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“What pleasure in this life remains unmixed with sorrow? What glory stands unchanged on earth? All are more feeble than a shadow, all more deceptive than dreams. But a moment and death supplants them all.” Saint John of Damascus (Funeral Idiomela – Tone 1) Sometimes referred to as “streaming with gold,” Saint John of Damascus (or John Damascene, St. Damaskinos) achieved such heights of honor, respect and love in the Church not only through his writings but chiefly by the seeds of virtue which he cultivated in prayer. It was his father who implanted those seeds; under the yoke of Islam in Damascus, he sought to educate his son in Christian virtue rather than “worldly learning,” and piously prayed that God would bless John with a sagacious teacher in Godly virtues. By God’s Grace, John’s father came upon a captive monk set to be killed, Elder Cosmas, whose humility and virtue oozed like honey. Being the chief counselor of the caliph, he implored for the release of the holy monk, which he obliged, and elder Cosmas was freed to instruct John and his brother Cosmas in virtue and knowledge. Elder Cosmas being a man of humility and discernment, reared the brothers in such a way that they became erudite but not prideful. John, especially, found great fruit in his studies with elder Cosmas and in addition to his studies of the Created (arithmetic, philosophy, grammar), he excelled in his study of the Divine!  Following the repose of his father, John was called upon by force to become the successor to his father as chief counselor to the caliph. Contemporaneously, the Isaurian Dynasty reigned in Byzantium bringing with it Emperor Leo’s reformist zeal and nearly a century of imposed Iconoclasm. Learning what was occurring in eastern Christendom, John surged with zeal and began writing and disseminating epistles against the iconoclastic heresy, defending the holy images and icons citing the Tradition of the Holy Fathers. Hearing of this, Leo forged a letter from John which implored Leo to send his army to liberate Damascus from the Muslims and forwarded it to the caliph. Receiving the forgery, the caliph demanded John’s right hand be amputated and hung in the market as retribution for this alleged betrayal. Divinely-inspired, John pleads the caliph to return his right hand, which he agrees to. That night, he prayed fervently before his icon of the most-holy Theotokos asking her to hasten and heal his hand. Our most-holy Mother does not abandon those who contritely implore her aid and when John awoke he found his hand miraculously reattached! Seeing this, the caliph begged John’s forgiveness and asked him to return to his position within the caliphate, however, John successfully beseeches the caliph to release him from duty so that he may embrace the hesychastic life. In his monastic struggle at Saint Sava’s Monastery near Jerusalem, he continued to excel in virtue, cultivating obedience and patience. Having strived zealously in the Faith and proving himself as an obedient monastic, the Mother of God once again interceded for our Holy Father, John, appearing in a vision to his elder, saying: “Do not hinder the flow of this spring that will water the whole world, drowning heresies and their bitterness! Let the thirsty hasten to this water, and let those who do not possess the pure silver of an unsullied life sell their passions and gain it by emulating John, a man radiant with purity and good deeds, and most learned in the dogmas of the Church.” Recognizing his holy obedience, the Mother of God intercedes for her son and blesses him to freely write while wholly in obedience! Saint John began composing many of the beautiful hymns we enjoy today and wrote zealously in defense of the True Faith. His Mode of Writing Before diving into the theological elements of his writings, it may be worthwhile to understand the context in which Saint John’s mode of writing was established. Philosophical thought was not foreign to the Holy Fathers of True Orthodoxy, for example, Saint Athanasius, while initially reluctant about using the philosophical terminology “homoousios,” accepts it, understanding the importance of making connections with Greek philosophy. It was this theological and philosophical foundation upon which Saint John forms his writing. Prefacing his great treatise “The Fount of Knowledge: An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith,” Saint John shows great humility and faith in the Patristic Tradition, saying, “I shall add nothing of my own, but shall gather together into one those things which have been worked out by the most eminent of teachers.” Not only did John utilize the Tradition of the Fathers, he effortlessly articulated the theological positions of the Church with a brevity which escaped those early theologians. The context of iconoclasm allowed John to deliver similar or identical arguments to the Fathers regarding Tradition, however, with a means for the reader to understand the practical implications. It was the virtue of discernment, which Saint John cultivated in Grace and prayer, that allows him to demonstrate not only a reading, but a firm understanding of the Theology expressed patristically. Utilizing this great discerning spirit, Saint John of Damascus offers the Church a repository of grace-filled systematic theological writings by which She will combat heresy for the next millennium and beyond.  Against Dualism While neoplatonic thought was not alien to the theological expression of the Fathers, it was often the source and…

