try something there, to soothe the soul but that does not solve problems; typically, it introduces other problems. Prayer and fasting as unseen warfare are more powerful. We can deflect intrusive thoughts and fill that space in our mind and heart with the Jesus prayer. The holy fathers say ‘Hit the worries with the name of Jesus’! When anxious thoughts are strong, we will fail at first, but that is not bad because that will humble us and open us more to the help that we really need, instead of still wanting to do things ourselves. When we open up to that help,  our situation will change and we will start going up the mountain. We will feel better. When we are in church, we are at the summit,  and we can say with Peter, ‘Lord how wonderful it is to be here’. Yet every time we are on the mountain, we have to come down to a different reality. But we are not alone, we are fortified with the Grace that we have acquired.
 
Tuesday 19 August 2025
by Fr Nicholas Karipoff

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 
Holy Transfiguration is a mysterious event in many ways. It belongs to a group of other mysterious events in the Gospel that also happened in the middle of the night. The Nativity of the Lord, which begins his earthly journey, is in the dark silent night, with just a burst of light from the angels of heaven. Christ’s prayer in Gethsemane, that he prays in agony accepts His cup of death and resurrection, is during the night.  And the Resurrection itself happens in the middle of the night.
The night at Mount Tabor speaks of the personal journey of each one of us, up the mountain to hear that quiet conversation of Christ with the prophets Moses and Elijah. The conversation is about His looming cross but also about our own personal cross, about our personal transfiguration. At the same time, Holy Transfiguration is a theophany, a trinitarian event where the Son shines through the Spirit, and the Father repeats the words that he said at the Son’s baptism: ‘Hear him’. Christ speaks to us, even when He is silent. He speaks to us in a personal way , and in a collective way to the church. 
Holy Transfiguration is loved by monastics especially, because they spend much more time than we do focused on personal prayer in the dark of the night. The creation in Genesis begins when the darkness of nonbeing ceases with the words, ‘Let there be light’.
Holy Transfiguration and its theology is about that uncreated light that comes directly from God, and is part of God Himself. It is a timeless moment on the mountain for us as well, and we want to cry out with Peter: how good it is to be here! Because with God’s help we have succeeded, perhaps, to put aside those earthly cares, at least for a little timeless moment where nothing else matters. Peter, James and John were not just observers of this mysterious event when Christ shone with uncreated light. The light of Christ enlightens all,as we hear in the liturgy of pre-sanctified gifts during Great Lent. And in the troparion of today’s feast, we hear that Christ enabled the disciples to be partakers of this light, as much as they were able in their state to experience heaven. 
We too become participants in the light of Christ, when in the Eucharist, we pray, ‘Send down thy Holy Spirit upon us and upon these gifts set forth’. The feast of Holy Transfiguration is a powerful reminder of what the goal of Christian life is, so let us flee from the darkness of death and nonbeing that is relentlessly offered by fallen angels, the tempters, and flee from that to the light of Christ. God became one of us to make us God’s through his light, divinised by Grace. 

Sunday August 24, 2025
by Fr Nicholas Karipoff

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
We have heard, and we know that the Gospel of Christ is about love. We may even know that love in the Christian sense means to abandon our ego, our selfishness, and to let God in. Today’s parable of God’s forgiveness of the debtor (Matt. 18: 23-35) speaks about God’s infinite readiness to express His love and forgiveness. The parable, however, contrasts God’s love and forgiveness with our  own lack of love and forgiveness, when the  ego rules in our  heart. 
On the one hand we easily accept God’s forgiveness.  We take it for granted. While on the other hand, we find it difficult to forgive our neighbour.  The answer is simple: we do not know ourselves. We are deluded about who we are.  This is serious! For that reason, it appears to us that the sins of our neighbour against us are far greater than our sins against God.  Delusion.  For this reason, we cannot seriously accept today’s parable.  Surely, we say to ourselves, it is an exaggeration. We hear the message about forgiveness not only in this parable but in many other parts of the Gospel and the New Testament, for example, The Lord’s Prayer: Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.  And the most powerful image of forgiveness is, as Christ is being crucified He prays for His enemies and says: Father, forgive them.  
Salvation is so easy, so straightforward.  Forgive and you will be forgiven. It is as simple as that. The measure that you will use will determine whether you have Heaven or Hell in your heart.  Supposing I say to myself:  I understand that I have a great debt before God, and I am ready to forgive my neighbour, even though  he steps on my toes, he offends me and he makes life difficult for me. But what if I am faced with a situation when I would be ready to initiate something, but I know that it will only provoke the other person.  St Paul teaches in Galatians that if a person falls into sin, those who are more spiritually mature should correct such a person. That is very hard. It is so easy to project this “holier-than-thou” ethos. So this attempt will fail. Only a contrite prayer with recognition of our own failures before God will help us to defeat that dragon of animosity and hatred, which lives in the heart but has lost the ability to love and to forgive.  That is hell! The good thing is that Christ is in hell until the person is ready to come out of their own hell. 

Thursday August 28, 2025.  Feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God.
by Fr Peter Sheko
 
