Homily on the Epistle Reading for the Tenth Sunday After Pentecost (Archpriest Rodion Putyatin)

 

 Tenth Sunday After Pentecost

By Archpriest Rodion Putyatin

"Being blasphemed against, we entreat" (1 Corinthians 4:13).

Christian Listeners! What should we do when someone offends or insults us? To be angry in such a case is harmful - harmful to the soul, harmful to health; to repay an insult for an insult is even more harmful; to forget the insult suddenly, although it is best of all, yet it is very difficult. So what should be done? Since the cases in which we may be offended are very frequent, it is of no use to us to know the means to which we must resort in such cases.

Homily Two for the Epistle Reading on the Eighth Sunday After Pentecost (Metr. Hierotheos of Nafpaktos)

 Eighth Sunday After Pentecost

Homily on 1 Corinthians 1:10-17

By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou

The early Church, despite its rich gifts of the Holy Spirit, was troubled by various problems. Among these problems were divisions and schisms among Christians. The Apostle Paul refers to this fact in the reading we read today.

The Christians of Corinth were divided into groups and factions. Some claimed to belong to Paul, others to Apollos, others to the Apostle Peter and there was also a portion of some people who said they belonged to Christ, as if the previous ones did not belong to Christ and were not His disciples. The Apostle Paul rebukes this mentality of divisions and schisms, and he emphasizes to them that they must be trained in the same mind and the same opinion and stand immovable in their unity with Christ, since He was crucified and rose again for men. But Christians were also baptized in the name of Christ and not in the name of the Apostles. The Apostles are Disciples and Apostles of Christ (1 Cor. 1:10-17).

Homily Two for the Epistle Reading on the Ninth Sunday After Pentecost (Metr. Hierotheos of Nafpaktos)

By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou

Homily on 1 Corinthians 3:16

"Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?"

Being a Christian is a great blessing from God, it is a great gift. By Baptism, Chrismation, and Divine Communion, a member of the Church receives the Grace of God, is connected with the Head, Christ, and communes of the Body and Blood of Christ. Every division, every denial of the gifts given by the Holy Spirit, every separation and jealousy and strife is a sign of the absence of the Holy Spirit and therefore shows carnality.

The Apostle Paul saw some sad events that were happening in the Church of Corinth, identified the division that prevailed among some Christians, despite the gifts they had, and asked them: "Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?"

Homily One for the Epistle Reading on the Ninth Sunday After Pentecost (Metr. Hierotheos of Nafpaktos)

By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos

(Homily on 1 Corinthians 3:9-17)

The content, beloved brethren, of today's apostolic reading, is a continuation of the content of the apostolic reading which was read in the church last Sunday. There was talk of schisms and divisions in the Church, and in today's apostolic reading, on the one hand, there is talk of the manner of the spiritual work of pastors, and on the other hand, the consequences of bad spiritual work.

First of all, the Apostle Paul uses two images for the Church, namely the farmer and the builder. He speaks more of the image of the builder. Just as an edifice has a foundation on which it rests, so the edifice of the Church has Christ as its foundation. No one can lay another foundation stone other than Christ. Just as the edifice is made by various craftsmen, so the Apostles are craftsmen who build. And, of course, everyone must be careful "how they build". The materials used to build are different, such as gold, silver, precious stones, wood, grass, hay, and of course everyone's work will be seen on the day of the Second Coming of Christ, so "each man's work will become manifest”. The way one builds will have a consequence on one's own salvation. If the building endures, then he will receive a salary, otherwise he will be punished (1 Cor. 3:9-16).

Homily One for the Epistle Reading on the Eighth Sunday After Pentecost (Metr. Hierotheos of Nafpaktos)

Eighth Sunday after Pentecost 

 

Homily on 1 Corinthians 1:10-17

By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos

The Church of Corinth, founded by the Apostle Paul, was a blessed Church, as can be seen from the two epistles that the Apostle Paul sent to it, in which the gifts of the Holy Spirit were rich and evident. Among the gifts were prophecy, wisdom, knowledge, the discernment of spirits, the gifts of healing, of powers, of tongues. Through the gifted and the gifts, the Holy Spirit, who was rich in the Church, the blessed Body of Christ, was manifested in various ways. It was a real "theological school of the early Church".

When the Holy Spirit Liturgizes in the Heart: A Most-Illuminating Conversation

I recently had a conversation with someone inquiring of me about the meaning of 1 Corinthians 6:19, where Saint Paul says, "Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit?" This is basically how it went:

"John, I have a very specific question: When do our bodies become temples of the Holy Spirit?"

"St. Paul is very clear in 1 Corinthians that our bodies become temples of the Holy Spirit when we receive the Holy Spirit into our hearts."

"And when exactly is this? Are we born with the Holy Spirit in our hearts?"

