Sermons from Great Lent 2026

​Sunday February 22, 2026. Forgiveness Sunday 
At the Last Judgement, as we heard last week, Christ God will tell us that whatever we have done or have omitted to do for our neighbour, we have done to Him. If we forgive others, our Heavenly Father will also forgive us. The Lord tells us this immediately after having given the Apostles the prayer “Our Father”, in today’s gospel reading, Matt 6:14 – 21.  One of the petitions in the Lord’s Prayer is to:  forgive us our debts (trespasses in the older English version) as we forgive our debtors. The Lord does this to show how important it is to forgive. He chooses this part of the prayer to comment on it. The Gospel teaching of Christ is about love; the whole gospel is about love. Forgiveness as an expression of love is central in Christian life. When the Lord Jesus Christ was already nailed to the cross, He prayed: Father, forgive them for they do not know what they do. When someone hurts us, and it is hard to forgive that person, we should recall that image of crucified love, Christ on the cross. Christ wants us to forgive, and He gives such a powerful image within Himself of forgiveness. 
It is easy to think that is someone hurt me, I might be able to forgive them, but if they hurt someone I love, I could never forgive them.  Yet we have many examples of saints who have done just that; the apostles loved their Teacher but they still turned to His enemies afterwards with love.  St Elizabeth, the Grand Duchess, saw her husband murdered by a terrorist in 1905.  How did she react?  She went to prison to express her forgiveness for him. She forgave the murderer of her loved one. 
When there is no forgiveness, life begins to fall apart. I can tell you that in my decades of pastoral life I have seen how this happens. This is seen in marriages, in families, in small communities, in the general society at large. The Old Testament law introduced the law of limitation of vengeance, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth - not both eyes for one eye, and not ten teeth for one tooth. That law speaks of fairness, balance and justice. But the culture of the gospel, as we heard today, teaches us to seek heavenly treasures, not earthly justice. St Isaac the Syrian tells us to not call God “just” because when we were His enemies, He sent His only begotten Son to die for us.  What kind of a justice is that? Forgiveness sees beyond justice. Forget about justice if you are a Christian! Forgiveness enables us to see the Lord in our neighbour. Our salvation is in our neighbour.
 
Sunday March 2, 2026. Sunday of Orthodoxy 
By Fr Nicholas Karipoff
In 842AD, after two long periods beginning in 726AD when iconoclasts removed icons from churches, it was decided that the Rite of Orthodoxy should be served on the first Sunday of Great Lent every year. This rite was composed by the then Patriarch of Constantinople, Methodius, and in the Synaxarion of the service for today it explains that this ought to be done lest we fall into this blasphemy again.
The Sunday of Orthodoxy is not just a celebration of the icon and restoration of its proper theology in the culture of Eastern Orthodoxy; it sums up a long period of theological work which is known as the period of Great Councils – the Seven ecumenical Councils- from 325AD until 787. The seven councils defended the faith of the church, and they expressed or formulated this faith in a number of statements.
Let us return to the topic of icons.  What is an icon? Why is it so important? And why is it that our brothers, the protestant Christians of the West, are wrong in saying that icons are idols, and images are forbidden in the bible? 
What is an icon? It is an expression of the apostolic faith that Jesus Christ is truly God and truly man from the beginning of church life. This was held up as fundamental faith of the church. The invisible became visible and tangible. People saw Him, they touched Him, they heard Him. This is expressed in a powerful way in the gospel of John, chapter 1: and the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us, and we beheld his glory as the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, truly God and truly man. The visible God became depictable. He was not visible in the Old Testament, that is why you could not have images of Him earlier.
