Tag: Christianity

St. Pachomius can be considered the founder of cenobitic monasticism, in which monks live in community. He first started out as a hermit in the desert in the third and fourth centuries, like so many Christian men and women who were trying to live out the most radical expressions of their faith.

While Pachomius was in the desert, he formed a strong friendship with Palemon, another hermit. During prayer one day, Pachomius received a vision calling him to build a monastery, and he was told that many people, who were looking for ascetic lives in the desert, but not solitude, would join him.

Pachomius and Palemon built a monastery, even though Pachomius knew his idea was radical. He opened his doors to men who were looking for austere living, but many of them had only considered solitary life. For the first years as a cenobitic, Pachomius did most of the menial work on his own, gently introducing his brother monks into a lifestyle of service to each other in the same manner.

Pachomius’ rule was said to have been given to him by an angel. St. Benedict in the west and St. Basil in the east both drew upon his rule to develop their own rules for cenobitic life.

St. Pachomius died in 346. At the time of his death, there were 11 monasteries of this kind, nine for men and two for women.

    

Serge Schmemann, son of Fr. Alexander Schmemann, in his wonderful little book, Echoes of a Native Land, records a letter written from one of his family members of an earlier generation, who spent several years in the prisons of the Soviets and died there. The letter, written on the night of Pascha in 1928 is to a family member, “Uncle Grishanchik” (This was Grigory Trubetskoi who had managed to emigrate to Paris). This letter should become a classic of Orthodox writing and witness to the faith that sustained so many and is today being resurrected in so many places. The triumph of the Resurrection so transcends his prison cell it’s a wonder that the walls remained. The entire book is a wonderful read. I recommend it without reservation.

30 March/ 12 April 1928

Dear Uncle Grishanchik,

I greet you and Aunt Masha with the impending Holy Day, and I wish you all the very best. For a long, long time I have wanted to write to you, dear Uncle Grishanchik; you always showed such concern for me, you helped me so generously in a difficult moment of my life, and, mainly, your entire image is so inseparably linked for each of us, your nephews, with such wonderful memories; you always are, were, and will be our dearest, most beloved uncle.

I am approaching the fourth Easter that I will spend behind these walls, separated from my family, but the feelings for these holy days which were infused in me from earliest childhood do not fail me now; from the beginning of Holy Week I have felt the approach of the Feast, I follow the life of the Church, I repeat to myself the hymns of the Holy Week services, and in my soul there arise those feelings of tender reverence that I used to feel as a child going to confession or communion. At 35 those feelings are as strong and as deep as in those childhood years.

My dear Uncle Grishanchik, going over past Easters in my memory, I remember our last Easter at Sergiyevskoye, which we spent with you and Aunt Masha, and I felt the immediate need to write you. If you have not forgotten, Easter in 1918 was rather late, and spring was early and very warm, so when in the last weeks of Lent I had to take Aunt Masha to Ferzikovo, the roads were impassable. I remember that trip as now; it was a warm, heavy, and humid day, which consumed the last snow in the forests and gullies faster than the hottest sun; wherever you looked, water, water, and more water, and all the sounds seemed to rise from it, from the burbling and rushing of the streams on all sides to the ceaseless ring of countless larks. We had to go by sleigh – not on the road, which wound through the half-naked fields in a single muddy ridge, but alongside, carefully choosing the route. Each hoofprint, each track left by the runners, immediately turned into a small muddy stream, busily rushing off somewhere. We drove forever, exhausting the poor horse, and, finally, after successfully eluding the Polivanovo field, one of the most difficult places, I became too bold and got Aunt Masha so mired that I nearly drowned the horse and the sleigh; we had to unharness to pull it out and got wet to the eyebrows; in a word, total “local color.”

Photo: triptonkosti.ru     

I remember the feeling I had that spring of growing strength, but that entire happy springtime din, for all the beauty and joy of awakening nature, could not muffle the sense of alarm that squeezed the heart in each of us. Either some hand rose in senseless fury to profane our Sergiyevskoye, or there was the troubling sense that our loving and closely welded family was being broken up: Sonia far off somewhere with a pile of kids, alone, separated from her husband; Seryozha, just married, we don’t know where or how, and you, my dear Uncle Grisha and Auht Masha, separated from your young ones, in constant worry over them. It was a hard and difficult time. But I believe that beyond these specific problems, this spiritual fog had a deeper common source: we all, old and young, stood then at a critical turning point: unaware of it, we were bidding farewell to a past filled with beloved memories, while ahead there loomed some hostile utterly unknown future.

