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This upcoming Sunday is the Sunday of Joseph the Arimathea and the Myrrh-Bearing Woman. Although the story of the women finding Jesus’s tomb empty is told by several of the evangelists, I want to narrow in on John’s telling of

There’s an old saying: knowledge is power.  Many of us live by this proverb. We go to college—or send our children to college—so that we can acquire the knowledge we need to get good jobs and live happy lives. While

In anticipation of Passover (Πάσχα) this Sunday, when we will celebrate the rising of the Anointed One from dead, here is the Passover homily read at every Orthodox Church around the world in the early hours of the morning. Blessed

As you all know, the first services of Holy Week (after Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday) are the Bridegroom Orthros services, which we celebrate in the evenings.  But wait a minute, you’re probably saying, isn’t Orthros (a.k.a., Matins) a morning service?

As we read the concluding words of Jame’s letter, we hear about sickness and healing, confession of sins, the prayers of the righteous, and bringing people back to the Way. But how should we understand all this?  Is anointing related

I think most of you know that my presvytera was born in a suburb of Minneapolis and that she lived there for a number of years during her childhood. In addition, I spent my undergraduate years at the University of

Life isn’t fair. We all know it—we can see the unfairness around us. But, why is it that some people are born with a silver spoon in their mouth while others are born into abject poverty? And, why is it

Translations are good in that they help us read something we wouldn’t otherwise have access to. But, unfortunately, they can sometimes be misleading. Previously, we talked about how translators can impose their will on the text by what words they

Each week during Lent, as you know, I’ve been writing about the rich depth of our Orthodox spirituality. A few weeks ago, I talked about how fasting opens us up to others (click here), and, last week, I spoke about how

One of the tricks to hearing and understanding scripture is to be able to hear it as a unified whole. In other words, it helps to have a macro understanding of what’s going on.

 When we understand scripture in this