DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF ST. JOHN, ARCHBISHOP OF SHANGHAI AND SAN
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ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN WITNESS (USPS 412-260)
is published monthly by St. Nectarios American Orthodox Cathedral,
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DECEMBER, 2007, Vol. XLI, No. 12 (1579)
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
1. NATIVITY ENCYCLICAL OF METROPOLITAN EPHRAIM
2. A SIGN SPOKEN AGAINST by Hieromonk Theodore
3. ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM: On the Beatitudes
(concluded)
4. NEW ITEMS FROM THE BOOK CENTER
If the heart at all times desires God, He is the Lord of his heart. But
if a man after renouncing and making himself without possessions, and
without home, and fasting—if this one is still tied to the man that he
is, or to worldly affairs, or to house, or to the charm of parents,
where his heart is tied and his mind is captive, that is his God, and
he is found to have gone out of the world by the front door, but to
have entered and thrown himself into the world by the side door.
Saint Macarius the Great, Homily XLIII
1. NATIVITY ENCYCLICAL
of His Eminence, Metropolitan Ephraim of Boston
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit
My beloved Orthodox Christians,
On many occasions, I have
encouraged our faithful to read the Lives of the Saints. These texts
contain much that is edifying and instructive for all of us in our
efforts to advance in Christian learning and the mind of Christ.
For example, the Life of
the Forty-two Martyrs of Amorion [March 6, translated into English by
Holy Nativity Convent and published in The True Vine, Issue #34] sets
forth the heroic Christian confession of these Byzantine warriors in
the account of their courageous martyrdom in the year 838 at the hands
of their Muslim tormentors.
In their attempts to force these Byzantine
army officers to convert to Islam, the Muslims used all manner of
stratagems and arguments. But their efforts were in vain, for the
valiant martyrs ? though soldiers by profession? were well-versed and
very articulate in their Christian Faith.
Here is an example of how the martyrs
responded to their captors:
"If indeed you would be persuaded by the teachings of the Holy
Prophets, it would be easy for us to prove your words false; and by the
God-inspired Scriptures, we can condemn any position you take. Since,
however, you do not accept the Divine Scriptures, but believe only in
your own teaching, and since you revile us for suffering hardships
because we do not believe in Mohammed, answer us the following: Two men
had a difference and fought between themselves over a field. The one,
quarreling, asserted without witnesses that the field must certainly be
given to him, while the other, without quarrels, brought forward many
tried and faithful witnesses who bore witness that the field belonged
rather to him than to the other. To which of the two would you Saracens
decide to give the field?" Then the Muslims answered, "It is evident
that to him who brought forth the faithful witnesses."
Then the Saints said to them, "Well, then, using reason, we too judge
what is right concerning the Only-begotten Son of God, our Lord Jesus
Christ. He became man of the Virgin, as we have heard you also say many
times. He had as His witnesses all the ancient and true Prophets who
foretold His coming. You affirm that Mohammed was also sent from God
bringing us a third law. Ought he not also to have had some of the
Prophets of God, or at least one witness to speak of him, to prove that
he was sent from God?"
To this, the Muslims could
answer nothing. In all their encounters, the Muslim tormentors were
silenced and put to shame by the witness of the holy martyrs.
The truth is that the Holy
Scriptures, the Church Fathers, the hymnography and the holy services
of the Church, particularly those pertaining to the Nativity of our
Saviour, make repeated reference to these prophesies of Christ’s
incarnation and His redemptive work while He was among us in the flesh,
and which the holy martyrs themselves had heard again and again in
Church. The writings of St. Justin the Philosopher and Martyr, St.
Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem, and many other Church Fathers explain these
Old Testament prophecies fully.
The hymns which we hear in the Church today,
and which indeed the holy Forty-two Martyrs of Amorion themselves might
well have heard, interpret for us the meaning of the prophecies.
For example, on the Sunday before the Nativity
of our Saviour, the Glory of the Praises in Matins tells us:
The collection of the Law’s teachings maketh plain Christ’s divine
Nativity in the Flesh through them that had preached of grace before
the coming of the Law, since, by faith, they had transcended the Law.
Wherefore, unto the souls held in Hades, did they foretell Thy Nativity
which, through the Resurrection, was the cause of our deliverance from
corruption.
For an Orthodox Christian, how many and how
profound are the scriptural teachings found in this one hymn alone!
