It’s funny how much the theme of light comes up during Great Lent and Holy Week. I was looking at an icon just a few days ago. The icon was in a dark corner with a vigil light placed in front of it and the light danced on the image making the image shimmer. The effect
catalyzed my thinking about light. In modern times most of us, who are urban dwellers, really don’t understand darkness. The ambient light somehow prevents us from experiencing true darkness. Since it is difficult to experience true darkness, can we really understand the power of light? Many times you read or better still, speak to someone about their experience of the Easter Vigil, the first thing they mention is the light and how it seems to come rolling through the Church at ‘Come Receive the Light.’
The dictionary on my computer defines light in two ways. First, it gives a very precise definition of the physics of light, photons, electromagnetic waves and energy quanta; then it uses this phrase to describe light for the rest of us “the natural agent that stimulates sight and makes things visible”. It was this definition that I’d like to explore theologically, stimulating sight and making things visible, in what way? In the Pre-Sanctified Liturgy, celebrated during Great Lent, the phrase we hear is “The Light of Christ”. It occurs to me that there is a lens by which we should filter the light we see…Christ! If our light is seen through this lens then how should we perceive it? But, Christ doesn’t say: “I am the lens” he says; “I am the LIght.” He is the source of what is visible, but what are the implications of being the source of the visible? We should define our world by His perception not our own. We see in icons and hear in hymns that Christ shatters the darkness. Does he shatter our darkness? Do we allow His Light to illumine our heart and mind? St. John states quite succinctly in the Gospel reading read during the Paschal Liturgy, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1, 5). The most difficult surrender is the surrender of our fears. These fears are our greatest darkness.
Christ is Risen!
Christ stands ready to be the Light in our darkness. Our task is to permit the Light to enter, to roll back the great stone of our own tomb to let the power of the Light penetrate our private darkness.
The Light has overcome the darkness.
Today, I would like to talk about silence. As I was growing up, my parents always referred to the Friday before the Saturday of Lazarus – as the “Silence (oi koufi)”. I always thought this was because the Akathist had finished and there wasn’t a service that night. Ok, there was silence. Now, I look at this a bit more deeply. If you remember a few years ago, there was this movement to help young people make better decisions by using the question, “What would Jesus do?” As I recall, there were even little rubber bracelets with the letters “WWJD” on them. In this case this is the question that should be asked. The Gospel reading of the Raising of Lazarus, (John 11, 1 – 45) begins with Jesus apparently hesitating to go to his friend’s aid. Well, this supposed hesitation had a real purpose, for all to see the glory of God. How was this to be accomplished? Our Lord seemingly was blasé about Lazarus’s illness and rushing to his side. After staying put for two days, Jesus prepared to go to Bethany informing His disciples that Lazarus was dead. As Jesus encountered Martha and Mary, they expressed thoughts that we all feel at sometime, “if only.” They were sure that if only Jesus had been there Lazarus wouldn’t have died, but Jesus was silent and missing. For us to truly understand Jesus’ hesitation, we need to know a bit about the Jewish teaching concerning death. At day four, in the Jewish understanding, the soul left the body in other words the body was a cadaver, a corpse. So if Lazarus was a corpse, Jesus did not simply resuscitate him. As Jesus called forth Lazarus and Lazarus walked out of his tomb Christ created life from dead matter. The Creator God bestowed life on Lazarus. Christ is God and the silence of Lazarus’ tomb was shattered. To the assembled crowd this silence was deafening.]]> 
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She strongly wished to continue a monasticism open to the world in the manner of Alexander Bukharev. In the 1930s she reached out to the suffering poor of Paris. A controversial socially active monasticism caused a scandal with more conservative church members, but Mother Maria endured. With the advent of World War II, Mother Maria and her friends reached out to help Jews hide and escape Nazi persecution. She was betrayed to the Germans and was put to death, taking the place of a young girl scheduled to die in the gas chambers. Her martyrdom took place in the last days of the war in Ravensbruck concentration camp; On January 18, 2004, the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul recognized Mother Maria Skobtsova as a saint along with her son Yuri, the priest who worked closely with her, Fr. Dimitri Klépinin, and her close friend and collaborator Ilya Fondaminsky. All four died in German concentration camps. On January 18, 2004, the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul recognized Mother Maria Skobtsova as a saint along with her son Yuri, the priest who worked closely with her, Fr. Dimitri Klépinin, and her close friend and collaborator Ilya Fondaminsky.]]> 
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The priest blesses and calls for “peace for the congregants and they respond asking for his spirit to be peaceful. Clergy exchange the Kiss of Peace. With the exception of the personal pronouns “we and us,” peace is the single most often used word in our liturgy. After focusing on the centrality of peace in the liturgy, Elisabeth then discusses the effect that nationalism and national identity influence the Church and its mission to strive for peace among nations. No doubt, complex geopolitical issues affect the closely knit church-state relations in many Orthodox countries. Behr-Sigel points out areas of concern to Orthodox peoples; Serbia (note the date of the article), Palestine, and the cooperation of Constantinople, Russia and the WCC and peace efforts. Never the less, the increased presence of Orthodoxy in the west should help provide a catalyst for a pan-orthodox peace movement. For further information link to the Orthodox Peace Fellowship (
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The kenosis of Our Lord is at the center of Orthodox theology. God humbling Himself to take on flesh, so that He could identify with us His creation is the essence of His salvific mission in obedience to the will of the Father. The hymns, poetry and art of the Church bear witness to this tenet. Behr-Sigel describes the prevalence of this concept in Russian theological thought and literature. The monastic vocation is a true reflection of this theological concept and has been since its inception in the Egyptian and Palestinian deserts. Modern Greek theologians Zizioulas, Nellas, and Vlachos; in addition to many familiar Russian theologians have written about this aspect of Orthodox theology. Dr. Behr-Sigel masterfully weaves the theme of kenosis and its imprint on the soul of Russia and her people.]]> 
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“Courage, Mother because you will see me first on my coming first from the tombs. I am coming to show you by how many toils I ransomed Adam and how much I sweated for his sake. I shall show it to my friends by showing the marks in my hands and then you will see Eve, Mother, living as before, and you will cry out with joy: ‘He has saved my forebears, my Son and my God.’*
*(St. Romanos the Melodist. On the Life of Christ: Kontakia. Translated by Archimandrite Ephrem Lash. Edited by Kerry Brown, The Sacred Literature Series. New York et al.: HarperCollins Publishers, 1995, p. 148).]]>