And in the midst of all this came Holy Week. the spring was in that stage when nature, after a big shove to cast off winter’s shackles, suddenly grows quiet, as if resting from the first victory. But below this apparent calm there is always the sense of a complex, hidden process taking place somewhere deep in the earth, which is preparing to open up in all its force, in all the beauty of growth and flowering. Plowing and seeding the earth rasied rich scents, and, following the plow on the sweaty, softly turning furrow, you were enveloped in the marvelous smell of moist earth. I always became intoxicated by that smell, because in it one senses the limitless creative power of nature.

I don’t know how you all felt at the time, because I lived a totally separate life and worked from morning to night in the fields, not seeing, and, yes, not wanting to see, anything else. It was too painful to think, and only total physical exhaustion gave one a chance, if not to forget, then at least to forget oneself. But with Holy Week began the services in church and at home, I had to lead the choir in rehearsal and in church; on Holy Wednesday I finished the sowing of oats and, putting away the plow and harrow, gave myself entirely over to the tuning fork. And here began that which I will never forget!

Dear Uncle Grishanchik! Do you remember the service of the Twelve Gospels in our Sergiyevskoye church? Do you remember that marvelous, inimitable manner of our little parson? This spring will be nine years that he passed away during the midnight Easter service, but even now, when I hear certain litanies or certain Gospel readings, I can hear the exhilarated voice of our kind parson, his intonations piercing to the very soul. I remember that you were taken by this service, that it had a large impact on you. I see now the huge crucifix rising in the midst of the church, with figures of the Mother of God on one side and the Apostle John on the other, framed by multicolored votive lights, the waving flame of many candles, and, among the thoroughly familiar throng of Sergiyevskoye peasants, your figure by the right wall in front of the candle counter, with a contemplative expression on your face. If you only knew what was happening in my soul at that time! It was an entire turnover, some huge, healing revelation!

Don’t be surprised that I’m writing this way; I don’t think I’m exaggerating anything, it’s just that I feel great emotion remembering all these things, because I am continuously breaking off to go to the window and listen. A quiet, starry night hangs over Moscow, and I can hear first one, then another church mark the successive Gospels with slow, measured strikes of the bell. I think of my Lina and our Marinochka, of Papa, Mama, my sisters, brothers, of all of you, feeling the sadness of expatriation in these days, all so dear and close. However painful, especially at this time, the awareness of our separation, I firmly, unshakably believe all the same that the hour will come when we will all gather together, just as you are all gathered now in my thoughts.

1/14 April – They’ve allowed me to finish writing letters, and I deliberately sat down to finish it this night. Any minute now the Easter matins will start; in our cell everything is clean, and on our large common table stand kulichi and paskha, a huge “X.B.” [Christos Voskrese “Christ is risen”] from fresh watercress is beautifully arranged on a white table cloth with brightly colored eggs all around. It’s unusually quiet in the cell; in order not to arouse the guards, we all lay down on lowered cots (there are 24 of us) in anticipation of the bells, and I sat down to write to you again.

I remember I walked out of the Sergiyevskoye church at that time overwhelmed by a mass of feelings and sensations, and my earlier spiritual fog seemed a trifle, deserving of no attention. In the great images of the Holy Week services, the horror of man’s sin and the suffering of the Creator leading to the great triumph of the resurrection, I suddenly discovered that eternal, indestructible beginning, which was also in that temporarily quiet spring, hiding in itself the seed of a total renewal of all that lives. The services continued in their stern, rich order; images replaced images, and when, on Holy Saturday, after the singing of “Arise, O Lord,” the deacon, having changed into a white robe, walked into the center of the church to the burial cloth to read the gospel about the resurrection, it seemed to me that we are all equally shaken, that we all feel and pray as one.

In the meantime, spring went on the offensive. When we walked to the Easter matins, the night was humid, heavy clouds covered the sky, and walking through the dark alleys of the linden park, I imagined a motion in the ground, as if innumerable invisible plants were pushing through the earth toward air and light.

I don’t know if our midnight Easter matins made any impression on you then. For me there never was, and never will be, anything better than Easter at Seriyevskoye. We are all too organically tied to Sergiyevskoye for anything to transcend it, to evoke so much good. This is not blind patriotism, because for all of us Seriyevskoye was that spiritual cradle in which everything by which each of us lives and breathes was born and raised.