The holy Forty-two Martyrs of Amorion might
also have quoted the following text for the benefit of their captors,
the followers of the one the Muslims styled "the prophet":
The Prophet’s sacred oracles receive their end. Behold, the Virgin
giveth birth unto God in the flesh, in the city of Bethlehem, within
the cave. Be ye made rich, all creation, be glad and dance for joy; the
Master of all is come to dwell together with His servants, delivering
from the mastery of the alien us who were made subject to corruption;
and He is seen swaddled in a manger as a babe, a young Child Who before
the ages is God.
[Oikos of the
Forefeast, December 20]
This was the faith of the Prophets in the
centuries before the coming of Christ. This was the faith of the holy
martyrs of Amorion in the ninth century. This is the faith of the
Orthodox Christians of every century: the Prophet’s sacred oracles
receive their end, their completion, in the coming of Christ. Christ is
seen swaddled in a manger as a babe, a young Child Who before the ages
is God!
My beloved Christians,
Christ is born! Let us glorify Him!
Your fervent supplicant unto God,
Ephraim, Metropolitan of Boston
Nativity of Christ, 2007
Protocol Number 2611
______________________________________________________________________________
2. A SIGN SPOKEN AGAINST
Our Father Among the Saints
Philaret,
Metropolitan of New York, The New
Confessor
Reposed November 8/21, 1985
Uncovering of Incorrupt Relics and
Feast Day of Saint Philaret
October 28 /November 10, 1998
Glorification May 7 / 20, 2000
Church of the Holy Resurrection Worcester, Massachusetts
“Our God-bearing Fathers, who
governed all things in the Church of God in a proper and God-pleasing
manner, have left to us as a sacred heritage the God-given teaching,
just as they themselves had received from the Holy Apostles, that the
confession and defense of the True Orthodox Faith is the greatest of
virtues. No other virtue, they tell us, is so great before God and so
profitable for the Church.” So writes Archimandrite Justin Popovich.
The Lord Jesus Christ stands before us
this day and says: I am the way, the truth and the life; no man cometh
to the Father but by Me (John 14:6). The words I have spoken to you are
spirit and life (John 6:63). Thus speaks the God who does not lie (?
??????? ???? Titus 1:2).
The prophet Moses bears witness to
Christ:
As for God, His works are true and all
His ways are judgments. God is faithful and there is no unrighteousness
in Him; righteous and holy is the Lord (Deut. 32:4 LXX). When the Jews
asked Christ for a sign, He replied that the only sign that would be
given is the Sign of Jonah; for as Jonah was three days and three
nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of Man be three days
and three nights in the heart of the earth (Mt. 12:38-41). The sign He
wrought out of His compassionate love for us was His resurrection from
the dead showing Himself alive numerous times; furthermore, one of
these appearances was to 500 men at one time (I Cor. 15:6). The
prophecy of Jonah is fulfilled in the death and Resurrection of Jesus
Christ.
As Christ freed all men from Hades by
His Holy Resurrection, so “love and confession of God’s Truth — that is
to say, the True Faith of the Church — frees, enlightens and saves us
men. This holy teaching is proclaimed especially by those holy Fathers
who spent their entire lives struggling to preserve Christ’s true and
saving Faith, by which alone men are saved and enter eternal life. This
holy tradition of the Fathers, confirmed, as it is, and testified to by
their entire lives, offers the greatest lesson for our own generation,
a generation which, lacking zeal ‘for the love of the Truth’ (2 Thess.
2:10), has grown cold and hardened in its indifference toward the
correct Faith.
Among the ancient and great Fathers of
the Church, perhaps the greatest zealots for the correct Faith and
Truth of God were Ss. Athanasios the Great and Basil the Great. Yet our
holy and God-bearing Fathers, Nikiforos, Patriarch of Constantinople
under the Iconoclastic Emperor, Leo the Armenian and Photios the Great
Confessor and Defender of the Orthodox Faith of Christ against Nicholas
I, Pope of Rome are in no way inferior to them.
Both of these saintly Patriarchs labored
all their lives in the virtues that please God and bring deification.
Remarkable is Saint Photios, instructor of Popes and all the world when
he writes in his famous letter to Nicholas,
“Nothing is dearer than the Truth.”
Again, in the same letter, he noted:
“It is truly necessary that we
observe all things, but above all, that which pertains to matters of
the Faith, in which but a small deviation represents a deadly sin.”
Continuing in the Patristic confession
and defense of the true Orthodox Faith, a new Father of Fathers,
Philaret, Metropolitan of New York, the New Confessor, miraculously
appeared in the Church. We now chant to him:
“the full incorruption of thy body is
the seal and sign from heaven that thy confession was incorrupt.”
