Trading Goods and the Gospel

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Sharing the Good News on the Silk Road

Talk by Dcn. Aaron Friar

Boston Trinity Academy, Trinity Term, February 10, 2023

The Gospel of our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ has been preached and is known to thrive in some of the most diverse and exotic places on the planet. The Silk Road with its many varieties of cultures, languages, and peoples is no exception to this rule. “The Silk Road” is a term coined by a German geologist and explorer in the late 19th century to describe not a single route but a network of roads stretching from Xian, China in the east to as far west as Venice, Italy and as far south as India. While different parts of these roads were more or less active at different times in history, there are two periods of intense activity I wish to speak about today. The first spans the 7th – 10th century when the Byzantine Roman Empire and her capital city of Constantinople (New Rome) provided the midpoint and gateway for this road. The second period is the 13th-15th centuries when the Mongol Empire and its peace (Pax Mongolicus) greatly protected and encouraged trade on the eastern end of the road in China.

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The Many Other Things that Jesus Did

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And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. Amen.

John 21:25

The beloved disciple and evangelist John teases us with these words toward the end of his very mystical narrative. But beyond teasing us into writing yet one more book about our Lord and Master, I believe St. John’s words serve as a kind of license to create and imagine contexts and conversations beyond the true Gospel account, while remaining faithful to the original canon of revelation. Dallas Jenkins’ series The Chosen, now in its third season at Angel Studios, continues to be that incredible re-imagining.

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Did you know who Mary is?

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November 21/December 4, 2022

Feast of the Presentation of Mary in the Temple

There is a figure in the standard Nativity creche scene. She is often forgotten other times of the year, but during the Christmas season, it is impossible to avoid her. One popular song during this season evokes wonder about what she knew or perhaps did not know at first about her role in Messiah’s birth. While it is meant to evoke wonder at the Lord, I wonder if it is dismissive of his mother in some subtle way. The words go…

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Creatively Faithful Theology

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Monday, November 28, 2022
First Day of the Nativity Fast
Commencement of Advent in the Orthodox Church

Growing up, I was taught many things about the Christian faith that did not seem exactly right. One puerile notion that was especially debilitating was this idea that fidelity to tradition was somehow antithetical to the more romantic adventure of discerning revival, i.e., what God is doing NOW, in our own day and age. According to this notion, the divine mercies that are “new every morning” have to make a clean break with what came before, and the Christian revolution should break with the old, worn out traditions as well.

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Beyond the Hope of Redemption?

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22nd Sunday After Pentecost

Galatians 6:11-18
Luke 8:26-39

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Glory to Jesus Christ. Glory forever. How much destruction can sin really cost? To what depth is a man ready to fall before he repents and returns to his real self? Is there such a thing as falling too far, a soul falling beyond the hope of redemption? If there ever was one such a soul, he is depicted in this morning’s Gospel according to Saint Luke. He is a soul who is falling so far as to be without a name. He is simply referred to as the demoniac, his possession by evil demons being so complete it seems to have swallowed up the man and he does not even speak with his own voice. Saint Ambrose of Milan says, “We are authors of our own tribulation. If someone did not live like a swine, the devil would never have received power over him. If he did receive power, it would be power not to destroy but to test him. After the Lord’s coming, the devil could already not corrupt the good. So perhaps he now does not seek the destruction of all people but only of the fickle.”

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Highly Recommended Podcasts

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Happy Harvest to all our readers! As many of you know, our family likes to recommend good, wholesome, and inspiring media through our yearly lists that come out every January and are archived here. One area of media that we have been into lately and one I may add as a category is podcasts. For those of you that spend a good deal of time in the car and just do not have time to read print media, subscribing to multiple podcasts can be a good way to stay in touch with current news, monitor popular cultural trends, and most importantly, deepen your relationship with the Creator of the Universe.

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Will You Be a Pilgrim?

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Hooray! Another school year has begun and our family is again at it with what I consider the best way (short of divine services) to learn truth, beauty, and goodness. Today we started rehearsals for a December Performance of a show called Celestial City about the life of John Bunyan and his great spiritual classic Pilgrim’s Progress. Tickets are now available here for December 2022 shows.

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Betrother of Holy Souls

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August 15/28, 2022

Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary

Today marks an important feast in the life of the Church, but it is an important feast for me personally, as it features someone who has helped me so much over the years. This feast of the falling asleep of the Blessed Virgin Mother Mary is the foundation of our family life. While the Russian Royal Family serves as our family feast day, this feast was our family feast day before I had a family, or rather when I was praying fervently to have one of my own.

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Celebrating the Family Name’s Day

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Finally made it last week to San Francisco, the City by the Bay. I was here last without family when we were touring a Siberian priest around to American holy places. Today we celebrated our family’s name’s day, or what the Serbians call the family slava. Ours is the Russian Royal Family that was martyred by the Soviets in 1917 and whose memory we commemorate on the old calendar July 4/17. We traveled to the Russian Cathedral Joy of All Who Sorrow which was built by St. John Maximovitch of Shanghai and San Francisco whose relics/remains still lie in state in the church for any pilgrim to come and talk to him.

Our uncle who is a deacon on pilgrimage there prepared a wonderful little trapeza for us in the apartment he is staying near the church, and our children, all of whom are named after one of the Russian Royal Martyrs, celebrated their name’s day in style.

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