My dear Uncle Grishanchik, as I’ve been writing to you the scattered ringing around Moscow has become a mighty festive peal. Processions have begun, the sounds of firecrackers reach us, one church after another joins the growing din of bells. The wave of sound swells. There! Somewhere entirely nearby, a small church breaks brightly through the common chord with such a joyous, exultant little voice. Sometimes it seems that the tumult has begun to wane, and suddenly a new wave rushes in with unexpected strength, a grand hymn between heaven and earth.

I cannot write any more! That which I now hear is too overwhelming, too good, to try to convey in words. The incontrovertible sermon of the Resurrection seems to rise from this mighty peal of praise. My dear uncle Grishanchik, it is so good in my soul that the only way I can express my spirit is to say to you once again, Christ is Risen!

Georgy

A lawsuit filed by the State of Florida and on behalf of the Catholic Medical Association (CMA) claims that new nondiscrimination regulations implemented by the Biden administration is unlawful overreach that will “fundamentally redefine the practice of medicine.”

On May 6, the federal register officially published changes the Department of Health and Human Services made to the nondiscrimination provisions in the Affordable Care Act, known as Section 1557, adding sexual orientation and gender identity to the definition of discrimination on the basis of sex.

In response, the State of Florida and the Alliance for Defending Freedom, on behalf of the Catholic Medical Association, sued the Department of Health and Human Services, urging the courts to halt the rule from going into effect. The changes go into effect on July 5.

The Alliance for Defending Freedom argues that the new rule forces CMA members to lose federal funding or risk “severe penalties” for treating and referring to patients by their biological sex. As for Florida, the organization argues the new rule requires the state to “follow unscientific standards of care and limits the state’s power to set protective standards for health care professionals.”

CMA is an association of Catholic individuals in health care with 2,500 members nationwide.

“The Biden administration’s attempt to hijack medicine is the latest example of its unlawful overreach,” Julie Marie Blake, senior counsel at the Alliance for Defending Freedom said in a May 7 statement.

“The HHS rule will harm those suffering from gender dysphoria, particularly children, and punish doctors who seek to care for them,” Blake said. “Medical professionals around the world and individuals who have undergone these experimental, body-altering procedures are warning about their risks.”

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody argued that the new rule is an attempt by the Biden administration to circumvent a law the state enacted last spring, which bans gender-affirming medical care such as puberty blockers or hormone therapy for minors.

“Florida passed a law to protect our children from dangerous, irreversible gender-transition drugs and surgeries,” Moody said in a May 7 statement. “Now, Biden and his federal bureaucrats are trying to go around our child-protection law to force the state to pay for puberty blockers and gender-transition surgery for children.”

“These rules trample states’ power to protect their own citizens and we will not stand by as Biden tries, yet again, to force the use of the federal government to unlawfully stifle Florida’s effort to protect children,” Moody added.

The lawsuit itself states that the new rule “would fundamentally redefine the practice of medicine and place [Department of Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights] lawyers in the strange position of overseeing – and second guessing – the clinical and ethical judgements of health care professionals and state medical boards across the country.”

Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age, or disability in specified programs or activities. The new protections that add to the definition of discrimination on the basis of sex were in place under the administration of President Barack Obama, but rolled back under the administration of President Donald Trump.

The final rule applies to health programs or activities that receive funding from the Department of Health and Human Services, health programs or activities administered by the department, and the health insurance marketplace. Those covered by the rule may include hospitals, health clinics, health insurance insurers, state Medicaid agencies, community health centers, physicians’ practices, and home health care agencies.

A Department of Health and Human Services explainer page reiterates that the new regulations include religious freedom and conscience exemption. Blake explained to Crux May 7 that the law in which the rule is based, Title IX, contains an explicit exemption, which was left out of the new final rule.

“The law in which this rule is based is Title IX, which has a categorical religious exception that says if you’re working in a medical practice, controlled by religious Americans, you are exempt and that was not put in the final rule,” Blake said. “And that type of broad, across the board, upfront exemption is important and that is one of the claims the Catholic Medical Association is bringing in this case.”

A spokesperson for the Catholic Health Association, which includes more than 2,200 Catholic hospitals, nursing homes, long-term care facilities, and related organizations told Crux on May 7 that it has no plans to challenge the rule. The association’s president and CEO Sr. Mary Haddad holds a different opinion than the Alliance for Defending Freedom. She said in a May 2 statement that members of the association “greatly appreciate the Administration’s clear and repeated articulation of its commitment to protecting conscience and religious freedom rights of health care providers.”

The Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to a Crux request for comment on the lawsuit. Announcing the rule, Secretary Xavier Becerra called the changes a giant step forward.