In his Georgics, Vergil’s laments for the inevitability of the passing of time: “Time flees, unable to be restored.” How poignant this quote seems to us; life hurtles by in a flash, blink once and a week passes, blink again and it is a new school year. Our life seems to move in a steady line forward, from the moment we are born to the moment we die. The human preoccupation with the passage of time and its inevitable ending in death leads, for example, to the anthropomorphic figure of father time, who, with his hourglass and scythe, reminds of what the passage of time brings. Artificial Immortality Time, and its inevitable outcome, is an object of fascination and horror to our society. While we abhor the idea of dying, we still seem fascinated by it, picking at this idea that horrifies us like at a scab. Now, with the advent of Artificial Intelligence, it has even become possible to create a type of digital immortality. In a fascinating article, Engadget writer James Trew discusses the current abilities of Artificial Intelligence and their application in grieving: “For just $10,000 dollars and a few hours in a studio, you can create an avatar of yourself that your family can visit (an additional cost) at an offsite facility.” This service is still limited, only able to replicate the deceased person in a superficial way: “By all accounts, the pre-trained chatbots provide convincing answers in their owners’ voices — until the illusion is unceremoniously broken when it robotically responds ‘Sorry, I didn’t understand that. You can try asking another way, or move onto another topic’ to any query it doesn’t have an answer for.” Nevertheless, as this type of technology is in its infancy, the ability for family members to ignore their own mortality by using Artificial Intelligence to create an artificial immortality is only likely to improve. The Church of the Resurrection It is, perhaps, a natural thing for humans to long for immortality, to abhor the end of their lives; this longing is by no means a modern attitude. St. Gregory of Nyssa witnesses to this when he says, in his treatise On the Soul and Resurrection: “There is such an instinctive and deep-seated abhorrence of death in all! Those who look on a death-bed can hardly bear the sight; and those whom death approaches recoil from him all they can. Why, even the law that controls us puts death highest on the list of crimes, and highest on the list of punishments.” In this treatise, he is reprimanded by his sister for his undue mourning for his brother, St. Basil the Great. He exclaims: “By what device, then, can we bring ourselves to regard as nothing a departure from life even in the case of a stranger, not to mention that of relations…” As if directly answering this question, Patriarch John X said, in an address to the Antiochian Archdiocese Convention in July of 2023: “…in the midst of all these present difficulties, we still endeavor to show the world that Orthodoxy is the church of beauty and joy, the Church of the Resurrection and victory over death.” The Orthodox Church is the Church of the Resurrection; in living the Resurrection we leave time behind and participate in eternity. We do this in particular by our participation in the Divine Liturgy. It is for this reason that we celebrate the Divine Liturgy primarily on the Lord’s Day, on Sunday, as this is the Day of Resurrection. Not only is this the “first day of the week,” it is also the eighth day of the old week, and so transcends the limits of time, an eschatological day. It is no coincidence that St. John received the vision of the Revelation while he was “in the spirit on the Lord’s Day” (Revelation 1:10). St. John is “in the spirit,” i.e. he is worshipping, he is participating in the Divine Liturgy, and so receives a revelation of eternal things while in eternity. In the Anaphora of the Divine Liturgy, after all, the priest remembers “all that has been done for our sake: the Cross, the tomb, the Resurrection on the third day, the Ascension into heaven, the enthronement at the right hand, and the second and glorious coming again.” In the Resurrection, there is no distinction between what would seem to us to have taken place already and that which has not taken place yet, since we are outside of time. So, we understand eschatology in a sense as “already, but not yet;” we live in the eternity of the kingdom now, the fulfillment of which will be in the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The angels are the most perfect spirits, currently superior to man in their mental and spiritual powers, the angels worship God before the Holy Altar and through their ministry to God’s highest creation— mankind.   Elder Iakovos of Evia recalled one Liturgy saying, “I suddenly felt someone pushing me by my shoulder and guiding me. I thought it was the chanter. I turned around and saw a huge wing that the archangel had laid on my shoulder, and that he was guiding me to make the Great Entrance. What amazing things take place in the altar during the Divine Liturgy! Sometimes I can’t handle it, and so I pass-out in a chair, and so some conclude that I’ve got something wrong with my health, but they don’t realize what I see and hear.” If we open the eyes of our soul, we will see that truly the entirety of the angelic orders is present among us at the Divine Liturgy. The Divine Liturgy remembers the whole mystery of the incarnation of Christ, from His divine birth to His ascension to the throne at the right hand of the Father. All these things are represented in material and visible signs through the Divine Liturgy.  For example, the Holy Bread represents the Virgin Mary who, like the bread, was brought to the temple of the Lord by her parents. Imitating Zachariah, the priest takes it and places it in the “Holy of Holies,” representing the years which the Virgin spent in the temple. All throughout our divine services, the mystical/scriptural foundation of our Church is exposed, the fullness of our Theology is preached!  Ultimately, during the Divine Liturgy, we are being held by God in an all-embracing hug of true Love. Mystically, the Love of the Holy Trinity, the same Love that was poured out for man as blood on the Holy Cross, is expressed to all of creation. Saint Basil the Great says, “through marvelous deeds and prophetical words God prepared man to participate once again in His Love and True Life.”  This true love of God to mankind is expressed in every Holy Sacrament in the Orthodox Church. Through the Holy Sacrament of the Divine Eucharist, Christ offers to mankind His precious Body and Blood so that man can become not only of one mind, but also one body with his Savior. No longer are there any obstacles between Christ and man. St. Symeon the New Theologian teaches us that we become parts of the Body of Christ and Christ becomes part of our bodies. When the Holy Spirit descends upon the Holy Gifts, the Holy Spirit sanctifies and renews all Creation and all mankind, and so man becomes son of God by adoption. In the celebration of the Holy Eucharist we relive the Resurrec­tion of our Lord. The world once again receives God’s blessing as a new Eden, a new paradise. 

