Pictures: (Above) “The Arming and Departure of the Knights of the Round Table on the Quest for the Holy Grail,” by Edward Burne-Jones. (Below) Entering our Church with her new Onion Dome and Slavic Cross last night.

An Homily for the Tenth Sunday of Pentecost from St. John’s Russian Orthodox Mission Church in Winfield, PA, by Priest Paul Siewers.

Two great quests in modern Western imagination have been the quest for the lost Ark of the Convenant and for the Holy Grail. We have found both in the Orthodox Church, and brothers and sisters, this is our open secret, that they are both with us here in our humble country Church today in Appalachian America. Let’s first, though, consider a holy Orthodox pilgrimage place far away as we contemplate how we also have with us here in Winfield, Pennsylvania, the fulfillment of the Ark and the Grail.

Indeed, today Orthodox Liturgy is being said on remote Spruce Island, Alaska, to commemorate the glorification of Saint Herman of Alaska on this day in 1970. Our Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia has an important part in that tradition, which made today one of the great feasts of that founding missionary to America. Hieromonk Seraphim Rose of Blessed Memory with his monastic brothers spearheaded the canonization of St. Herman. It occurred simultaneously with services in Alaska and at the Cathedral in San Francisco where lie the relics of our patron St. John. Although in Alaska St. Herman’s relics are at an Orthodox Church in America cathedral, the churches around Spruce Island are peopled by American Serbian Orthodox monastic communities that originally were from Blessed Seraphim’s ROCOR monastery in California. So we all in America across jurisdictions join today in commemorating Saint Herman.The Irish Orthodox Christian writer Paul Kingsnorth, whose visit here our mission co-sponsored a few years ago, wrote this about his pilgrimage to Spruce Island:

“The skiff drops us on the sands of the appropriately-named Monks Bay, and Fr Adrian points us through the vast, mossy, Tolkeinesque forest, up a path through the trees. Head up there, he tells us, and we will reach the little church which is built on the spot where St Herman lived. Fr Adrian tells us he will catch us up when we have had time to savour the place and its atmosphere.

“And it needs savouring. There is something about this forest that I have never quite experienced anywhere else: a deep and abiding peace. It is very hard to put into words. At first I assume that the whole of the island must feel like this, but after I walk on later I realise that, in fact, it is only the area around St Herman’s cell that has this atmosphere. There is a kind of radical stillness. When Fr Adrian arrives ten minutes he later I tell him about it. ‘Yes,’ he confirms, ‘everybody who comes here feels this, whether they’re Christian or not. It’s as if the forest itself is praying.’ Or, I think, as if St Herman is praying too, somehow, for or in the place he once called home.

“A tiny wooden chapel stands today on the spot where St Herman lived as a hermit in these woods. Walking on from the chapel, winding paths take us through forests studded with icons and hung with huge lampadas of green moss.

“Deep in the forest, we pass the cell of Fr Gerasim Schmaltz, whose life deserves an essay all of its own (and in fact you can read one here.) He was a Russian monk who was sent to Alaska in 1916, only to be stranded here when the Bolshevik revolution happened. He lived the rest of his life on Spruce Island, often entirely alone ….Soon enough we come to another chapel – a bigger one, this time, and with a curious little door which appears to lead to a dark space beneath…. Pilgrims today still crawl beneath the chapel here to pray at the saint’s original grave, and sometimes to collect some soil to bring home. I have a little pot of it on my icon table as I write this.My daughter and I both pray at the grave site. Then we all picnic outside the church before Fr Adrian leads us through an open meadow studded with iris and salmonberry that looks like it ought to be in the Alps rather than in Alaska….

“[Spruce and a neighboring island] iare strewn with little wooden cells which at different times have been inhabited by hermits or pilgrims. The monks and nuns catch their own king salmon in the water around the island, and share food, firewood and prayer…..

“I have been on pilgrimages to many Orthodox places in many different countries since joining the church, but this place speaks to me in a way that none of the others quite have. I don’t know why that is, but there is some affinity. Overall, I am left with a wonderful confirmation of the mystical wildness of Orthodox Christianity. Monks stomping through mud in long black cassocks and wellington boots; sleeping in crumbling log huts in a forest of moss; netting salmon from skiffs; picking berries in mountain meadows. Compost toilets, fires on the beach, icons affixed to tree trunks. A forest of prayer. It’s all primal and real and full of the Spirit, and you can feel it everywhere. It feels like you have fled far from the over-civilised West – and yet this is modern America. Orthodoxy is a paradox, all the way down.”

Brothers and Sisters, truly Orthodoxy is a paradox or a mystery, even while offering us reason for our hope in God. Part of the mystery is that what pilgrims may find on their quests to Spruce Island, metaphorically their Grail or Ark but in actual lived faith, can also be found right here in rural Union Township, both in modern America and in timeless experience, and again not only metaphorically but literally so. This is the paradox of Orthodoxy all the way down, as Paul Kingsnorth put it. Blessed Seraphim Rose wrote that he felt no need as an American convert to travel to far places of Orthodoxy. Pilgrimages are beautiful and important to the spiritual life of the Orthodox Christian. We may go even in our Appalachian region to Jordanville, to White Haven, to Wayne West Virginia, and we should, as pilgrims to Orthodox monasteries. Maybe we someday will go to the Holy Land or Holy Russia or Mount Athos. But, as Blessed Seraphim noted, we also can find, like St. Herman on Spruce Island, our own pilgrimage each week and even daily, to the holiness of the holy of holies of the Ark and the Holy Grail of legend, right here, fully realized even in our little Church, a portal to the biblical Israel fulfilled in the Kingdom of Heaven, right here in Penns Woods.

Here is the open secret, the supposedly lost Ark and missing Grail are here with us in the Church. As the Apostle Paul noted in Hebrews, in the original Ark of the Covenant of the wilderness tabernacle, made according to the pattern revealed to Mose by our Lord Jesus Christ on Mount Sinai, were the tablets of the Law of God, the bowl of manna, and Aaron’s blooming rod. Nearby in the tabernacle and the bowl of incense and the place of sacrifice, from which the blood of lamb was scattered over the altar and the veils of the holy of holies at Passover. Some of these items disappeared when the Phillistines seized the tabernacle and art as the people of Israel were unfaithful. Then the Ark itself seemed to permanently disappear with the furnishings of the Tabernacle when the Prophet Jeremiah hid it just before the destruction of the Temple at the time of the Babylonian Captivity. Scripture describes how the place of its hiding was unknown and the Prophet said it would be revealed only in God’s time. In the book of Revelation indeed the Ar is described as reappeared.