“Today’s rule is a giant step forward for this country toward a more equitable and inclusive health care system, and means that Americans across the country now have a clear way to act on their rights against discrimination when they go to the doctor, talk with their health plan, or engage with health programs run by HHS,” Becerra said in an April 26 statement.

The United States Conference of Bishops weighed in on the new regulations when they were first announced early this month, arguing that they “advance an ideological view of sex.”

“We appreciate that the final rule does not attempt to impose a mandate with regard to abortion,” Bishop Kevin Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Chair of the USCCB Committee for Religious Liberty said in an April 30 statement. “These regulations, however, advance an ideological view of sex that, as the Holy See has noted, denies the most beautiful and most powerful difference that exists between living beings: sexual difference.”

    

Paschal Message
of the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church
His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kyiv and All Ukraine
to the Archpastors, Pastors, Monastics,
and All Faithful Children
of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church

Christ is Risen!

With these ever-living and dear to our hearts words I sincerely greet all of you, God-loving archpastors and pastors, devout monks and nuns, dear brothers and sisters, on our greatest Christian Feast of the Resurrection of our Lord, God, and Saviour Jesus Christ.

The Feast of the Bright Resurrection of Christ is also called the Pascha of Christ because it marks the passover of mankind from darkness to light, from evil to good, from death to life. The Feast of the Bright Resurrection of Christ is a most glorious triumph of God’s love over the malice of all-human sin.

Sacred history reminds us the sad event of the human fall. God created man out of earth, breathed the breath of life into his face, and adorned him with His Divine Image. God gave man to man himself: He gave him free will so that he may rule over himself, so that he may reasonably make himself depart from evil and do good (Ps. 33:15), so that he may consciously cause himself to live according to God’s sacred laws, which make man sacred and like God, our Holy Creator and Maker.

Living in Paradise and obeying God’s instructions, people, our progenitors, enjoyed peace, light, and joy, which the Divine Nature of the Creator is radiant with. People lived in bliss. But the devil tempted our progenitors, and they sinned: people turned away from the Divine love, but the Divine Love did not turn away from people.

God, our Creator and Maker, Himself comes onto earth to suffering people and accomplishes the feat of the redemption of all mankind. The Incarnate God suffers in the flesh for us people, is crucified on the Cross, dies, descends into hell and destroys it, and most gloriously rises therefrom as God. By His glorious Resurrection, the Lord once again bestows upon us eternal life and bliss, returns us the lost Paradise.

What great and beautiful love of God for His creation!

The Holy Myrrh-Bearing Women were the first to receive the news of the most-glorious Resurrection of Christ. They came to the Life-Giving Tomb early in the morning and brought sweet spices to anoint the Holy Body of their Divine Master. The hearts of the Holy Myrrh-Bearers were filled with indescribable joy and consolation when they saw the Tomb empty and heard the words of the Angel sitting on the stone rolled back, who said: ‘… I know that you seek Jesus Who was crucified. He is not here; for He is risen, as He said … go quickly and tell His disciples that He is risen from the dead’ (Matt. 28:5-7).

What a wonderful Divine mercy: Eve was the first to sin, and the Holy Myrrh-Bearing Women were the first to get the news of the Resurrection of Christ.

Today, the whole world knows about the Resurrection of our Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ. The entire mankind lives by the gracious gifts bestowed upon us by our Saviour and Lord through His most-glorious Resurrection.

Pascha, says Saint Theodore the Studite, brings calmness and relief from many labours to human soul (Homily on Pascha), and Saint Gregory of Nyssa says that Pascha soothes any tribulation, and there is no man who would not find comfort in the triumph of this Feast (Homily on Holy Pascha).

And today, dear brothers and sisters, we join with spiritual joy in the bright triumph in honour of the most-glorious Resurrection of our Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ.

The Holy Gospel says that when the Risen Lord appeared to the Myrrh-Bearing Women, He said these words to them: ‘Go and tell My brethren to go to Galilee, and there they will see Me’ (Matt. 28:10). This blessed call is addressed to each of us who considers himself to be a Christian, a follower of Christ. Today, the Lord also calls us to Galilee so as to see Him there, our Creator and Redeemer. Galilee, in a figurative sense, means the spiritual space of moral purity, where Christian virtues reign: love and humility, patience and mercy. Those people who have cleansed their hearts of all unrighteousness and have filled them with virtues of love through repentance — those people have reached spiritual Galilee and are granted there the great honour and joy to see with the rational eyes of their souls the Risen Christ, His unspeakable beauty and infinite love, and His kindness and mercy.

