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
​
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
​
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. 

​Sunday 2 February 2025: Zacchaeus Sunday            
Father Nicholas Karipoff
 
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 
Before today’s Gospel, we heard the words of St Paul to Timothy, in the Epistle:  Be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith and in purity. Timothy was ordained by St Paul as a presbyter, a pastor, who helps Christ to lead His flock, but the church has always had many people from among the laity as well who lead by their example and now today, we hear of such an example, Zacchaeus. The name Zakkay in Hebrew alludes to fairness and righteousness. As a chief tax collector in the rich city of Jericho, Zacchaeus had ample opportunity to be tempted and to act unfairly and unrighteously. But he had not completely lost his conscience, and this causes his great inner tension, to the point of becoming unbearable. When Zacchaeus hears that Jesus is passing through the streets of Jericho, he runs and climbs into a sycamore tree to see Him. Christ sees not just Zacchaeus, but also Zacchaeus’ heart. He sees that his heart is right for repentance and tell Zacchaeus that He is coming to see him at his home. The joy of Zacchaeus has no bounds. He gives his heart to Christ, just as we hear as far back as the Old Testament ‘Son, give me your heart’. In a short moment, he becomes worthy of his name, Zakkay. His speech shows not only his fairness according to the law, but the righteousness of love beyond the law. He promises that he will give half of his property and his wealth to the poor and then according to the law, he says – ‘If I have hurt anyone by false accusations, I will restore to that person four-fold’. If a thief was caught, his punishment would be that he had to pay a fine four times of the value of what he stole. Zacchaeus acknowledged himself as a thief, but more than that, his words show love.
 
What is the critical moment of the story? It comes when Zacchaeus is in a conflict, forgets his station in life and courageously climbs a tree to see Christ. He ignores people’s ridicule, and he runs to climb that tree like a boy. Now he cares more about his relationship with God much more than his high position and prestige as a rich man. 
 
During the weeks preceding Great Lent, the church selects Gospel readings that illustrate this transformation, which is termed repentance. Repentance is a change of heart and mind, metanoia. If we give ourselves a proper chance to think about our life, our failures before God, if we stop worrying about what other people will think about us and start worrying about what God may think about us, we can get to a moment where we begin to live in harmony with our baptismal name. Ultimately our name is Christian, just like Zacchaeus – Zakkay. 

Sunday February 9: Sunday of the Publican and Pharisee
By Fr Nicholas Karipoff
 
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
We have started the Lenten Triodion, which is the material in preparation and during Great Lent. We are beginning our warmup before Lent. Today’s topic is the juxtaposition of pride and humility, as we heard in the parable of the Publican and the Pharisee. Today’s epistle, St Paul’s 2nd letter to Timothy, chap 3, talks about the persecutions and afflictions that St Paul had endured. He writes what persecutions I endured. But out of them all, the Lord delivered me.  And yes, all who desire to live in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. Today the church also celebrates the thousands upon thousands of new martyrs and confessors of Rus. How is this relevant to today’s gospel parable about pride and humility? In the gospel, the evangelist Luke writes, He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others. This parable may or may not describe actual historical people; we are not certain.  But it was more important for the Lord, of course, to show the typical behaviour of the proud person and the humble one.  If the parable is inspired by actual persons, it would have been interesting to see how the pharisee’s contempt might have grown into hatred and persecution of the tax collector and others like him. Look at what happened at the dawn of humanity in Genesis; Cain slays his brother Abel who was more pleasing to God, which made Cain envious and murder him.  The same contempt, envy and   hatred moved the pharisees, who saw themselves as the most righteous, to crucify Christ.  The Lord mentions the spilling of innocent blood from Abel’s day until His day, alluding to their murderous designs.  I am not saying that persecution always means shedding of blood.  We need to understand the dynamics of pride meeting humility. If, God forbid, we cannot see ourselves properly, we might share in that spirit of pride which leads to contempt and irritability towards people who, to us, seem to be worse than us.  Just like the pharisee who thanks that he is not like other people, whom he considers to be inferior to him.  If we pick up on any hint of this pharisaical spirit within ourselves, let us punish ourselves with contrition, like in the parable of the Publican and of the Tax-collector.  On the other hand, we are often on the receiving end of people’s contempt and irritability, or subtle forms of persecution or bullying. According to the saints we must do two things in this situation; Firstly, we must thank God for teaching us to have more patience with all people. And secondly, we must pray for our persecutors and ask God to give us patience and love. We might be pleasantly surprised by the results of such a prayer. Even if there are no pleasant surprises, we will agonise less and feel more peaceful within ourselves. 

​Saturday February 15: The Meeting of the Lord
By Fr Nicholas Karipoff
 
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
The Feast of Christ’s presentation in the temple on the fortieth day after Nativity is called the Meeting of the Lord.  This meeting is primarily with Simeon, an elderly man who had been humbled over a long lifetime.  Church tradition says that his longevity was given to him because he had a doubt about a verse in the book of Isaiah prophesying that a Virgin shall give birth. He was promised that he would not die until he saw the Lord’s Christ, as we just heard in the Gospel.  The words he spoke as he held the baby Jesus have become a doxology used by the church at vespers for over two thousand years, as well as some other occasions:  Lord, now lettest thou Thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word. For mine eyes have seen Thy salvation which thou hast prepared before the face of all people. A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel. (Luke 2:29-32) This is a prophetic prayer that is spoken by the Holy Spirit. In the creed we say that the Holy Spirit spoke through the prophets. 
This feast gives an image of Elder Simeon holding baby Jesus in his arms. It is an image of our own meeting with the Lord.  Simeon prays over a long lifetime for the Messiah to come.  When Simeon achieves the necessary measure of humility, the Son of God shows an infinitely greater humility. He is born as a vulnerable baby.  He allows Himself to be held in the elderly arms of this old man.  Same with us. When we stop doubting God and trying to prove something to Him, to ourselves and to other people, the same thing will happen with us.  God will tangibly meet with us in His humility. Then we will not resist this process of our own growth in becoming humble and seeing the things of God. 
 
This feast is always close to the beginning of Great Lent.  The feast tells us to not waste time but to grow in humility and in God’s wisdom.  Then we will be like St Simeon and all the saints who saw the slow approach of their physical death as a joyous meeting with the Lord. 

Sunday February 16: Sunday of the Prodigal Son
By Fr Nicholas Karipoff
 
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
The parable of the Prodigal Son, which we just heard, is one of the most moving images of the love of God. For that reason, it has inspired many works of European literature and art.  The first part of the story can be summed up in the words of the great Syrian ascetic, St Isaac:  There is no unforgiveable sin except the sin of unrepentance. In the parable the youngest son, who represents every human being, comes to his senses and realises his abysmal rock-bottom spiritual state.  The prodigal son prepares a speech for his father after this realisation, saying he is no longer worthy to be called his son. He planned to ask his father to accept him as a hired servant.  This is possibly the origin of the expression that traditional Christianity uses: Servant of God. But as we hear, the father does not allow the son to finish his speech.  Instead, he showers him with signs of glory and honour that are appropriate for a true child of God who carries the image and likeness of God. 
 
