Lord of all life and power,

who through the mighty resurrection of your Son

overcame the old order of sin and death

to make all things new in him:

grant that we, being dead to sin

and alive to you in Jesus Christ,

may reign with him in glory;

to whom with you and the Holy Spirit

be praise and honour, glory and might,

now and in all eternity.

or

God of glory,

by the raising of your Son

you have broken the chains of death and hell:

fill your Church with faith and hope;

for a new day has dawned

and the way to life stands open

in our Saviour Jesus Christ.

Readings

Acts 10.34-43†

34 Then Peter began to speak to them: ‘I truly understand that God shows no partiality, ³⁵but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. ³⁶You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ—he is Lord of all. ³⁷That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced:³⁸how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. ³⁹We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; ⁴⁰but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, ⁴¹not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. ⁴²He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. ⁴³All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.’

This is the word of the Lord.

AllThanks be to God.

or Isaiah 65.17-end

¹⁷ For I am about to create new heavens
   and a new earth;
the former things shall not be remembered
   or come to mind. 
¹⁸ But be glad and rejoice for ever
   in what I am creating;
for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy,
   and its people as a delight. 
¹⁹ I will rejoice in Jerusalem,
   and delight in my people;
no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it,
   or the cry of distress. 
²⁰ No more shall there be in it
   an infant that lives but a few days,
   or an old person who does not live out a lifetime;
for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth,
   and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed. 
²¹ They shall build houses and inhabit them;
   they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. 
²² They shall not build and another inhabit;
   they shall not plant and another eat;
for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be,
   and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. 
²³ They shall not labour in vain,
   or bear children for calamity;
for they shall be offspring blessed by the Lord—
   and their descendants as well. 
²⁴ Before they call I will answer,
   while they are yet speaking I will hear. 
²⁵ The wolf and the lamb shall feed together,
   the lion shall eat straw like the ox;
   but the serpent—its food shall be dust!
They shall not hurt or destroy
   on all my holy mountain, 

says the Lord. 

This is the word of the Lord.

AllThanks be to God.

Psalm 118.1-2, 14-24

1  O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; •
   his mercy endures for ever.
2  Let Israel now proclaim, •
   ‘His mercy endures for ever.’
14  The Lord is my strength and my song, •
   and he has become my salvation.
15  Joyful shouts of salvation •
   sound from the tents of the righteous:
16  ‘The right hand of the Lord does mighty deeds;
      the right hand of the Lord raises up; •
   the right hand of the Lord does mighty deeds.’
17  I shall not die, but live •
   and declare the works of the Lord.
18  The Lord has punished me sorely, •
   but he has not given me over to death.
19  Open to me the gates of righteousness, •
   that I may enter and give thanks to the Lord.
20  This is the gate of the Lord; •
   the righteous shall enter through it.
21  I will give thanks to you, for you have answered me •
   and have become my salvation.
22  The stone which the builders rejected •
   has become the chief cornerstone.
23  This is the Lord’s doing, •
   and it is marvellous in our eyes.
24  This is the day that the Lord has made; •
   we will rejoice and be glad in it.

[or Psalm 118.14-24]

14  The Lord is my strength and my song, •
   and he has become my salvation.
15  Joyful shouts of salvation •
   sound from the tents of the righteous:
16  ‘The right hand of the Lord does mighty deeds;
      the right hand of the Lord raises up; •
   the right hand of the Lord does mighty deeds.’
17  I shall not die, but live •
   and declare the works of the Lord.
18  The Lord has punished me sorely, •
   but he has not given me over to death.
19  Open to me the gates of righteousness, •
   that I may enter and give thanks to the Lord.
20  This is the gate of the Lord; •
   the righteous shall enter through it.
21  I will give thanks to you, for you have answered me •
   and have become my salvation.
22  The stone which the builders rejected •
   has become the chief cornerstone.
23  This is the Lord’s doing, •
   and it is marvellous in our eyes.
24  This is the day that the Lord has made; •
   we will rejoice and be glad in it.

1 Corinthians 15.19-26

¹⁹If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

20 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. ²¹For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; ²²for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. ²³But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. ²⁴Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. ²⁵For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. ²⁶The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

This is the word of the Lord.

AllThanks be to God.

or Acts 10.34-43†

34 Then Peter began to speak to them: ‘I truly understand that God shows no partiality, ³⁵but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. ³⁶You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ—he is Lord of all. ³⁷That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced:³⁸how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. ³⁹We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; ⁴⁰but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, ⁴¹not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. ⁴²He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. ⁴³All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.’

