Class - The Architectural Beauty of Eden
OrthoAnalytika
From Eden to the ChurchBeauty, Architecture, and the Space Where God Dwells Christian architecture is not primarily about style or preference. It is about ordering space so that human beings learn how to dwell with God. The Church building is Eden remembered and anticipated—a place where heaven and earth meet, so that God’s people can be formed and then sent back into the world. Key Biblical Insights 1. Eden Was God’s Dwelling Place Eden is first described not as humanity’s home, but as God’s planted garden—a place of divine presence, beauty, and order. Genesis...
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Homily - The Green Hand of Hell
OrthoAnalytika
Luke 17:12-19; The Grateful Leper I've included my notes, but I didn't follow them, choosing instead to offer a meditation on the "go show yourself to the priest" part of the Levitical command and noting how we do the same - and will all do the same one day at the Great Judgment. Homily: Healing, Vision, and the Mercy of God Onee of the things that sometimes gives people pause—especially when they encounter it for the first time—comes from the Book of Needs, in the prayers the priest offers for those who are sick. If you have ever been present for these prayers, you may have...
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Class: The Beauty of Creation and the Shape of Reality
OrthoAnalytika
Beauty in Orthodoxy: Architecture I The Beauty of Creation and the Shape of Reality In this class, the first in a series on "Orthodox Beauty in Architecture," Father Anthony explores beauty not as decoration or subjective taste, but as a theological category that reveals God, shapes human perception, and defines humanity’s priestly vocation within creation. Drawing extensively on Archbishop Job of Telmessos’ work on creation as icon, he traces a single arc from Genesis through Christ to Eucharist and sacred space, showing how the Fall begins with distorted vision and how repentance...
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Homily - Repent and Burn (in a good way)
OrthoAnalytika
Homily: The Sunday after Theophany Hebrews 13:7–16; Matthew 4:12–17 This homily explores repentance as the doorway from darkness into light, and from spiritual novelty into mature faithfulness. Rooted in Hebrews and the Gospel proclamation after Theophany, it calls Christians to become not sparks of passing enthusiasm, but enduring flames shaped by grace, sacrifice, and hope in the coming Kingdom. ---- Today’s Scripture readings give us three interrelated truths—three movements in the life of salvation and theosis. First: darkness and light. Second: repentance as the way from...
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Homily - Repent, Transcend Boredom, and Change the World
OrthoAnalytika
Homily – Repent… and Change the World (Embrace Boredom) Sunday before Theophany 2 Timothy 4:5–8; St. Mark 1:1–8 This is the Sunday before Theophany, when the Church sets before us St. John the Baptist and his ministry of repentance—how he prepared the world to receive the God-man, Jesus Christ. John was the son of the priest Zachariah and his wife Elizabeth, the cousin of the Mother of God. When Mary visited Elizabeth during her pregnancy, John leapt in his mother’s womb. But what we sometimes forget is what followed. While Zachariah was serving in the Temple, the angel...
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Homily - Our Herodic Responses to Christ
OrthoAnalytika
Homily for the Sunday after Nativity The Child Christ in the World—and in Our Hearts Gospel: St. Matthew 2:13–23 [Retelling the Lesson] God humbles Himself to save mankind. He leaves His rightful inheritance as God and becomes man, born as a child in Bethlehem. And how does the world receive Him? Is He born in a temple? In a palace? Places that might seem fitting for the Ruler of the Ages? No—He is laid in a manger, in a stable. And even that is not the worst of it. When the leaders of the day learn of His birth, do they submit to Him? Do they nurture and protect Him so that He may...
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Homily - The Name of Jesus
OrthoAnalytika
St. Matthew 1:1-25 Why was the Son of God commanded to be named Jesus—the New Joshua? In this Advent reflection, Fr. Anthony shows how Christ fulfills Israel’s story by conquering sin and death, and calls us to repentance so that we may enter the victory He has already won. --- Homily on the Name of Jesus Sunday before the Nativity In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. “They named Him Jesus, because He would deliver His people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:21) Names matter in Scripture. They are never accidental. A name reveals identity, vocation,...
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Homily - The Pilgrimage to Peace
OrthoAnalytika
Fr. Anthony preaches on three types of pilgrimage and how they work towards our salvation.
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Homily - Do You Want to Be Healed? Letting God Rewrite the Story
OrthoAnalytika
Do You Want to Be Healed? Letting God Rewrite the Story Ephesians 8:5-19 Today, Fr. Anthony reflects on how the deepest obstacles to healing are often the stories we tell ourselves to justify, protect, and control our lives. Drawing on the Prophet Isaiah, the Gospel parables of the banquet, and the power of silence before God, he explores how true healing begins when we let go of our fallen narratives and allow Christ to reconstruct our story through humility, prayer, and repentance. The path of peace is not found in domination or self-justification, but in stillness at the feet of the Lord...
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Homily: Recovering Apostolic Virtue in an Age of Contempt
OrthoAnalytika
I Corinthians 4:9-16 St. John 1:35-51 In this homily for the Feast of St. Andrew, Fr. Anthony contrasts the world’s definition of success with the apostolic witness of sacrifice, humility, and courageous love. Drawing on St. Paul’s admonition to the Corinthians, he calls Christians to recover the reverence due to bishops and spiritual fathers, to reject the corrosive logic of social media, and to return to the ascetical path that forms us for theosis. St. Andrew and St. Paul's lives reveals that true honor is found not in comfort or acclaim but in following Christ wherever He leads —...
info_outlinePalm Sunday Homily.
Where do we get our spiritual strength? What is the source? Is our spiritual health fragile and dependent on the circumstances, or is it robust?
Do the events and people in our lives “damage our calm”, or do we have the kind of “peace that passes all understanding” guarding our hearts?
The default setting is for our calm to be defined by the state of our ego; our pride.
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When we feel insulted or taken for granted, our peace is threatened and our joy diminishes.
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When people show appreciation for us, or praise us, we feel serenity and our joy abounds.
This really is a litmus test for our spiritual maturity: how do we respond to insults and a lack of appreciation; and how do we respond to praise.
If deepest state of being is offset by these things, then we have work to do.
The easy way: surround ourselves with the right kind of people! (safe places?)
A bit harder: mental games. Learn to write off or ignore criticism and look for positive things to cling to. This can include using theological ideas: “If God be for me, then who can be against me”; “I am a child of God; it's not my fault if these sinners don't see that.” Also games for praise. Another way is to just check out - lots of ways to protect our ego.
But learning to hear criticism and praise objectively (and not through the needs of our ego) is necessary for our improvement!
God wants to have joy, and to have that joy in abundance; irrespective of our situation.
The God-man Jesus Christ demonstrated this in the events we are now celebrating:
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Praise: Palm Sunday
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Criticism: His Trial and Passion.
In neither case was He altered by them. His emotions were affected, but His sense of self and His sense of purpose was unchanged. Because He was never separated Himself from the Light and Truth that are themselves unchanging.
AND THAT IS THE ANSWER FOR US TO. To have Christ in us and us in Him; because no matter how much we work on them and no matter how we change our environment to make it easier for us to be content and happy, there is one even that our ego's can NEVER be strong enough to overcome...
Death. It faces us all. It faced Jesus. But He overcame it and through Him we can overcome it, too.
But only if we rely on Him and not our egos. And we can test how we are doing by looking at how our joy is affected by criticism and praise.
May God give us the courage to live in Him and Him in us so that we may overcome death and sin.