Lenten Lesson - Loving Our Enemies
OrthoAnalytika
Today, Fr. Anthony continues to keep it real while talking about the great challenge of loving our enemies. Love your enemies. Matthew 5:43-48 1 Corinthians 13: 1 John 13:34 Romans 15:1a St. John Chrysostom: [St. Paul] adorns love not only for what it has but also for what it has not. Love both elicits virtue and expels vice, not permitting it to spring up at all. St John Chrysostom: For neither did Christ simply command to love but to pray. Do you see how many steps he has ascended and how he has set us on the very summit of virtue? Mark it, numbering from the...
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Retreat on Beauty - Putting It All Together
OrthoAnalytika
Fr. Anthony concludes his prestantation on beauty at the 2025 UOL Lenten retreat by connecting music with love. Music taps into and draws from something that is primal, foundational, and rational (word – bearing); so does love. Music requires mastery of certain skills and concepts that require repetition to master; so does love. Music improves when there are different voices represented; so does love. Music works with dissonance to move us towards deeper truths; so does love. Music often requires periods of silence for listening, anticipation, and appreciation; so...
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Retreat on Beauty - Fr. Roman Marchyshak on Music in Worship
OrthoAnalytika
Fr. Roman Marchyshak is the priest at Holy Trinity Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Trenton, NJ and teaches liturgical music at St. Sophia Ukrainian Orthodox Seminary. In this presentation, he talks about the role music plays in the worship of the Orthodox Church, reminding us that it is not an adornment, but an essential element. He had some of the seminarians from St. Sophia's sing selected pieces to illustrate his main points. Enjoy the show!
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Retreat on Beauty - Introduction
OrthoAnalytika
This is the audio for the first part of the 2025 Ukrainian Orthodox League Lenten Retreat held on Saturday April 5th in Philadelphia. Beauty helps us understand Orthodox (INCARNATIONAL!) theology better and thus live more graceful lives. It is also one of the best ways to do Orthodox Evangelism. People come to us for many reasons, but an encounter with God is what they really long for. Beauty is a special charisma of the Church – secular beauty is a pale imitation (or perversion) of that true beauty. Beauty resonates with the built-in beauty receptors of our senses,...
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Homily - St. John of the Ladder on the Hard Work of Salvation
OrthoAnalytika
On the Sunday of St. John of the Ladder, Fr. Anthony delivers a homily that encourages us to take our pursuit of joy, peace, and freedom from anxiety seriously. He begins by asking whether we truly want these things or if we expect them to come without effort, likening it to people desiring health or success without being willing to make the necessary sacrifices. He emphasized that true peace and joy require commitment, not idle desire, and must be pursued through effort, prayer, and fasting. Fr. Anthony critiqued the common temptation of chasing material security and success, such as the...
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Men’s Talk - Building a Safe, Healthy, and Holy Home
OrthoAnalytika
Fr. Anthony leads a discussion with the men of Christ the Savior's parish on the basics of leading a Christian home. Enjoy the show!
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Lenten Lesson - Loving Your Neighbor
OrthoAnalytika
Still trying to “keep it real,” Fr. Anthony leads a class on the challenges that come when we try to love our neighbor. Enjoy the show!
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Homily - Your Cross Needs Love
OrthoAnalytika
Mark: 8:34-9:1. In this homily, Fr. Anthony discusses the true meaning of taking up one's cross in Christian life. He emphasizes that Christ's cross was not just a symbol of pain but of sacrificial love, where Jesus Christ gave Himself for the salvation of others. The act of following Christ involves denying personal desires to serve others, even when it's difficult or misunderstood. By sacrificing our time and efforts for others' well-being, we emulate Christ's example, aligning our actions with His purpose for eternal life. The homily highlights that true sacrifice is motivated by love and...
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Lenten Lesson - Loving God through Prayer and Worship
OrthoAnalytika
In this lesson, Fr. Anthony talks about how necessary a prayer rule and proper worship are to knowing and loving God. Enjoy the show!
