Resurrection Comix!!!

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bookThis is a picture of a book that my father found when he was digging through old books. Once I saw it, I began reading immediately because I love comics. img011The details in the book about the resurrection of Christ are both simple to copy and complicated enough to be interesting. One picture displays Jesus Christ shining 20 times brighter than the sun and breaking the gates of Hades by destroying the power of death. The author Michael Elgamal creates art by transforming ancient icons into fun kids’ pictures. Here are some of my drawings of his illustrations: Continue reading →

Serious About Church

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The following is from Friday Reflections, an email sent out every week from the editor of Touchstone Magazine published by the Fellowship of Saint James. It describes exactly how I feel about the Church’s proper response to the current coronavirus pandemic. I hope that you find its news about the Georgian Church’s response refreshing and inspiring. Christ is risen!

The Holy Trinity Cathedral of Tbilisi, built between 1995 and 2004
By Roberto Strauss from Frankfurt am Main, Deutschland
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An Outward Desire

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Eve of Thomas Sunday, April 25, 2020

We did it! We survived Holy Week, Pascha, and Bright Week mostly from our at home services and through live-stream on TV. The joy of the Resurrection and the growing warmth of spring naturally turns us outward, desiring to share the good news with others. But the continued COVID-19 quarantine still places limits on that desire.

A place in western Massachusetts that was bought by one of our parish deacons and his wife and transformed into a farm, retreat center, and sometime summer camp is now a fully-fledged, full-service spiritual oasis, St. John the Baptist Orthodox Christian Monastery. Our family visits the two monastic fathers who dwell here for a day trip that allows us to fulfill our desire to evangelize while obeying the strict rule of the government not to gather in groups larger than ten (7 + 2= 9).

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The God Who Delivers

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Sunday, April 19, 2020 Bright and Saving PASCHA of our Lord Jesus Christ

And who is the God who will deliver you out of my hands?

— Pharaoh, King of Egypt to Moses the Great, Patriarch, Prophet & God-seer

The taunt of this particular Egyptian ruler rings down through the centuries and is rehearsed every Great and Holy Saturday during one of the 13 readings from the Old Testament. But it is more than a taunt or even an honest query: It is the prayer of every person in the grip of some power beyond their making or control.

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Cultivating the Church at Home

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April 17, 2020, Great and Holy Friday

“How do you, Father Herman, manage to live alone in the forest, don’t you get bored?” He answered, “No, I’m not alone there! There is God, and God is everywhere! There are holy angels! How can one be bored with them? With whom is it more pleasant and better to converse, angels or people? Angels, of course.”

Little Russian Philokalia, Vol. 3, St. Herman

In this forth week of our at-home Coronavirus quarantine, we struggle as a family with where to go and what to do. Our travelogue has been quickly and suddenly restricted to our immediate vicinity, and we labor at how to overcome feelings of isolation and boredom. The saints in heaven and especially the monastic hermits like St. Herman of Alaska can teach us what to do with our boredom, and it does not involve surfing to the next binge-worthy series or reaching for our favorite comfort food. It involves a rediscovery of our blessed habitation, that home which Father Herman called, “the blessed place which will render my soul’s salvation.”

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Holy Week at Home

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Saturday, April 11, 2020: Lazarus Saturday

Every year around this time I encourage those of you in my world wide readership that have never been to an Orthodox Church or visited an Orthodox worship service to GO. This year we have the especial privilege and blessing to not have much on our schedule as most are quarantined. I hereby encourage you then to live stream the Holy Week services in very own living room!

Starting today and continuing throughout next week until Pascha (Orthodox Easter) and beyond will be served throughout the world the most sublimely beautiful and divinely inspired worship you have ever seen, heard, felt, smelled or touched, except this year the feeling, smelling and touching will be left to only a few (those few who are left to serve what is being live streamed).

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+ Fr. Isaac Crow +

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This is a remembrance from our Boston Byzantine Choir Director, Charlie Marge about a dear friend and priest recently reposed.

It is with great sadness, but with the hope of the resurrection, that we inform you of the passing of Fr. Isaac Crow, pastor of Sts. Peter & Paul in Potomac, MD and father of our BBC alum and composer, Basil Crow.  From our early days, Fr. Isaac was a strong supporter of the Boston Byzantine Choir and offered our ministry much encouragement over the years.  He was a kind and gentle man, full of faith and wisdom.  He battled cancer on and off over the past few years, which had just returned three weeks ago.  In the words of his Khouriyee, “He died a true Christian.  With every pain and tribulation he would say ‘Thank God.’”  We will miss him dearly.

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