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. 
As Orthodox Christians, today we celebrate one of the most beautiful feasts of the Church, the Dormition of the Mother of God. The word “Dormition” means falling asleep. But for Mary, the Mother of God, this sleep was not death, with its decay, but a passage into eternal life, where She was resurrected and glorified by Her Son. 
In the icon of this feast, we see Christ Himself receiving His Mother’s soul, shown as a small child, wrapped in white cloth, a sign of Her new birth into eternal life with Him. St Germanus of Constantinople says of her Dormition: “your falling asleep is an entry into life”.
St John of Shanghai and San Francisco’s book “The Orthodox Veneration of Mary the Birthgiver of God” writes “the Virgin Mary during Her earthly life avoided the glory which belonged to Her Son as the Mother of the Lord. She preferred to live in quiet and prepare Herself for the departure into eternal life … she prayed that He might deliver her soul from the malicious spirits that meet human souls on the way to heaven … The Lord fulfilled the prayer of his Mother and in the hour of her death Himself came from heaven with a multitude of angels to receive her soul.” 
He continues, When the Apostles opened her tomb on the third day to “once more venerate the remains of the Mother of God together with the Apostle Thomas, who had arrived then in Jerusalem … they did not find the body in the tomb and in perplexity they returned to their own place; and then, during their meal, the Mother of God Herself appeared to them in the air, shining with heavenly light, and informed them that Her Son had glorified her boy also, and She, resurrected, stood before His Throne. At the same time, She promised to be with them always.”
St John of Damascus echoes this “… just as the All-Holy Body of God’s Son … rose from the dead on the third day, it followed that she should be snatched from the tomb, that the Mother should be united to her Son; and as He had come down to her, so She should be raised up to Him, into the more perfect dwelling-place, heaven itself. She is taken up into glory, showing us, the destiny prepared for all who love God.” 
St Gregory Palamas says “Today the spotless Virgin, untouched by earthly affections, and all heavenly in her thoughts, was not dissolved in earth, but truly entering heaven, dwells in the heavenly tabernacles. She embraces peace and a meek spirit, and love, mercy, and humility as her children.” 
The Dormition is not a day of sorrow, but of joy. St John of Kronstadt reminds us that Mother of God was translated from earth to heaven, “… she died without serious illness, peacefully. Her soul is taken up in the divine hands of Her Son and carried up into the heavenly abode, accompanied by the sweet singing of angels.” Her death shows us the importance of preparing for death, “washing clean everything that defiles the body and spirit, … adorned with every virtue: repentance, meekness, humility, gentleness, simplicity, chastity, mercifulness, abstention, spiritual contemplation, and burning love for God and neighbour.”
Again, St John of Shanghai also says “The end of the earthly life of the Most Holy Mother of God was the beginning of Her greatness … at the right hand of the throne of Her Son … has boldness towards Him … as One who performed the will of God and instructed others (Matt 5:19). Merciful and full of love towards her son and our God in love for the human race. She intercedes before the Merciful One” to help us. 
In the prayer service to the Mother of God, we hear the words, “guardian of orphans, intercessor for strangers, joy of the sorrowful, protectress of the wronged: Thou seest our misfortune, Thou seest our affliction; help us, for we are infirm; feed us, for we are strangers. Thou knowest our offence:  absolve it as Thou wilt, for we have no other help beside Thee, no other intercessor, nor good consoler, except Thee…” 
Let us rejoice! The Mother of God has fallen asleep, but she has not abandoned us. She is alive in Christ, and she prays for us unceasingly. May her Dormition strengthen our faith, comfort us in our sorrows, and remind us of the eternal life that awaits all who love her Son.
 
Sunday August 31, 2025
by Fr Nicholas Karipoff

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 
Today’s question of the young rich pharisee and Christ’s answer to him (Matt. 19:16-26) give us a good understanding of the difference between Christianity and religion, which I have been speaking about lately.  The Lord gives maximalist advice to this young man, to sell everything and give all the proceeds to the poor and follow Him.  Why does He say that? Christ wanted to give this man a dose of reality.  The young man thought that he had almost arrived at perfection, but he was being completely unrealistic. All Christ’s words to us in the Gospel amount to a direction. He points to God as the goal of our journey.  What we can do today depends on our level of commitment and maturity. The point of Christ’s answer is not a literal understanding of His words to the young man.  It is a warning which says, use things but be wary of turning them into idols. An idol is something that blocks out God.
Here is an example.  In old Russia, whenever the merchants were doing some sort of shady deal, they would draw a curtain over the icon corner; riches were their idol, and they did not want God to enter their space. Another example is of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts chap. 5) during the time of the first church of Jerusalem. We see a great sense of commitment to Christ when many people, of their own free will, did literally sell their possessions to give to the poor.  Ananias and Sapphira also brought the proceeds of the goods they sold and placed them at the feet of the apostles for the benefit of their poor brethren.  However, they pretended that they had sold everything but in reality, they were unable to part with everything and secretly kept a portion aside. 
The example of how religion is different. The religion of the pharisees took an actual quotation from Leviticus in the Old Testament, (chap 19): Love your neighbour as yourself.  But then they added their own interpretation:  And hate your enemy.  Religion  prefers to keep God at a safe distance. It is quite normal to think that hating our enemy is not only justifiable but also necessary. That appeals to fallen humanity.  But Christ has come to defeat evil and then to teach us how to do it. Hate cannot defeat evil. It only makes it worse. Love, even towards bad people, our enemies, defeats evil. Ultimately each person has to make a choice.  Today’s rich young man was not ready to allow God to enter into every aspect of his life. Only with maturity we can grow from religion to the life in Christ. 

Sunday July 6
by Fr Nicholas Karipoff
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In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Today’s reading about the healing of the young servant of the centurion in Capernaum (Matt 8:5-13), shows the two natures of Christ.  Christ shows surprise at the faith and humility of the centurion, showing His human nature, and then as God He says the word that brings healing. Christ says:  I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.  He says that, too, to draw the attention of the people surrounding Him to this wonderful man and his spiritual gifts.  
Why is humility so important in our relationship with God?  You will notice that all the teachers of spiritual life constantly talk about humility, more than anything else. There are several reasons for this.  God is meek and humble Himself.  It is useless to relate to Him in the way we try to relate to human beings in our fallen state. In that context people often try to say nice things and compliments to others in order to get something from them. But God does not need this.  He has no need for any of our righteous grimacing. God wants us to understand our pride which is our constant attempt to find a measure of independence from God. That is why we cannot have a proper prayerful relationship with Him. In worldly settings a person might acknowledge the superiority of the other person, but without discounting their own importance. This inevitably creates mercantile transactional relationships.  But Christ invites us to be like children. A child brings trust and love to their relationship with parents.  They have nothing to give.  That is exactly what the centurion brings to Christ. He understands that he has nothing to give to the Lord and that is why He is not asking Him to come to his house. Instead, he asks:  just say the word, and my servant will be healed.
Some people say Christ had promised to his disciples – which means to us as well – that if we ask for anything in His name He will do it for us.  Yes, He did say that. But we need to understand it properly and not think these words amount to a right that we have. It is not a right.  To speak of rights is to speak of these legalistic and mercantile relationships. Religion is mercantile but Christianity is not, because it is not a religion!  The carnal sons of Abraham thought that they had rights before God.  This is why St John the Baptist humbled them so severely and told them Don’t call yourselves sons of Abraham.  God can make sons for Himself out of these rocks.  We can see in the gospel stories it is often foreigners, like this centurion, and the Canaanite woman, which teach us about the proper relationship with God. The gospel of Christ turns worldly values on their head. He says: Unlike the world, I have come to serve not to be served.  He is the King of Kings! And He has come to serve! He wants us to follow Him in this.  He did not despise anybody - pagans, publicans, harlots, sinners or rough types like the Good Thief. He accepted everyone.  They were closer to the Kingdom than the ones who consider themselves to be righteous thinking,  God, you have these rules and I keep these rules so you owe me! These people, the sinners, understood who they were and who God is without any delusions. This is what Christ wants us to learn from them. 