This is the word of the Lord.

AllThanks be to God.

The reading from Acts must be used as either the first or second reading.

Gospel Reading

Hear the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to John.

AllGlory to you, O Lord.

John 20.1-18

20Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. ²So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.’ ³Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went towards the tomb. ⁴The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. ⁵He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. ⁶Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, ⁷and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. ⁸Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; ⁹for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.¹⁰Then the disciples returned to their homes.

11 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; ¹²and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. ¹³They said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ She said to them, ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.’ ¹⁴When she had said this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. ¹⁵Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?’ Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.’¹⁶Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ She turned and said to him in Hebrew, ‘Rabbouni!’ (which means Teacher). ¹⁷Jesus said to her, ‘Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” ’¹⁸Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

This is the Gospel of the Lord.

AllPraise to you, O Christ.

or Luke 24.1-12 †

Hear the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Luke.

AllGlory to you, O Lord.

This is the Gospel of the Lord.

AllPraise to you, O Christ.

Post Communion

God of Life,

who for our redemption gave your only-begotten Son 

to the death of the cross,

and by his glorious resurrection

have delivered us from the power of our enemy:

grant us so to die daily to sin,

that we may evermore live with him in the joy of his risen life;

through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Reading Notes: The New Testament readings should be preceded by a minimum of three Old Testament readings. The Exodus reading should always be used.

Collect

Grant, Lord,

that we who are baptized into the death of your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ

may continually put to death our evil desires and be buried with him; 

and that through the grave and gate of death

we may pass to our joyful resurrection;

through his merits,

who died and was buried and rose again for us,

your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

or

In the depths of our isolation

we cry to you, Lord God:

give light in our darkness

and bring us out of the prison of our despair;

through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Readings

Genesis 1.1-2.4a

1In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, ²the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. ³Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. ⁴And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. ⁵God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

6 And God said, ‘Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.’ ⁷So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. ⁸God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

9 And God said, ‘Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.’ And it was so. ¹⁰God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. ¹¹Then God said, ‘Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.’ And it was so. ¹²The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good. ¹³And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.

14 And God said, ‘Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, ¹⁵and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.’ And it was so. ¹⁶God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. ¹⁷God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, ¹⁸to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. ¹⁹And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

20 And God said, ‘Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky.’ ²¹So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good. ²²God blessed them, saying, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.’ ²³And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.

24 And God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind.’ And it was so.²⁵God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good.

26 Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’ 
²⁷ So God created humankind in his image,
   in the image of God he created them;
   male and female he created them. 
²⁸God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’ ²⁹God said, ‘See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food.³⁰And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.’ And it was so. ³¹God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

2Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. ²And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. ³So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.

4 These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created.

In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens,

This is the word of the Lord.

AllThanks be to God.

Genesis 7.1-5, 11-18

7Then the Lord said to Noah, ‘Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you alone are righteous before me in this generation.²Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and its mate; and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and its mate; ³and seven pairs of the birds of the air also, male and female, to keep their kind alive on the face of all the earth. ⁴For in seven days I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights; and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground.’ ⁵And Noah did all that the Lord had commanded him.

11 In the six-hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened. ¹²The rain fell on the earth for forty days and forty nights. ¹³On the very same day Noah with his sons, Shem and Ham and Japheth, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons, entered the ark, ¹⁴they and every wild animal of every kind, and all domestic animals of every kind, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, and every bird of every kind—every bird, every winged creature. ¹⁵They went into the ark with Noah, two and two of all flesh in which there was the breath of life. ¹⁶And those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him; and the Lord shut him in.

17 The flood continued for forty days on the earth; and the waters increased, and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. ¹⁸The waters swelled and increased greatly on the earth; and the ark floated on the face of the waters.

This is the word of the Lord.

AllThanks be to God.

Genesis 8.6-18

6 At the end of forty days Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made ⁷and sent out the raven; and it went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth. ⁸Then he sent out the dove from him, to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground; ⁹but the dove found no place to set its foot, and it returned to him to the ark, for the waters were still on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took it and brought it into the ark with him. ¹⁰He waited another seven days, and again he sent out the dove from the ark; ¹¹and the dove came back to him in the evening, and there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf; so Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth. ¹²Then he waited another seven days, and sent out the dove; and it did not return to him any more.