The Council of 787 in Constantinople said that the veneration addressed to the image is transferred to the origin. There is also an important distinction between the words “worship” and “venerate” because we worship God only and we venerate - we show deep reverence and respect to - an icon of Christ.  That veneration is addressed not to the piece of board, or painting but to the person. He who has seen Me has seen the Father, says Christ to Phillip at the Mystical Supper. In other words, the visible and tangible Christ in His humanity is an image of the invisible transcendental unknowable Father. The icon of Christ is an image of the Image of the Father. It speaks about the tangible reality of the incarnation, that God is with us, as we hear from the prophet.  Emmanuel means, God with us. He is not somewhere far away; He is with us. 
What about icons of saints? Christ says to the Father before He crosses the Kidron stream: The glory You gave Me, I gave them. He is speaking of the apostles. He is speaking of all the saints of the church. The saints are connected; they are the glory of the Church. They show the reality of the body of the church, The Body of Christ. They are connected to Him, so much that we cannot even fathom it. Remember the story about Elder Paisios?  When a man asked him to pray on his behalf, the elder started saying Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me! The man, astonished, replied:  I asked you to pray for me, you are praying for yourself! Elder Paisios told him: You are me. That is the mystery of the church. Christ has come to reconnect humanity, to put back Humpty Dumpty back together again!
The icon is not an idol, because we worship God only. Moses prayed before the Ark of the Covenant in the tabernacle which became a focus of prayer, of his conversation with and connection with God. The icon is often compared to the Ark of the Covenant. 
The Ark itself had images of cherubs on top of the lid, and there were two huge cherubim, inside the sanctuary just in front of the great screen, the curtain which separated the sanctuary and the holy of holies in the temple. There were images even in the time of Moses. 
We are in Lent now and the Bible and Church recognise that human beings are not just spiritual beings. The spirit is the most important part of us, but we are also bodily beings, and the body is called to a transformation to the worship of God together with the soul and the spirit that is why we have so much bodily prayer. If the Word became flesh, if God is physically with us from His birth in Bethlehem, then we cannot separate the two realms the physical of spiritual. That is the error and the problem that people fall into; they separate the two. The idea that I come to church on Sunday and connect with the spiritual realm but otherwise, I live my own life, my bodily life is wrong! The spirit as well as the body and soul  must participate in family life, in working life, in all aspects of our life, and so in Lent we make a conscious effort to let God into every aspect of our life and to transform it. He loves us, warts and all! 
 
Sunday March 8, 2026. Second Sunday of Lent 
By Fr Nicholas Karipoff
A week ago, we celebrated the Sunday of Orthodoxy, a triumph of the Orthodox faith. Today the church celebrates Orthodoxy again, this time Orthodoxy in life. The theology of the icon, as I explained last week, says God is with us. Orthodox theology tells us that grace is not a gift separate from God; grace is God himself: God is with us.  St Paul writes, in his first letter to the Thessalonians (chap 5), Do not quench the spirit. Nineteen centuries later, St Seraphim speaks about the goal of Christian life which is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit. A candle serves its purpose when it is lit. The Holy Spirit lit up human candles at Pentecost, and they went out into the world and lit many, many thousands of other candles. They went into the world to spread that fire of which Christ said, I came to send fire on the earth, (Luke12:49-53).
Once a decade I retell a powerful story that is appropriate today. There was a very successful pastor, in the Russian far east, in eastern Siberia, who worked among convicts and criminals.  Sometimes he would encounter Yakuts who were interested in Christianity. One time he came across a very unusual man, who was a Buddhist lama. There are Mongolian Buddhists lamas there, but this man had a European education. He was very well versed in Christianity. They had the most amazing conversation that lasted a whole night and at the end of this conversation the Russian priest said, Brother, you know so much about Christianity, why haven’t you become a Christian yet? And then the Buddhist lama looked sad and he said, “Brother, if the whole world became Buddhists everyone would sleep soundly because everyone would know that everybody else is an honest person, so there would be nothing to worry about. But if the whole world became Christian, NOBODY would sleep, because everybody would be up praising the Lord”. He then continued, “Unfortunately, we pagans don’t see much of this among you Christians, and so this is why we are still pagans.” The priest said, “I had never felt so deflated in my whole life!” That is something for us to think about!