Saturday July 12, 2025, St Peter and Paul 
by Fr Peter Sheko 

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. 
Today the Holy Church celebrates the memory of the holy great apostles, Peter and Paul. On this day I usually speak about one or the other; this year my focus is on St Peter and his painful lesson of self-awareness. 
In last night’s Gospel reading, John 21:15-19, we heard one of the most tender and powerful moments in all the Gospels: the Risen Christ restoring His apostle Peter. It’s a quiet scene, just a few words exchanged over a charcoal fire, but beneath the surface, it is an ocean of mercy, truth, and transformation.
Peter, the bold one, the rock, had denied his Lord three times. He had promised he would never abandon Christ. But when the moment came, fear overcame love, and he said, “I do not know the man.”
And yet… here on the shore, after the resurrection, Jesus asks him:
“Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?” Three times.
He doesn’t say, “Why did you betray Me?”
He doesn’t ask, “Are you ashamed?”
He simply asks about love.
And this is where we must pause. Because this moment is not just about Peter. It’s about each of us. It’s about the journey of self-awareness, of coming to see ourselves as we truly are, and allowing Christ to meet us in that truth.
Peter had to face himself, and not hide behind excuses; “I was afraid” or “Everyone else ran too.” He had to stand before Christ and let the question pierce his heart:
“Do you love Me?”
True self-awareness begins not with self-hatred, but with honesty. By naming our failure, we allow Christ to heal it rather than staying in it.
Peter’s tears in the courtyard after his denial were not the end of his story. They were the beginning of his conversion, of a deeper, truer love.
Each of Christ’s three questions gently touches Peter’s wound. Not to shame him, but to redeem him. He is not condemned; he is re-called, re-commissioned, re-formed.
This is how the Lord works with us. He does not crush us when we fail. He calls us again, often through the very place we fell.
He does not define Peter by his denial.
He defines him by his love, even a humbled, trembling love.
And what does Jesus say after each confession of love? “Feed My sheep.”
Peter is not just forgiven, he is trusted. He is given a flock. He is made a shepherd.
Peter now knows who he is. Not a hero. Not a perfect man. But a man who has failed, been forgiven, and still dares to love.
This is true Christian maturity: to love God not because we are strong, but because He is merciful.
To say, like Peter, “Lord, You know everything, you know that I love You”, even when our love feels small or shaky.
Peter emerges not as the boastful disciple, but as a humble apostle—one who will lead others with compassion, having first received it himself.
Brothers and sisters, self-awareness is not a modern psychological idea, it is a deep Orthodox principle. The Church Fathers speak constantly of “knowledge of self”, as the beginning of repentance and the foundation of spiritual life.
We must know ourselves, not just our strengths, but our wounds, our fears, our failures and bring them into the light of Christ.
Like Peter, we must hear the Lord’s question addressed to us: “Do you love Me?”
And we must answer, not with pride, not with shame, but with love.
Even broken love. Even trembling love.
Because love is the only thing Christ asks for.
And if we love Him, even after we have fallen, He will say to us, too: “Feed My sheep.” 
“Follow Me.”
Peter’s journey is not from strength to strength, but from failure to faithfulness.
And in that, there is great hope for every one of us.
May we, like Peter, grow in self-awareness, not for self-judgment, but for healing.
And may we always return to Christ, who asks us simply and profoundly:
“Do you love Me?”
 
Sunday 13 July 2025
by Fr Nicholas Karipoff

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 
Each year we hear this story from Matthew’s gospel; it is the shorter version (Matt 8:28 – 9:1) Two other synoptic evangelists, Mark and Luke also have the story in a slightly longer version and the church has Mark’s version read again each liturgical year. Why would the church find it necessary to repeat this story, as St Paul says, ‘Our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the powers of darkness’ (paraphrase).
The two demoniacs are described in the gospel as being fierce, they attacked anyone who dared to pass through that area, close by to them. Look at how many violent crimes are committed. What is the state of these people that commit these crimes, surely it can be described in the same terms as demonic possession? Yet other behaviour that cannot be classified as criminal behaviour can be caused if not by total possession, then certainly by demonic influence. 
Those who have read the book of St John Climacus, the Abbot of Sinai, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, will know there is a story in there where he describes a man who came to the monastery and asked to be accepted into the brotherhood. This man was from the ruling class in Alexandria. The Abbott, who was spiritually astute, saw that this man was a troublemaker, “cruel, sly and haughty”. The Abbott gave him an obedience to stand at the gates of the monastery and ask every person who walked in to pray for him, saying, “pray for me, Brother, I am possessed by a demon”.  After some time, he reached such deep humility and meekness that he was as gentle as a lamb. 
We often have difficulty in separating the person from their behaviour. But that Abbott did not have the same problem, he saw the reality of sinfulness and passions, but he also saw the beauty of that person’s inward life which was not evident. As the holy fathers explain, “Hate the sin but love the sinner”.  Why? Because every single human being, no matter how bad they seem to be, carries the image of God which is indestructible.  The potential is there in every person, and we must never forget that. 
This is exactly what we see in today’s story. The Lord shows compassion to these violent two beings that would attack everybody. In the same story presented by Mark and Luke, they add that the Lord ask that the demoniac (in their story it is just one), “What is your name?” and the demon said, “Legion”. A legion is several thousand warriors, they went into two thousand pigs as Mark tells us, and these demons were the cause of evil in the men. 
Let us learn not to be provoked by bad behaviour of other people. It is not easy, but we have to do it. Our problem is that we do not see our own passions and sins clearly, yet we expect other people to show exemplary behaviour in their words and actions. We often fail to see that we, too, provoke other people with our words and deeds. It takes two to tango! The tango is a very passionate dance, but passions come in different shapes and sizes. 
We have self-will, irritability, anger, envy, jealously, vainglory, pride and the list goes on. We rub people the wrong way with all those things. So next time we are tempted to get angry, irritated with someone, or we are tempted to gossip and judge people, we have to put the brakes on. We need some power and assistance for the breaks which comes from God. Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me. This will give you some power assistance, to put the brakes on. 
Worldly people think that we only fight flesh and blood, that people are just physical beings, psycho physiological beings, but Christians should know that all good and all evil have their source in the depths of our being. 
Who do we want to win within us? The demons like these two people? We should understand that if we have not overcome these beings acting upon us inside ourselves, we cannot defeat them in other people.
 