13 In the six hundred and first year, in the first month, on the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from the earth; and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and saw that the face of the ground was drying.¹⁴In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry. ¹⁵Then God said to Noah, ¹⁶‘Go out of the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. ¹⁷Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh—birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth—so that they may abound on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.’ ¹⁸So Noah went out with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives.

This is the word of the Lord.

AllThanks be to God.

Genesis 9.8-13

8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, ⁹‘As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, ¹⁰and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. ¹¹I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.’ ¹²God said, ‘This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: ¹³I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.

This is the word of the Lord.

AllThanks be to God.

Genesis 22.1-18

22After these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, ‘Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ ²He said, ‘Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt-offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.’ ³So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac; he cut the wood for the burnt-offering, and set out and went to the place in the distance that God had shown him. ⁴On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place far away. ⁵Then Abraham said to his young men, ‘Stay here with the donkey; the boy and I will go over there; we will worship, and then we will come back to you.’ ⁶Abraham took the wood of the burnt-offering and laid it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together. ⁷Isaac said to his father Abraham, ‘Father!’ And he said, ‘Here I am, my son.’ He said, ‘The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for a burnt-offering?’ ⁸Abraham said, ‘God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt-offering, my son.’ So the two of them walked on together.

9 When they came to the place that God had shown him, Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order. He bound his son Isaac, and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. ¹⁰Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to kill his son. ¹¹But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, and said, ‘Abraham, Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ ¹²He said, ‘Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.’ ¹³And Abraham looked up and saw a ram, caught in a thicket by its horns. Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt-offering instead of his son. ¹⁴So Abraham called that place ‘The Lord will provide’; as it is said to this day, ‘On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.’

15 The angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven, ¹⁶and said, ‘By myself I have sworn, says the Lord: Because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only son, ¹⁷I will indeed bless you, and I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of their enemies,¹⁸and by your offspring shall all the nations of the earth gain blessing for themselves, because you have obeyed my voice.’

This is the word of the Lord.

AllThanks be to God.

Exodus 14.10-end, 15.20-21

10 As Pharaoh drew near, the Israelites looked back, and there were the Egyptians advancing on them. In great fear the Israelites cried out to the Lord.¹¹They said to Moses, ‘Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us, bringing us out of Egypt? ¹²Is this not the very thing we told you in Egypt, “Let us alone and let us serve the Egyptians”? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.’ ¹³But Moses said to the people, ‘Do not be afraid, stand firm, and see the deliverance that the Lord will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today you shall never see again. ¹⁴The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to keep still.’

15 Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Why do you cry out to me? Tell the Israelites to go forward. ¹⁶But you lift up your staff, and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it, that the Israelites may go into the sea on dry ground. ¹⁷Then I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them; and so I will gain glory for myself over Pharaoh and all his army, his chariots, and his chariot drivers. ¹⁸And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I have gained glory for myself over Pharaoh, his chariots, and his chariot drivers.’

19 The angel of God who was going before the Israelite army moved and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud moved from in front of them and took its place behind them. ²⁰It came between the army of Egypt and the army of Israel. And so the cloud was there with the darkness, and it lit up the night; one did not come near the other all night.

21 Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea. The Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night, and turned the sea into dry land; and the waters were divided. ²²The Israelites went into the sea on dry ground, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left. ²³The Egyptians pursued, and went into the sea after them, all of Pharaoh’s horses, chariots, and chariot drivers. ²⁴At the morning watch the Lord in the pillar of fire and cloud looked down upon the Egyptian army, and threw the Egyptian army into panic.²⁵He clogged their chariot wheels so that they turned with difficulty. The Egyptians said, ‘Let us flee from the Israelites, for the Lord is fighting for them against Egypt.’

26 Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Stretch out your hand over the sea, so that the water may come back upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots and chariot drivers.’ ²⁷So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at dawn the sea returned to its normal depth. As the Egyptians fled before it, the Lord tossed the Egyptians into the sea. ²⁸The waters returned and covered the chariots and the chariot drivers, the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea; not one of them remained. ²⁹But the Israelites walked on dry ground through the sea, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left.

30 Thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. ³¹Israel saw the great work that the Lord did against the Egyptians. So the people feared the Lord and believed in the Lordand in his servant Moses.

