An Owned Devotion

This article has appeared in Handmaiden and was taken from the August 2006 newsletter of St. John the Forerunner Orthodox Church.

By Kristen Michealis

In all the time that I’ve been Orthodox, I’ve only really ever been devoted to one saint – my patron, St. John the Wonderworker of San Francisco and Shanghai. All the other saints were just names listed on calendars whose stories I heard piecemeal.

Included in my lump of “other saints” was our most blessed Lady Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary. Oh sure, I understood much of her theological value. I understood the Church’s teachings and pious beliefs concerning her. But, I was not what I would call devoted. I might have thrown a random prayer her way on occasion in addition to the usual prescribed ones, hardly anything special. I just didn’t have a real relationship with her. I’d listen to liturgical music addressing her and think it lovely, but I didn’t own the words if I sang along. Anyhow, all that changed one Saturday afternoon not so long ago.

On that particular weekend my husband Steve and I were at his parent’s house to celebrate some family birthdays. With everyone there for so many days, it was inevitable that things would get tense. By everyone, I mean my husband and his sister. They really can’t be around each other for more than a day before she starts getting easily offended and flustered by virtually everything he says and d oes. S he‘s a sw eet woman, really. But she just d oesn‘t und erstand his hum or, and he doesn‘t understand her boundaries. They simply rub each other wrong.

On that afternoon, we were all lounging in the living room on the extraordinarily spacious leather furniture with the exception of Jill, who was napping. Perched in an inviting chair, I quietly read my book while keeping half an eye on my surroundings. Steve and his sister were kind of poking at each other on the couch in that warm, affectionate way that siblings do, and she saw that one side of my husband ‘s cross has the Theotokos on it.

“Who’s that on your cross?,” she asked.

“It’s Mary, the Mother of God.”

“Mary isn’t the Mother of God.”

I looked up from my reading.

“Oh, come now. Of course she’s the Mother of God,” my husband

began. “Is Jesus God?” he asked.

The Orthodox World View

The Orthodox World-View

by Blessed Father Seraphim Rose

Before beginning my talk, a word or two on why it is important to have an Orthodox world-view, and why it is more difficult to build one today than in past centuries.

In past centuries—for example, in 19th century Russia—the Orthodox world-view was an important part of Orthodox life and was supported by the life around it. There was no need even to speak of it as a separate thing—you lived Orthodoxy in harmony with the Orthodox society around you, and you had an Orthodox world-view provided by the Church and society. In many countries the government itself confessed Orthodoxy; it was the center of public functions and the king or ruler himself was historically the first Orthodox layman with a responsibility to give a Christian example to all his subjects. Every city had Orthodox churches, and many of them had services every day, morning and evening.

Men and Church – by Frederica Mathewes-Green

The Following was Published in Word Magazine. I found myself agreeing to many things I had yet realized in the Orthodox Church but nevertheless are true for me as well. Enjoy!!!