November 23, 2018 Church Reading: What Makes This Ministry so Important? Sometimes people say, “I am just a reader,” as though this were a petty or insignificant ministry. However, when the reader (whether tonsured or…
November 22, 2018 7 Types of Orthodox Clergy and Monastic Headwear Keep exploring mitres in the catalog >> The miter is a kind of headgear, which resembles a royal crown, and is part…
November 21, 2018 How to Be Canonized? There is a joke that says, “To become a saint, you’ve got to die first.” In fact, that joke is one hundred percent true….
November 16, 2018 Why so Much Self-humiliation in Prayer? Question: Why is there so much self-humiliation in the prayers from prayerbooks: we have to call ourselves “sinful”, “fool”, “unworthy” and “worthy of conviction…
November 15, 2018 The Problem of “Unclean” Women and Holy Communion Question: Explain to me, please, why women may not enter a church when they are unclean (during menstruation)? After what period of time after the…
November 15, 2018 Where Do Liturgical Colors Come From? Today, the Church uses priest and temple vestments of various colors. There is even a full-fledged system of liturgical colors where each holiday has…
November 9, 2018 Do We Really Need So Many Services? “Fr. Dustin, aren’t all those extra services (feast days, Vespers, Matins) just for monks and retired people?” Here’s my brief response. Before explaining the…
November 7, 2018 “Let Your Women Keep Silence”: the Qustion of Women Singing in Church Question: “What does St Paul mean when he says “Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to…
November 5, 2018 The Holy Lance: What Happened to the Spear of Longinus? Last week, the Orthodox Christians commemorated St. Martyr Longinus, the Roman centurion, who hit the Savior’s side with a spear. As the Holy Gospel…
November 2, 2018 Some Thoughts on Kneeling in Church on Sundays I have a question about something I’ve been thinking about for a while. I’ve read that the Church canons say that you are not…
October 31, 2018 Why Do Orthodox Christians Need Holy Fathers? Isn’t the Bible Enough? We Orthodox Christian hear this question quite often. In fact, it strikes a much deeper issue, namely, the issue with the Holy Tradition, which…
October 30, 2018 “A Sin not unto Death”: What Do These Words Mean? Question: What does the following phrase from the First Catholic Epistle of St. John the Theologian mean: “All unrighteousness is sin; and there is…
