Click here to read about:  First Missionaries Scholarship Fund

To see the entire Month's calendar of Feasts and Saints:

This page was last updated:
May 3, 2008

To send this website to a friend, click here->
Subscribe to The Orthodox Herald today!

Individual rate:
$8.00 for 1 Year or $12.00 for 2 years

1 Year Packet rate (20 issues or more, please):
$3.60 per issue  X  No. of issues desired

Send a check or Money Order to:

The Orthodox Herald
P.O. Box 9
Hunlock Creek,  PA  18621-0009


Include your name, address, and Zip Code

Donations are also greatly appreciated!
The Orthodox Herald

V. Rev. W. Basil Stroyen
Matushka Nina Stroyen
JANUARY 2008
Volume 56, No. 9 ISSUE 668
www.orthodoxherald.homestead.com
To see the entire Month's calendar of Feasts and Saints:
Read in more than 7500 households
"Celebrating our 57th year"  1952-2008
CONTENTS
LINKS:
THIS MONTH:
CLICK to view CONTENTS  --->
UNDIQUE

The horror of the death of the innocents in Matthew 2:16 is not lessened by the fact that the mad Herod ordered the execution, reportedly on his death bed, of his son Antipater, who was far from a child and whose demise had no impact on Christianity.

At the beginning of the 1830's, the evergreen tree was still being referred to as a "fetching German notion." At the end of that decade, it had "become a custom" in homes of the St. Petersburg elite...Only in the homes of the clergy and in peasant huts did the evergreen tree fail to take root in the 19th century...

The tree... was not especially favored. It's association as a death-symbol and its link with "the underworld" according to Russian tradition, as well as the tradition of setting the tree on the roofs of taverns, contrasted with the changes in attitudes that occurred in the middle of the 19th century... process of the tree's used by Christians was not very smooth in Russia. It met opposition from the Orthodox Church. The clergy saw in the new celebration "demonic action", a pagan tradition which had nothing to do with the birth of the Savior, and furthermore it was a tradition from the West. Y.V. Dushechkina, Dr. of philological sciences at the St. Petersburg State University.

Peter the Great ordered special New Year's services held in all churches on January 1. Further, he instructed that festive evergreen branches be used to decorate the doorposts in interiors of houses, and he commanded that all citizens of Moscow should display their happiness by loudly congratulating one another on the New Year.

Everywhere Orthodoxy has gone it has "acculturated" itself to reflect the life of its faithful in that country or region. This "acculturation" has been both the strength of Orthodoxy and its weakness in America.

The first people to fall from grace were converts to Christianity who insisted on following certain aspects of the traditional Mosaic Law. In Galatians 5:2-4 it was St. Paul's intent to show people that Christians were bound to God by faith, not rituals  in this case, circumcision. He wrote: "I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing." "For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to the whole law."

"Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law, ye are fallen from grace."

Since the time of the New Testament, Christians have believed that when worshipping God, we who are earthbound enter by the spirit into "heavenly places." In Orthodox worship, we can step out of the pandemonium of time into the peace of eternity. Therefore, everything in our worship has heaven as its point of reference. But this heavenly focus by no means turns worship into a mental religion. A human being is not merely soul or spirit. Being human involves the unity of soul and body. Accordingly, worship calls for the action not only of the mind, the emotion and the will, but also of the body with all its senses. So, as the Scriptures describe, in worship there are things to see, hear, touch, taste, and smell. Our whole being is to participate actively in worship and that is what we do in the Orthodox church.

Quantity and quality are two different categories. It would be naive to assume that the more holy images in an Orthodox house, the more pious his life. A disorganized collection of icons, prints, religious wall calendars covering a significant amount of living space, can often have a directly opposite effect on a person's spiritual life. A collection of icons can turn into simple, meaningless collecting, something in which the prayerful purpose of the icon has no role whatsoever.

We may wonder why the priest or deacon censes the congregation as well as the icons. The best icon of Christ God is men and women who are made in His image. This is why the Orthodox priest or deacon during the liturgy turns and censes the living icons of God in the congregation (the worshippers) after having censed the icons on the icon screen/ikonostas and walls.

The traditional icon used by the Church on Easter is an icon of Holy Saturday: the Descent of Christ into Hades. It gives a theological picture as it depicts Christ, radiant, standing on the shattered gates of Hades. With His outstretched arms, He is joining hands with Adam and all the other Old Testament righteous whom He has seen there. He leads them from the kingdom of death.

Every Sunday when we listen to the Hours chanted in Church, we hear the words: "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean." (Ps 51:7). What is hyssop? It is uncertain which plant is identified as hyssop. We know that it must have had a long stalk, for it was used to raise the sponge to Jesus' lips as He hung on the Cross. We know that branches of it were tied together and used to sprinkle lepers to cleanse them, and it was generally used to purge (get rid of) guilt or some type of moral or ceremonial defilement.

Maybe the most difficult thing about humility is to accept humbly the nonlove of others for us. Surely, we are justified in longing for this love, but we cannot demand it, even within our heart. For the commandment we have received is that we love others, not that we demand their love for us. The very essence of love is that we demand nothing for ourselves. Only when we achieve this non-demanding attitude does the golden bird of God's love come down into our heart and fill it.

Sergei Fugel
Click here to read about:  First Missionaries Scholarship Fund

Theophany of Christ
January 6
The Herald is back in print after a 3 month break.  The May issue coming soon.
EDITOR'S NOTES

In August of 2007, I started to discuss the necessity of computerizing The Orthodox Herald and taking a pause to straighten files, etc. As my brother, Fr. John Bohush put it-it's about time that I enter the 21st century and use some of the technology which is now available. How best to do this? Some suggested that I put out a double issue in 2008, others, that I go to a quarterly. As I pondered these options, several months went by. Then circumstances gave me breathing space to fully examine the situation. I have decided not to publish the paper for a few months and get it and me into the 21st century. Subscriptions will be extended so that everyone will get the right number of copies. I will send out Packet Plan bills later to cover the copies published in 2008. Those who have paid in advance shall be credited.

I have been gratified to learn that "The Herald" has become a part of so many lives. Those who I have informed of my decision say: "take a few months, up to three but no longer. I need the paper."

So here's a "DOSFEDANIYA" for a few months and then hopefully a return to a better, more informative paper!

MATUSHKA NINA

Christ is Risen!
Indeed He is Risen!