The gospel story that we heard this morning (John 10:9-16) about the paralysed man brought in by his four faithful friends, speaks of the two different conditions that we human beings can experience; either we sleep, or we are full of life, the life of God. This is what the lama was referring to. The Pharisees could not comprehend the reality of repentance and forgiveness, as seen by their words: He is blaspheming. Repentance and forgiveness from God open the heart to receive the grace of God and the Holy Spirit, Who lights up our life.  As St Gregory of Nyssa said: When iron is cold, it is dark, but when it absorbs the energy of the fire, it starts to glow and it even shines. This is what happens when our human spirit is heated and energised by the Holy Spirit. 
Lent is the spiritual springtime of the year even though we are in Autumn in the Southern Hemisphere. It is our annual course in Christian life, but it is for diligent students. If you are not a diligent student, you will not get anything out of Lent. It is a time when we learn that a Christian is saved not through the letter of the Law and not even through the letter of the Holy Scriptures, but by becoming partakers of divine life. Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand, said the Forerunner and Baptist John. The words were repeated by our Lord, when He began His ministry. The Kingdom of God is the Holy Spirit, the Church, the whole world of God. Everything we do in Christian life has one purpose only, and that is to bring us to repentance and humility before God. This enables us to be lit up with the energies of God which are God Himself, not something separate from Him. We are energised by God Himself, and this is the teaching of today’s saint, St Gregory Palamas, the great fourteenth century theologian, to whom the second Sunday of Great lent is dedicated.
 
Sunday March 15, 2026. Veneration of the Holy Cross 
By Fr Nicholas Karipoff
Whoever desires to come after Me let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. Anyone who sees Christianity through rose coloured glasses should have a good think about the meaning of these words, which we have just heard (Mark 8:34 – 9:1).  These words were spoken in response to Apostle Peter’s plea to Christ to avoid the cross.  These words are very significant. Christ intends for His followers to think about the path of salvation which is the path of the cross. The church has also taken these words very seriously, and this is why we spend six weeks preparing for the Pascha of the Cross and Resurrection at the end of our Lenten journey. Moreover, the Holy Fathers see Lent as an image of our whole life’s journey in the same way that the Israelites journeyed for forty years in the wilderness until they came to the Promised land. 
The accent on self-denial and carrying one’s personal cross has always distinguished the Orthodox church from those people who seek a pleasant and comfortable Christianity; there are plenty of those! This is not because Orthodoxy is gloomy and morose. On the contrary, Orthodoxy is much more about the joy of the Resurrection than it is about the pain of the cross. No pain no gain - this is a very Christian saying!
The path to joy is through the pain of self-denial and the cross. To deny oneself is to deny the selfish life of constantly acquiring and consuming everything, things and people, for we sinful human beings consume people as well. To deny oneself is to turn the focus away from our ego to focus on Christ but in the process, we truly discover ourselves. We do not stop living by denying ourselves. We begin to live a different life, a life according to the image of the Holy Trinity.  This is the life of the church, the Christian life.  To deny oneself is to greet God and our neighbour with open arms, with a loving embrace. Life is not about alienation, not about hiding in the corner and secretly eating, consuming everything. It is about sharing and about communion, joining in, with people. 