20 Then the prophet Miriam, Aaron’s sister, took a tambourine in her hand; and all the women went out after her with tambourines and with dancing. ²¹And Miriam sang to them:
‘Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously;
horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.’

This is the word of the Lord.

AllThanks be to God.

Isaiah 55.1-11

55Ho, everyone who thirsts,
   come to the waters;
and you that have no money,
   come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
   without money and without price. 
² Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
   and your labour for that which does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good,
   and delight yourselves in rich food. 
³ Incline your ear, and come to me;
   listen, so that you may live.
I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
   my steadfast, sure love for David. 
⁴ See, I made him a witness to the peoples,
   a leader and commander for the peoples. 
⁵ See, you shall call nations that you do not know,
   and nations that do not know you shall run to you,
because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel,
   for he has glorified you. 

⁶ Seek the Lord while he may be found,
   call upon him while he is near; 
⁷ let the wicked forsake their way,
   and the unrighteous their thoughts;
let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them,
   and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. 
⁸ For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
   nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. 
⁹ For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
   so are my ways higher than your ways
   and my thoughts than your thoughts. 

¹⁰ For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
   and do not return there until they have watered the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
   giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, 
¹¹ so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
   it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
   and succeed in the thing for which I sent it. 

This is the word of the Lord.

AllThanks be to God.

Baruch 3.9-15, 32-4.4

⁹ Hear the commandments of life, O Israel;
   give ear, and learn wisdom! 
¹⁰ Why is it, O Israel, why is it that you are in the land of your enemies,
   that you are growing old in a foreign country,
that you are defiled with the dead, 
¹¹   that you are counted among those in Hades? 
¹² You have forsaken the fountain of wisdom. 
¹³ If you had walked in the way of God,
   you would be living in peace for ever. 
¹⁴ Learn where there is wisdom,
   where there is strength,
   where there is understanding,
so that you may at the same time discern
   where there is length of days, and life,
   where there is light for the eyes, and peace. 

¹⁵ Who has found her place?
   And who has entered her storehouses? 
³² But the one who knows all things knows her,
   he found her by his understanding.
The one who prepared the earth for all time
   filled it with four-footed creatures; 
³³ the one who sends forth the light, and it goes;
   he called it, and it obeyed him, trembling; 
³⁴ the stars shone in their watches, and were glad;
   he called them, and they said, ‘Here we are!’
   They shone with gladness for him who made them. 
³⁵ This is our God;
   no other can be compared to him. 
³⁶ He found the whole way to knowledge,
   and gave her to his servant Jacob
   and to Israel, whom he loved. 
³⁷ Afterwards she appeared on earth
   and lived with humankind. 

4She is the book of the commandments of God,
   the law that endures for ever.
All who hold her fast will live,
   and those who forsake her will die. 
² Turn, O Jacob, and take her;
   walk towards the shining of her light. 
³ Do not give your glory to another,
   or your advantages to an alien people. 
⁴ Happy are we, O Israel,
   for we know what is pleasing to God. 

This is the word of the Lord.

AllThanks be to God.

or Proverbs 8.1-8, 19-21, 9.4b-6

8Does not wisdom call,
   and does not understanding raise her voice? 
² On the heights, beside the way,
   at the crossroads she takes her stand; 
³ beside the gates in front of the town,
   at the entrance of the portals she cries out: 
⁴ ‘To you, O people, I call,
   and my cry is to all that live. 
⁵ O simple ones, learn prudence;
   acquire intelligence, you who lack it. 
⁶ Hear, for I will speak noble things,
   and from my lips will come what is right; 
⁷ for my mouth will utter truth;
   wickedness is an abomination to my lips. 
⁸ All the words of my mouth are righteous;
   there is nothing twisted or crooked in them. 
¹⁹ My fruit is better than gold, even fine gold,
   and my yield than choice silver. 
²⁰ I walk in the way of righteousness,
   along the paths of justice, 
²¹ endowing with wealth those who love me,
   and filling their treasuries. 
⁴ ‘You that are simple, turn in here!’
   To those without sense she says, 
⁵ ‘Come, eat of my bread
   and drink of the wine I have mixed. 
⁶ Lay aside immaturity, and live,
   and walk in the way of insight.’ 

This is the word of the Lord.

AllThanks be to God.

Ezekiel 36.24-28

²⁴I will take you from the nations, and gather you from all the countries, and bring you into your own land. ²⁵I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. ²⁶A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. ²⁷I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances. ²⁸Then you shall live in the land that I gave to your ancestors; and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.