We know in Church Tradition how the Theotokos the Mother of God fulfilled the symbolism of the Tabernacle as bearing the Body of Christ, which became His Church. We have in the altar area the Gospel book fulfilling the tablets of the law, the Body and Blood of Christ in the bloodless sacrifice of the Lamb at the Liturgy, which has replaced the pot of manna with the paten and chalice, and the blood of the sacrificial animal lambs of the Old Testament tabernacle and temple with the transformed gifts. We have the candle stand at the altar as there was in the tabernacle. We have the Cross standing at the altar that fulfills the type of the blooming rod of Aaron, which symbolizes the turning of suffering into resurrection through the Crucifixion and Rising of our Lord. Brothers and Sisters, the Ark of the Covenant is found and fulfilled in the altar of the Orthodox Church, our Lord’s Church. Likewise, the Holy Grail is found here in our Chalice, from which we partake in the Body and Blood of Christ at each Holy Eucharist, even in a small country Church reminiscent unworthily perhaps of little chapels of Arthurian lore and historical Celtic Christian landscapes, glory to God!

Early tradition in Britain says that St., Joseph of Arimathea brought the Holy Grail to Glastonbury, where it became associated with Arthurian legends and quests, and my research on this long ago helped lead me to Orthodoxy, thank God. Some scholars even speculate that the Holy Grail legends originally reflected the amazement of Western Crusaders encountering the Byzantine Orthodox Liturgy for the first time.

But our quest for the supposedly lost Ark of the Covenant and for the Holy Grail is fulfilled right here in a little country Church of our Lord too. May we be reminded of this as our Onion Dome and Cross rise above our Temple for the first morning ever, glory to God! The Onion dome echoes the domes of the great ancient Byzantine and Holy Land Churches in the humble forest traditions of Russian hermitagee, as well as the flame of Pentecost alit in the uncreated energies that we may experience in each Orthodox Church and in our lives as Orthodox Christians with God’s help. The Cross is our Lord’s emblem of suffering and victory, with the cross bar in the Russian Cross reminding us of the Wise Thief helped into Paradise. Let us remember today on this feast of Saint Herman, and each day, how we have the most precious pilgrimage each time we come to the humblest Orthodox Church in the countryside here, and dwell in our hearts in this pilgrimage, so that we don’t want to miss a worship service however far or arduous the journey. Because in her we fulfill those ancient living and timeless quests for the Ark and the Holy Grail, which are not lost at all, but dwell in our heart right here, in our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ. Glory to God for all things!

The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew,

§72 [17:14-23a]

At that time, a certain man came to Jesus, kneeling down to Him and saying, ‘Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is lunatic and sorely vexed; for ofttimes he falleth into the fire and oft into the water. And I brought him to Thy disciples, and they could not cure him.’ Then Jesus answered and said, ‘O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you? Bring him hither to Me.’ And Jesus rebuked the devil, and he departed out of him, and the child was cured from that very hour. Then came the disciples to Jesus apart and said, ‘Why could we not cast him out?’ And Jesus said unto them, ‘Because of your unbelief; for verily I say unto you, if ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, ‘Remove hence to yonder place,’ and it shall remove. And nothing shall be impossible unto you. However this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.’ And while they abode in Galilee, Jesus said unto them, ‘The Son of Man shall be betrayed into the hands of men. And they shall kill Him, and the third day He shall be raised again.’ 

Holy Gospel according to John, 

§ 52 [15:17-16:2]

The Lord said to His disciples: ‘These things I command you, that ye love one another. If the world hate you, ye know that it hated Me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own; but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you: “The servant is not greater than his lord.” If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept My saying, they will keep yours also. But all these things will they do unto you for My name’s sake, because they know not Him that sent Me. If I had not come and spoken unto them, they would not have sin, but now they have no cloak for their sin. He that hateth Me hateth My Father also. If I had not done among them the works which no other man did, they would not have had sin; but now they have both seen and hated both Me and My Father. But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law: “They hated Me without a cause.” But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of Truth Who proceedeth from the Father, He shall testify of Me. And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with Me from the beginning. These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not lose faith. They shall put you out of the synagogues; yea, the time cometh that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.’ 

Immediately adjacent to the Moscow Kremlin stands the iconic St. Basil’s Cathedral, which is often considered the photographic profile of the metonymic headquarters of the Russian government since the 1917 Revolutions.

Actually, its real name is not St. Basil’s and it’s not fully a Cathedral, but that’s part of the fascinating history of this complex and wonderful historical, architectural, and spiritual place, the details of which are surveyed well in this Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Basil%27s_Cathedral

It has a name of “Jerusalem” too as is the case with many historical Orthodox Christian temples, which serve mystically as fractals or portals for the Kingdom of Heaven, as do Orthodox Churches at large. St. Basil’s itself is designed with colors also reflecting the New Jerusalem of the Book of Revelation. Its mix of the Byzantine trope of Jerusalem with a “Russian Renaissance” style with Italian influence relates to the development of the concept of Moscow as the cosmopolitan Third Rome of Orthodoxy.

But one of the most beautiful aspects of the tradition of the Temple–in addition to its very survival through the Soviet years (while still a museum it again has been hosting the Orthodox Liturgy since the fall of the USSR)–is the common name for it as St. Basil’s.

St. Basil the Holy Fool, or St. Vasily, was born a serf in 1468 at the portico of a cathedral in what is now Moscow, and traveled to Moscow when he was 15. His begging there involved seeking alms for those poor and hungry but embarrassed to do so themselves. Naked and weighed down with chains for penitence, he was said to have the gift of prophecy. Ivan the Terrible was said to have commented that the one person he was subject to was Basil the Holy Fool, and he rebuked the Tsar for being inattentive in Church. When he died on Aug. 2 (in 1552 or 1557) St. Macarius, Metropolitan of Moscow, led the funeral, and he was buried in what became known as St. Basil’s Cathedral. (Info from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basil_Fool_for_Christ)

But the seat of arguably the world’s worst modern totalitarian government, the Soviet Union (in terms of its conduct and influence detailed by scholars in The Black Book of Communism), preserved the relics of a holy fool of Orthodox Christianity known for his authority over the greatest tyrant of his age. And survived. Glory to God for all things!

An homily from St. John’s Russian Orthodox Mission Church in Winfield, PA, for the Feast of the Holy Prophet Elijah, 7534/2026, by Priest Paul Siewers.