This is the second Sunday when the Holy Church gives us this encouragement in our weakness and failings so that we can mobilize ourselves and ask the loving and compassionate God for mercy and salvation. The epistle today which has been chosen by the church lectionary - the yearly programme of readings – expands on the ideas of the parable. The passage of 1Cor:6 begins with the words of St Paul:  All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful.  With these words St Paul intended to address some aspects of Mosaic restrictions.   But these words were misrepresented by the Corinthians who stretched them to infer that everything is allowed, even sexual immorality.  In preparing for this sermon, I investigated the different meanings of this word prodigal. In English, the word comes from the Latin prodigus which means “wasteful”. The prodigal son wastes his father’s money.  In Slavonic, the term is ‘блудный” and the meaning here aligns with the Greek word asotos meaning both “lost” and “debauched’. Further, St Paul writes that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.  Sexual immorality desecrates the temple.
 
During Lent, people are aware that we are asked to limit ourselves in terms of food.  But there is a lot more to it.  We need to restrain ourselves in quality and quantity in food, but we also need to be self-restrained in many other things, including guarding our eyes.  There is unseen warfare. There is so much visual material everywhere that causes temptations, especially content on the internet, and everything is so accessible.  People see things that they should not see because it affects them badly.  It brings their psycho- physical life to the level of that rock-bottom condition that the prodigal son experienced. Everything is allowable in the sense that we can repent but not everything is beneficial. God forgives instantly, but healing the wounds takes time. There are so many detrimental things to our spiritual life and we need to realise this. This is something to think about in the coming weeks of Lent. 

​Sunday February 23 
by Fr Nicholas Karipoff
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 
Today is Meatfare Sunday so we say goodbye to meat today, the last time until Pascha (Easter). The coming week is Cheese fare week, from tomorrow morning. For this reason, the Church offers a reading from St Paul 1st Corinthians Chapter 8. St Paul says that meat in itself is nothing, yet if eating it will cause a scandal then he will abstain from it. Causing scandal is something that is judged severely by the Lord, as we read in the Gospel. Why? Because it is one of the worst sins against our neighbour. 
Today we have just heard the reading about the Last Judgement. We know from the fathers that the Gospel is entirely and solely about love, including this reading. Anyone who is familiar with the writings of the early fathers will know that their teaching on the Last Judgement is very different to the culture of fear and terror that developed in Western Europe in the Middle Ages. Everything that comes from God, beginning with the creation of the whole universe, is only from love and nothing else. 
The image of the Last Judgement is that Jesus Christ, our Saviour, is our judge. He speaks of the sheep on His right hand as those people who fed him, gave him to drink and cared for Him in various ways; in other words they showed compassion and love for their neighbour, and therefore to Him. But the goats, on the left-hand side, as He explains, are genuinely surprised that they did not love God. They ought to have been aware of the words of the Evangelist John in his first letter when he writes, ‘He who does not love his brother whom he has he seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen’
Over the last two Sundays we heard about God’s love towards repentant sinners. Today’s reading gives the other side of God’s love. It is still love, but it is tough love which we also need, to make us move from that laziness and passive attitude. Christ wants to teach us that we should not get complacent because He cannot save us without our involvement in our salvation.
We must take that responsibility for our life and not say ‘Doesn’t matter, God is so loving, God will save me anyway’. He cannot save us without our agreement, we must agree to be saved. So, then we must take the responsibility of carrying the cross of our salvation ungrudgingly. Acceptance of Christ’s challenge to love our neighbour is crucial before we can claim that we love God.
St Anthony the Great said, in his elderly years, ‘I no longer fear God, but I love him’. Let us not fantasise that we already love God. We do not. We want to love Him. Lord, I want to love you, but I do not yet. That is the reality. We must learn to love Him by loving our neighbour, putting up with our neighbour, having patience with our neighbour. That is how we learn to love God. That is our cross. That cross will change us from being self-absorbed narcissists to being beloved children of God who truly love God as well. 

​Sunday January 5, 2025
By Fr Peter Sheko
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Today we heard the beginning of St Matthew’s gospel giving the genealogy of Christ (Matthew 1:1-25).  At the first glance it seems like just a list of names, but in reality, it tells a powerful story of God’s love and His plan to save us.  St Matthew starts with these words:  the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham.  By mentioning David and Abraham, St Matthew reminds us of God’s promises.  God told Abraham that through his descendants all nations would be blessed (Gen ch12).  God told David that his kingdom would last forever (2Samuel ch7).  These promises come true in our Lord Jesus Christ who brings blessings to everyone and opens the way to God’s eternal kingdom.  
What is interesting in this genealogy is the mention of women: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba, although Bathsheba is not mentioned directly by name, but as the wife of Uriah. She was the woman who King David took as his wife after he sent her husband off to die in battle.  These stories show us how God works through unexpected people and situations.  Tamar faced injustice but found a way to preserve her family. The story shows that God can bring justice and hope, even in the toughest situations.  Rahab, a former prostitute, from Canaan, saved her family through her faith.  She hid a couple of Joshua ‘s spies and asked them in return to spare her family.  This reminds us that God accepts everyone who seeks Him, no matter their past. Ruth, a widow, became part of God’s plan through her loyalty and faith.  Her story shows that God’s love extends to all people, even foreigners.  And Bathsheba is connected to David’s sin, as he married her and sent her husband off to battle to be killed. Her life is part of the story of restoration and covenant.  She became the mother of Solomon and part of the lineage of the Messiah. These women remind us that God worked through all kinds of people, no matter their background or past.  No one is beyond His love or grace.  
St Athanasios the Great said, “God became man so that man might become God”.  Jesus Christ, being fully God and fully human came to bring us closer to God.  He did not stay distant but entered our world to save us.  The genealogy of Jesus Christ always reminds us that God’s plan is always at work, even when we fail to see it.  It leads us to the birth of Jesus, Emmanuel, which means God is with us.  Here is the important part:  God’s story does not end here.  It continues through each of us.  In Baptism we become part of his family.  We are called to share His love and light in our daily life. St Athanasios teaches us that we are called to draw closer to God, to share His love, peace and. Holiness.  This is the true purpose and joy of life.  As we prepare for Christmas let us be inspired by this message.  Trust in God’s love, rejoice in His promises and take steps to grow closer to Him every day.  No matter who we are or what our past looks like, God has called each of us to bring His light to the world. May the Lord who came to live among us, fill our hearts with joy. Amen. 