There are a lot of Christians who have reached spiritual Galilee, but they hide themselves under the cloak of humility. There are even more who are still on their way to Galilee, that is, they have already left sin, but they have not reached the proper height of the purity of heart and Divine love yet. And there are also those who have not made even a good step yet. Let us get up and bravely, with the help of prayer and fasting, go to spiritual Galilee, to the Risen Christ. A guide to spiritual Galilee is the sacred commandments of God, which, like a spiritual beacon, show us the right path in the night of our earthly wanderings.

Let us hurry, dear brothers and sisters, Christ is waiting for us.

I once again wholeheartedly greet all of you on the Great Day of the Bright Resurrection of Christ, on the Pascha of Christ. May our Risen Lord Jesus Christ protect us from those who are waging war against us and bless our Ukrainian people and land with peace. May the Risen Christ bless the whole world with peace. Amen.

Indeed Christ is Risen!

Humble
Metropolitan Onuphry (Berezovsky)Onuphry (Berezovsky), Metropolitan

“>+ Onuphry
Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine

Pascha of Christ
Kyiv, 2024

The world is in great need of hope and patience, Pope Francis said at his weekly general audience.

Those who are patient “are weavers of goodness. They stubbornly desire peace, and even if others are hasty and would like everything straight away, patience is capable of waiting,” he said.

“Even when many around us have succumbed to disillusionment, those who are inspired by hope and are patient are able to get through the darkest of nights,” he said in St. Peter’s Square May 8, the feast of Our Lady of Luján, patroness of Argentina. Before giving his catechesis, the pope prayed a few moments before a small statue of the Our Lady of Luján that was placed with two small floral bouquets to the right of his chair.

The pope continued his series of audience talks about vices and virtues by reflecting on the “theological” or New Testament virtue of hope.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, the pope noted, says, “Hope is the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ’s promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit.”

Life without meaning gives rise to sadness and desperation, he said.

“Many may rebel” by insisting they have “striven to be virtuous, to be prudent, just, strong, temperate,” the pope said. They declare, “I have also been a man or woman of faith.… What was the use of my fight if everything ends here?”

“If hope is missing, all the other virtues risk crumbling and ending up as ashes. If no reliable tomorrow, no bright horizon, were to exist, one would only have to conclude that virtue is a futile effort,” the pope said.

Christian hope “is not an obstinacy we want to convince ourselves of, but it is a gift that comes directly from God,” he said. It is a belief in the future “because Christ died and rose again and gave us his spirit.”

“If you believe in the resurrection of Christ, then you know with certainty that no defeat and no death is forever,” he said.

However, the pope said, “hope is a virtue against which we sin often: in our bad nostalgia, in our melancholy, when we think that the happiness of the past is buried forever.”

“We sin against hope when we become despondent over our sins, forgetting that God is merciful and greater than our hearts,” he said, emphasizing that “God forgives everything; God always forgives.”

“The world today is in great need of this Christian virtue” of hope, he said, “just as it needs patience, a virtue that walks in close contact with hope.”

The pope asked people to pray for “the grace of hope along with patience” and to “always look toward that ultimate encounter; always see that the Lord is always near us and that death will never, ever be victorious.”

Chicago, May 8, 2024

oca.org     

His Grace Bishop Matthias (Moriak), the retired hierarch of Chicago and the Midwest of the Orthodox Church in America, reposed in the Lord on Holy Saturday, May 4, after a prolonged illness, reports the Orthodox Church in America.

He was the ruling hierarch of the Midwest from 2011 to 2013.

May his memory be eternal!

***

Bp. Matthias’ biography from the OCA reads:

Bishop Matthias was born David Lawrence Moriak on April 4, 1949, in Cleveland, OH, the son of Lawrence and the late Gladys Mae Moriak. He was baptized at Cleveland’s Saint Theodosius Cathedral, where he and his family were members there. His John Moriak, immigrated to Cleveland in 1913 from the village of Horowa in Galicia, Austria. His father was raised as an Orthodox Christian, while his mother converted to Orthodox Christianity prior to marriage.

At the age of 12, he moved with his parents to Parma, OH, and began attending a newly formed mission of the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese, where he began reading the Hours and the Epistle. He graduated from Parma High School in June 1967. While contemplating a calling to the Holy Priesthood, he had planned to join the Marine Corps after high school graduation, until he met His Grace, the late Bishop John [Martin] of the Carpatho-Russian Dicoese, who inspired him to begin studies at Christ the Saviour Seminary, Johnstown, PA in the fall of 1967. During the first few weeks of seminary studies, he realized a strong calling to the Holy Priesthood.