Today we commemorate the Holy Prophet Elijah, known in Greek and Slavonic as Elias. One of the greatest prophets of the Old Testament, he lived nearly 3,000 years ago. His life is chronicled mainly in the 3^rd and 4^th books of Kings in the Orthodox Christian Bible. The Prophet Malachi predicts he will return, because he did not die but was taken up into heaven in a fiery chariot in a whirlwind. This is why traditionally Orthodox Churches bless cars on the Feast of Elijah. The prophet also is mentioned in the Gospels, identified with the work of John the Baptist as Forerunner, and appears talking to Christ and Moses at the Transfiguration. In references in the Book of Revelation to two mysterious witnesses standing up to the Antichrist, Holy Fathers of Orthodoxy see the final bodily return of Elijah with a lesson for our own lives. The pairing of Elijah as a figure of courage with Enoch (traditionally the main choice for the second witness, who also did not die but seems held by God for a future mysterious plan) involves a spiritually powerful combination of courage from Elijah and repentance from Enoch. That combination of courage and repentance perhaps models a grace-filled resistance to the spirit of Antichrist, which the Evangelist John tells us involves the denial that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, and which Orthodox Christian exegetes see unleashed in the world today.

Elijah originally lived little more than a century before his nation Israel would be forced into exile in Assyria, from which it would not return due to its apostasy from God, becoming part of the legend of the “lost tribes of Israel” as a result of the kingdom’s wickedness. He was a faithful prophet of God who faced off against King Ahab and Queen Jezebel of Israel who apostasized to worship the pagan Baal. Elijah by contrast offers an example of the spiritual power of a pure heart and faith. He became a prototype of Christian monasticism. The prophet gave many mighty proofs of his faith in miracles and courageous preaching. But Ahab and Jezebel seemed to have all the worldly power. He became depressed, feeling that the people of his country Israel had left their faith in the God of Abraham and of Moses. At one point, in despair, Elijah went out into the wilderness and hid in a cave at Mount Horeb, also known as Mount Sinai. This was where Moses, about 1,500 years before Elijah, had received the law of God. God had revealed Himself by name to Moses as “I Am the Existing One,” and Jesus later referred to Himself also with that phrase “I Am.” But Elijah felt in his cave that he was the only faithful follower of the God “Who Is.”

Elijah, despite his success, was tempted by the devil in the wilderness and felt a failure. But God came to the prophet as if in a still small voice and showed His glory, to tell him that there were yet a few thousand believers in Israel. He inspired Elijah to overcome his demon of depression and continue. With God’s help, he triumphed in showing all the true God, the I Am He Who Exists, our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ. In his amazing witness, Elijah was taken up to heaven in a fiery chariot in a whirlwind rather than experiencing death. 

From there, Elijah’s life is seen as continuing in Church tradition in another dimension. He was faithful to Moses’ vision from our Lord, and received visions from Christ, in the Old Testament, resisting decadent idol-worshipping tyrants. But King Ahab in his evil rule was a type of Antichrist, and Jezebel was a type of the Whore of Babylon also in Revelation, even as Elijah in the “other dimension” of the New Testament spiritually became identified in the Church with one of the two main witnesses against Antichrist in the final days before Christ’s Second coming.

Typical of much Old Testament prophecy, there actually are four layers to Elijah’s life biblically: (1) The historical, in the context of the Northern Kingdom, Israel, in the era before the Assyrian exile. (2) The moral, in terms of how his life may inform our own choices and faith life, in terms of living out the virtue of courage as a spiritual expression of grace. (3) The allegorical, in terms of how Elijah came to be identified with the spirit of the Forerunner John the Baptist as a courageous preacher of truth proclaiming the way of the Lord. (4) The mystical, in terms of how he is seen as one of the Two Witnesses against Antichrist.

Maybe the return of Elijah and Enoch from the Old Testament into the New sounds incredible to modern readers not familiar with Church Tradition. Yet consider the wonder-working nature of Elijah’s work in the Old Testament, defying with fire from heaven the prophets of Baal, healing and raising the dead, providing food miraculously, showing the penalty for idolatry in drought, preaching against evil. Elijah lived in effect in another dimension, one connected with Paradise, which while it had disappeared to mortal eyes in the Fall, still hovers over and around us, so much so that St. Ephrem the Syrian described Paradise as a hollow mountain above and around us, inside which we live unknowingly. This involves a different experience of space and time, in Christ.

The modern exegetist Archimandrite Athanasios Mitilinaios synthesized patristic teachings on the Book of Revelation, and wrote extensively of Elijah as one of the two witnesses who would appear just prior to the Second Coming of our Lord. Father Athanasios’s Orthodox commentary challenges us with signs of the end times, including the public widespread nature of sexual perversion and abuse of children, corruption, tnormalizing of mind-altering drugs and media, global apostasy and hostility toward traditional Christian faith.  He wrote that, “we should see that while the antichrist is reigning, the two witnesses will be feverishly working on an international level for the preservation of the world, and especially for the apathetic Christians who will have believed in the works of the Antichrist. The apathetic Christians will be those most victimized by the corruption of the Antichrist, while the Church, remaining unshakably steadfast and unmercifully persecuted by the Antichrist, will have fled into the desert, in other words, back into the catacombs. Are we prepared for any of this?” he asks (vol. 3, p. 122).

We in this humble temple today are a Church in the wilderness in the sense of being in the country, off the beaten track thanks God. But more importantly we should be so in our hearts in separating ourselves from the evil of our times, and growing closer to God and to one another in the mystical union of our Lord’s Church. This is harder today because of our online world and life. But God provides for us, just as He will send His two witnesses at the right time according to Church Tradition, and restrain the power of Antichrist long enough for them to expose him and also to shore up those believers who remain faithful, and to test our faith. Still, it will not be a “happy ending.”

Scripture tells us that the Beast, or the Antichrist, that came from the bottomless pit, the abyss, will come and kill the two witnesses after a period of time, which is given as three and a half days (interpreted often as symbolic of years) in which they had preached and done true miracles against Antichrist. Scripture tells us their dead bodies shall lie in the streets of the great city spiritually called Sodom and Egypt, where our Lord was crucified (Jerusalem apparently), to be viewed for another three and a half days, unburied. Many will rejoice over their deaths and send gifts to each other, because the two witnesses had bothered them about repentance. But after the additional three days and a half of death, the Scripture tells us, “the Spirit of life from God entered into them.” They stood up. “They heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in in a cloud.”

Then in the Book of Revelation the angel sounds the seventh trumpet, and then is recorded the wonder of the Woman with child, surviving and triumphing, and the defeat of the devil. Many Church Fathers take this as a prophecy of the Church in the wilderness in the end times. The two witnesses, including Elijah, before that have their time to expose and oppose Antichrist. Then Antichrist reigns for the same period of time. But God keeps the period short, and resurrects the two witnesses as a sign of the triumph of the faithful, before the coming of Christ. Glory to God!