​Tuesday January 7, 2025
by Fr Nicholas Karipoff
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Christmas, the Nativity of Christ! This is the beginning of the greatest thirty-three years of the history of the world!  Emmanuel, God with us, is here. The Bible is all about God’s providence for us before time.  God foresees the hundreds, even the thousands of events in sacred and secular world history all geared towards His coming.  God the Saviour comes in the humility of a baby born in Bethlehem, as we have just heard. (Mathew 2:1 – 12). When we look at the simple stories of His birth in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, we can see that there is connection there with the events in Rome, other places in the world and in Israel.  Many nations and tribes are unified for the first time under Rome.  The Church sees this as an image of the coming unity in the Holy Spirit.  It is reflected in our Christmas service.  When the Roman Emperor, Octavian Augustus, commands that a census is to be conducted of everyone in the Roman Empire, he unknowingly facilitates the fulfilment of Micah’s prophecy that Jesus Christ, the Heavenly Bread, is born in Bethlehem.  Bethlehem means “the house of bread” in Hebrew.  Persian Astronomers, saw a bright new star in the constellation of Pisces. Pisces was a sign of Israel in the ancient world because all those constellations were attributed to different nations.  The Magi knew that they had to come to Jerusalem.  They tell King Herod and his court that the King of Kings is born and ask where to find Him. They are informed by the scribes that Christ must be born in Bethlehem. It seems strange that the visitation by the Magi and their explanation of the star seen in Israel is forgotten thirty years later, as well as the excitement that the shepherds shared to everyone that the angels were singing about the birth of Christ.  All these incredible events were forgotten!  Christ is referred to as Jesus of Nazareth, and Israel was still waiting for the Messiah who was to come from Bethlehem. But He is Jesus of Bethlehem! They somehow forgot, but that was part of God’s plan, too. He wants people to recognise Him with their hearts. 
The events of secular history can be used by God for His purposes.  The world remains ignorant, of course, and continues to behave like Herod, trying often enough to kill the newborn king. We live in times when Christ seems to have been driven out of the world, almost completely, but two thousand years ago He also did not find a place anywhere for Himself to be born.  The King of Kings was born in a cave, used as a barn.  The world did not want Him.  He then had to flee from Herod who wanted to kill Him. 
God has a way of turning any adversity into victory and triumph.  It begins thirty-three years later in the biggest way, with the Cross and the Resurrection just when everything seemed like it was finished.  Christ even said, “It is finished”, but in a good way.  It is completed and the world did not notice.  Not long ago we saw the churches almost completely close when we experienced the lockdowns.  Then people had a chance to stop and think about themselves and their life, maybe for the first time. Many people found Christ and Orthodoxy.  
Christmas is a festive promise that God is truly with us.  Emmanuel – God with us.  In His providence He directs the life of the church and the life of the world and the life of each one of us. Even with the worst challenges that can come our way, let us never be discouraged by anything that happens, either in the world, in the church or in our life, because Christ is with us. 

Sunday January 12 
By Archbishop George Shaefer

And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and seeing this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us. And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the Babe lying in the manger. And when they had seen Him, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this Child. And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them. (Luke 2: 15-20)

Beloved in the Lord, Clergy and Faithful of the Australian and New Zealand Diocese!
As we celebrate the Blessed Nativity of Our Saviour each year, we are always drawn to this miraculous scene when the invisible spiritual world was revealed to men. Hosts of angels appeared to simple shepherds in the fields outside of Bethlehem, glorifying our Creator, singing praises to Him, and proclaiming His incarnation. They announced to the shepherds, and through them to all of mankind, the birth of the Saviour, Christ the Lord, telling them how they would find Him wrapped in swaddling clothes. The shepherds then hastened to see the Lord and worship Him and went away glorifying God and spreading the good news about what they had seen and heard. We likewise are all called not only to come and see the Lord and worship Him, but also to go forth and proclaim the good news of the Saviour’s birth. We should be proclaiming the good news of the Gospel not only in word, but also in deed, by living the Gospel. Just as the star led the Magi to Bethlehem (according to St. John Chrysostom the star was actually an angel), our good works should lead people to the Truth, as our Saviour Himself
instructs us: Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Matt 5: 16). We must not be swallowed up by the world lying in darkness but make every effort to be in the world but not of the world, consciously rejecting the mindset of today’s society. Like good and faithful servants, we should increase the talents bestowed on us from the Lord, using them to spread the Gospel. May we not bury our talents in the ground, as we wait for our Lord to appear. May we not be the fulfillment to the words of our Saviour: “when the Son of man comes, will He find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8). I ask all of the faithful to make an effort to extend a helping hand to all those in need, giving alms to the poor, donations to the churches, helping them to bring the Word of God and grace to the world, helping others in whatever way you can, thereby showing love to your fellow man and fulfilling the commandment of God. A new commandment I give unto you. That you love one another; as I have loved you, that you love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” (John 13: 34-35)
I greet you all, brothers and sisters, with the Feast of the Nativity of Christ our Saviour!  Amen.

​Sunday 19 January 2025 The Feast of Theophany
By Fr Nicholas Karipoff
 
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 
Today’s feast of Holy Theophany is connected on many different many levels with the feast of Christmas which we just celebrated not long ago. The early church celebrated the two events on one occasion, it was called the Theophany, meaning the appearance or manifestation of God, celebrating both the birth of Jesus and His proclamation as the Christ by John the Baptist and by the Father and the Holy Spirit. Perhaps the deepest connection of Bethlehem with the Jordan River is at the level of Christ’s humility. St John the Baptist said that he did not know Jesus Christ before he came to the Jordan. He may have thought that the Messiah would appear in glory immediately. Like the apostles, he was part of that culture, which visualised the messiah as a glorious king, who would make himself apparent in a powerful way. St John himself projected an image of great spiritual power and was accepted by the vast majority of Israel as a powerful prophet. Some even wondered if maybe he was the messiah.  There is a tradition in the church that he had such a booming voice that he could be heard a long distance away. Thousands of people came and trembled as they heard him. Yet St John, in all this power, speaks of himself as the lowest servant of the coming messiah. 
 
When St John sees Jesus coming and recognises him as the lamb of God, he tries, as we heard in today’s gospel, to refuse to baptise him because he said, ‘I need to be baptised by you’. John spoke out of a deep sense of humility, but the humility of God is greater than the humility of any human being. Christ tells St John that all righteousness must be fulfilled. This is the beginning of purification and forgiveness and salvation of humanity. This happens through God’s humanity in Christ. We hear from St Paul’s letter to Titus, which preceded the gospel today, that God, ‘Saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit’.  The icon of Jesus Christ in the waters of Jordan is an image of our entry of our life in Christ through water and the spirit and the essential character of this life is meekness and humility as Christ said. We learn from Him. Opposite to this is pride, which is the source of all sin. It makes us aggressive towards one another as we attempt to assert our sinful will on other people. Only humility can make us meek, ready to sacrifice our ego for the other person rather than be aggressive. We sacrifice our egos the sake of Christ’s peace and for the grace of God that brings salvation to all men, as we hear in St Pauls letter to Titus.
 
Today is Theophany, the appearance of Christ and the manifestation of one God in the Trinity. May we always be ready to make the first step towards our neighbour in humility to overcome all temptations, all hurts. To come to that trinitarian unity of love brought to our earth by our Saviour. 

​Sunday 26 January 2025
By Fr Nicholas Karipoff
 
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 
On Sunday after Theophany every year we hear the words of the Lord like the peal of a large bell, ‘Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand’. The Kingdom of Heaven is a way of life that is radically different in spirit. To access this life, to enter the Kingdom of Heaven – Christ’s church - we have to repent. St John the Baptist spoke of the need to bring fruits of repentance. Words are not enough. Action is needed to prove our resolve to seek this spirit of Christ. The holy fathers and holy mothers speak of doing the opposite things to the passions within us to limit bodily drives: instead of curiosity guard your eyes; instead of blaming the other person, blame yourself and it goes on and on. Passions are God-given drives, but they have become distorted through the fall and are the weeds which suppress God’s good wheat. 
 
The passions are expressions of our false self, our selfish ego. In the words of the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, ‘The other (person) is hell’ and that is how our selfish ego sees things. But for Christ, it is the opposite. Our salvation is in our neighbour. St Paul in his letter to the Ephesians, chapter 4, which we heard before the Gospel, speaks of unity of spirit and the bond of peace. The life of the ego as expressed in the passions is fragmentation and alienation. That is the essence of the effect of the fall. There is a kind of schizophrenia inside of us and between us. There can be superficial unity that can only be constructed by force and through fear. It is superficial. The moment that the fear disappears it all falls apart.  Real unity can be achieved through humility, gentleness and patience in putting up with one another in love. 
 