He graduated from Christ the Saviour Seminary in June 1972. He and his wife, Pani Jeannette, were married the same month. He was ordained to the Holy Priesthood on June 18, 1972.

Bishop Matthias’ pastoral experience has been extensive. He planted a mission parish dedicated to Saint Paul the Apostle in Freehold, NY in 1975. In 1982, he was to the pastorate of Saint Michael the Archangel Orthodox Church, Saint Clair, PA, a well-established parish that traces its establishment to 1897. The challenges of an older, established parish stood in sharp contrast to those of a mission parish.

In 2004, he was assigned to Christ the Saviour Cathedral, Johnstown, PA, where he served as Associate Pastor and the Prefect of Christ the Saviour Seminary. Two years later, he was assigned to Saint Gregory of Nyssa Church in Seaford, NY, which grew spiritually and numerically during his pastorate.

He and his wife became the parents of two children. Their daughter, Rachel Sumner, and her husband; their son, Priest Matthew D. Moriak, and his wife, Pani Jodi. They have several grandchildren.

In May 1996, Pani Jeannette was diagnosed with acute leukemia. She fell asleep in the Lord 11 months later on March 26, 1997. Prior to his wife’s illness, Father Matthias had begun studies at Saint Tikhon’s Seminary, South Canaan, PA, which he discontinued during his wife’s illness. One year following the repose of his wife, Father resumed his studies and was awarded a Master of Divinity degree.

Bishop Matthias had always admired the monastic life. Following the death of his wife, he visited several monasteries for healing and spiritual strength. He made many visits to Holy Transfiguration Monastery, Ellwood City, PA, and Holy Myrrhbearers Monastery, Otego, NY, where he also served the Great Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord for two years. He also visited the Monastery of Saint Anthony in Arizona, where he stayed for two weeks. Prior to his monastic tonsure, he visited the Iveron Monastery on Mount Athos for the entire month of May 2003. Much of his time on Mount Athos was spent following the daily cycle of services and obediences. Many hours were spent speaking to his newly found Anthonite spiritual father, Priestmonk Jeremiah. Following his time on Mount Athos, he was tonsured a riasophor monk on October 14, 2003.

During the last ten years, he has visited Holy Trinity Monastery and Hogar Rafael Ayau Orphanage in Guatemala, both on his own and as the leader of several mission teams. For the last two years, he has served as spiritual father to the nuns at the monastery and the children at the orphanage. With the blessing of His Eminence, Metropolitan Nicholas of the Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese, he traveled to the orphanage every three months for a ten-day period to hear confessions, baptize children, and chrismate converts to Orthodox Christianity. Father has baptized at least 60 children and adults in Guatemala.

He also has traveled to Turkey, Israel and the Holy Land, Greece, and Alaska.

In addition to the aforementioned parishes, he served the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church, Jenners, PA [1972-1975] and Saint Nicholas Church, Gary, IN [1978-1982]. He also has served as Regional Director of the Education Commission of the Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese [1972-2004], President of the Northwest Indiana Orthodox Clergy Association [1981-1982], Chaplain of Manor Care Nursing Center, Pottsville, PA [1984- 1994], Prefect of Christ the Saviour Seminary, Johnstown, PA [2004-2006], and a member of the faculty of Christ the Saviour Seminary, where he taught liturgics [2004-2006]. He has been a guest preacher at five Sunday of Orthodoxy celebrations and has conducted numerous retreats during his nearly four decades of ordained ministry.

After canonical release from the Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese, he was received into the Orthodox Church in America on September 1, 2010.

At the opening session of the fall gathering of the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America on Tuesday, November 16, 2010, he was canonically elected to the vacant Episcopal See of Chicago and the Midwest. He was granted retirement by the Holy Synod of Bishops on April 15, 2013.

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New York Attorney General Letitia James sued Heartbeat International, an anti-abortion group, and 11 crisis pregnancy centers May 6, accusing them of misleading and potentially causing harm to women by claiming that they can provide a treatment that reverses the effect of the abortion pill mifepristone.

The groups named in the lawsuit preemptively sued James April 30, arguing her threatened suit violated their rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

Proponents say administering a dose of progesterone in an attempt to stop the effects of a medication abortion, a process sometimes called abortion pill reversal, can halt the effects of mifepristone, the first of two drugs used in a medication or chemical abortion. But opponents argue that it is an unproven method. A 2019 study of the abortion reversal process was ended early due to safety concerns.