But will we be faithful in such trials, in the Church in the wilderness? This is a question for us in our individual daily lives, as well as for the collective end times of the world. The Beast or the Antichrist comes from the abyss or bottomless pit, a spiritual darkness devoid of true faith in God. But Archimandrite Athanasios warns that each of us, as we waver or are lukewarm potentially, are in that abyss. “This occurs, beloved, because we Christians are fully engulfed in the secular spirit and move about in this world with no regard for the existence of God, Christ, and death, hell, or the Kingdom of God. If we reach this deplorable state (God forbid) and live such a life, then we can be certain that we ourselves have become the walls of the abyss that will spew out the Antichrist.”

The Antichrist will kill the two witnesses, according to Scripture. Yet there is hope. God offers us the testimony of the witnesses, Elijah with courage and Enoch with repentance. Our Lord gives us in love the Gospel and mysteries of His Church. He gave His only begotten Son. And afterward will come the resurrection of the two witnesses and the coming again of Jesus Christ. Help is on the way.

Brothers and sisters, courage is one of the seven biblical virtues that are grace, a gift of the Holy Spirit, exemplified by Elijah. Even he faltered, but God’s grace upheld him and comforted and strengthened him, for a miraculous purpose in life. So too we look for the return of our Lord, and must keep our hearts warm and open to Him in faith and to one another through His loving grace, both in our daily personal lives, and in the challenges of the end times. Archimandrite Athanasios suggests that we test ourselves spiritually, engage in exercises, so we will not falter at the appearance of Antichrist or his forerunners, at their delusional victories, exemplified by the temporary death of the two witnesses, but will have the grace of courage like Elijah. Daily prayer, confession, fasting, heartfelt preparation and participation in the Eucharist, all guide us on the right path, so we will not despair when the witnesses are killed. They will rise again and be taken up to God. We live and move and have our being in God, as the Scriptures tell us, and in Him there are more dimensions to life than we can imagine. Even as we go out today after the service to bless our cars in memory of Elijah’s fiery chariot, he remains part of our story, as we are in his, the living story of our Lord’s Church, the Gospel story of Creation, in which we too are called to be witnesses and to be saved, and to help save others in our mission work. For as our Lord says, greater love has no man than this, than to give his life for a friend.

Above, an illustration of Alyosha and the children at the funeral in the ending of The Brothers Karamazov.

In a memorable scene from Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, Alyosha while mourning the passing of his Elder weeps and waters the earth with his tears, and then is described as rising up as if touched by someone (presumably his holy spiritual father) strengthened for future work.

Sinner that I am, I could not claim as deep an experience recently at the graves of my family in Chicago, but it was a moving and healing one nonetheless.

Having moved out of state, I had not visited their graves since their deaths decades ago, touched by tragedy, and repenting of sin on my part in my early family life then, in what seemed another life.

Yet on this most recent trip I brought along my priest’s satchel thinking that I might visit their graves again at last, now as an unworthy priest, to say graveside prayers there.

They were not Orthodox, so my prayers were the basic Trisagion invocations, and blessing their graves with holy water.

The cemetery is in the middle of a modern booming suburban area, and in fact could be seen from the high-rise hotel room where my older son and I were staying while visiting a living relative with health needs.

One morning on our short stay I got up early to go to the cemetery, and was grateful when my son expressed that he wanted to go with me. He had never known my parents and sister (or my grandparents) who were all buried there. Yet he helped me find the graves, and prayed with me.

All these years later, the prayers were still a release, a refreshment, an opportunity for penitential reflections on my failings as a family member, on my sinful life before becoming an Orthodox Christian almost three decades ago now (near the end of my parents’ lives and after my sister’s earlier passing), and my continued failings and sins since.

It marked a link also to memories of my final moments with each of my parents, when I was able to pray the Jesus Prayer with them as a newly baptized Orthodox Christian.

How wonderful are the prayers of our Church and is our God, that we can reach out in prayer to the past, redeem memories good and bad, and share that experience with our family members, both in our household and in our family that is the Church, and, we hope, with those of who have passed on not in the Church.

The prayers and the reaching across generations with my son present were a reminder, also, of a statement by Alyosha in Dostoevsky’s novel, that one good memory from childhood can be enough to save us, for (in my own terms) it can help to lead us to faith by the grace of our Lord.

Glory to God for all things!

The Orthodox Church. “No one can have God for his Father who has not the Church for his Mother,” wrote St. Cyprian of Carthage. The Orthodox Church, founded by Jesus Christ and His Apostles, the Body of Christ or Bride of Christ, began at Pentecost with the descent of the Holy Spirit around 30 A.D., was prefigured in Old Testament times and is the biblical Israel today, continuous in episcopal succession and in doctrines and governance. Upholding the Ecumenical Church Councils, the Orthodox Church is the “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church” proclaimed in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed.

Russian Orthodoxy. The Russian Orthodox Church today has the largest number of adherents of the local Orthodox Churches, which include the Greek Orthodox, Serbian Orthodox, and many others. “Russian Orthodox” refers to a specific local historical tradition and hierarchical governance, not necessarily ethnicity (as “Roman Catholic” historically in the West did not mean adherents were necessarily Roman). Russian Orthodoxy traces back directly through Kievan-Rus’ to Byzantium to the Holy Land. Our Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia emerged from the post-Revolutionary diaspora of many faithful Russian Christians, is headquartered in America, and is under the Patriarchate of Moscow, which was founded with the blessing of ancient apostolic patriarchates.

Basic Pilgrim Gear. The best way to learn about Orthodoxy is to attend services and to start praying. The Orthodox Study Bible and the Jordanville Prayer Book (both widely available, at our parish and from online bookstores) are two basic books to start your own library and prayer life. Consult with our Priest Paul about starting an Orthodox prayer life for which a prayer rope, called a chotki or komboschini or lestovka, is also helpful.

Basic Readings/Viewings. The first six readings below are especially helpful for inquirers and catechumens. Additional resources follow below them. Please be in touch about attending services, our Orthodoxy Online class, and our in-person Bible Study as well. Visits to monasteries are helpful, such as Holy Protection Women’s Monastery in White Haven and the Russian Orthodox Monasteries in Jordanville, NY (Holy Trinity) and in West Virginia (Holy Cross).

* The Law of God *

by Priest-Martyr Daniel Sysoev, is an excellent guide to the Orthodox faith and goes into detail about an Orthodox understanding of scripture. It is available in hardback from Orthodox bookstores and Amazon.

* Orthodox Dogmatic Theology *

A classic in-depth textbook on Orthodox theology, long used at ROCOR’s Holy Trinity Seminary in Jordanville, NY, by former Holy Trinity Professor Fr. Michael Pomazansky, this is now available as an e-book or paperback in English, translated by the well-known ROCOR American convert and writer Fr. Seraphim Rose.

