A great man is one who collects knowledge the way a bee collects honey and uses it to help people overcome the difficulties they endure - hunger, ignorance and disease!
- Nikola Tesla

Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.
- Franklin Roosevelt

While their territory has been devastated and their homes despoiled, the spirit of the Serbian people has not been broken.
- Woodrow Wilson

On The Holy Liturgy

by Bishop Athanasius Yevtich

The Divine Liturgy is at the center of Orthodox Christian life. It is through the Eucharist that the faithful are united with Christ and therefore with one another. Every Eucharistic gathering is an image and a reality of the Heavenly Liturgy, i.e. unceasing Synaxis of angels and saints around God’s throne. Thus the Liturgy is the proclamation of and a real image of God’s Kingdom in this world.

In this television interview conducted by the Logos, a renowned Orthodox theologian and retired Bishop of Zahumlje and Hercegovina, his Grace Atanasije, brings forth these essential points citing historical development of the Liturgies bringing to light the present misunderstanding of certain Liturgical actions and movements.

Bishop Atanasije aptly points out the necessity for Liturgical renewal, i.e. moving away from passive liturgical attendance to active participation and immersion of the soul and body into a full communion with Christ.

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Remote differences in movements and actions, unimportant and changeable details  in serving the Holy Heavenly Mystery of the Eucharist  do not represent “departure from the True Faith”, since it has been like that from the beginning, it is and it will continue to be; just as there is One Gospel, but four Gospels! One but actually more Liturgies. One in essence but many different Typicons of the monasteries and parishes.

It is the precise time (kairos) for Liturgical renewal as it is established by the Catholic and Apostolic Faith and therefore a fuller communion with Christ and our ascent into the heights of God’s Kingdom here and now.

His Grace Bishop Atanasije is calling for a deeper understanding, experience and living of the Apostolic Faith and Liturgical life deposited in the Church of Christ, the Orthodox Church.


SA

 

People Directory

Father Philip Sredanovich

The Odd Adventures of an Early Serbian Priest

Fr. Philip Sredanovich is one of the strangest parish priests I’ve ever run across in my research of Orthodoxy in America.

He was born in Montenegro in 1881. He seems to have been educated and married in Russia (the 1920 U.S. Census says that his wife was born in Russia). Fr. Philip came to America just after the turn of the 20th century. In 1908, he made headlines nationwide for his supposed invention of a device to travel around the earth without moving. From the Washington Post (12/11/1908):

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Publishing

The Church at Prayer

by Archimandrite Aimilianos of Simonopetra

Publisher’s note

Many readers of the addresses of Elder Aimilianos, which have been published in the five-volume series, rchimandrite Aimilianos, Spiritual Instructions and Discourses (Ormylia, 1998-2003), have frequently expressed the wish for an abridged and more accessible form of his teaching. In response, we are happy to inaugurate a new series of publications incorporating key texts from the above-mentioned collection. Other considerations have also contributed o this new project, such as the selection of specific texts which address important, contemporary questions; the need for a smaller, more reader-friendly publication format; and the necessity for editing certain passages in need of clarification, without however altering their basic meaning.

Above all, the works collected in this volume reflect the importance which the Elder consistently attached to prayer, spirituality, community life, worship, and liturgy. Thus the experientially based works "On Prayer", and "The Prayer of the Holy Mountain", which deal primarily with the Prayer of the Heart, appear first, followed by the summary addresses on "The Divine Liturgy", and "Our Church Attendance". These are in turn followed by the more socially oriented discourses on "Our Relations with Our Neighbor", and "Marriage: The Great Sacrament". Finally, the present volume closes with the sermons on "Spiritual Reading" and "The Spiritual Life", which in a simple and yet compelling manner set forth the conditions for "ascending to heaven on the wings of the Spirit".

It is our hope that The Church at Prayer will meet the purpose for which it is issued and will serve as a ready aid and support for those who desire God and eternal life in Him.