This is the word of the Lord.

AllThanks be to God.

Ezekiel 37.1-14

37The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. ²He led me all round them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. ³He said to me, ‘Mortal, can these bones live?’ I answered, ‘O Lord God, you know.’ ⁴Then he said to me, ‘Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. ⁵Thus says the Lord Godto these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. ⁶I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.’

7 So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. ⁸I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. ⁹Then he said to me, ‘Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.’ ¹⁰I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.

11 Then he said to me, ‘Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.” ¹²Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. ¹³And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. ¹⁴I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act, says the Lord.’ 

This is the word of the Lord.

AllThanks be to God.

Zephaniah 3.14-end

¹⁴ Sing aloud, O daughter Zion;
   shout, O Israel!
Rejoice and exult with all your heart,
   O daughter Jerusalem! 
¹⁵ The Lord has taken away the judgements against you,
   he has turned away your enemies.
The king of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst;
   you shall fear disaster no more. 
¹⁶ On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem:
Do not fear, O Zion;
   do not let your hands grow weak. 
¹⁷ The Lord, your God, is in your midst,
   a warrior who gives victory;
he will rejoice over you with gladness,
   he will renew you in his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing 
¹⁸   as on a day of festival.
I will remove disaster from you,
   so that you will not bear reproach for it. 
¹⁹ I will deal with all your oppressors
   at that time.
And I will save the lame
   and gather the outcast,
and I will change their shame into praise
   and renown in all the earth. 
²⁰ At that time I will bring you home,
   at the time when I gather you;
for I will make you renowned and praised
   among all the peoples of the earth,
when I restore your fortunes
   before your eyes, says the Lord.

This is the word of the Lord.

AllThanks be to God.

Romans 6.3-11

³Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. ⁶We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. ⁷For whoever has died is freed from sin. ⁸But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. ⁹We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. ¹⁰The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. ¹¹So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

This is the word of the Lord.

AllThanks be to God.

Gospel Reading

Hear the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Luke.

AllGlory to you, O Lord.

Luke 24.1-12

24But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. ²They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, ³but when they went in, they did not find the body.⁴While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. ⁵The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. ⁶Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, ⁷that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.’ ⁸Then they remembered his words,⁹and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest.¹⁰Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. ¹¹But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. ¹²But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.

This is the Gospel of the Lord.

AllPraise to you, O Christ.

Post Communion

God of Life,

who for our redemption gave your only-begotten Son 

to the death of the cross,

and by his glorious resurrection

have delivered us from the power of our enemy:

grant us so to die daily to sin,

that we may evermore live with him in the joy of his risen life;

through Jesus Christ our Lord.

As I was preparing the music for August 20, 2017—the After-Feast of the Dormition (Falling Asleep) of the Theotokos—I noticed that in the first stichera at “O Lord, I have cried” for Vespers, after it states how Christ translated His Mother out of this world, and brought His disciples together to give her proper burial, it says:

“. . . Then the Apostles, seeing thee, O Virgin, were filled with grace, and with exceeding great reverence, they all then sacredly worshipped thee and cried out with firm faith: O rejoice, thou who hast brought forth Great Mercy for the world.”

I was really struck by the words “sacredly worshipped thee” regarding the Virgin Mary. Unless we are doing daily services, we may not hear them on August 20th except when it happens to fall on a Sunday; or perhaps we are chanting them every year but using a different translation. This particular translation from Holy Transfiguration Monastery uses the word “worship.” I kept that in mind and continued on with the second Stichera, wherein the Virgin asks the disciples how they came to know of her departure from the body and she inquires about this most wondrous sight. The disciples respond:

“. . . We suddenly were all lifted upon the clouds; and as thou seest, we are come unto thine abode, now to worship thee as a holy and fiery throne, and to see thy departure and divine emigration hence, . . . .”

So, again, we are called upon to pray these words of “worshipping” to the Mother of God, this time as a holy and fiery throne. It was amazing for me to see these words set in the context of the word “worship.” Yet think about all of the various titles we give to the Virgin Mary from the Canon of the Akathist to the Theotokos, such as: O Immaculate One, thou living Book of Christ; Virgin Bride of God; O Dwelling-place of Light; the Ladder which raised all from earth to grace; Uplifter of mankind; Downfall of demons; Crown of chastity; Door of hallowed Mystery, to name only a few. Then we also attribute various types to her from Scripture: the Living Ark; the Burning Bush; the Jar of Manna; the Ladder to Heaven,to name only a few. 