* The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church *

by Vladimir Lossky, A good addition to Fr. Michael Pomazansky’s work, in relation to the Orthodox teaching of theosis.

* The Orthodox Church *

edited by Bishop Alexander Mileant, gives a brief history of the Church and lists some points of Orthodox doctrine, teaching, and art.

* The Longer Catechism of the Orthodox Church *

by ROC Metropolitan St. Philaret of Moscow, essentially describes all the important doctrines of the Church. This is what our Mission currently uses in our Catechism class taught by our Rector.

*Ten Things I Love About You: The Orthodox Church as the Fullness of Christianity*

A short list of what makes Orthodoxy different and true, by St. John’s Priest Paul.

​+++

*Resources for Orthodox Christian Bible Study* A collection of resources compiled by St. John’s Priest Paul.

Journey to Orthodoxy Compiled by Priest John Peck, a collection of stories from real people who converted to Orthodoxy from a variety of backgrounds.

The Way Into the Kingdom of Heaven by Russian Metropolitan St. Innocent of Alaska, describes the goal and practices of Orthodox Christian life, our relation to the Creator, and the aim of the Orthodox Church.

The Orthodox Wiki A Wikipedia of Orthodoxy.

Video 1 | Video 2 | Video 3 for a visual introduction to the Orthodox Church, please see these three short videos.

A printable two-sided flyer version of this is downloadable here, with regular text further below.

In preparing a prison inmate for Orthodox Christian baptism, I a sinner reflected on main points that have made and do make Orthodox Christianity dearest, truest, and most worthwhile in my unworthy life as an American convert. I came up with 10. But more than any such points of course, it is faith, prayer, worship, and example that convince and convict. Still, perhaps this poor offering may help a bit in reflecting on how we may be ready with an answer for our hope, as the Apostle Peter taught. They hopefully are based in the Symbol of Faith or Creed of the Church, and above all in faith in Jesus Christ, summed up in the prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me.”

1) The complete and correct Creed. Orthodoxy preserves the original Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed as formed and proclaimed by the ancient Church. Others changed it. We say it at every Liturgy and at each Compline in original form and hold to it in our hearts and faith.

2) Coming from that first point: We preserve the deepest theology of Christian Trinitarianism. We don’t subordinate the Holy Spirit, which is a full member of the Trinity so to speak in the deepest sense in Orthodox teaching. Not so elsewhere. The Trinity is the ultimate mystery of love. 

3) Following all the true Ecumenical Councils, Orthodoxy most clearly upholds the true nature of Christ as fully God and fully man, one person with two natures. Christ is Truth. We don’t water this down by interfaith intellectualism into Deism or Unitarianism, as many of the old Puritans did, expressed in confusion in much of modern American heterodox Christianity.

4) Orthodoxy reads Holy Scripture as both literal and symbolic in light of Church Tradition. No confusion or ignoring or tweaking of the Bible; we don’t like Protestants leave out books of the historical canonical Bible, and we rely primarily on the Old Testament used by the Apostles. We look to the inspired early Church Fathers for guidance in interpretation in light of Tradition inspired by the Holy Spirit, rather than any pope or preacher.

5) We preserve that ancient and inspired and living understanding of the Church that, like the Holy Spirit (2), Grace is not objectified. Orthodoxy teaches and demonstrates how grace is uncreated, not created. Grace is divine. Grace is not the essence of God but the energy of God. Yet that energy is uncreated. It forms a whole different basis for natural law–not legalistic, or rationalistic and individualistic in the modern senses. It highlights how theosis, or oneness with the divine energies through Christ, is the purpose and salvation of man.

6) There is no pope or preacher in the way. Christ is the Way, and His “one holy catholic and apostolic Church” of the Creed, the Orthodox Church, does not center on any one individual mortal, whether one pope in Catholicism or the idea that everyone is a pope in Protestantism. The Church is the Body of Christ. The Orthodox Church is continuous from Pentecost and has kept true to the Holy Spirit’s inspired Tradition. The Church didn’t disappear and doesn’t change under the orders of any mortal; it is the fullness of biblical Israel (and also not the modern nation-state of Israel as some wrongly believe). “Orthodoxy” means simply right teaching and right glorifying both.

7) Orthodoxy emphasizes ascetic synergy in salvation, govenie in Slavonic. Salvation is the synergy of God’s uncreated grace and our free will and struggle. Ascesis or asceticism is our will with God’s grace to be sacrifice self to serve God and each other. That’s why fasting in all senses (including alms-giving and discipline of prayer and desiring) is so much more important, for example, in Orthodoxy as a whole than in Catholicism or Protestantism. Faith is not just “in our head” but involves our body, too.

8) The true teaching of iconography in Orthodoxy is upheld by the Seventh Council growing out of the work of the first six councils. It is part of our full-bodied approach to worship, reflecting the Incarnation of Christ as central to His Church as His Body.

9) Related to (8), the beauty of Orthodoxy. That’s why St. Vlaidmir the Great converted to Orthodoxy, and his people as well. They saw the beauty of Orthodox worship and knew not whether they were in heaven or on earth, they said. This beauty of worship is physical and embodied, just as our Incarnational Lord, a reminder that Logos means also “harmony.”

10) Finally, the biggest: Love. God is love, the Evangelist John tells us. Love is the greatest virtue or gift, writes the Apostle Paul. Jesus Christ showed us how to love. He gave us a New Commandment to love our neighbor as more than our self. The mysteries and discipline of the Orthodox Church encourage and guide us into this. 

Prepared by Priest Paul Siewers, Rector of St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco Russian Orthodox Mission Church in Winfield, PA, and Professor and Chaplain at Bucknell University. 

Find us at stjohnthewonderworker.com, or contact us at 570-863-9039, or priestpauls@pm.me

An homily from St. John’s Russian Orthodox Mission Church in Winfield, PA, by Priest Paul Siewers.

Today we commemorate the Baptism of Rus’ in 988 AD and the First Six Ecumenical Councils that preceded it. The Baptism of Rus’ was the mass Christianization of Kievan-Rus’ the predecessor to Russia. The Six Councils of the Church during the first seven centuries of the Christian era helped defend and further articulate Church teachings and practices. 

What would it take to have a Baptism of America?

Understanding of the Ecumenical Councils, for one thing. The first Six Councils, inspired by the Holy Spirit, provide the antidote to the demonic-inspired delusions and heresies that still afflict us in new and combined forms today, with even greater force.

But each time we have a baptism here in our little country church in Appalachia, each time we renew our catechism, baptismal, and chrismation vows by participating in those of someone new joining our Church, we also participate in the Baptism of America. Sayga, sayga, step by step little by little, as our Greek brothers and sisters like to say.