This is an impossible task without the strength that is given in Christ’s kingdom of heaven, the Church, the life in Christ. So let us hear that bell today. Repent, change your heart by redirecting your heart to things that are very different from what people normally love to love.  We soon begin our annual course in our spiritual life, Great Lent, and we begin learning that this change of the spirit in our real life happens in secret. Nobody can see it. We do not condemn people who live the life of the world.  We continue showing them our love. We need to learn how to blame and condemn only ourselves. The good thief judged himself and was forgiven by the merciful judge. The fathers teach if you judge yourself God will not judge you. This is the teaching of the Gospel. This is the teaching of the holy fathers.

​Sunday December 1 
Fr Nicholas Karipoff
 
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 
We just heard the Lord’s parable (Luke 12:16-21) about the rich man who rejoiced that he had gathered an abundant harvest.  The parable illustrates the words of the Lord, , ‘So is he who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God’.  The Epistle today was from St Paul’s letter to Ephesians where he writes about a different kind of richness: God who is rich in mercy … and the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 2:4-10). St Paul talks about a new mode of life, which opened with the coming of Christ. 
 
The rich man represents that meaningless life of people who put all their trust in material wealth which can disappear any minute. How? When physical life stops, wealth comes to an end.  What is the point of that wealth? The apostle talks about that lifestyle as death. We were dead in trespasses and God made us alive together with Christ, as He says in Ephesians. This is the powerful revelation which is echoed in many places of the New Testament. Through faith in Christ and life according to this faith we are connected to the death and resurrection of Christ.  Why else would we feel such joy at Easter? It is not just because of some remembrance of an event that happened 2000 years ago and not because we are so happy to be breaking the fast!  We are happy because we are connected to Christ’s resurrection. We feel it. The more work we do during Lent to prepare for this event, the more we will feel that connectiveness to Christ’s resurrection. 
 
The resurrection is a fact. It was witnessed by hundreds of people, and thus it became an empirical fact. These witnesses were willing to die for their faith in Christ. It just proves how serious and real all of this was. The saints tell us that Great Lent is our yearly tithe to God. That is roughly about 10% of the year, but our whole life should really be an ongoing journey with Christ, not just during Lent . It is useless to make an effort during Lent and then during the rest of the time to behave like the rich man in the parable. In this journey with Christ, we learn to train our heart to become indifferent to material and external riches of this world. We need these things because we live in the body, but the difference is between the person who puts all his love and trust in those things and the person who merely uses them and is not enslaved by them, like this rich man was. In accepting a different attitude to the world, to people around us, and to our ourselves, we begin to discover different riches. We discover the riches that St Paul describes; the riches of God’s mercy and great love towards us. 
 
I mentioned Great Lent, but now we have just begun the Advent in preparation for the Nativity of Christ.  It is a challenging time in the Southern Hemisphere, with all the end-of-year celebrations and BBQs! Let us do what we can to limit these worldly passions within us, at least temporarily, because we are in Advent. This way we can grow richer in Christ, in God.

Sunday December 8
Explanation of the Liturgy
 
The recent English Liturgy was a teaching Liturgy where the altar table was brought out to the centre of the church so that parishioners could see what happens in the altar and learn more about each aspect of the Liturgy. The following is a short explanation of the parts of the service by Fr Nicholas Karipoff. 
 
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 
Today the church celebrates the last day of the Feast of the Presentation of the Theotokos in the Temple. As I mentioned on the day of the feast last Wednesday, the temple is about sacrifice and learning. The Liturgy also has these two aspects – education first, and then sacrifice.  We’re going to talk about this today.  It will have to be superficial otherwise I will be speaking for far too long! 
 
As you know, the Liturgy has three parts. The first is the proskomidi or preparation of the elements, of the bread and the wine, and importantly it is the time of commemoration when the clergy take out particles from the prosphora bread for the living and the dead. Then comes the Liturgy of the Catechumens.  In the ancient church catechumens were allowed to stay only for the first part of the Eucharistic liturgy and then they were told to leave.  We still hear the words in our service today: “Catechumens depart…”.  They had to leave because they were not baptised and could not receive Holy Communion.  The final and main of the Liturgy, the Liturgy of the faithful, begins from the time the choir starts singing the Cherubic Hymn. 
 
The educational part of the Liturgy is the Liturgy of the Catechumens.  Initially there is an exclamation “Blessed is the Kingdom...” followed by the Litany of Peace. Then the choir sings antiphons, texts from scripture or the psalms set to music, followed by more litanies. After this is the small entry when the clergy process from the altar with the Gospel. This will look a bit different today because we have moved the altar into the centre of the church.  The Liturgy is basically unchangeable except for a few parts in the liturgy of the catechumens and these changeable parts happen next. The choir sings the troparia, short hymns to the patronal feast or saint, then saint or feast of the day. Then after the choir sings the Thrice Holy – Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal have mercy on us – there is the prokeimenon of the day - a short refrain sung to introduce the scripture reading - and the reading of the Epistle, followed by the reading of the Gospel.  The readings are set out for the whole year. Traditionally the homily follows the reading of the Gospel.  The Liturgy of the Catechumens ends with the litany of the catechumens and some other small petitions.  The educational part of the liturgy has finished, and the Liturgy of the Faithful begins. 
 
The Liturgy of the Faithful is the sacrificial part, no longer the learning part. The Cherubic Hymn starts this section.  This hymn brings the attention of the faithful to the necessity of absolute focus during this part of the service.  We now put aside all earthly cares. The hymn is broken up into two parts by the Great Entry.  At the Great Entry we transfer the Holy Gifts which have been prepared, from the table of preparation to the altar.  After some more litanies there is the “kiss of peace”.  Now this is done just by the clergy but in the early church all people in church would exchange this kiss.  The creed follows - I believe in one God… - and after that we begin the Eucharistic Canon. This is a long prayer, parts of which are sung by the choir, while the leading bishop or priest continually reads it quietly.  In the early church every part of the prayer was heard aloud by the congregation.  The Eucharistic prayer has four parts based on the themes of the Passover prayers. What is the connection?  Our eucharist is the entry into the one and only Mystical Supper, which is outside of time. The Mystical Supper itself followed the Passover celebration which the Lord Jesus Christ celebrated with His disciples.  This is why the church preserves those themes.  Then we have communion of the clergy and preparation of communion for the faithful. After Holy Communion, the Holy Gifts are transferred back to the table of preparation.  This is a symbolic action to show the Ascension of the Lord.  The whole Liturgy is a celebration of Christ’s life, beginning with the proskomidi.  We remember Christ’s birth and His death. Time is limited to speak now about all the symbolism and theology, but we will cover it in the future. 

​December 19, 2024 St Nicholas Day
 by Fr Nicholas Karipoff

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
We hear in the psalms,  Wonderful is God in His saints, the God of Israel. Israel, of course, refers to the people of God in the Old Testament and the New Testament. The church is the new Israel.  Saints really are  wonderful and God is wonderful in them because He shows His infinite truth and beauty and love and every other virtue possible that we can think of , through the saints. Today we celebrate St Nicholas who is one of the most popular saints in the Orthodox world, and also in Southern Italy.  The expression Santa Claus comes from Germany showing he had been popular in the West as well as the East. In our diocese of about forty  parishes, four are dedicated to Nicholas.
 