Sunday 20 July 2025
by Fr Nicholas Karipoff
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In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 
Today’s gospel and epistle readings speak of the church as “liturgy” in its original sense of the ancient Greek word, which referred to citizens of the city state being called together to perform works for the common and public good. In the gospel story, Matt:91-8, four men bring their paralysed friend in a stretcher to the feet of Christ. What an image of prayer as action, what an image of the church as liturgy!  Christians often forget that the Lord teaches about active ministry.  After He told the  parable of the good Samaritan to the man who asked who is my neighbour, He says, “Go and do likewise”!
Prayer of the mind and of the heart is very important as transformative process that changes our spirit, when prayer reaches a measure of humility it brings gifts of God’s grace which are tangible proof that the faith of the person is a living faith, then it is externalised in the gifts and the ministries. 
Today’s passage from Romans Chapter 12, which we heard before the gospel, St Paul talks about the church’s one body in Christ where members have different functions, but they complement each other with their gifts and the ministries. He lists various gifts and ministries including prophecy, ministry, teaching, exaltation, charity, leadership and mercy. He further talks about love in avoiding evil, clinging to that which is good, being kind and affectionate, preferring the other person to oneself. Wow, how difficult is that! Being diligent, fervent in prayer and spirit, rejoining in hope, patient in trials and tribulations, charitable and hospitable. Finally, the apostle teaches us, like Christ in the Sermon on the Mount, to love our enemies.  He writes ‘bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse’. That is what Christianity is about.
Often people do not hear the epistle readings or understand them well. They find it easier to relate to the gospel stories which we hear on Sundays, because they are simpler. The letters of the apostles are  a continuation, commentary  and expansion of the gospel message, but they speak of how to apply it in concrete and practical ways. 
It is not a bad idea to go back home and open Romans Chapter 12 and read it! It is a very moving passage. It is not a very long chapter; today we heard  part of that chapter, the middle part. When we compare our own life to this moving picture of real Christian life, we should be filled with a sense of shame for ourselves. What kind of Christians are we? Instead of great patience and love extending even to our enemies we are regularly provoked into dividing people into ‘us and them’. This is something that we can all relate to. That is bad enough in itself but people try to expand these opposing camps, they build up their own party by putting pressure on members of families and their friends to subscribe to their particular party line. Party politics. Is that appropriate for Christians? 
When we are tempted to abandon the love of Christ and join the ranks of those who see hate as a virtue, we should say to ourselves: Stop, remember who you are, you are a Christian! Let us love one another as we hear in every liturgy, then we will use our gifts and ministries to carry our weaker members in the same way that we heard in the gospel story, these four wonderful men carrying their paralysed friend.  Then the church around us will be energised by the mighty words of Christ, ‘Be of good cheer, your sins are forgiven you’ and we will get up from our spiritual paralysis and start walking, not just talking. 
 
Sunday  27 July 2025
By Fr Nicholas Karipoff
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 
Today the church celebrates the memory of the Six Ecumenical Councils, and the services provide a liturgical icon of this triumph of Orthodoxy in the Councils. At the same time, we know from the history of the Church (or Councils) that the events that led up to them were often very turbulent. It is important for us to know this iconic history of the church which fortifies us in the faith that Christ always wins. However, it is just as important to know the unsanitised dynamics of the tensions and temptations that always accompany the history of the church. 
People may be shocked when they read about the tribulations of the church in history however a knowledge of history gives us a proper perspective of our own life and the life of the church in our times. 
AS an example I will present  one aspect of the story of the life of St Gregory the Theologian, Holy Hierarch (fourth century).  When he was appointed the see of Constantinople, there was not a single church that belonged to the Orthodox. Instead, they belonged to  heretics, mostly to Arians. St Gregory began serving in a private home and because his word was so powerful, he had so much love, these heretics started to come and to listen to his sermons. Some of the heretics came with sticks and tried to disperse the crowd but it grew and grew until eventually most of the churches belonged to the Orthodox by the time he finished in Constantinople, which was not very long.
When we compare episodes from the lives of the fathers and the proceedings of the Councils with our realities, we should find inner peace and trust in God.
St Paul in Romans Chapter 15 tells us that ‘We who are strong should bear the weaknesses of the more vulnerable’, he further quotes from Psalm 68, ‘The reproaches of those who reproach you fell on me’, in other words, the slander and vilification that people directed against God, Christ voluntarily accepted as God and as man. The Apostle writes that while we should imitate Christ in being patient with people, who have, well sometimes, different opinions to us, our goal should be unity in Christ, see what St Gregory did.
St Paul writes, ‘May the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like minded to one another’, and further he gives the words that are used in the liturgy about being one mind and one heart. And indeed, storms of sea whether they are in the gospel, in past history, or in the life of the church now are challenges to our patience and love, challenges to bring about calm through Christ and us being Christ like, imitating Him.
Some people may ask the question, well why does God allow these things at all? The answer lies in our free will, the great gift that has been given to us, and secondly, in our sinfulness through the fall which we all must overcome. Storms in nature can be scary but when the storm rolls over there is a sense of relief, peace and a freshness in the air. The air is clean and pure. Storms can bring damage as well, but damage is always rebuilt. Life goes on in a renewed way. Christ is in our midst; He is and shall be as we say in the liturgy.
You will see priests giving each other the kiss of peace before the Eucharistic cannon.
Christ is in our midst. He is and shall be. 

Sunday June 1
By Fr Nicholas Karipoff
 
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit
Each year on the Sunday between Holy Ascension and Pentecost, the church celebrates the memory of the Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council, the Nicaean council.  This year is the 1700-year anniversary of that event which took place in 325 AD. It is hard for us to imagine how those bishops and church people felt coming together for the first time, after recent persecutions, and in the presence of the Roman emperor himself, the honorary chairman, St Constantine!  On Tuesday, June 3, we will celebrate his memory as well as the memory of his mother, St Helen.  
 
The Nicaean Council would have been a joyful event, but at the same time there was worry about the spread of a heresy that originated in Alexandria, Egypt and was quickly spreading. This was the teaching of Arius, which undermined the teaching of Christ about Himself as one of the Holy Trinity, True God and true man.  Many of the Christians of that time had come from pagan culture.  It was difficult for them to feel comfortable about one God in Three Persons and with the Son of God becoming a man. The Arian understanding of Christianity was easier to accept. It spoke of the Son of God as the first creature of God the Father. The Council dealt with this challenge by accepting a common creed, which speaks of the Son being of one Essence with the Father, for the whole church. In his letter for the occasion, Patriarch Kirill highlighted the enduring theological and ecclesial significance of the Council of 325 AD quoting from church historian Prof Vasili Bolotov: “The Nicaean symbol was so precise that it could not be reinterpreted.  It could either be accepted or rejected. (Lectures on Early Church History, Vol 4. In Russian) The creed has been in use since then. It was slightly expanded and edited in the second Council a few decades later, in 381.  We use it in church in Liturgy, and in private prayers. 
 