Take the preparation for an Orthodox baptism at the Muncy State Women’s Prison as part of our prison ministry. In preparing the inmate for baptism, in catechism, I’ve had to consider further a basic question that it is good for all of us to think and pray about, and put forward in our lives, in our missionary work. That question is, what makes Orthodoxy different from the heterodox forms of Christianity familiar in America, namely Catholicism and Protestantism? The question was discussed in our parish Orthodoxy Online class yesterday as well. The Ecumenical Councils help us to prepare an answer to that question,  based in the Church Tradition that we experience in Church throughout the year, and in the lives and prayers of the Saints.

Here are 10 points that occurred to me in answer to the question, What makes Orhtodoxy truly different and worth by comparison to Protestantism, Catholicism, non-biblical faiths, neopaganism, occultism, and pseudo-scientific atheism combined? Here are my ten points, offered by me as the worst of sinners, for we should nor out of pride assume any superior righteousness, But we can and should consider how best ro witness to others for our Lord’s faith out of concern for their salvation too. Think about your “points” of witness, too, remembering that the Apostle Peter says, “sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear.” The best answers of course lie in example, love, and prayer.

1) The complete and correct Creed. Orthodoxy preserves the original Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed as formed and proclaimed by the ancient Church. Others changed it. We say it at every Liturgy and at each Compline in original form and hold to it in our hearts and faith.

2) Comes from that first point. We preserve the deepest theology of Christian Trinitarianism. We don’t subordinate the Holy Spirit, which is a full member of the Trinity so to speak in the deepest sense in Orthodox teaching. Not so elsewhere.

3) We preserve that ancient and inspired and living understanding of the Church that Grace is not subordinate or objectified either. Orthodoxy teaches and demonstrates how grace is uncreated, not created. Grace is divine. Grace is not the essence of God but the energy of God, yet that energy is uncreated. It forms a whole different basis for natural law that is not legalistic, or rationalistic and individualistic in the modern senses. It highlights how theosis, or oneness with the divine energies through Christ, is the purpose and salvation of man.

4) The Ecclesiology of Orthodoxy as explained in the Creed, “one holy catholic and apostolic Church,” does not center on any one individual, whether one pope in Catholicism or the idea that everyone is a pope in Protestantism. The Church is the Body of Christ. Orthodoxy shows how it is the Church of the Apostles and has kept true to the Holy Spirit’s inspired Tradition. It doesn’t cop out by saying our Lord’s Church has somehow vanished, like many Protestants do, some of whom even try to replace the biblical Israel realize din the Church with the 1948 state of Israel. Orthodoxy doesn’t identify a human leader as the Tradition, as many other groups do. “Orthodoxy” means simply right teaching and right glorifying both.

5) Orthodoxy emphasizes ascetic synergy in salvation, govenie in Slavonic. Salvation is the synergy of God’s uncreated grace and our free will and struggle. Ascesis or asceticism is our will with God’s grace to be sacrifice self to serve God and each other. That’s why fasting in all senses (including alms-giving and discipline of prayer and desiring) is so much more important, for example, in Orthodoxy as a whole than in Catholicism or Protestantism. It’s not just “in our head” but involves our body, too.

6) Following all the true Ecumenical Councils, Orthodoxy most clearly upholds the true nature of Christ as fully God and fully man, one person with two natures. We don’t water this down by interfaith intellectualism, into Deism or Unitarianism, as many of the old Puritans did, expressed in confusion in the history of American Protestantism.

7) The true teaching of iconography in Orthodoxy is upheld by the Seventh Council growing out of the work of the first six councils, is part of our full-bodied approach to worship, reflecting the Incarnation of Christ as central to His Church as His Body.

8) Related to seven, the beauty of Orthodoxy. That’s why St. Vlaidmir the Great converted to Orthodoxy, and his people as well. They saw the beauty of Orthodox worship and knew not whether they were in heaven or on earth, they said. This beauty of worship is physical and embodied, just as our Incarnational Lord, and a reminder that Logos means also “harmony.”

9) Orthodoxy reads Holy Scripture as both literal and symbolic in light of Church Tradition. No confusion or ignoring or tweaking of the Bible; we don’t leave out books of the historical canonical Bible, and we rely primarily on the Old Testament used by the Apostles. We look to the inspired early Church Fathers for guidance in interpretation in light of Tradition inspired by the Holy Spirit, rather than individual whims of ourselves or any particular popular heterodox preacher.

10) Finally, the biggest: Love. God is love, the Evangelist John tells us. Love is the greatest virtue or gift, writes the Apostle Paul. Jesus Christ showed us how to love. He gave us a New Commandment to love our neighbor as more than our self. The mysteries and discipline of the Orthodox Church encourages and guides us into this. 

Those are ten things I, a sinner, could mention about how Orthodoxy is different for me and why I love Orthodoxy. Depending on whom I spoke with, one such point be more effective than others, but, with prayer, pull on any one and in Orthodoxy the thread will connect to many other aspects. There are as many such aspects of Orthodoxy as God is infinite.

What would be your response to the question of why is Orthodoxy different for you and worthwhile by contrast to heterodoxy and/or atheism or neopaganism or the occult or non-biblical religions?

We should, as Scripture says, be prepared to answer for our hope, and defend it. For this is how apologetics help us spread the faith. But most of all this starts in the spiritual dimension of example, practice, prayer, and love.

The Holy Fathers of the First Six Ecumenical Councils, and the Saints of the Baptism of Rus’ all stand with us. We ask them to pray for us in our mission work to the human heart today.

That’s another thing about Orthodoxy, how the saints, led by the Theotokos, are part of our Church family even in this humble little country mission. They are close as family and even closer in how they respond to us for their requests for prayers. There is no preacher or pope in the way. They are with us here in the Lord’s Church, the Body of Christ, the Orthodox Church. Amen.

(Above) Holy Cross Russian Orthodox Christian Monastery in West Virginia

An Open Letter in response to an article on my work, sent to George Washington University administrators and others involved nationally in opposing anti-religious bias in U.S, higher education. A slightly edited version is posted online by the Union of Orthodox Journalists, together with the original Illiberalism article link, at https://uoj.news/defending-faith/an-illiberal-attack-on-orthodox-christianity/ My unworthy work is not significant but hopefully this correction may help make such unfair bias less acceptable in American academia in future. Lord have mercy!

                                                                                                                              July 21, 2026

Dear Illiberalism Editors,

Eliza Fisher in a recent Illiberalism post reviewing my work provides a humorless and biased stereotype of my writing about Orthodox Christianity and culture in Appalachia, which demeans my faith culture through inaccurate polemics.