We hear from the troparian of the saint that he is a rule of faith and an image of meekness.  Meekness is one of the Christ-like characteristics. St Nicholas is also known for his great compassion to the needy; he saved a destitute family by throwing small bags of money into their windows at night, which became the inspiration for Santa Claus.
 
There are countless miracles of St Nicholas.  He is a true friend of humanity.  There was a well-known miracle in the city of Xarbin, China,  where I was born.  As St Nicholas is the patron saint of travellers there was a large icon of the saint at the railway station, built in 1888 by the Russian imperial government.  Travellers would put up candles and pray before they boarded the train.  He was well known not just to the Russian population there, but also to the Chinese. There was a case when a Chinese man was drowning in the river there and he remembered about St Nicholas who he had heard about, although he did not even know his name.  So he called out and said, "The old man at the station, help me!" As he was drowning, he saw an elderly man running on top of the water who grabbed him by the hand.  Then the man lost consciousness and came to on a sand bank.  This man became Orthodox afterwards.  The saints are God’s missionaries as well. In the Far East St Nicholas is very prominent.  He speaks a lot to the eastern Asians.  The main Japanese Orthodox church in Tokyo is dedicated to St Nicholas. 
 
St Nicholas is remembered every week.  Every Thursday he is commemorated along with the apostles. He represents the hierarchs who are the apostles of every generation. The other days are dedicated:  Sunday to the Resurrection, Monday to the angels, Tuesday to St John the Baptist, Wednesday  and Friday to the Cross and to the Mother of God.  And Saturday is the day of All Saints and the departed. 
 
It is wonderful to be here in church today, to celebrate such a great saint!

​Sunday 22 December
Fr Nicholas Karipoff
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 
In today’s gospel reading about the ten healed lepers (Luke 17:11- 19), the Lord responded to them crying out to Him by telling them to go and show themselves to the priests. The miracle of healing did not happen immediately, but they knew what Christ’s words meant. According to the law they had to go to the priest to be certified to show they had no leprosy. In their excitement and expectation of the healing (that happened along the way), they were all absorbed in their own selfish thoughts, except for only one man, a Samaritan, came back to thank the Lord.
In the passage from the St Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, chapter 5, which preceded the gospel reading, we hear a snippet of what sounds like an ancient Christ hymn of the Apostolic period: ‘Awake you who sleep, arise from the dead and Christ will give you light’. These words were likely part of the baptismal service, and they speak of several things.  First, repentance, awakening from a life of sin which means a life without God. Secondly, rising from the dead to a participation with Christ in the life of resurrection and, as I’ve said countless times, resurrection begins now, not later. Thirdly, illumination to see and understand things very differently to the way the world sees them. Illumination is obtaining the mind of Christ
In the story of the ten healed lepers, only one of them wakes up from his sleep of self-centred life. The others do not. One might ask, why is it so important to thank God, does He need it? Of course not, He does not need it. He does not need anything at all. Nothing. He is completely self-sufficient. We need it. We need it to have a relationship with God otherwise we have nothing to give Him. 
The healed leper, the Samaritan, feels with all his being that he needs to come back and to thank God. His way back is repentance, just like in the parable of the prodigal son. The prodigal son comes to his senses and journeys back to the father.
Further in St Pauls passage today he tells us, paraphrased, to not waste our lives. We have entered this life in Christ in repentance, and as they say in America, ‘Walk the walk, don’t just talk the talk’! St Paul talks about a characteristic expression of pagan life, being drunk with wine. The Christian is called to be filled with the spirit, not wine, and in verses following today’s reading Paul explains this happens in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. The repentant and grateful heart of the healed leper sings this song of praise to the Lord. This is what the angels do, they sing all the time. This is what the life in Christ is about is - to sing in your heart to the Lord, rising joyously from the dead, from the meaningless pagan existence. Seeing the hand of God in even the smallest things of our life is far better than constantly stressing out about things we cannot control or change, and then getting depressed and seeking solace in going to the fridge in eating and drinking, trying to drown our sorrows that way.

Sunday, December 29
Father Nicholas Karipoff
​
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 
Today the Church celebrates the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers, the second last Sunday before the feast of Christmas. The forefathers were the Old Testament righteous, people who responded to the call of Christ, to participate in His supper. This supper opens fully in the New Testament, and it is the life in Christ which focuses on the mystical supper that we participate in, like today.
We hear in today’s parable (Luke 14:16 – 24) that many of the people who were invited declined the invitation citing seemingly valid reasons for why they were unable to attend. All these excuses reflect their worldly and materialistic focus - new land, oxen and marriage in its psycho physical level. 
The passage from St Paul’s letter to the Colossians chapter 3, which we heard before the gospel, talks about the need to put off the old man with his deeds of anger, wroth, malice, blasphemy and filthy language. This is the life that comes through in the old man, which St Paul talks about. He explains that these symptoms of sinful life come from the passions, that are characteristic of pagan behaviour, and he lists two especially; sexual immorality and materialistic greed which he calls idolatry. The old man and his deeds cannot be overcome simply by trying to keep some set of moral rules. From our baptism, or at least from a mature adult acceptance, we have to commit to dying to sin and rising with Christ. The Lord himself gives us Christ’s heavenly bread. This is the food for the new man in Christ, not the old man that we were just talking about.
I was asked recently, by a Western Christian, about how Orthodoxy sees Holy Communion. This is certainly something we need to understand properly in a theological sense, because correct theology translates into correct and practical spiritual life. As St Gregory the Theologian writes, “We are sanctified by the humanity of God”. We fight our sinful man by fighting our desires, and we show that we are serious that we want to rise with Christ. His life then becomes our life and Christ lives within us. The Lord calls us continually to participate in His supper and His life. Every day we are faced with these choices. We choose spiritual life or psycho physical life, symbolised by the excuses given in today’s parable.  These choices happen in small things. The Lord says elsewhere, “Be faithful in small things”, What are these small things? Our thoughts. These small things add up to dictate how our life is lived. 
Let us be attentive to our thoughts, to what passes through our consciousness, because very often we do not know what has gone through our consciousness and only realise later. But if we remain attentive, we will notice the thoughts and feelings and we will be able to choose how we respond. Then we can begin building this life with Christ which He terms as his supper, just as we heard in today’s reading. ​

Sunday November 3
Fr Nicholas Karipoff
 
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 
In today’s parable we hear of the rich man and Lazarus which teaches us that material wealth and strength are often a hindrance to spiritual life. If I have limitless opportunities to express my proud and sinful will, then I will not leave much space inside my heart and my life for God. Lazarus, the sufferer, on the contrary shows an image of patience, humility, and growth in love for God that leads him to the bosom of Abraham.
 
Before the gospel today we heard from St Pauls’ second letter to the Corinthians. There he talks about the most amazing revelations that he had had including being transported to the third heaven; whether it was in the body or whether it was an out of body experience, he wasn’t sure. Yet God guarded the spiritual sobriety of His chosen man, His apostle. We have so many stories in the lives of the saints how not a few of them were tempted terribly. It would have been so easy for them to be filled with a false perception of themselves. When we receive God’s gifts, and blessings it is easy to forget where they had come from and instead, we begin to contribute these achievements, facilitated by God’s grace, to ourselves.
 