Holy Apostles Fortunatus, Achaicus and Stephanas of the Seventy

Sts. Fortunatus, Achaicus and Stephanas the Apostles (Feast Day - June 15)

Verses

To Fortunatus.

Fortunatus was the boast of the Apostles,
And of the Athletes, for he was beheaded.

To Achaicus.

You were released from hunger and thirst all-blessed one,
For you said like the Master from the wood "I thirst".

To Stephanas.

The work of Stephen I perceive in Stephanos,
Wearing the crown as a prize for labors.

On the Old Testament Command of Hatred and the New Testament Command of Love

By St. John Chrysostom

(From Homily 33 on 1 Corinthians)

1 Corinthians 13:8

"Love never fails."

What means, "never fails?" It is not severed, is not dissolved by endurance. For it puts up with everything, since whatever happens will happen, he that loves never can hate. This then is the greatest of its excellencies.

Such a person was Paul. Wherefore also he said, "If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh" (Romans 11:14); and he continued hoping. And to Timothy he gave a charge, saying, "And the Lord's servant must not strive, but be gentle towards all ... in meekness correcting those that oppose themselves, if God perhaps may give them the knowledge of the truth" (2 Timothy 2:24-25).

The Unity of the Church and the Satanic Trap of Schisms and Heresies

By Hieromonk Tychon of Stavronikita

“I believe … In one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. I confess one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.” (The Nicene Creed)

The Church is one. Since she is the living Body of Christ and Christ is one, so the Church cannot be anything but one. Indeed, it was for this reason that the Lord came; to unite us with God and each other - a unity that had been severely shaken after the fall of Adam and Eve and their obedience to the devil whose aim was none other than to separate us from God and our fellow man. The Lord came so as to call us all to unite, and the place where this two-fold unity is achieved is the Church, His theanthropic Body. In the Church we are united with God and our brothers, since we became members of the same Body.

Thus, every breakaway and separation from the one Church means opposition to the saving work of the Lord and separation from His Grace. It is nothing other than an insult against the Holy Spirit which holds together the institution of the Church and constitutes Its unity. However, in such cases the devil deceives men using various justifications which, at first, may seem plausible, such as their founding a church which will be more genuine, more traditional, more Orthodox, more strict, which will keep the old calendar and so on. But the result is their separation from the Church and consequently from the saving Grace of the Holy Spirit. At the same time they come into conflict with the whole practice and history of the Church and the whole content and meaning of Her Holy Canons. “After the heresies the devil tried to use the frenzy of schismatics to divide the Body of Christ. For this reason all those who follow a schismatic, be they monks or lay people, are totally excommunicated from the Church until they come to detest their contact with the schismatics and return to their own Bishop” (The Rudder, p. 357).

We have, for instance, the period of Iconoclasm, during which the Church was in turmoil for some 150 years, but the Holy Fathers who struggled on behalf of Orthodoxy did not create another church. Instead they themselves became martyrs and confessors of the Orthodox Faith and, in the end, Orthodoxy triumphed without the unity of the Church being broken. At times, the Lord may allow the Church to be tried in different ways “so that those who are genuinely of us might be made manifest” (1 Cor. 11:19), as the Apostle says, but the Church can never be misled, since it is the living Body of the Theanthropos Christ. Hence, there can be no justification whatsoever for those who for whatever reason separate themselves from the Church. “Heresies and schisms constitute sins of types that are particularly grave and difficult to heal. They, also, constitute the means through which the devil tries to impede men’s salvation by cutting them off from life-giving communion with the Church” (Archimandrite George Kapsanis, Pastoral Duties According to the Holy Canons, p. 187, Piraeus, 1976).

Something similar is true of those Christians who, without openly separating themselves from the Church, establish small groups, alien to the Spirit of the Church. They imagine themselves to be the only guardians of Orthodoxy, while everyone else including Bishops and Priests are indifferent or even betrayers of Orthodoxy. In being fanatically devoted to particular persons and societies, they alienate themselves from the Body of the Church, which from the beginning, has been expressed by the Divine Liturgy and the parish and not societies. They resist the work of unity for which the Lord was crucified and estrange themselves from the Orthodox ethos, which is full of humility, meekness, obedience and love. In this way, they fall into that which St Paul criticises in his first epistle to the Corinthians, “that everyone of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ. Is Christ divided?” (1:12-13).

On the Holy Mountain (Mount Athos) we follow the Old Calendar without ever-breaking away from the Church and naturally we commemorate the Ecumenical Patriarch since it is to his ecclesiastical jurisdiction that we belong. Whenever bishops or priests of the Church who follow the new calendar come, they celebrate with us in our Monasteries and similarly when we are outside the Holy Mountain, we celebrate in their canonical Churches. Different practices regarding secondary matters always exist in the Church without their ever being the cause of schisms.

- From the book The Land of the Living, Mount Athos, 1987.