(Vespers, Troparion.)
His words were plain. Very simply, he
was, and is today,
A voice crying in the wilderness;
Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight (Lk. 3:4)
As a monastic, Saint Philaret
stood with St. Isaac the Syrian who asks the Christian to examine the
pathways in the heart and with St. Theodore the Studite who reminds us,
“The work of a monk is not to tolerate even the least innovation in the
Gospel of Christ”.
As an Orthodox Christian, he shaped his
life to conform to the openhandness of his Patron Saint, Saint Philaret
the Almsgiver. Our Saint Philaret kept nothing for himself; he cared
for orphans and widows (James 1:27) and kept his life hidden in Christ.
As a Hierarch, he called others of his
brethern to account for the direction in which their leadership was
taking the Church.
Sorrowfully, sadly he addressed
his fellow Hierarchs, those who are called individually, Angel of the
Sovereign Lord (Malachi 2:7 LXX). In ‘Open Letters’ and ‘Sorrowful
Epistles’ he asked them repeatedly if it might possibly be the case
that their actions had laid them open to the prophet’s dire
characterization of the men of Juda who said:
We will pursue our perverse ways And we
will perform each the lusts of his evil heart (Jer.16:12
LXX).
Silence is consent. In their deafening
silence Saint Philaret heard the sobering response of the Bishops of
“World Orthodoxy” to his queries, to his repeated pleas on behalf of
the Lord’s truth. They replied to him:
Depart from me; I desire not to know Thy
ways (Job 21:14 LXX).
After so many admonitions to the
proponents of Ecumenism, cautions that fell on deaf ears, Metropolitan
Philaret, together with the entire Holy Synod of the Church Abroad,
issued the Anathema Against Ecumenism on the Sunday of the Fathers of
the Seventh Ecumenical Council on October 14/27, 1983.
A Resolution Concerning the Pan-Heresy of Ecumenism
To those who attack the Church of Christ by teaching
that Christ’s Church is divided into so-called branches which differ in
doctrine and way of life, or that the Church does not exist visibly but
will be formed in the future when all branches or sects or
denominations and even religions will be united in one body and who do
not distinguish the priesthood and mysteries of the Church from those
of the heretics but say that the baptism and eucharist of heretics is
effectual for salvation; therefore, to those who knowingly have
communion with these aforementioned heretics or who advocate,
disseminate or defend their new heresy of Ecumenism under the pretext
of brotherly love or the supposed unification of separated Christians:
Anathema.
Saint Philaret was, and is today, a sign
spoken against (Luke 2:34) on earth but not in the Land of the Living
(Ps. 27:15, 52:5, 114:5, 141:7 LXX)
He was all his life a Sower of Christ’s
truth in word and in deed (cf. Mt. 13:3-9), who, receiving monastic
tonsure as an unmarried Priest, early in life set his face for
Jerusalem (Lk. 9:51) and, in his love for his enemies, was granted
sonship of the Most High (cf. Lk. 6:35)
Those who choose to follow him will be
granted all that he, in his humility, called down from the Lord’s
bounty for the saints always give away everything they have been given.
The hands of the saints are ever open to such beggars and sinners as
ourselves.
Saint Philaret, the new Athanasius, the
new Mark of Ephesus, Philaret the Great, intercede ceaselessly out of
thy great virtue before the Throne of the Most High for us sinners.
Hieromonk Theodore
________________________________________________________________________
3. ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM: On the Beatitudes (concluded)
Let us then, bearing these things in mind, look
to one object only; how to order our own life with strictness. For thus
we shall also guide to the life that is there, such as are now sitting
in darkness. For such is the virtue of that light, as not only to shine
here, but also to conduct its followers thither. For when men see us
despising all things present, and preparing ourselves for that which is
to come, our actions will persuade them sooner than any discourse. For
who is there so senseless, that at sight of one, who within a day or
two was living in luxury and wealth, now stripping himself of all, and
putting on wings, and arrayed to meet both hunger and poverty, and all
hardship, and dangers, and blood, and slaughter, and everything that is
counted dreadful; will not from this sight derive a clear demonstration
of the things which are to come?
But if we entangle ourselves in things present, and
plunge ourselves in them more and more, how will it be possible for
them to be persuaded that we are hastening to another sojourn?