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Homily - St. Gregory Palamas Sunday
OrthoAnalytika
Humans are created with an innate capacity to revel in God’s glory, much like feeling the brief warmth of the sun after a long winter. This was intended to be our constant state, but we chose a different path. Yet, we still experience fleeting moments of transcendence—times of special warmth, belonging, and comfort that can arise in church, through music, gardening, or savoring well-earned rest after a hard day’s work. These moments stir something deep within us, a spiritual sense that hints at the divine. But we must ask: who is the God we encounter in these moments? Feelings,...
info_outlineRevelation: Lesson 8
Revelation 4:1 – 5:1
Andrew of Caesarea, Commentary on the Apocalypse, ed. David G. Hunter, trans. Eugenia Scarvelis Constantinou, vol. 123, The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2011), 81–90.
4:1. After these I saw, and behold, an open door in heaven! And the first voice that I heard was like a trumpet [47] speaking to me, saying, “Come up here, and I will show you the things which must happen after these.”
[Compare to the Ascent of Moses].
4:2–3. 2 And immediately I was in the Spirit. And behold, a throne stood in heaven, 3 and one sitting upon the throne who appeared like the stone jasper and carnelian, and a rainbow was around the throne that looked like an emerald.
… First, jasper, meaning, as pale green, the evergreen at once both the life-bringer and bestower of the food of the divine nature, through which every seed brings forth young sprouts. … And the rainbow like an emerald shows the variety and blooming virtues of the angelic orders.
4:4. And around the throne <were> twenty-four thrones, and sitting on the thrones <were> twenty-four elders wrapped in white garments, and upon their heads <were> gold crowns. [49]
… by the twelve elders <is meant> those who excelled in the Old, and by the twelve others those who excelled in the New. …
4:5a. From out of the throne came flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder.
4:5b–6a. 5b And seven torches of fire burn before the throne, which are the seven spirits of God; 6a and before the throne <something> like a glass sea like crystal.
… The glass sea designates the multitude of the holy powers, and also the clarity, spotlessness, and calmness of the future life. …
4:6b. And in the midst of the throne, and around the throne, <were> four living beings, full of eyes in front and behind:
The throne is shown by this to be signifying the reign and resting-place of God, in which and around which he saw the seraphim, being taught through the multitude of their eyes their ability to see God with regard to the divine light, and also that those eyes behind and in front receive light and knowledge from God.
4:7. And the first living being <was> like a lion, the second living being <was> like a calf, the third living being had a face like a man, and the fourth living being <was> like an eagle flying.
These living beings, we think, were also seen by Isaiah…
4:8a. And the four living beings, each of them having six wings, are full of eyes all around and within,
…
4:8b. And they do not rest day and night, saying, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and who is and who is to come!”
These holy powers do not rest, never ceasing the divine hymnody and offering the threefold blessing to the Tri-hypostatic Divinity. And the who is and who was and who is to come we said means the Holy Trinity.
4:9–10a. 9 And whenever the living beings give glory and honor and thanksgiving [53] to him who is seated on the throne, who lives for ever and ever, 10a the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives for ever and ever.
[LITURGY!]
4:10b–11. 10b They cast their crowns before the throne, saying, 11 “You are worthy, Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power, for You created all things, and by Your will they exist and were created.”
They say, “You, Master, are the cause and the provider of the crowns of victory, and thanksgiving is due to You from all things as creatures.”
About the Small Scroll Sealed With Seven Seals Which No One Who Has a Created Nature is Able to Open
5:1. And I saw in the right <hand> of the One who was seated on the throne a small scroll covered in writing on the inside and outside, sealed with seven seals.
… The seven seals, which no one of created nature is able to loosen, <signify> either the fulfillment of the scroll, which is obscure and unknown to all, or the dispensation of the one “who searches the depths of the Spirit of God.” The scroll also means the prophecy which Christ himself said in the Gospel according to Luke had been fulfilled, which things occurring thereafter are to be fulfilled in the last days.