Moreover, we can forget that we Christians are followers of Christ, and that His method is different to the methods of the world of fallen man. He works through the cross. He is not the God of power, as I have said on countless occasions, not the God of might who will do anything to achieve His ends. He does not work in this way.  The great Paul, as we heard in today’s reading, had to endure a steep learning curve. He had to understand that God does not want to overwhelm or subdue anyone by force. He does it through love, through the cross. His cross and our cross. St Paul was given a cross of which he speaks as a ‘thorn in the flesh’, a messenger of Satan. There are different opinions of what this ‘thorn in the flesh’ was. Some people think it could have been some chronic illness that hindered his work. Others think that he might be referring in a hidden way (so as not to offend people), that he was hindered by people in the church and people outside of the church who were preventing him from projecting the energies of God to spread the word of God triumphantly. It took Paul a lot of blood, sweat and tears, it did not come easy. Paul says that he prayed three times to be relieved of this ‘thorn in the flesh’ and then God told him, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, my strength is made perfect in weakness’.
 
We need to understand these words, they are so important. We need to understand that Christian spirit is not about force. Brothers and Sisters, let us be patient with God and with each other, even though it is so hard. Permanent results can only be achieved if we humble ourselves and give space to God. We can have short term results through the fist, through force but it is not permanent. Let us enable God to enable us. We often want quick results that are supposed to come from these coercive methods, we should not forget the principle expressed in a wonderful book which used to be given as an “ABC to spiritual life” to every novice – “Abba Dorotheus of Gaza”. He expresses a rule, that in every endeavour, to achieve the intended result, is worth 1/8ths of the whole, but to retain peace is (and that means love) the remaining 7/8ths.  We cannot just ignore that; it is a fact of spiritual life. We often throw out the 7/8ths and we want that 1/8th at any cost that the end will justify the means.  No, it does not, not in Christian life. The end does not justify the means. The means are love and the cross. 

​November 10
By Fr Nicholas Karipoff
 
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 
The level of possession that we see in the Gospel story about the Gadarene demoniac is extreme. This is an illustration of the destructive power of the unseen spirits - the fallen angels. It is an important warning for us. This type of possession, (which did not only happen in the past), shows the real face of the demon. However, the devil does not like showing his real face. His favourite trick is to hide and to promote the idea that he does not exist at all. As a corollary to this, who else doesn’t exist? God of course doesn’t exist! How convenient for those people who want to be atheists. 
For the people who cannot live without the faith, however, he promotes another idea. He appears as “an angel of light” according to St Paul in second Corinthians. He attempts to delude and to trick those people who think they are serving God but in fact  are full of themselves. 
The letter to the Galatians (a passage of which we heard before the Gospel), was written as St Paul’s defence for his validity as an apostle of Christ and the validity of those things he had taught the people before. In his absence a group of Christian zealots of the Old Testament law came and began to undermine St Paul’s authority and his teaching. In addition to the apologetic side to this letter (epistle), St Paul adds instructions about Christian life. A truly magnificent passage from Galatians can be found after the passage that we heard before the Gospel and it is read for the ascetics. We celebrate a great ascetic today, a missionary - St Job of Pochaev. 
Here is this passage: ‘… fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering (i.e., patience), kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, 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, considering yourself lest you be tempted also. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ’. (Gal.5:22-6:2)
What beautiful words, how much instruction is there for our life! Any person who seriously takes heed of these instructions will not be overwhelmed by the fake ‘angels of light’. These ‘angels’ seek to enslave us individually and collectively by brining chaos into our family life, into our church life and into our community (secular) life. Take especially the last instruction. If we see that someone is misbehaving, we are taught to correct such a person in the spirit of gentleness. We should watch ourselves, as the apostle says. Any one of us can be tempted, there is no guarantee that we will not be tempted. Temptations affect everyone, and if we yield to temptation, we will bring demonic chaos and tensions into our relationships with other people.
Let us indeed make a start by fighting our conceited vainglorious thoughts. Oh, if we could only see how full of ourselves we are! Then we would be more successful in not provoking one another and envying one another as the Apostle writes. Then we would understand that the peace of Christ that comes from that is heaven, while tension and drama is the waiting room of hell. 

​Sunday November 17                                                  
By Fr Nicholas Karipoff
 
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 
Today’s Sunday gospel (Luke 8:41-56) has two miracles. Christ proceeds through a slow-moving crowd, a throng of people pressing him from all sides, and he is heading towards the house of Jairus, the chief of the synagogue, where Jairus’ daughter is on the verge of death. The progress towards the home of Jairus is delayed by an incident with the woman who had the issue of blood for twelve years. Interestingly, the dying girl was twelve years old as well. Twelve is a significant age; remember the story about Christ teaching in the temple at the age of twelve? Twelve is the age when Jewish boys and girls become a member of the law - bar mitzvah and bat mitzvah. The woman and the girl became daughters of the law of the Spirit on that day.
 
In the old ancient church, an Old Testament passage was first read, followed by the gospel and then the epistle. The epistle reading today, Galatians 2:16-20, complements the gospel story.  St Paul writes I have been crucified with Christ it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. The twelve-year-old girl and her parents, went through a crucifixion with Christ, in a manner of speaking.  She was sick and physically died. The parents went through a kind of death themselves, losing their young child. When she was raised, we can only assume that she and her parents lived on with Christ, in Christ.  The woman who was healed shows boldness of faith that transcends the legalism of the pharisees and rabbis. She is ritually unclean and yet she dares to touch Jesus, the Christ, the son of God. The miracle could have happened silently, but the Lord wants people to know what has happened, He asks, ‘Who touched me?’, and He does not give up until she admits it was her.  She is trembling because she is ritually polluted, in the eyes of the law.  Her bold faith is an example of St Paul’s words in the Galatians passage: We are not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ. 
 
 
Brother and sisters, if our righteousness does not excel the level of righteousness of the pharisees and it stays at that level, we are in trouble. As Christ says at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew chapter 5, the pharisaic spirit constantly creates idols out of the things of God. For them the sabbath and the law became idols. This is awful! Christ performed so many miracles on the sabbath intentionally to teach against superficial religion which is so full of idols. Many things in the church can be turned into an idol - the music and drama of our service, the beauty of our temples and the rules of the church. We can even turn private prayers and fasting into idols and yet all these things that I just mentioned are beautiful and necessary to help us reach the greater beauty and truth of Christ’s salvation.
 
Today we were given two very important notes from the melody of heaven. Firstly, the image of boldness of faith that is not afraid of ridicule and censure by people, as given in example by the woman with an issue of blood. And secondly, the image of dying and rising with Christ like the young girl, of dying to sin and coming alive to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

​Sunday November 24
By Fr Nicholas Karipoff
 
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 
The lawyer in today’s gospel story (Luke 10:25-37) asks a very important question: Teacher, what must I do to have eternal life? In response, The Lord Jesus Christ asks him: What does the law say?  This pharisee had heard Christ’s teaching before.  He knew the importance in Christ’s teaching of love for God and for our neighbour and answers Christ correctly.  But the lawyer then asks:  who is my neighbour? That is a great question, Brothers and Sisters! What the lawyer is really asking is how is it possible to love someone dispassionately, possessively and without expecting anything in return?  The Lord answers him with the moving parable of the Good Samaritan.  The parable answers this question in two ways.  Firstly, by answering “no”, because the law and justice cannot enable us to have compassionate love.  The priest and the Levite, who represent the law, pass by on the other side from the injured and dying man because the law is helpless and can do nothing.  The second answer is “yes”, the Good Samaritan, who is Christ Himself, gives an example to us of what we should do. But we can only do it when we ourselves are healed.  The Good Samaritan takes the wounded man to the inn, which represents the church.  The church is a hospital for all of us.  The wounded man represents all of humanity beaten up by the demonic powers when humanity departs from God in sin.  After the Lord finished the parable, he told the lawyer to go and do likewise, do what the good Samaritan did. 
 