And what excuse after this shall we have, if the
fear of God avail not so much with us, as human glory availed with the
Greek philosophers? For some of them did really both lay aside wealth,
and despised death, that they might make a show before men; wherefore
also their hopes became vain. What plea then shall deliver us, when
with so great things set before us, and with so high a rule of
self-denial laid open to us, we are not able even to do as they did,
but ruin both ourselves and others besides? For neither is the harm so
great when a heathen commits transgression, as when a Christian doeth
the same. Of course not; for their character is already lost, but ours,
by reason of the grace of God, is even among the ungodly venerable and
glorious. Therefore when they would most revile us, and aggravate their
evil speech, they add some such taunt as, "Thou Christian:" a taunt
which they would not utter, did they not secretly entertain a great
opinion of our doctrine.
Hast thou not heard how many, and how great precepts
Christ enjoined? Now when wilt thou be able to fulfill one of those
commandments, while thou leavest all, and goest about gathering
interest, tacking together usuries, setting on foot transactions of
business, buying herds of slaves, procuring silver vessels, purchasing
houses, fields, goods without end? And I would this were all. But when
to these unseasonable pursuits, thou addest even injustice, removing
landmarks, taking away houses by violence, aggravating poverty,
increasing hunger, when wilt thou be able to set thy foot on these
thresholds?
13. But sometimes thou showest mercy to the poor. I
know it as well as thou. But even in this again great is the mischief.
For thou doest this either in pride or in vainglory, so as not to
profit even by thy good deeds. What can be more wretched than this, to
be making thy shipwreck in the very harbor? To prevent this, when thou
hast done any good action, seek not thanks from me, that thou mayest
have God thy debtor. For, "Lend," saith He, "unto them from whom ye do
not expect to receive." [Luke 6:34, 35]
Thou hast thy Debtor; why leave Him, and require it
of me, a poor and wretched mortal? What? is that Debtor displeased,
when the debt is required of Him? What? is He poor? Is He unwilling to
pay? Seest thou not His unspeakable treasures? Seest thou not His
indescribable munificence? Lay hold then on Him, and make thy demand;
for He is pleased when one thus demands the debt of Him. Because, if He
see another required to pay for what He Himself owes, He will feel as
though He were insulted, and repay thee no more; nay, He justly finds
fault, saying, "Why, of what ingratitude hast thou convicted me? what
poverty dost thou know to be in me, that thou hastenest by me, and
resortest unto others? Hast thou lent to One, and dost thou demand the
debt of another?"
For although man received it, it was God that
commanded thee to bestow; and His will is to be Himself, and in the
original sense [ prötótypos ], debtor, and surety,
affording thee ten thousand occasion to demand the debt of Him from
every quarter. Do not thou then let go so great facility and abundance,
and seek to receive of me who have nothing. Why, to what end dost thou
display to me thy mercy shown to the poor. What! was it I that said to
thee, Give? was it from me that thou didst hear this; that thou
shouldest demand it back of me? He Himself hath said, "He that hath
pity upon the poor lendeth to God." [Prov. 19:17] Thou hast lent to
God: put it to His account.
"But He doth not repay the whole now." Well, this
too He doth for thy good. For such a debtor is He: not as many, who are
anxious simply to repay that which is lent; whereas He manages and
doeth all things, with a view of investing likewise in security that
which hath been given unto Him. Therefore some, you see, He repays
here: some He assigns in the other place.
14. Knowing therefore as we do these things, let us
make our mercifulness abundant, let us give proof of much love to man,
both by the use of our money, and by our actions. And if we see any one
ill-treated and beaten in the market-place, whether we can pay down
money, let us do it: or whether by words we may separate them, let us
not be backward. For even a word has its reward, and still more have
sighs. And this the blessed Job said; "But I wept for every helpless
one, and I sighed when I saw a man in distress." [Job 30:25 LXX] But if
there be a reward for tears and sighs; when words also, and an anxious
endeavor, and many things besides are added, consider how great the
recompence becomes. Yea, for we too were enemies to God, and the
Only-begotten reconciled us, casting himself between, and for us
receiving stripes, and for us enduring death.
Let us then likewise do our diligence to deliver
from countless evils such as are incurring them; and not as we now do,
when we see any beating and tearing one another: we are apt to stand
by, finding pleasure in the disgrace of others, and forming a devilish
amphitheatre around: than which what can be more cruel? Thou seest men
reviled, tearing each other to pieces, rending their clothes, smiting
each other's faces, and dost thou endure to stand by quietly?