We surely honor her in our services with great and glorious titles and affirmations, but we would never think of her as the fourth Person of the Holy Trinity. Truly, our ultimate worship would only go to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Trinity, one in Essence, and undivided. So then, how are we to understand these words, and their meaning and place in our Orthodox theology, doctrine, and practice, if we truly believe what we pray?

Since these words come from the August Menaion published by Holy Transfiguration Monastery in Brookline, MA, I decided to write to Fr. Pachomius and ask him, as I have done so many times before. His wisdom, insight and humor are always needed in moments like this. This was his response:

Dear Christopher,
In answer to this e-mail and that following [I wrote him twice], I’ll see you and raise you one: On September 8th, the Nativity of the Theotokos, in the Ninth Ode of the second canon, third troparion, we chant: “We worship thy swaddling clothes, O Theotokos . . .”

We also chant on Orthodoxy Sunday and August 16, for the Icon not made by Hands, “We worship Thine immaculate icon, O Christ our God . . .”

A clue to the answer is in the Exapostilarion for November 4 and February 14: “With longing, faith, and godly fear, * I kiss and honour thy divine * and all-immaculate icon, * showing it relative worship.”

The key word here is “relative.” Absolute worship as God is given only to God, the holy Trinity. But the central miracle of Christianity is that the Word became flesh; God became man, and made man God; He deified matter itself in assuming it, so that we worship the human nature of Christ that He took from the Virgin Mary together with His divine nature that He had from before eternity as God.

In his defence of the holy icons, St John of Damascus writes, “I do not worship matter; I worship the Creator of matter who became matter for my sake, who willed to take His abode in matter; who worked out my salvation through matter” (On the Divine Images, St. John of Damascus, p. 23, St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1980.)

So if, as St Peter says, the object of our life is to become “partakers of the divine nature” [2 Peter 1:4], then all the Saints, but most of all the Mother of God, are partakers of the divine nature, and we worship God in them and through them.

Another explanation, less theologically intense, is that “worship” can also mean “show reverence to,” but the problem with this as with all words is that in different contexts it can mean different things. The explanation I still prefer is that we offer God alone
absolute worship; but we offer, in the words of the Exapostilarion quoted above, “relative worship” to all in whom God dwells. …

In Christ,
Father Pachomius

I found his explanation quite helpful and informative, especially his references to other places in our services where we make the same type of claim in our prayers, of worshipping the swaddling clothes of the Theotokos or the immaculate icon of Christ. I do understand the concept that he presents here. But I also must admit that I still have a little trouble with the English language when we use the word “worship” for anyone or anything other than God alone. In “The Divine Prayers and Services” by Nassar, it says that we “adore thy swaddling clothes,” and in other translations of the Apolytikion of Orthodoxy Sunday, we say “We reverence [or venerate] thine immaculate icon, O Christ our God . . . .” We do use other words for these prayers in English, and could reserve the word “worship” for God alone.

With this in mind, then, we are brought to another aspect of these words we pray. Since the word “worship” is used here in English, and Fr. Pachomius says that it is to be understood as relative worship, I wondered what the actual word was in the original Greek. What word is used for all of these phrases in the above texts? So with Bishop Basil’s help, and looking online for the Greek Menaion, I came to see that the words used in all the above texts are all verbal forms of the noun προσκύνησις, proskynesis, which means to kneel or bow down before, and to show reverence and honor. It is the word we use for the veneration we give to icons and the relics of the saints. It is also the word we use when we sing, “Come let us worship and fall down before Christ,” and “For unto thee are due all glory, honor, and worship…,” and also “Before Thy Cross, we bow down in worship, Master.” It is not, however, the word we use when referring to our worship and adoration of God. That word is λατρεία, latreia, which means to adore. We find the word latreia in the Doxastikon of the Aposticha for the Holy Fathers of the Ecumenical Councils. At the end of this hymn we pray: “Wherefore, following their divine doctrines and believing with assurance, we worship, in one Godhead, the Father, Son, and All-holy Spirit, the Trinity one in essence.” Then, in the Apolytikion of the Nativity of Christ, we have the verbal forms of both proskynesis and latreia: “. . . for they that worshipped (latreia) the stars did learn therefrom to worship (proskynesis) thee, O Sun of justice. . . .” So, instead of giving all their adoration to the stars, the wise men now came to worship and fall down before Christ Himself, the Son of God, the Sun of justice.