 The Council also dealt with some practical aspects of church life.  For instance, it brought together Eastern and Western Christians to celebrate Easter together.  The Eastern Christians used to celebrate it together with the Jews.  In the West they developed a practice which the church now follows, always celebrating it on a Sunday. 
 
The Old Testament had emphasised the oneness of God in the world environment where there were countless pagan gods. We begin the creed with that affirmation: I believe in one God.  Yet, Christ revealed the inner life of God, the Trinitarian life. Christ’s salvation is about healing fractures in humanity, both on a personal level in us and on a social level in the community of the Church.  The Holy Trinity is a model and inspiration that gives strength for church unity.  Patriarch Kyrill, in his address, points to the challenges that the Orthodox world faces today.  He stresses that the only way we can overcome these problems is to act together in the way that the Church acted together 1700 years ago, in the first great Council. He writes, “The Lord looked upon His church and gave His faithful children strength and wisdom as well as courage to remain the salt of the earth and the light of the world, (Mt 5:13-14) and to be His fearless witnesses to the ends of the world, as He told His apostles (Acts 1:8). 

​Sunday June 8, 2025: Pentecost
Fr Nicholas Karipoff
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 
“When the Most High came down and confounded tongues of men at Babel, He divided the nations. When He dispensed the tongues of fire, He called all to unity, and with one voice we glorify the Most Holy Spirit”.This is the kontakion of today’s feast.  The kontakion is a stanza or  a hymn that expresses a major aspect of each feast. Today at Pentecost it contrasts the spirit of the godless world with the spirit of God’s world, transformed in the Church by the Holy Spirit.
The godless secular world historically has always been trying to build another tower of Babel, as described in Genesis.  Now as never before it uses two levers - punishment and reward, or positive and negative reinforcement as we hear in psychology. These methods are coercive; they bend people’s will through fear and expectation of reward. The Old Testament of course, had that too, the carrot and the stick, and even Christ the Lord, uses these ideas of reward and punishment, as an entry level teaching tool. The message of the gospel is completely different and on another level. It is about love, and only love.  Love cannot exist without freedom, and freedom is negated by the “carrot and stick” approach. The unity to which we are called today is the unity of love, not a unity by force or by bribery. 
When there is no God in people’s hearts, they cease to be human. At best they are like animals, at worst they can be like demons, and yet God loves us. He loves us literally to death as we Christians know. He will not allow humanity to destroy itself spiritually, and the Holy Spirit who descends today energises the church founded by the Son of God. This is the energy of life, love and sacrifice. The church in the depths of its life is Christ Himself continuing His presence here on earth to make us fully human, to rise from the demonic and the animalistic level. Pentecost is a powerful reminder for us to live and walk in the spirit who transforms our life from a demonic hell that is possible, and often happens, to the joy and love of God in communion and love of our neighbour, with our brothers and sisters. As St Paul writes in Galatians: if we live in the spirit, let us also walk in the spirit, let us not become conceited, not provoking one another, envying one another. Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass you, who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness. Consider yourself less you also be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.  These are beautiful words from Galatians. We hear them in the reading for the ascetic saints, and it speaks very deeply about the very essence of Christian faith and life.  These are words we should follow. 

Sunday June 15, 2025. Sunday of All Saints.
Fr Nicholas Karipoff
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 
The feast of Pentecost, which we celebrated last Sunday, completed a massive story that has been presented to us over the last six months, of God’s salvation. The great outpouring of the Holy Spirit energised the apostles, the martyrs, the prophets, the hierarchs, the ascetics and the righteous ones as we hear in the troparion, to bring to God a plentiful harvest, and this is what we celebrate today, the Sunday of All Saints. 
Christ said to His disciples, and to us, ‘I am the Vine you are the branches, he who abides in me and I in Him bears much fruit. For without me you can do nothing’. This what we celebrate today, but the church is not a museum of past glories. All saints speak to us in different ways. They teach us how we can bear fruit. Saint Seraphim of Sarov was asked once, ‘How come we don’t see great miracles in our time the way that used to happen in the past?’ He answered and said to this person ‘It is because people today do not have the same commitment to Christ as the people in the past did’. 
I remember just a couple of weeks after I was ordained a priest, I had a conversation in a house with some people present and there were also two priests present. I don’t remember who said what, but it was addressed to me, and I said in response to that person ‘Well I am not St John of Kronstadt’ and the other older priest, said ‘Seriously, what is stopping you from becoming another St John of Kronstadt?’. When I remember this, I feel great shame for my feeble commitment to Christ, we should be ashamed of ourselves. The saints were people like us, but they overcame their passions, their lukewarmness, they burned with the Holy Spirit just like the apostles did. 
At Pentecost these apostles became candles as they went out into the dark and cold world and they lit up thousands of other candles and hearts. Cold winds are blowing today, very much so. First, we had Covid, then Ukraine, then Gaza and now we are standing on the verge of the risk of a third world war with what is happening in Iran, but these are all just external problems. They are caused by the spiritual illness of humanity. 
What is the solution? We must wake up, come alive and rise from the dead, as St Paul says, rise and stand up as burning candles together with the apostles, the martyrs, the prophets, the hierarches, the ascetics and the righteous ones. When I am just a single candle in the wind I am not going to survive for very long, it doesn’t work, but if we stand together, we become a great bonfire. It will only shine brighter in the blowing wind and that is the experience of church and history. 
The church shines when times at at the most difficult. Today is no different, we are in very dangerous times. They are dangerous not only because of the external threats and wars, but because of the spiritual threat which is much more terrible than these wars. 
Happy namesday to all of you on this day of all saints! We should all remember our saints today!
 