In a statement, James said, “Abortions cannot be reversed.”

“Any treatments that claim to do so are made without scientific evidence and could be unsafe,” James said. “Heartbeat International and the other crisis pregnancy center defendants are spreading dangerous misinformation by advertising ‘abortion reversals’ without any medical and scientific proof. Amid the increase in attacks on reproductive health care nationwide, we must protect pregnant people’s right to make safe, well-informed decisions about their health.

“Your reproductive health care decisions are yours and yours alone, and my office will always protect New Yorkers from those who push a scientifically unproven and potentially life-threatening intervention.”

Peter Breen, the Thomas More Society’s executive vice president and head of litigation, said in a statement that James “has decided to proceed full steam ahead with her witch-hunt against New York’s pregnancy help organizations.”

Breen called the lawsuit “baseless” and argued James “is seeking to keep in the dark women who desire to urgently try to continue their pregnancies.”

“On April 30, we preemptively sued Ms. James on behalf of our clients — Heartbeat International, CompassCare and a group of New York pro-life pregnancy help organizations — after they were blitzed with ‘Notice of Intention to Sue’ threat letters from Ms. James’ office,” Breen said. “We will fight back, as long as it takes, against Ms. James’ efforts to jeopardize the Christian and life-affirming missions of Heartbeat International, CompassCare, and all similar pro-life ministries in New York.”

Breen called the abortion pill reversal process “a safe and effective option for pregnant mothers who have taken the first abortion pill, immediately regret it, and seek to save their unborn babies’ lives.”

“The administration of supplemental progesterone, which is the heart of the Abortion Pill Reversal protocol, has been used for decades to help pregnant women at serious risk for miscarriage,” he said. “And thousands of pregnant women, at risk of miscarriage because of taking the abortion pill, were able to have healthy babies because of the timely application of supplemental progesterone through the Reversal protocol.”

“We will strenuously defend our clients’ right to offer facts, as well as hope, to women in their most difficult circumstances,” he said.

In a statement issued April 30, Jor-El Godsey, president of Heartbeat International, said, “New York State laws protect abortionists and abortion on demand up until birth.”

“Now they are targeting those who assist a woman in exercising her right to continue her own pregnancy,” Godsey said. “It is unconscionable to see the abortion industry and its paid-for politicians go so far as to insist she complete an abortion she no longer wants.”

California’s attorney general filed a similar lawsuit in September. A federal judge temporarily blocked Colorado in 2023 from implementing a ban abortion pill reversal treatment, siding with a Catholic medical center, while that facility’s challenge is considered.

Christ is Risen, my dear readers!

Agrippa. Paris, Louvre Museum. Photo: Pinterest Holy Scripture describes events that are repeated in one form or another in various times, under various circumstances. Thus, today [Bright Monday] we read in church how the Jewish high priest and Herod Agrippa formed a coalition of mutual aid and friendship. The king hoped that the religious figures would help him bolster his power. The religious figures thought that thanks to the king, their position in society would be stronger and more durable. But what in fact happens when you have a union of religion and state? There has never been an example in history when the state became more religious thanks to such a coalition. It has always turned out the other way around. Instead of religion serving God, it began to serve the state. The state in turn began to use religion to carry out plans that are not inherent to religion.

So then, what is the proper way? you ask. It is proper for the Church to teach the people how to save their souls. And for the state to concern itself with serving the people and not turn the lives of their citizens into hell. Each should concern itself with its own work.

The example of Herod Agrippa is an icon of what can happen to statesmen who decide to go against God for the sake of their own gain. No matter what they think of themselves, or how they exalt themselves, their fate will be very grievous. No less grievous will be the fate of those religious figures who, instead of serving God, start kowtowing to the powerful of this world.

Metropolitan Luke (Kovalenko)     

No matter how hard it is for us, no matter how we are persecuted, or how we suffer, we must place all our hope not in the princes of this world, for in them there is no salvation, but in the merciful God. The Church should not always live in a state of bliss and peace, however we may wish for that. This is a direct path to the degradation of its members. The Church must periodically pass through renewal through persecutions, by which it is sanctified. And those who by God’s mercy will serve in the Church during that blessed period should be thankful to God for this gift, because this is the very best time of our life, in which we can prove our faithfulness to Christ not only in word, but also in deed.

Michael Cardona, then known as Madhavananda das Babaji, was enjoying life as a Hindu guru in India in 2018, when he sensed Jesus calling him.