Today’s epistle in Galatians, chapter 6, fortifies the message of the gospel.  St Paul speaks of the impotence of those who think that externals of the law can save us. They cannot. St Paul writes:  But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of the Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.  What does that mean? It means that when we truly accept the cross, as a gradual dying to this sinful person within us, we will rise with Christ to a life when it does become possible to love people dispassionately, unpossessively and in a non-mercantile way, expecting nothing in return. The life in Christ is a challenge, Brothers and Sisters! It is a challenge to defeat the demons of animosity and hatred that beat all of us up through other people, just as we beat up other people when we are energised by these destructive passions.  We hear St Paul say today in Galatians:  I bear in my body the marks of Lord Jesus.  I remind you that St Paul was stoned and left for dead, and five times he received 39 lashes.  As I have previously mentioned, in filming The Passion of the Christ, Jim Caviezel accidentally received just one lash, and he lost consciousness.  For St Paul to receive 39 lashes five times is beyond belief! St Paul saw so much animosity and hatred towards himself, but he won with love, with Christ’s love.  He was healed body and soul by Christ to carry on with his amazing work. Should we not also look towards the saints to learn to have some patience with God and with our neighbour, with each other? 

​October 6, 2024
Fr Nicholas Karipoff
 
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 
We human beings are slow in learning God’s language. His language is that of silence, stillness, humility and love. He knows that He is the poet of heaven and earth, the Creator. His power of the word is great, and He knows our language like no human being can know human language. And so, in today’s gospel (Luke 5:1-11) we see how He does it with the miraculous catch of fish, speaking this language to the fishermen. 
Peter, a mature man, an experienced fisherman, understood that it was absolutely impossible for the nets to be filled. When that miracle happens, in awe and astonishment he falls down on his knees and he says, ‘Depart from me for I am a sinful man, O Lord”.
 
We see how quickly the seed of God’s word brings down an abundant harvest in the good soil. Peter’s reaction is one of contrition. He is filled with awe by the realisation of whose presence he was in. How often are people’s reactions and expectations to the things of God so inadequate. We often feel this sense of entitlement, so common in today’s culture, when people have been pampered by the good life. ‘I deserve it, I am entitled’. When we pray, we expect an immediate response to our prayer, immediate results, either some profound spiritual experience when we are praying or fulfillment of our wishes. This is expected from people who pray in a hurried and in a distracted way, usually often forgetting about the existence of God during the day completely, ‘But now God, can’t you see, that I’m seriously addressing you, I am talking to you, surely you should be happy that I’m doing this and I want you to immediately give me what I’m asking for’. This is the attitude. We cannot behave with God like a dissatisfied customer in a department store. There the customer is always right but here in spiritual life, the customer is always wrong!
 
Peter shows the proper attitude, unworthiness. ‘Get away from me Lord, I am a sinful man’. We live in a democratic culture, it is good when this culture focuses on respecting our fellow beings, but even then, liberal democracy is based on the eighteenth-century concept of enlightened selfishness and egotism. Much has been said has about the revolutionary slogans of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. This slogan is inspired by Christian values. Sadly, when the Christian content is leached from these principles expressed in these slogans, they become ghastly newspeak of Orwell’s 1984. Fraternity becomes familiarity which is another word for what the holy fathers called ‘audacity’. The reaction of a modern-day Peter in this situation, in the context of this miracle, would have been something like this “Thanks Jesus, you are a real pal”!
 
The gospel constantly calls us to attune ourselves to the melody of heaven. God himself in Christ is the absolute image of humility. However, His humility never comes as familiarity. His humility is majestic, and Christ sets the example.  He teaches us how to become a true example of God’s beauty, how to become truly noble in the context of heavenly and earthly things.

October 13, 2024
Fr Nicholas Karipoff
 
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 
The Lord’s Sermon on the Mount is His spiritual interpretation of the law, and in today’s passage from the sermon (Luke 6:31-36) we see that Christ points to a life that is only possible in grace. It is supernatural, it is beyond the possibilities of law. Nobody can love enemies simply by saying ‘The law says we have to love our enemies’. It is not going to work like that. We can only do it, as St Seraphim says, ‘From Christ, not from ourselves’.
The key to the passage that we just heard is in the last couple of sentences which explain that only if we have an intention and the commitment to attempt what Christ expects from us will we become Children of God. Children of God are born from above, they are born from water and the spirit as we hear from the Lord himself. They desire to enter the life in Christ, which means to follow the Lord and do what He does. It is important to know His crowning words, which explains what His teaching. These words are what He said from the cross: ‘Father forgive them’.  He prayed for forgiveness of His enemies, or rather those who thought He was their enemy, because He loved His enemies. 
 
At the same time, we can see that throughout the gospel Christ speaks out forcefully against evil, hypocrisy and sin. He does not say: ‘It will be alright’! This dichotomy is expressed beautifully by the holy fathers who transmit the essence of Christ’s teaching to us with their maxim to ‘hate the sin but love the sinner’. Now this is a great challenge for us. When someone hits us on the cheek, we typically react with anger, animosity, aggression, if not outright hatred against the culprit. We find it hard to delineate and to make the distinction between the sin and the sinner, (the person who we are told to love) and this is something that real Christians have always done with real such ease and even joy. They rejoiced in this.  But this is us, this is how we speak within ourselves ‘Oh so you don’t like me, huh, well then I don’t like you either!’ and ‘if I don’t like you, you are bad’!
 
Are we going to ever take notice of what the Lord says? Today he plainly calls us to be the Children of God, and we hear that God is kind to the unthankful and evil. We have got to be serious about that. The pagan and the godless word lives in a constant never-ending story of limitless vengeance; even the law of Moses has said ‘An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’, although this law calls for a limitation of vengeance, for more balance. Many people think that if they limit their vengeance, they are, at least to some extent, acting in a Christian way. Wrong! That is the Old Testament law. Moreover, is it easy to quantify what is just when obviously I am much more important than the other person! How do I quantify the limit of my vengeance if he has slapped me on the face? I feel offended.
 
It is so sad to see when Christians do not make any attempt to take Christ’s words seriously. It is even more sad when we seem to agree with His words wholeheartedly, but we apply it only to the other people, ‘it doesn’t apply to me, it’s the other person’, failing to see that each one of us holds the key to forgiveness, peace and love. 