It seems like every Paschal season, Orthodox Christians are faced with some attack on the faith, these have been varied in nature, but some gems that stick out are, for example, the popularization in 2007 of the so-called “family tomb” of Jesus. This was a tomb containing several ossuaries that purported to belong to Jesus, and various members of his family.   In recent decades, although the idea itself can be traced back to the folklorists and antiquarians of the nineteenth century, it has become more and more popular to attack the idea that Christ, as God, rose from the dead on Pascha, but the very idea that this is a uniquely Christian festival.   Eoster and Ostara Through a variety of misunderstandings, and a great deal of ignorance, various groups, both neo-pagan groups as well as Protestants reacting to what they perceive as Roman Catholic error (an interesting, if rather slapdash article entitled Paganism and Easter published in 2009 is an example of this) have claimed that the celebration of Pascha is actually a pagan festival that was adopted by Christians.  Much of the misunderstanding comes from the name we use for the celebration of the Resurrection in English, Easter. The blog ancient-origins makes a startling claim about the potential origins for the celebration of Easter:  “Easter was originally a celebration of Eostre, goddess of Spring, otherwise known as Ostara, Austra, and Eastre. One of the most revered aspects of Ostara for both ancient and modern observers is a spirit of renewal. Celebrated at Spring Equinox on March 21, Ostara marks the day when light is equal to darkness and will continue to grow. As the bringer of light after a long dark winter, the goddess was often depicted with the hare, an animal that represents the arrival of spring as well as the fertility of the season.”  The Venerable Bede, a seventh century theologian and scholar gives us one of the only testimonies about this goddess in all Anglo-Saxon literature. Her name, Eoster, and the High German version of her name “Ostara,” which was postulated by the linguist Jacob Grimm. The name of this goddess is related to the Greek goddess Eos, and the Roman goddess Aurora, related to the word for east, this is then, a goddess of the rising sun, he says: “Ostara, Eástre seems therefore to have been the divinity of the radiant dawn, of upspringing light, a spectacle that brings joy and blessing, whose meaning could be easily adapted by the resurrection-day of the Christian’s God.”  The existence of this Eoster/Ostara goddess and the utilization of her name for the Christian feast day of Christ’s Resurreciton, has led to the creation of some puzzling postulated origins of Easter customs. Adolf Holtzmann, a late nineteenth century scholar, for example, postulated that the rabbit or hare must have been a sacred animal associated with Eoster (Holtzmann Deutsche Mythologie). The Easter bunny, however, is not an ancient custom, but is first recorded in the seventeenth century Germany. In looking at what the Venerable Bede says about Eoster, we see that there is no actual connection between the two festivals: Eostur-monath, qui nunc Paschalis mensis interpretatur, quondam a Dea illorum quæ Eostre vocabatur, et cui in illo festa celebrabant nomen habuit: a cujus nomine nunc Paschale tempus cognominant, consueto antiquæ observationis vocabulo gaudia novæ solemnitatis vocantes. (Venerable Bede De Mensibus Anglorum 15) Eoster month, which we now understand to be the Paschal month, was formerly called so after a goddess of theirs Eoster, and for whom in that month a festival was celebrated, from which that month takes its name. That same name is now given to the time of Pascha, calling the joy of the new celebration with the accustomed name of the ancient observation. The Christians did not appropriate the holiday of another religion and pass it off as their own, in the hopes of making Christianity more palatable for pagans, or something of that nature. Rather, the Christian celebration falls generally in a month that bears the name of a pagan festival. This name is later adopted for the Christian festival, that is the only connection. Easter or Ishtar?  Some have postulated that, rather than being connected to the Germanic goddess Eoster/Ostara, there is a connection to be made between the Christian festival and the worship of the Sumerian/Babylonian goddess Inanna/Ishtar. This connection has gained notoriety recently, in the last twenty years or so, due to a proliferation of posts on Facebook, which point out a similarity in the pronunciation of Ishtar and Easter: “After Constantine decided to Christianize the Empire, Easter was changed to represent Jesus. But at its roots, Easter (which is how you pronounce Ishtar)…” (Quoted in Beyond Ishtar: The Tradition of Eggs at Easter in The Scientific American 2013). As with the claims made with the goddess Eoster, there are a number of misconceptions about the goddess Inanna/Ishtar, which lead to apparent connections with the celebration of Easter. There are claims, for example, that she is associated with eggs and bunnies, as a fertility goddess, but these are spurious at best, as she is more normally associated with the lion, the morning star, and with the eight and sixteen pointed star (Ibid).   The most interesting evidence of a connection between the story to Christ’s Resurrection and the goddess Inanna/Ishtar comes from an enigmatic Sumerian epic poem called the Descent of Inanna. In this poem, the goddess Inanna descends to the underworld, she then…