That this is done under the aegis of a supposedly university-related center (ironically the Illiberalism studies program at George Washington University), which widely promotes it on social media, raises questions about the editorial standards and biases of the larger project. The article seems “illiberal” itself in the oldest meaning of the term.

Fisher’s June 30, 2026, article uses an unexamined framework of “Reactive Orthodoxy” as a Procrustrean Bed for un-nuanced critique. But her work could be subject to counter-analysis under another label: “Reductionist Anti-Orthodox Christian Bias,” such as reducing my faith unfairly to “weaponization” in the headline.

“Reactive Orthodoxy” is a theoretical framework attributed to anthropologist Sarah Riccardi-Swartz, whose study of a traditionally minded Orthodox Christian community in West Virginia was controversial, and methodologically questioned for progressive political bias. There is no questioning of this framework by Fisher, however, who in effect uses it as a cudgel.

Tellingly, in terms of the quality of research of the article as a whole, Fisher, who holds an M.A. but with no listed peer-reviewed or professional journalism publications, identifies me from the start incorrectly as a Deacon in the Orthodox Church.

I am a Priest, as clearly listed online in many places, including sources she claimed to have studied in her research. In addition, my Church name as a Priest (and before that as a Deacon), used in my publications and in my university work in recent years, is Paul. Yet she ignores this and “dead names” me as Alfred Kentigern Siewers, an older name from earlier publications and a secular identity, so to speak.

This is from a writer who identifies herself as “investigative researcher” on her Linked-In account. She also seems concerned in the article with marginalized identities. But would she be so slipshod in misidentifying and misnaming, say, a trans person? In my experience in the past as a professional journalist, such glaring inaccuracies are often earmarks of emotional involvement, rather than measured objectivity. It is at least also a failure of basic fact-checking.

She also erroneously identifies my particular Orthodox Christian religious jurisdiction, for which I do not speak (as I do not speak for my university), as the most influential in the U.S., when it is one of the smallest. The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese is the largest and most often visible Orthodox entity in public contexts in the US, but there are other larger and more influential jurisdictions as well.

Most fundamentally, she engages in a mix of personal analysis and reductionist theoretical framing that lands somewhere between an opinion piece and a class research paper (perhaps the origin of the blogpost?). It offers an immature level of scholarship and undisciplined journalism either way.

In engaging in cross-disciplinary  commentary, she doesn’t appreciate literary and poetic analysis in her  attempted re-presentation of my views. Thus, she says that I wrote that “Trump is Aragorn,” when I was referring to a metaphoric similarity between a Tolkienian mythos of “the return of the king” and Trump’s 2024 re-election in the eyes of some, not a literal identification.

She inaccurately implies a view on my part of Unitarian-Universalism and Christian Science as involved in global conspiracy, when I clearly identify these denominational movements in U.S. history as examples of theological tendencies and influence, not conspiratorial root causes. The spiritual problem with the unitarianism of them both is broader, in my view. It wasn’t clear that she understood their shared unitarian theology. 

Similarly, she speculatively looks up online a source she says may have been the basis for my descriptions of early Irish Sea Christianity, which not only was not a source for my work, but ignores detailed primary, historical, and archaeological sources on that topic in my writings, such as in my book Strange Beauty. That is not perhaps readily discovered in Google or AI searching, however.

In all this, she engages in what she criticizes my work for doing: Fantasy world-building.

From a writing standpoint, she lacks a sense of humor. When I criticized faculty “settler culture” in writing for First Things, it was in a tongue-in-cheek style, not concealing my own position as a faculty member, as she implies with her very serious literal reading.

More seriously, she claims in error (among other things) that I advocate silencing the voices of people of color and queer people, when I am critiquing from a theological-anthropological standpoint a dominant Western view of identitarianism. Her apparent advocacy informs her inaccurate summary. I do not advocate such silencing.

In the process of all this, following her unexamined “Reactive Orthodox” framework, the article engages with a spirit of Orientalism that seems to view the Russian Orthodox Christian religious minority in the U.S. as a kind of sinister fifth column. It is as if the shadowy background hides a Fu Manchu-style exotic spy story. Such a spirit would rightly be unacceptable in scholarship on, say, alleged Muslim illiberalism in America, even with the U.S. openly at war with Muslim Iran currently.

Finally, given the article’s underlying polemical ethos, which includes use of my own personal backgrounds and worldview, it would be fair for the author to disclose her own personal backgrounds and worldview as a source of bias, as well as the ideological orientation of institutional support, including funding sources for the blog and program.

In the end, deciding whether to write an opinion piece (with more of a generous sense of humor), or an accurate scholarly analysis (considering for example the theoretical framework of ecosemiotics, which she glosses over in bringing up that aspect of my work) would be a good start for needed revision. Not to mention the need for further research to know that ideas of mine Fisher concluded are innovative, about an Orthodox Christian aspect to the background of American life, are not new. They have been advanced in the past by other better-known Orthodox thinkers, such as the late Metropolitan Anthony Bashir of the Antiochian American Archdiocese, and the prolific writer and prominent Russian priest-martyr Daniel Sysoev.

As published, the article ironically is an example of illiberalism in the deepest and most personal sense—a lack of thoughtful grounding in approaching another culture or another human being, and thus a lack of generosity of heart and failure of true liberalism.

Sincerely,

Rev. Dr. Paul Siewers

St. John’s Russian Orthodox Mission Church is a modest country church amid the ridges and valleys of Northern Appalachia in central Pennsylvania. But we support a prison ministry.

Today I an unworthy sinner had a great blessing, to witness the first communion in many years for an inmate and fellow Orthodox Christian in the prison we serve.

St. Symeon the New Theologian used to require the monks in his community to shed tears when approaching the gifts in order to receive Communion. There was no need to speak such a rule this morning; the tears came spontaneously, with heartfelt repentance and gratitude.

As an unworthy witness offering the gifts, I could only marvel at the mystery and miracle of our Lord’s Body and Blood there with us and received.

We pray in Church for the captives and those imprisoned, as we all are by sin. He brings forgiveness and love in His offering of Himself, as we offer ourselves to Him.

Beyond words does the Word of God come to us in the Eucharist, of whose Body and Blood we partake. How meaningful it is, how not to be taken for granted. In witnessing this, I was convicted and challenged in my approach to the Chalice also, even as an unworthy Priest.

Glory to God for all things!

(Above, the medieval ruins of the old Kileavy churches, on the site of the older Orthodox convent founded by St. Monenna)

An homily for the seventh Sunday after Pentecost from St. John’s Russian Orthodox Christian Mission Church in Winfield, PA, by Priest Paul Siewers.

