Australian and New Zealand Diocese (ROCOR)

Our Lord’s Ascension – 40 days after Pascha

VESPERS

Isaiah 2:2-3

2 And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. 3 And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. (more…)

6th Sunday of Pascha – Sunday of the Blind Man

Homily From “The One Thing Needful,” Sermons of Archbishop Andrei (Rymarenko)

Last Sunday, the Sunday of the Samaritan woman, the Holy Church told us how Christ raises a person from an earthly, carnal state of mind to the state in which a human being thirsts to worship God and pray to Him. You see, the Samaritan woman came to the well for physical water which satisfies only earthly thirst. But when Christ revealed her sins to her, and she ran to Him in repentance, then in her awakened spiritual thirst, the thirst for Living Water springing up into everlasting life, the thirst for communion with God, her first question was about prayer: where one should worship God, how to pray. Now today’s Gospel gives us a model for prayer. (more…)

6th Sunday of Pascha – Sunday of the Blind Man

Kontakion, tone 4: Having the eyes of my soul blinded, I come to Thee, O Christ, like the man blind from birth, and with repentance I cry to Thee: Thou art the bright Light of those in darkness. (more…)

5th Sunday of Pascha – Sunday of the Samaritan Woman

Homily From “The One Thing Needful,” Sermons of Archbishop Andrei (Rymarenko)

“Jesus therefore, being wearied with His journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour. There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink” (Jn. 4:6-7). The Samaritan woman became filled with confusion and doubt of a purely worldly nature: How could He, a Jew, ask to drink from her, a Samaritan? The Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans. And even more, He said that if she knew Who He was, then she herself would ask drink from Him, and He would give her Living Water. How could He give her something to drink? Why, He didn’t even have anything to draw water with, and the well was deep. (more…)

5th Sunday of Pascha – Sunday of the Samaritan Woman

Kontakion, tone 8: Having come to the well by faith, the Samaritan woman beheld Thee, the Water of Wisdom, of which she drank lavishly, and inherited the kingdom on high, where her praises are sung eternally (more…)

Mid-Pentecost

Troparion, tone 8: Having come to the middle of the Feast, refresh my thirsty soul with the streams of piety; for Thou, O Saviour, didst cry to all: Let him who thirsts come to Me and drink. O Christ our God, Source of Life, glory to Thee.

Kontakion, tone 4: When the Feast of the law was half over, O Lord and Creator of all, Thou didst say to the bystanders, O Christ our God: Come and draw the water of immortality. Therefore we fall down before Thee and cry with faith: Grant us Thy bounties, for Thou art the Source of our Life. (more…)

4th Sunday of Pascha – Sunday of the Paralytic

Kontakion, tone 3: By Thy divine presence, O Lord, raise my soul which is terribly paralyzed by all kinds of sins and misguided actions, as of old Thou didst raise the paralytic, that saved I may cry to Thee: O compassionate Christ, glory to Thy power. (more…)

Fourth Sunday of Pascha – Sunday of the Paralytic

Homily From “The One Thing Needful,” Sermons of Archbishop Andrei (Rymarenko)

Today’s Gospel reading confirms us more and more strongly in the divinity of our Risen Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

The Gospels for the last two Sundays told us about the appearances of the Risen One. They were as if filled with the light of Christ’s Resurrection: the wonderful appearances to the disciples, to Thomas, to the myrrhbearers. But today’s Gospel starts with a dismal, horrible picture: there is no brightness, no light. At the Sheep Gate there was a pool which had five porches. “In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered…. For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had. And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years” (Jn. 5:2-5). (more…)

Holy and Great Martyr George – 23 April/6 May

Troparion, tone 4: As the deliverer of captives and the protector of the poor, as the physician of the feeble and combatant of kings, holy champion and great martyr George, intercede with Christ our God to save our souls. (more…)

Third Sunday of Pascha – Myrrhbearing Women

Homily From “The One Thing Needful,” Sermons of Archbishop Andrei (Rymarenko)

“And when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint Him. And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulcher at the rising of the sun. And they said among themselves, Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulcher?” (Mk. 16:1-3).

Brothers and sisters! Can you imagine the state of mind these Myrrhbearing women were in? For those who lived through Soviet times in Russia and through the persecution of the Church, it is so understandable. In some churches, as in the outskirts of Kiev, this service (the Burial of the Savior) was performed at night. People made their way to such a church through dark streets. Anything could happen, you had to be careful of everything. Neighbors might hear that you went somewhere at night; and you could be stopped on the street. And the service itself in church and the carrying of the Shroud around the church could be interrupted by the authorities. One did not know if tomorrow, on Holy Saturday, this already semi-Easter Liturgy would be performed, because the priest might be arrested. (more…)