In the gospel reading today, the third Sunday of Lent, Christ spoke about those who will see the glory of the kingdom before they die. He was referring to what would happen six days later when he took three of his disciples up onto Mount Tabor This was straight after his words about the cross because from this mountain, we can see Calvary. This third week of Great Lent is like Mt Tabor, because we can see the “mountain” of the Cross from here. Good Friday is our contemplation, not only of the Lord’s cross but of our cross.  What is our cross? What does it consist of? It might be illness, it might be a difficult person to bear in a close relationship of some kind, say a marriage, or a friend or a member of the family. Dealing with a hardship like this is where our humility comes from.  The holy fathers say: you want to learn about humility? God is going to send you a difficult person to bear! Of course there are plenty of other hardships in life. If life were easy, it would be meaningless and superficial. Yes, there is pain, life is painful. The acceptance of the cross makes this pain much more bearable when we accept our cross, we accept whatever comes our way. We come out of hell together with the Good thief. His life was hell, but he accepted the cross. But the other robber on the left-hand side of Christ, stayed in that hell. When we accept that cross, we come out of our hell and we rejoice because we are then with our Saviour.  We recognise Him when we see His loving face turn to us. Then we begin to understand that with Him there is nothing to fear. Life becomes meaningful, we rejoice in His resurrection and in our participation in it. 
That is where we are at the moment, the third Sunday of Lent. 
 
Sunday March 22, 2026. Fourth Sunday of Great Lent Matt 4:25 – 5:12
By Fr Nicholas Karipoff
At the top of Mt Tabor is the uncreated light of God in Christ, which we heard about in last week’s gospel reading.  From the top of the mountain we also hear about the cross that leads to the resurrection, the ultimate transfiguration. Today we come down from the mountain with the Lord and his three disciples, Peter, James and John. At the bottom of the mountain we see confusion, the power of the demons and people’s weak faith. The church selects St John of the Ladder for us today as an example of a teacher who explains the Lord’s words about prayer and fasting. The book, “The Ladder of Divine Ascent” shows us how to get to the top of the mountain, how to acquire the faith that can move mountains! I will read you a small excerpt from this book, in Step Eight, about freedom from anger, and meekness:
 “Freedom from anger is an endless wish for dishonour whereas vainglory is limitless thirst for praise. Freedom from anger is a triumph over one’s nature. It is the ability to be impervious to insults” … How about that, not affected by insults!... “And comes by hard work and the sweat of one’s brow. Meekness is a permanent condition of the soul that remains unaffected regardless of whether it is spoken well of, honoured or praised. The first step towards freedom from anger is to keep the lips silent when the heart is stirred.  The next is to keep thoughts silent when the soul is upset.  The last to be totally calm when unclean winds are blowing. Anger is an indication of a concealed hatred of grievance nursed.  Anger is a wish to harm someone who has provoked you. Irritability is an untimely flaring up of the heart. Bitterness is a stirring of the soul’s capacity for displeasure.  Anger is an easily changed movement of one’s disposition, a disfigurement of the soul. Just as darkness retreats before light, so all anger and bitterness disappear before the fragrance of humility”. 
Anger is just one of the eight passions. We can grow out of these passions only through prayer and fasting because the demons control us through these passions, like puppet strings. That means we are freed by a synergy of God’s grace and our efforts. The Ladder of Divine Ascent talks of thirty steps according to the full maturity of Christ, the Son of Man, as He comes at the age of 30 to the river Jordan to be baptised and to begin His ministry. Before that He was in obedience at home to His ostensible father and mother. In our immaturity we try to justify our failings.  Here is one example of how we deal with our failings in anger: We say, yes, I have a short fuse and flare up quickly, but I also calm down quickly, so I don’t have much of a problem.  But in fact, we are not getting anywhere, we have no maturity. To grow to maturity is to take the cross of responsibility for our life, walking up the mountain, not to justify ourselves or to shift blame onto others. We do this all the time, from the time of Adam who said it was not his fault, it was her fault!  That is immaturity. 
Part of prayer and fasting is to hear the word of God as He speaks to us collectively and individually in concrete terms from the Scriptures. Christ God also instructs us in faith and life through the writings of the Fathers, such as St John of the Ladder. We cannot hope to reach any measure of maturity without making those efforts. Nowadays it is so easy to get hold of books to read.  So much is available free on the internet. We have a library here at church. What excuse do we have to remain seventeen-year-olds in our older age? None! But that is what happens all the time. Christ told us to be childlike; he did not say ‘be infantile’! 

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