In early Orthodox Christian Ireland, archaelogists say there was a landscape of small country churches and then large monasteries with a cluster of laity living around them. Sound familiar? This is not unlike our own country Church in relation to the monastery at White Haven, which by the way is the largest Orthodox women’s monastery in the country according to one survey.

One especially beloved early Irish Orthodox saint was the Venerable Monenna, the Abbess of Killeavy, whom we commemorate today. Her life illustrates how we can think of Orthodoxy in its influence and presence as opening up a kind of spiritual landscape through communities that are “not of this world,” and that have both earthly and mystical layers to them.

Even here in our modest parish we have of course the Church where we worship, soon God willing to have an onion dome and Cross on the roof linking it symbolically on the exterior to the Russian Orthodox tradition. We have a cemetery, with an Orthodox graveyard inaugurated recently by our beloved departed brother John, with its connection to the afterlife, as well as a community cemetery. And the white Cross that was the first Orthodox structure placed on this land, in front of the Orthodox cemetery, is a link to an earlier history of Orthodox missionary work in the coal region, for it comes from the former St. John the Baptist Orthodox Church in Shepton, now no longer extant, where Patriarch Confessor Tikhon once served. And then we have our open fields where, God willing, in future we may build new structures and also garden and tend bees. Around us are farm fields and a quarry and ridges of this part of the Appalachian range, whose seasonal scenery is often reminiscent of the Blue Ridge Mountains, which end not too far south of us according to geologists (the origins of our river system in the central Susquehanna Valley have been placed by hydrologists at our Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville NY).

All this echoes on a small scale the spiritual network and landscape of the missionary work of the Venerable Monenna back in the 400s and early 500s in Ireland. She was born in County Down northern Ireland around 432 A.D. (This account follows that of Dmitry Lapa https://orthochristian.com/123323.html ) She was the daughter of a local king and of a local princess. The holy maiden founded and became the first abbess of Killeavy Convent in what is now County Armagh also in Northern Ireland. It became probably the largest monastery in early Christian Ireland. She is also known as St. Darerca.

At the start only eight maiden nuns and a widow with a baby were her companions, but by the end of her life she had gathered around 150 disciples. The nuns led an amazingly austere ascetic life, living in extreme poverty and at a bare subsistence level. They chose the Prophet Elias and St. John the Baptist as their heavenly patrons. St. Monenna lived mainly on a mountain and was nicknamed “Prophet Elias’ spiritual daughter.”

Once a wealthy man brought new clothing as a gift to the community because the old robes of the abbess and her nuns were tattered. But Monenna said that the Almighty provided them with all they needed. She sold the clothing and distributed the money to the poor. St. Monenna was renowned for her generosity and mercy; she cared for the poor, and illnesses were cured by her prayers. Once she healed a mute man. She brought up and educated the son of a widow and her fellow nun, who became a bishop named Luger.

Although the monastic community originally was in an area of pagans practicing cruel customs, little by little they embraced the gospel and came to the nuns for spiritual help. 

Traditions say St. Monnena personally knew well-known saints of Ireland from her time, such as Patrick and Brigit. St. Patrick may have baptized St. Monenna when she was an infant, and she may have lived with St. Brigid at her celebrated Kildare Monastery for some time. She and her community may have stayed at a monastic site near Begerin in County Wexford briefly and were trained by St. Ibar, which is in an area where my own ancestors lived. She and some of her nun-sisters also are said to have trained at St. Ninian’s monastery in Scotland. Toward the end of the saint’s life it is reported she was visited by angels. 

St. Monnena with God’s helped founded and shaped communities of believers, and with her holiness the uncreated light of God brightened and energized new landscapes of faith in early Ireland. These landscapes were networks of faithfulness, ascetisim, spiritual beauty, and mission work, much like the networks of Orthodoxy we see emerging here in Northern Appalachia. We may travel to Jordanville and to White Haven, we engage in confession, we connect with layers of history, and in our own lives and the lives of our families we practice an ascetic community that merges with our parish Church family. This is the spiritual ecology of Orthodoxy made manifest in our earthly lives. It helpssustain us with God’s grace. We see this in the life of St. Peter the Aleut that was highlighted in our parish film showing on Friday night, and how an ecology or landscape of Orthodoxy emerged in California in early times, out of Alaska. That legacy spread to our own mission’s neighborhood through the influence of St. John of San Francisco and his disciple the Blessed Seraphim of California.

Dear brothers and sisters, I would like to mention one more saint whom we commemorate today who contributes to this ecology or landscape of Orthodox faith. He is St. Andrei Rublev, the great iconographer, whom we commemorate today with the Synaxis of Saints of Radonezh, for he was part of the Orthodox network founded by St. Sergius of Radonezh long ago in a forest in Russia. In our modest country Church in Applaachia, here in Penns Woods, we have St. Andrei’s famous icon of the Holy Trinity depicted in our worship area, and also on the high place of our altar area. St. Andrei shaped landscapes of Orthodoxy in his iconography, in which we venerating the icons can enter wherever we are in place and time. His depiction of the mystery of the Trinity is symbolic and taken from the biblical account of the Hospitality of Abraham, where the Father of Nations gave hospitality to three men described as Angels, although one of them the Lord. This was a theophany of Christ and the Trinity to the Holy Father Abraham, around 2200 BC following Byzantine reckoning. In the icon we see the Oak of Mamre, where our Russian Church Abroad has to this day a Church and monastery in the Holy Land. A piece of the Oak of Mamre with a carving of this icon greets visitors to our monastery at Jordanville. It is a reminder of all the connections to the Holy Land spiritually in each Orthodox Church. Likewise the three figures represent to us the inter-relationality of the love of the Holy Trinity as a model for our Church and our lives in the world, on earth as it is in heaven. The Oak itself can be a symbol of the Tree of Life in Paradise, which St. John Damascene identified with Christ. The Mountain behind the figure associated with the Holy Spirit, representing Mount Moriah where Abraham brought Isaac for sacrifice, is also identified with the Temple Mount, so indicating the role of the Holy Spirit in the founding and sustaining of the Church.

We are so blessed, brothers and sisters, to live within the landscapes of Orthodox Christianity, within the ecosystem and ecology of our the Providence of our God, and Christ’s Body the Orthodox Church, which is the real biblical Israel. 

Let us find rest, support, and sustenance in this ecology and landscape of Orthodoxy, groundedness, balance, and connection, as did Saints Monnena and Andrei, asking for their prayers. Let us remember the response of St. Peter the Aleut in California repeatedly when being threatened to leave his faith for a heresy. He kept repeating simply “I am a Christian.” For Orthodoxy is the Church of Christ, and in Him as the Apostle Paul said, we live and move and have our being.

Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory Forever!