What! is it a bear that is fighting? a wild beast? a
serpent? It is a man, one who hath in every respect fellowship with
thee: a brother, a member. Look not on, but separate them. Take no
pleasure, but amend the evil. Stir not up others to the shameful sight,
but rather drive off and separate those who are assembled. It is for
shameless persons, and born slaves, to take pleasure in such
calamities; for those that are mere refuse, for asses without reason.
Thou seest a man behaving himself unseemly, and dost
thou not account the unseemliness thine own? Dost thou not interpose,
and scatter the devil's troop, and put an end to men's miseries?
"That I may receive blows myself," saith one; "is
this also thy bidding?" Thou wilt not have to suffer even this; but if
thou shouldest, the thing would be to thee a sort of martyrdom; for
thou didst suffer on God's behalf. And if thou art slow to receive
blows, consider that thy Lord was not slow to endure the cross for
thee.
Since they for their part are drunken in darkness;
wrath being their tyrant and commander; and they need some one who is
sound to help them, both the wrong-doer, and he who is injured; the one
that he may be delivered from suffering evil, the other that he may
cease to do it. Draw nigh, therefore, and stretch forth the hand, thou
that art sober to him that is drunken. For there is a drunkenness of
wrath too, and that more grievous than the drunkenness of wine. Seest
thou not the seamen, how, when they see any meeting with shipwreck,
they spread their sails, and set out with all haste, to rescue those of
the same craft out of the waves? Now, if partakers in an art show so
much care one for another, how much more ought they who are partakers
of the same nature to do all these things! Because in truth here too is
a shipwreck, a more grievous one than that; for either a man under
provocation blasphemes, and so throws all away: or he forswears himself
under the sway of his wrath, and that way falls into hell: or he
strikes a blow and commits murder, and thus again suffers the very same
shipwreck. Go thou then, and put a stop to the evil; pull out them that
are drowning, though thou descend into the very depth of the surge; and
having broken up the theatre of the devil, take each one of them apart,
and admonish him to quell the flame, and to lull the waves.
But if the burning pile wax greater, and the furnace
more grievous, be not thou terrified; for thou hast many to help thee,
and stretch forth the hand, if thou furnish but a beginning; and above
all thou surely hast with thee the God of peace. And if thou wilt first
turn aside the flames, many others also will follow, and of what they
do well, thou wilt thyself receive the reward.
Hear what precept Christ gave to the Jews, creeping
as they did upon the earth: "If thou see," saith He, "thine enemy's
beast of burden falling down, do not hasten by, but raise it." [Exodus
23:5] And thou must see that to separate and reconcile men that are
fighting is a much lighter thing than to lift up the fallen beast. And
if we ought to help in raising our enemies' ass, much more our friends'
souls: and most when the fall is more grievous; for not into mire do
these fall, but into the fire of hell, not bearing the burden of their
wrath. And thou, when thou seest thy brother lying under the load, and
the devil standing by, and kindling the pile, thou runnest by, cruelly
and unmercifully; a kind of thing not safe to do, even where brutes are
concerned.
And whereas the Samaritan, seeing a wounded man,
unknown, and not at all appertaining to him, both staid, and set him on
a beast, and brought him home to the inn, and hired a physician, and
gave some money, and promised more: thou, seeing one fallen not among
thieves, but amongst a band of demons, and beset by anger; and this not
in a wilderness, but in the midst of the forum; not having to lay out
money, nor to hire a beast, nor to bring him on a long way, but only to
say some words:--art thou slow to do it? and boldest back, and hurriest
by cruelly and unmercifully? And how thinkest thou, calling upon God,
ever to find Him propitious?
15. But let me speak also to you, who publicly
disgrace yourselves: to him who is acting despitefully, and doing
wrong. Art thou inflicting blows? tell me; and kicking, and biting? art
thou become a wild boar, and a wild ass? and art thou not ashamed? dost
thou not blush at thus being changed into a wild beast, and betraying
thine own nobleness? For though thou be poor, thou art free; though
thou be a working man, thou art a Christian.
Nay, for this very reason, that thou art poor, thou
shouldest be quiet. For fightings belong to the rich, not to the poor;
to the rich, who have many causes to force them to war. But thou, not
having the pleasure of wealth, goest about gathering to thyself the
evils of wealth, enmities, and strifes, and fightings; and takest thy
brother by the throat, and goest about to strangle him, and throwest
him down publicly in the sight of all men: and dost thou not think that
thou art thyself rather disgraced, imitating the violent passions of
the brutes; nay rather, becoming even worse than they? For they have
all things in common; they herd one with another, and go about
together: but we have nothing in common, but all in confusion:
fightings, strifes, revilings, and enmities, and insults. And we
neither reverence the heaven, unto which we are called all of us in
common; nor the earth, which He hath left free to us all in common; nor
our very nature; but wrath and the love of money sweeps all away.