Sunday 22 June 2025
Fr Nicholas Karipoff
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 
The passage from Matthew that we just heard for today, the second Sunday after Pentecost, speaks of the calling of the first apostles by Christ, He says to them, ‘Follow me’, and they literally abandoned their nets and followed Him to become fishers of men. 
The Aramaic phrase that the Lord uses when He says, ‘Follow me’, has two meanings, or two nuances. First, the literal one, ‘Follow me’ and the second one is ‘Become my followers’.
Everything in the gospel does not just have a historical sense, the words of the gospel are addressed to the whole world including each one of us. We are at the end of a huge procession which begins on that day with the calling of the apostles. Can you imagine a 2000-year-old procession, with many, many millions of people? The Generals and the Officers of this huge army are the saints. 
Today we remember the Saints of Rus - Belarus, Ukraine and Russia, the Eastern Slavs. This army includes today’s saints and all the saints which we celebrated last week, the Sunday of All Saints. This army fights and overcomes hate with love. Aggressiveness, coercion, intolerance and judgement only increase hatred. 
The fallen angels, who are beings of former beauty and glory, suffer intensely, because they have lost these attributes. Their only goal is to infect human beings with their hatred and so we begin to torment each other. Human beings too can experience an evil joy, a malicious joy, seeing the suffering of someone whom they hate. When love is lost, hatred can build up to cataclysmic levels. 
On this day in 1941, at 4am, a five-million-man army crossed the border. It was the German invasion into the Soviet Union and that is when the real Second World War began. Interestingly, it also coincided with the Sunday of all Saints of Rus. We are followers of Christ, like the apostles. The purpose of us coming to church on Sundays and other occasions is not what we think it is; it is not to get an individual blessing for ourselves. Instead, it is to overcome our sinful individualism and to overcome the hateful dividedness of this world. The purpose of coming to church is to become the loving family of God. If we are followers of Christ, we come here to receive the gift of Christ’s divine humanity. Christ came into the world to defeat pride with humility; to defeat hatred with love.  It is very different to the world and to an individualist approach to life. 
Remember what St Silouan has said, ‘If you do not love your enemies, you cannot call yourself a Christian yet’. We want to be Christan!  Let us think about why we come here to church. If we want to continue to judge our neighbour, to show aggressiveness towards each another, and unforgiveness towards him or her what is the point? The point is that IC XC NI KA – Christ is the winner, He is the conqueror. He wins! Let us be on His side. Eventually He will win with every one of us. Why do we create a hell when we can be in heaven?!
​
Sunday June 29, 2025
Fr Nicholas Karipoff
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 
My sermon today is inspired by a sermon from priestmonk Methody Savellov-Jogel. Father Methody was an amazing man, an earthly angel, who died at the age of twenty eight in 1940 in Harbin, North East China. 
The Saviour talks about the eye of the soul. If the eye is darkened, we will see everything from the dark side with irritability and lack of love towards our neighbour. This often shows up in conversations about a third party in which seemingly harmless chatter and gossip and criticism can lead into mercilessness and slanderous judgement. Even more hurtful and damaging is the darkened eye in direct encounters between people. It is interesting to note that the word ‘atrocity’ comes from two Latin groups of words ‘ater occulus– ‘black eye’,and  refers to the dilated pupil of a person who is in a really intense rage. 
Christ prays for His enemies, ‘Father forgive them, they do not know what they are doing’. They do not know because they are seeing reality through vision darkened by the strong passions which lead to hatred. This is what happened with Christ, and it can happen over and over again. Christ’s love and forgiveness can extend to everyone. Only we need to remember that He died on the Cross for each one of us which means, not only me, but for my neighbour as well, He died for him or her, and that might include the person about whom we might be gossiping, slandering and judging. We should pose this question to ourselves, ‘If the light in you is darkness, how great is that darkness?’. Christian faith and life are not about moralism which judges and condemns according to a set of rules that governs external behaviour.
‘We preach Christ crucified’, writes St Paul. Our cross in following Christ is a transformation of our heart but the moralist does not see the heart. The crucified son of God is scandalous to those who see God as a punishing power. It is insane to those who want to see God in intellectual terms, as the first cause of the universe. The most moving Church contemplation of the whole year is Good Friday. The church invites us to understand Christ crucified and the transformation in the repentance of the Good Thief. He is the first saint of the New Testament. A thief, a robber, cleansed on the cross and accepted in paradise. His story too is scandalous and insane for people who cannot understand Christianity properly, people who understand in moralistic terms, yet all of the saints invite us to identify with the good thief and with his words, ‘Remember us O Lord when they comest into Thy kingdom’.
 

 

Sunday May 25, 2025
By Fr Gennady Baksheev
 
Christ is Risen!
Today’s gospel reading, the Parable of the Blind Man (John 9:1 – 38) is about a meeting between the Creator and His creation. The man who was born blind receives not only his physical sight but more importantly, his spiritual sight, because of his confession of the truth. 
 
Before proceeding further about today’s gospel reading, we learn how Christ was teaching in the temple. A contrast develops between Christ on the one hand, who asserts that He is co-equal with the Father, and that those who want to follow him must abide in truth. Truth refers to the virtue of telling the truth, but also to Christ Himself. On the other hand, the spiritual rulers are denounced for doing the works of their father, the devil. The Pharisees take offence at his words and pick up stones to throw at Christ, but he leaves the temple and passes by the man who was blind from birth. 
 
This context helps us understand today’s Gospel reading. Take notice that this man who was blind from birth did not call out for help as Christ passed by, but rather it was Christ who stopped to help this man. Christ dismisses the commonly held assumption that disease is always the result of sin. In this case, this man’s condition was for the manifestation of God’s work. When this man was formed in his mother’s womb, Christ fashioned all the members of his body except for his eyes. He completes the divine act of creating when he sees this man who was born blind. He does this by spitting on dust, making clay and anointing the eyes of the blind man. In doing this, Christ provides evidence that He is the Creator. This act of creation is similar to what we read in Genesis, when Christ formed Adam out of dust (Gen 2:7). When Christ says, ‘that the glory of God should be manifest,’ Christ reveals the glory of Himself as co-equal with the Father. This therefore gives direct evidence to the Pharisees who earlier questioned Christ in the temple and demonstrates that it was He who fashioned man and now appears in the form of a man. 
 
Christ then instructs the blind man to wash in the pool of Siloam. The blind man obeys Christ, and he gains vision, he gains physical sight. Some Holy Fathers say that the clay was fashioned into eyes as he washed them. In any case, this scene would have stirred trouble on the streets, but the man was unashamed of his former condition and begins proclaiming the truth to everyone around him. He is then taken into the temple for questioning by the Pharisees, to which the man grows even bolder in his confession of the truth. He is not fearful of telling the truth, even in the face of being accused of slander. For this he is cast out of the synagogue. But this was to his benefit as he was honoured by the knowledge of the Son of God. 
 