Christ showed him the suffering he had caused by leading thousands of Christians to renounce their faith, he said.

“He told me, you can come back to me if you go west, leave India as soon as possible, and help poor, sick, and homeless people with your own hands.”

Today, Cardona, 66, lives and works in the Emmanuel Baptist Rescue Mission on Skid Row in Los Angeles. He entered the Catholic Church at the 2024 Easter Vigil.

At the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, Caterina Krai, the director of sacramental life, had welcomed him. She has seen many dramatic journeys of conversion — from Islam, atheism, dark occultism, and even a homeless teenager who faithfully rode his bicycle to Order of Christian Initiation of Adults (OCIA) sessions. Cardona stood out as much for his humility and graciousness as for his radical change of faith.

“He was a bright light even when he was suffering greatly,” she said. “He was a great example of perseverance, hope, and God’s merciful love.”

Born near Philadelphia, he was baptized and raised Methodist. In the 1970s he joined the Jesus Movement. Baptized again in the Delaware River, he became an assistant pastor in a Christian commune in New York City, where he slept on the floor in imitation of Jesus.

Then law enforcement showed up to investigate the group’s leader for financial fraud, he said. Disillusioned, Cardona sought other paths to God, including the Hare Krishnas and Russian Orthodox Christianity. He kept moving east — geographically and spiritually.

Enthralled by encounters with Hindu gurus, he followed them. As a former evangelical pastor, his testimony was in demand. He moved to England, becoming a globe-trotting guru who led Christians into Hinduism. He spent seven years in Hong Kong before settling in India in 2013.

Five years later, he said, Jesus called him, showing him his sins so graphically that Cardona wept for three days and asked God why he didn’t just let him die.

He heard a voice in his heart reply, “It’s because I love you.”

That is when, Cardona said, Jesus told him to go west and serve the poor.

Back in Pennsylvania, he fell in with missionaries who lived in a motorhome, traveling with them across the south. But when he was sent to meet their leader in Australia, he realized he had joined another corrupt ministry.

Flat broke, Cardona contacted a former Hindu disciple in Hong Kong, who booked him a flight to Los Angeles.

“I didn’t have a penny in any currency and a Mexican cleaning lady gave me bus fare to come downtown so I could sign up for food stamps,” he said.

A street preacher directed him to the Emmanuel Baptist Rescue Mission, which is run by some of its residents. Cardona served as director until his health declined.

He began to reread the early Church Fathers, who he had encountered decades earlier in Russian Orthodoxy. But this time he was drawn west. What he read made him love and trust in Mary and long for the Eucharist.

“I found myself awash in God’s love and [Mary’s] sweet love and assurance. That was when I knew I had to become Catholic,” he said.

Kailua, Oahu, Hawaii, May 8, 2024

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The myrrh-streaming and wonderworking Hawaiian Iveron Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos is known throughout the Orthodox world.

With its guardian, Fr. Nectarios Yangston, the Icon continuously travels throughout America and abroad for the consolation of the faithful.

On Pascha, the Icon was at its home parish of the Holy Theotokos of Iveron Church in Kailua, Hawaii, where it poured forth an abundance of myrrh, reflecting the great joy of the Resurrection of Christ.

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Dcn. Seraphim Stojanche Andov writes:

Again the Mother of God this year showed Her abundant love. The Holy Icon was soaked with myrrh from top to bottom. Glory to God!

After the Holy Fire that descends in the Holy Sepulchre, this is probably the second Paschal miracle that happens every year. Keep our beloved Fr. Nectarious in your prayers!

Christ is Risen!

Ua ala hou ‘o Kristo!

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OrthoChristian reported on a miraculous healing worked by the Icon at St. Tikhon’s Monastery in Pennsylvania Miraculous healing by Hawaiian Iveron Icon at St. Tikhon’s MonasteryA man named Daniel tells the story of how he suffered from a degenerative brain disease for two years, which caused him his health, his job, and his ability to spend time with his family. He felt he was on the brink of death.

“>in August.

The Iveron Mother of God, and the Myrrh-Streaming Icons of HawaiiIn June of 2008, the “Hawaiian” Myrrh-streaming Iveron Icon was officially recognized by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia as miraculous and worthy of veneration, and was given the blessing to travel to the various churches and monasteries of Holy Orthodoxy. The original “owner” of the Icon, Reader Nectarios, was charged by the Russian Orthodox Church to be Her guardian, and provide for the safety and care of this Wonderworking Icon of Christ’s Holy Church.

“>Read more about the Hawaiian Iveron Icon here.

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