​

​October 14, 2024          
By Fr Nicholas Karipoff
 
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 
Today’s feast of Holy Protection of the Mother of God is based on an inspirational story. St Andrew, a fool for Christ (he is represented in the lower right-hand corner of the icon), had a vision with his disciple Epiphanius, on this day in October 911AD during an all-night vigil in the church of the Mother of God at Laharna in Constantinople. The city was in the middle of being besieged at 4am when they saw the Mother of God coming over the top of the congregation in the tall church with a large retinue of apostles and many other saints following her. She stopped over the sanctuary, she knelt, and she prayed with great intensity and then, facing the congregation, she took the large veil off her head, and she held it over her outstretched hands, covering and protecting all the people.  The congregation, though, did not see this happening.  Only St Andrew and his disciple Epiphanius saw it. 
 
This is such a powerful image between the connection of the church in heaven and the struggling church here on earth. The heavenly church is symbolised by the Queen of Heaven and she and the whole heavenly brotherhood and sisterhood of Christ are always ready to come to our aid. The prayer of the packed church was pleasing to God and for that reason God gave this vision to St Andrew and Epiphanius.  It is an edifying story for us to learn that we also must be diligent in our prayer. We Christians in the new world, in the affluent West, have had it too good for too long, as I have said quite a few times in the past. This environment is not conducive to prayer, and this is how we have been robbed,  Brothers and Sisters. We have the idea: ‘Why should I pray and how can I pray when everything is so good…. life is a constant ball’! We are selling our spiritual birth right for a pottage of lentils just the same way as Esau, the older twin brother of Jacob, sold his birthright for a pottage of lentils. Esau had no care at all for his birthright.
 
There is a Russian saying, ‘Until the thunder claps the peasant won’t cross himself’!  In these last three decades the global thunderstorm has been intensifying with louder and louder thunderclaps and they are getting closer and closer to us. This should be helping us to think about prayer. Sometimes I hear despondent voices, even from church people, saying, ‘Oh what is the use, nothing changes anyway’. It is awful to think like that. It is not true because we have so many historical examples of God’s protection and mercy through the prayers of the Queen of Heaven, together with the angels and the saints. This can be found not only in the bible and in the Christian chronicles of the past, such as the story of today’s feast, but also in the lives of individuals and communities. 
I suggest you read our “Pokrov Chronical” that has just been published a couple of weeks ago and you will see and feel that the hand of God has been leading our parish over the last 75 years.  It has really happened, Brothers and Sisters, and is not a figment of our imagination!  
 
St Andrew the fool for Christ and Epiphanius saw the Mother of God take her large veil off her head and in the story we hear that it was like purple, and flashing and flickering like lightning flashes. Let this picture of intense energy, of the prayer of our Heavenly Mother, be an inspiration to us, at least when the thunder claps let our prayer come up from the earth, like lightening connecting heaven and earth. That is what prayer should be like.

​October 20
By Archbishop Gabriel of Canada
 
I greet everyone today with the Lord’s day, and the Feast of the Protection of the Mother of God, and with the 75th anniversary of this parish in Melbourne, dedicated to the Protection of the Mother of God.  Yesterday I became acquainted with the book of the parish’s history; it is a wonderful, beautiful book and gives a very good and thorough examination of the parish.  We know from the parish’s history that Russians and Slavs came to this country well before the Second World War.  Russians, Ukrainians and Byelorussians were coming to the Syrian church in Melbourne in the 1930s and 1940s until it became quite evident that the Slavs needed a church of their own.  They began, from 1949, to lease different buildings from the Anglicans.  But they understood that this was only temporary, and a church would need to be purchased or built where they could have their own services and not have to pack up each week.  In those days they would have to erect a make-shift iconostasis for each service and then take it down at the end. The church in Collingwood was bought in 1954 and services were conducted there for many years.  Finally, this beautiful church came into existence around 20 years ago.  It is beautiful inside and out and can safely be called a landmark of this city, and also of the whole Russian diaspora here.
 
All those forefathers who came to Australia understood the importance and need of having one’s own church to provide for future generations. This is indeed the case in many of our cities.  Just a month ago I was in the city of Washington DC, at the parish of St John the Baptist which was also founded in 1949 by our hierarch St John Maximovitch. We have a convent in New York which has the largest Russian Orthodox cemetery in the whole US which also is celebrating its 75th anniversary.  Next week, God willing, I will be back in Toronto where we have the largest parish in Canada and possibly in all the whole of the church abroad. Every Sunday there are 300 to 400 parishioners that come to church.  It should be noted that most of these parishioners are newcomers from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.  Not many of the old-timers are left.  The new emigres are now filling our churches.  That church in Toronto will also be celebrating its 75th anniversary. Throughout all the diaspora we can see the need for providing for new generations. 
 
We are blessed to see that this church has so many children.  We know if there are children then there is a future for the church.  
​May God bless you on this wonderful day. 

​October 27
By Fr Nicholas Karipoff
 
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 
Today’s parable of the Sower has connection with the story of the fall. Adam and Eve were expelled from paradise because they did not repent. God addressed them individually and spoke to them about the life that they would lead outside of paradise.
To Adam who represents the whole of humanity, the Lord God said, ‘In the sweat of your brow shall you eat your bread’. God spoke about the weeds that would compete with the good seed and the hard work needed to control them. The ascetics point out that this Genesis story speaks about the need to struggle internally with the passions that are represented by the weeds. 
 
The parable of the Sower is a more detailed look at the necessary work that each one of us must do. We have inherited not just a generalised sinfulness from our forefathers, but also certain specific genetic predispositions, our upbringing and the models that our parents have given us. In other words, we are talking about nature and nurture. The parable seems to imply static conditions describing various people as some sort of predestination that we hear from the Protestant world, where some people are like this, others are like that. But this is not the case. No, the entire Bible and especially the New Testament speak of the great gift of free will which presupposes responsibility to work, just like God told Adam. 
 
Each of the described conditions of the soil – and soil is a reference to our heart - except for the good soil, speak of the need to work. The good soil comes very rarely from the beginning, from our early years. It must be made into good soil, into receptive soil. The compacted ground of the roadway cannot enable the seed to hide and to germinate, it is destroyed by the birds which represent demons. How do they take away the seed? They turn our attention away from God.  How does this happen in modern life? How about the traffic of these foreign ideas and images that we are being bombarded with? All sorts of electronic media, there is too much watching, too much listening, too much responding to all sorts of stimuli and messages, superficial ones, rubbish. It turns our hearts into that compacted roadway, it cannot receive the seed because the seed of God’s word is gentle, and it is annihilated by these birds.
 
The rocky soil is the next stage. That is more treacherous than the roadway because it seems like the seed has begun to grow and then it withers away because there is hardness of rock underneath. The layer of soil is shallow, it stops the seed from growing further. The rocky soil is the person who understands that some effort must be made, to turn that compacted roadway into something more receptive, but alas their effort is not enough. This is the person who easily gets turned off, who stops when it seems to him that it is too hard, and puts it in the ‘too hard’ basket. 
As the holy fathers interpret this story, the weeds are the passions, our desires that compete with the divine messages, by entering our consciousness and into our conscience. Our conscience is overwhelmed by these goliaths; the weeds are strong and big. 
 
So where do we begin? How do we begin to work towards making the soil of the heart receptive to God’s seeding? The beginning is limitation of these external stimuli, visual, verbal, and mental. These are the things that are making our heart unreceptive and turning it into a roadway. Without these external stimuli, we can create a path for God’s word. Then the work continues with the fight against our own sinful thoughts, desires, words and actions. That is the path of liberation, the path of salvation through the Sower,  our Lord Jesus Christ.