What does this mean for us? All of us are blind from birth, and we are born into mortality and corruption. Just as the man who was born blind, we also could not see Christ until He came to us and visited us. Jesus saw us by passing by, that is, when He was clothed in flesh and walked among us, bowing down Heaven to earth. We are not healed simply through believing, but we also are sent into the waters of Baptism, being baptised through water and the Holy Spirit, just as the blind man was sent to the pool to be cleaned. 
 
Temptations also befall on us after our baptism. We are called to carry our cross to show our allegiance to Christ, as only He can heal us. Perhaps we may also be driven out of the synagogue and be deprived of our wealth and glory. But let us steadfastly hold to our confession of truth so that we may gain Christ, the Son of God. Amen. 

 Sunday May 11, 2025
By Fr Peter Sheko
 
Christ is Risen!
Today, dear Brothers and Sisters, we heard the gospel reading about Christ’s discussion with the Samaritan woman at the well. This is one of the most beautiful and personal encounters which we hear in the gospels.  What starts as a request for water becomes an initiation to eternal life. Jesus says to her, if you knew the gift of God and who it is that says to you, Give me a drink, you would have asked Him and He would have given you living water. The woman is confused at first.  She thinks He means regular water, the water we drink when we are physically thirsty.  But Jesus is speaking of something much greater. 
 
 St John Chrysostom, one of the great teachers of the church, explains this living water is the grace of the Holy Spirit.  He says that Christ used this image of water because it cleanses, refreshes and gives life.  But this water is not like the water in the well. It is spiritual and eternal. St John writes: The living water is the gift of the spirit which purifies those who receive and makes them spiritual and immortal. In other words, this living water is God’s very life in us.  It washes away sin, gives us peace, strengthens us in our weakness and fills the emptiness of our hearts.  It is the kind of water that once we drink, we don’t keep coming back to the same dry places in life.  We are satisfied in Christ. The Samaritan woman had been looking for happiness and meaning in many places - five husbands and she was still not satisfied! But Jesus, knowing everything about her, gently leads her to see what she truly needs.  Not judgement, not shame, but healing, and He offers it freely.  Her heart is changed.  She leaves her water jar behind, a symbol of her old life, and runs to tell others: Come see a Man who told me everything I did!
 
 This woman, who once came to the well in shame and isolation becomes one of the first evangelists of the Gospel.  The church remembers her as St Photini, or in Russian, Svetlana, Equal to the Apostles. Brothers and Sisters, Jesus is speaking to us as well! He offers us this living water, His spirit, His love His life.  Are we still trying to quench our thirst with the things of the world - comfort, pleasure and distraction?  These wells run dry but the water that Christ gives becomes in us a spring of water welling up to eternal life. We receive this living water through repentance and especially in the Holy Mysteries, the Sacraments of the church.  Each time we confess, each time we receive Holy Communion we are filled with this grace again.  Let us come to Christ honestly.  Let us ask Him for this living water.  And like St Photini, may we leave behind our burdens and become joyful witnesses to the risen Christ. 

Sunday May 4, 2025 (Russian follows the English)
By Fr Gennady Baksheev
            
Christ is Risen!
Today the Church commemorates the righteous Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus and the myrrh-bearing women. We learn from their lives that they overcame fear for their own lives and showed love towards Christ in response to the love that they received from God. For example, Joseph of Arimathea was a member of the Sanhedrin and an honourable counsellor, as we heard in the Gospel. This means that he had duties of public service and accountability. He was also wealthy. However, he put all of this aside and found the courage to boldly ask Pilate for the body of Christ to honour Him with a burial. Joseph then proceeds to prepare and bury Christ in his own new tomb, together with Nicodemus, who also was a member of the Sanhedrin. In this way, these two secret disciples of Christ publicly show their affection for Him. This was a very courageous and loving act as they publicly exposed themselves as followers of Christ and were liable to death. 
The Church also glorifies the holy Myrrh-Bearing Women, for which reason this very Sunday is called the “Sunday of the Myrrh-Bearing Women.” The myrrh-bearing women sacrificed much for Christ and were particularly present during the sufferings of Christ. For example, they were present at the Cross, together with John the Theologian, when all of the other disciples were scattered. They saw that Christ was buried in simplicity and returned early on Sunday morning to perform one last act of love for their Teacher. On their way to the tomb, they logically understood that a heavy stone was rolled across the tomb’s opening. However, they pressed on, despite all obstacles and threats to their own lives. And in their longing to be with Christ, these women were the first to receive the joyful news of the Resurrection from the lips of an angel. 
Let us also imitate Joseph, Nicodemus and the myrrh-bearing women in our longing to be with Christ and actively participate in the light and joy of His Resurrection. May this light and joy be spiritual, pure, peaceful and exalting for our souls. For this was the effect of the Resurrection on the myrrh-bearing women, who not yet seeing the risen Christ, ‘fled from the tomb, for they trembled and were amazed.’ This joy can lead us to an expression of faith, as the Apostle Thomas expressed when he was overjoyed to see the Risen Christ by answering Him: ‘My Lord and my God!’ St Philaret of Moscow writes, ‘nothing leads us so directly to the perception and faith and conviction in the divinity of Jesus Christ, as does His resurrection.’ Perhaps it is for this reason that the Mother Church gives us the most sublime truth to meditate and contemplate on: that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father before all ages, became man to share in our human nature. Mankind fell out of communion with God through the transgression of Adam and Eve. However, Christ could not bear to see his most precious creation suffer, so He came down to earth to raise mankind to become gods by Grace. Through His cross and Resurrection, the devil and death are destroyed and are replaced with a new order in which Christ and life reigns. The indicates the direction of our lives towards the Heavenly kingdom as Christ enthroned human nature at the right hand of God the Father. This orientation begins here and now, so let us take up this call by cultivating the virtues and seeking our joy in its true source, in Christ. Amen.  
 
