Saint Felix of Burgundy, Bishop of Dunwich, Enlightener of East Anglia (+ 648)

St. Felix of Dunwich (Feast Day - Mrch 8)

Saint Felix, the Enlightener of East Anglia, was born in the Burgundy region of Gaul (now France). It was he who converted Sigebert (Sept. 27), King of East Anglia, while he was in exile in Gaul. He was forced to flee there, in order to save himself from the intrigues of his kinsmen.

When Saint Sigebert (or Sigerberht, which means "bright victory") was summoned home to claim his ancestral crown, he invited his spiritual father, Saint Felix, to leave Gaul to assist him in converting his idolatrous subjects to Christianity. Saint Felix was consecrated as Bishop of Dunwich in 631 by Archbishop Honorius of Canterbury (Sept. 30), who sent him to preach in East Anglia.

When Socialist Revolutionaries Tried to Blow Up the Wonderworking Kursk-Root Icon of the Mother of God of “the Sign” in 1898

On March 8, 1898, three young men who were atheist Socialist revolutionaries, forerunners of Bolshevism, led by the future inventor and scientist Anatoly Georgievich Ufimtsev (1880-1936), hoped to shake the people’s faith in the Kursk-Root Icon’s wonderworking power, so they decided to destroy it. In the Cathedral of the Sign in the city of Kursk, during a vigil in honor of the Honorable Cross, as the Cross was being processed around the church, they placed a time bomb that was made in Finland next to the Icon as an "offering", but the bomb did not explode at the intended time during the service, instead a devastating explosion at 2 o’clock in the morning shook the Monastery's walls while the church was empty.

Eternal Life for Orthodox Christians

 

By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou

"Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you..." (Matt. 25:34)

While sinners (the unrepentant) listening to today's passage are occupied by fear and terror, the righteous (the repentant) feel jubilation because they hear the Gospel of their heavenly and eternal marriage. The saints here on earth have become engaged with the Bridegroom Christ, but then in the Second Coming they will enjoy their marriage. This means that for the saints the Kingdom of Heaven, Paradise, eternal life is not only a state of the future age, it is not beyond time, but a present reality. This great and fundamental truth about Christianity we will seek to present right now as much as we can.

Meatfare Sunday (Elder Epiphanios Theodoropoulos)

 

By Archimandrite Epiphanios Theodoropoulos

The third week of the Triodion begins with "Meatfare Sunday". It is called this, because after this Sunday we do not partake of meat. Meatfare Sunday is the last day we can eat meat. From this day forward until Easter the consuming of meat is forbidden, unless of course someone is ill.

On this day the Church brings before our memory the fearsome Second Coming of the Lord.

Meatfare Sunday: Epistle and Gospel Reading

Meatfare Sunday

 Epistle Reading

Prokeimenon. Mode 4.
Psalm 146.5;134.3
Great is our Lord, and great is his power.
Verse: Praise the Lord, for the Lord is good.

The reading is from St. Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians 8:8-13; 9:1-2

English

Brethren, food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. Only take care lest this liberty of yours somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if any one sees you, a man of knowledge, at table in an idol's temple, might he not be encouraged, if his conscience is weak, to eat food offered to idols? And so by your knowledge this weak man is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died. Thus, sinning against your brethren and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food is a cause of my brother's falling, I will never eat meat, lest I cause my brother to fall. Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are not you my workmanship in the Lord? If to others I am not an apostle, at least I am to you; for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.