Hast thou not seen him who owed the ten thousand
talents, and then, after he was forgiven that debt, took his
fellow-servant by the throat for an hundred pence, what great evils he
underwent, and how he was delivered over to an endless punishment? Hast
thou not trembled at the example? Hast thou no fear, lest thou too
incur the same? For we likewise owe to our Lord many and great debts:
nevertheless, He forbears, and suffers long, and neither urges us, as
we do our fellow-servants, nor chokes and takes us by the throat; yet
surely had he been minded to exact of us but the least part thereof, we
had long ago perished.
16. Let us then, beloved, bearing these things in
mind, be humbled, and feel thankful to those who are in debt to us. For
they become to us, if we command ourselves, an occasion of obtaining
most abundant pardon; and giving a little, we shall receive much. Why
then exact with violence, it being meet, though the other were minded
to pay, for thee of thine accord to excuse him, that thou mayest
receive the whole of God? But now thou doest all things, and art
violent, and contentious, to have none of thy debts forgiven thee; and
whilst thou art thinking to do despite unto thy neighbor, thou art
thrusting the sword into thyself, so increasing thy punishment in hell:
whereas if thou wilt show a little self-command here, thou makest thine
own accounts easy. For indeed God therefore wills us to take the lead
in that kind of bounty, that He may take occasion to repay us with
increase.
As many therefore as stand indebted to thee, either
for money, or for trespasses, let them all go free, and require of God
the recompense of such thy magnanimity. For so long as they continue
indebted to thee, thou canst not have God thy debtor. But if thou let
them go free, thou wilt be able to detain thy God, and to require of
Him the recompense of so great self-restraint in bountiful measure. For
suppose a man had come up and seeing thee arresting thy debtor, had
called upon thee to let him go free, and transfer to himself thy
account with the other: he would not choose to be unfair after such
remission, seeing he had passed the whole demand to himself: how then
shall God fail to repay us manifold, yea, ten thousand fold, when for
His commandment's sake, if any be indebted to us, we urge no complaint
against them, great or small, but let them go exempt from all
liability? Let us not then think of the temporary pleasure that springs
up in us by exacting of our debtors, but of the loss, rather, how
great! which we shall thereby sustain hereafter, grievously injuring
ourselves in the things which are eternal. Rising accordingly above
all, let us forgive those who must give account to us, both their debts
and their offenses; that we may make our own accounts prove indulgent,
and that what we could not reach by all virtue besides, this we may
obtain by not bearing malice against our neighbors; and thus enjoy the
eternal blessings, by the grace and love towards man of our Lord Jesus
Christ, to whom be glory and might now and always, even forever and
ever. Amen.
________________________________________________________________________
4. NEW ITEMS FROM THE BOOK CENTER
(CALP) PASCAL CALENDAR. On the same order as the Advent
Calendar, this wall calendar has 40 “windows” in an icon of the
Resurrection, starting with the Sundays of the Pre-lenten period,
Holy Week, and going through Pentecost. Includes a booklet with
the “Synaxaria” (brief explanations) of each day. A novel idea and
teaching tool. e$15.00 NOTE: USE BEGINS ON FEBRUARY 3RD
(PL) PRELUDE TO LIGHT, compiled and editied by Johanna Manley.
A fascinating book which combines selected Old Testament quotes with
corresponding New Testament verses and short commentaries from the
Church Fathers. The short selections are taken from the Books of
Genesis through the Psalms, in order, and provide an easy introduction
to the Old Testament, enriching our understanding of the New
Testament. Many indices, maps, line icons and diagrams. Sturdy
library binding with a ribbon marker. 386pp. d$29.00
(ACO8) ANCIENT CHRISTIAN COMMENTARY ON SCRIPTURE, Old Testament,
Vol. 8 Psalms 51-150. 499pp. Cloth $40.00
Our Price: e$35.00
(CBM3) COMPLETE BIBLE on MP3. The King James Version narrated
by Alexander Scourby on 3 MP3 CD discs. Can be heard on any audio
player.which reads MP3 format. If used on a PC or MAC, extra features
provide the ability to search by keyword or phrase and link to audio
for listening. Reg. Price $30. SPECIAL: d$17.00