христос воскресе! 
Сегодня Церковь чтит память праведных Иосифа Аримафейского, Никодима и жен-мироносиц. Из их жизни мы видим что они преодолели страх за свою жизнь и проявили любовь ко Христу. Иосиф Аримафейский, Например, был членом синедриона и почетным советником, и выполнял обязанности общественного служения. Кроме того, он был богат. Но, он отложил все это в сторону и смело попросил у Пилата тело Христа, чтобы почтить Его погребением. вместе с Никодимом, Иосиф приступает к подготовке и погребению Христа в его собственном новом гробе. 
Церковь также прославляет святых жен-мироносиц, поэтому сегодня называется неделей или “Воскресеньем жен-мироносиц”. Жены-мироносицы многим пожертвовали ради Христа; присутствуя при страданиях Христа, они вместе с Иоанном Богословом были при Распятии. Они увидели, что Христос был похоронен в спешке, и вернулись рано утром в воскресенье, чтобы завершить погребение. По пути к гробу они размышляли о том, что вход закрыт большим камнем, однако они продолжали добиваться своей цели и получил и радостную весть о Воскресении Христа.
Нам дается пример Иосифа, Никодима и жен-мироносиц, чтобы и мы также стремились быть со Христом и активно участвовали в свете и радости Его Воскресения. Пусть этот свет и радость будут духовными, чистыми, и возвышают наши души. Ибо таково было действие Воскресения на жен-мироносиц. Эта радость может привести нас к проявлению веры, как это выразил апостол Фома, когда он ответил Христу: "Господь мой и Бог мой!" Воскресение Христа из мертвых ведет нас к вере и убеждению в том, что Христос есть Бог. Возможно, именно по этой причине Мать-Церковь дает нам самую возвышенную истину для размышления: Иисус Христос, Сын Бога, рожденный от Отца прежде всех век, стал человеком ради нашего спасения.  Через свой крест и воскресение, Христос открывает нам путь к вечной жизни. Дай Бог нам возрастать в добродетелях и постоянно искать нашу радость во Христе. Аминь.

​Sunday March 2
by Fr Nicholas Karipoff
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 
Cheese fare Sunday is also known as Forgiveness Sunday. The church is a loving mother and wants us to enter the holy days of Lent in a state of Christ’s peace with everyone. That is why we ask for forgiveness today. Today we heard the passage from Matthew Chapter 6 from the Sermon on the Mount. Here the Lord speaks about three things: forgiving our neighbour as a condition of receiving forgiveness from God, fasting unhypocritically and without showing off, and striving for heavenly spiritual treasures. The excerpt from today’s Epistle, Romans chap13-14, speaks of spiritual effort rather than about eating or not eating certain things. St Paul enjoins us to walk honestly, openly, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in debauchery and wantonness, not in strife and envy. Further, not to conduct disputes over opinions. That is something that happens much today, especially on social media. It is a big temptation to argue about opinions. We should not pass judgement on people whether-and how- they fast. 
Let us now return to the focus of today’s main theme - forgiveness. Just before today’s passage, the Lord gave His prayer, Our Father. In this prayer, He expands on one of the petitions:  And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. It is interesting that some of the early Christian writers shuddered and could not fathom the meaning of this word ‘as’ in this part of the prayer.  Clearly God’s love and forgiveness is infinitely greater than our ability to love and forgive so there cannot be any equal sign between those. The word “as” is not an equal sign! The Lord then adds that if we forgive, we will be forgiven. If we at least have the desire to forgive, we already are open to God’s grace to grow further in terms of connecting with our neighbour, having compassion for our neighbour, and  understanding our neighbour, 
Dear Brother and Sisters, we have precious weeks of Lent, coming up from tomorrow. It is not by accident that the church remembers Adam’s loss of paradise today because we are meant to start thinking seriously during Lent about how we get that paradise back. The Publican and the Good Thief knew what to say.  Their hearts were in the right place, and they pleaded: Lord have mercy, forgive me, remember me. Adam and the Good Thief are the two persons placed at the beginning of this whole period and at the end. 
The more we understand about ourselves, the more we understand our need to be forgiven, the easier it becomes to forgive other people. This is what Lent is for, to understand ourselves. It becomes easier to forgive people who offend us, who hurt us, or who make us feel dishonour when we understand how much forgiveness we ourselves need. 
The next step is to understand and accept is these things are allowed by God. He has allowed this difficult person to come into our lives, to heal our failures, and our sins. These sins are always failures in our ability to love. Every single sin is that, either we fail to love God, or we fail to love our neighbour. 
Lord, forgive me, teach me to love you by learning to forgive, and to accept my neighbour.

Sunday March 9
By Fr Nicholas Karipoff
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Today is called the Sunday of Orthodoxy because it commemorates the restoration of icon veneration in the year 842AD following two long periods of iconoclasm that began in the year 726. Today is seen as the completion of a long period when the church had to deal with major heresies beginning with the Arian heresy in 325 AD at the First Ecumenical Council of Nicea. 
 Our two readings today were from Hebrews chapters 11 and 12, and John chapter 1, the wonderful story of the calling of Nathaniel.  These two passages speak of faith from seeing. There is faith from hearing, and there is faith from seeing.  The Gospel story today tells us how Nathaniel first believed his friend, Phillip, when Phillip told him that they had found Him of whom Moses and the prophets had written, Jesus of Nazareth.  Nathaniel had some doubts: Can anything good come out of Nazareth? But Phillip insisted: Come and see! What do we hear next?  An extraordinary dialogue ensues between Christ and Nathaniel.  Christ God sees Nathaniel praying under the fig tree before Phillip called him.  According to the holy fathers, Nathaniel had been praying for the Messiah to come. How was this encounter possible?  Notice that as Nathaniel and Phillip are coming up close enough to Christ surrounded by a crowd of people, the Lord says: Behold an Israelite indeed in whom there is no guile. It means Nathaniel had a pure heart.  Later, in the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord would say: Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.  
We have travelled through the first week of Lent on the journey towards Resurrection.  These weeks are given to us precisely to work on our hearts. Those of you who attended the first four evenings last week would have heard two readings.  The first reading comes from the catacomb writings of the Russian church probably before the beginning of World War II in the late 1930s.  It is called “This is from Me” (from God) and it explains that all the difficulties which come our way are sent or allowed to happen by God for our benefit.  They humble us, which means they purify our hearts.  The other reading from last week was chapter 10 of the book, Dorotheus of Gaza,  “Travelling the Way of God with Vigil and Sobriety”.  We heard the elder say, “For everyone who prays to God, God give me humility, ought to know that he is asking that God sends him someone to mistreat him!  When we ask for humility, we are asking for a difficult person to come our way, either for a short time or for longer!
Here is the lesson for Lent:  accept the words that are said to you- meekly.  When somebody says something unpleasant, restrain from retaliating with hurtful words.  This is a very important challenge. Please, just try it!  You will see what a difference it makes when you restrain yourself and do not retaliate.  It is necessary to practice this and gradually we will come to a measure of humility and purity of heart.