St Andrew's Blog - Theology & Life

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The Feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos

By Associate Professor Philip Kariatlis (Sub-Dean)

Without doubt in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, “our glorious Lady Theotokos”, has a pre-eminent place in the life of the Orthodox Church. The month of August, for example, is dedicated to the Virgin Mother, not to mention other great feasts that are celebrated throughout the entire liturgical year. Not only do we celebrate the Dormition (or Falling Asleep) of the Theotokos [1] in August, but there are Supplication Services which are held every day in the first two weeks of this month leading to the great feast, as well as the designated period of fasting which the Church has prescribed. This betrays both the great devotion attributed to the blessed Mother personally by the faithful of the Church throughout the ages—and rightly so, since we read in the Gospel according to St Luke: “Surely, from now on, all generations will call me blessed” (Lk 1:48)—and the extent to which her person has infused Orthodox spirituality...

Sunday Commemorating the Fathers of the First Ecumenical Councils

By Associate Professor Philip Kariatlis (Sub-Dean)

Within the liturgical cycle of the Church, the Sunday following the feast day Christ’s Ascension and immediately preceding the Sunday of Pentecost, is dedicated to the memory of the three hundred and eighteen Fathers who met in Nicaea, at what came to be known as the First Ecumenical Council in 325AD. It was at this Council that the Creed, which we have today, and which we recite at every celebration of the divine Liturgy—and perhaps, for some, even on a daily basis, during their daily prayer—was composed and subsequently promulgated within the Church as a succinct summary, symbol and standard of the Christian faith. It is this Creed, the Nicene Creed as it is known today...

The Resurrection of Christ and the Victory of Life

By Associate Professor Philip Kariatlis (Sub-Dean)

In a profoundly simple manner, the concise greeting, “Christ is Risen! Truly He is Risen!” contains within it the entire message of the Christian faith. The Apostle Paul of course had insightfully declared this when he wrote: “if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain [εἰ δὲ Χριστὸς οὐκ ἐγήγερται, κενὸν ἄρα [καὶ] τὸ κήρυγμα ἡμῶν, κενὴ καὶ ἡ πίστις ὑμῶν·]” (1Cor 15: 14). Not only is this joy-filled Feast of all Feasts, as it is known in the Orthodox Church, a celebration of Christ’s “trampling down death by death” and rising again to live and reign eternally, but it is also...

Easter Wishes

Dear Friends of St Andrew's

A short message from St Andrew’s Theological College, on behalf of His Eminence Archbishop Makarios of Australia, our College President and Dean, and all the Faculty, to wish you and your families a spiritually uplifting and Light-filled Easter. Let us focus on the life-giving message of Holy and Great Week, during which the entire Passion of Christ will unfold before us, giving us an opportunity, once again, to receive Him truly into our life! It is a week in which the gift of Christ’s unfading light to come enters human history providing serenity and solace amongst life’s many anxieties as it reveals to us “the certainty that Someone loves us”.

Sermon for the Veneration of the Cross (3rd Sunday of Lent)

By Associate Professor Philip Kariatlis (Sub-Dean)

At the heart of Holy and Great Lent, the Church places before the faithful, ‘the precious and living giving Cross’ of Christ, inviting us all to come before it and to venerate it, which essentially means to revere, to honour, but also to embrace it wholeheartedly and with fervour, in our daily life. On this, the 3rd Sunday of our Lenten journey, we pause to reflect on the mystery of the Cross, not only to be supported and strengthened as we endeavour to complete the forty-day pilgrimage that we began some weeks ago, but also to come to really appreciate its centrality for Lent but, more broadly, for our day-to-day life...

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