With this last example, we see that using the word “worship” in English for both proskynesis and latreia can surely make things a bit confusing, which is what brought about this whole dilemma.

So, as we celebrate the Dormition of the Theotokos, her falling asleep and translation to heaven, sacredly worshiping her as the holy and fiery throne, let us do so knowing that we are offering her this “worship” as proskynesis. We bow down before her in veneration, with all honor and reverence given to her as the Mother of God, in “relative worship,” as an outward form of our worship and piety. But we also realize that she is the one who brought forth “Great Mercy for the world,” who is Christ our Lord, the pre-eternal, uncreated, Incarnate Son of God, through the good will of our Father in heaven, and by the power of the Holy Spirit. It is this God, the Trinity, one in Essence, whom we worship and offer our inward form of adoration as latreia. Thus we stay true to our words and teachings, knowing that what we pray is what we believe.

How exactly does the Orthodox Church view the sinlessness of Mary? In the Liturgy it is said, “One is Holy, One is Lord, Jesus Christ, to the Glory of God the Father” and in other places that Jesus is the only sinless one. Also, in reference to 1 John 1:8 where it says, “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” How can these be reconciled? Is the Theotokos all-pure, all-holy, all-blameless because of her deification through her Son, so that she is those things because her Son is, as we are holy, pure, etc. through our union to Christ?

Also, how is it that she is referred to as the only refuge for sinners, and various phrases like this? Isn’t Christ our only refuge and the salvation of sinners?

This is the main stumbling block I have with Orthodoxy right now. There seems to be varying beliefs within the Orthodoxy on the Theotokos. Didn’t St John Chrysostom teach that Mary had sinned at least once? When I read the earliest Church Fathers there seems to be little focus on Mary apart from the Christological issue of whether she was the Mother of God, or only of Christ. Doesn’t the teaching that Mary was sinless from birth state the same general concept, that Mary is more than the rest of humanity, as the Immaculate Conception (apart from the idea of original sin) except that it moves the moment of the supernatural grace of God to birth from conception? 

I am not trying to answer my own questions, but am simply not understanding how these contradictions, at least seemingly, can be resolved.

---

Answer

While I would love to be able to fully answer your question, it is far beyond the scope of an email, especially because full understanding of the Orthodox position, based on the tenor of your question, on the Virgin Mary requires a thorough explanation of some of the secondary issues to which you refer, such as original sin, the Immaculate Conception, supernatural grace, etc. As such, I would highly recommend that you meet in person with the parish priest at the Orthodox Church you have been visiting—he will no doubt be glad to answer the question at some depth.

I can say, in short, that the Orthodox Church believes that Mary, as a human being, could indeed have sinned, but chose not to. In the Roman Catholic understanding, it seems that Mary, who according to Roman doctrine had been exempted from the guilt of original sin [the Orthodox do not accept that humans share the guilt of the first sin but, rather, only the consequences] before all eternity, and thus could not have sinned. This is where the complexity comes in on a number of levels and which puts your question beyond the scope of an email.

Jesus Christ is Mary’s Savior, as well as ours, as testified in her own statement in St Luke—the Magnificat—where she says, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” If Mary had been “sin-proofed,” so to speak, from all eternity, the Orthodox would argue as to why she would need a Savior.

Mary is the “new Eve” who said “yes” to God where the first Eve said “no.” She did have a choice, and you may wish to ask your local parish priest to share with you the text of the Kanon from Matins for the Great Feast of the Annunciation, in which you will see a beautiful dialogue between Mary and the Archangel Gabriel in which she debates whether or not to accept the archangel’s news, only in the end accepting that which he announced.

While much that the Orthodox say of Mary “sounds” similar to that which is taught by Roman Catholicism, there are serious differences on many levels. You are correct in saying, however, that the Orthodox Church does not seem to have such a highly developed mariological tradition as the Christian West; it is, at least in my experience, only in recent times, with the growing interest in Orthodoxy especially among many evangelicals, that we have had to delve so deeply—and sometimes deeper than we should—into the role of Mary. Sometimes our answers seem somewhat lame, but in reality there is only so much one can say before one must acknowledge that, while there are certain things we simply cannot fully understand about this, reasoned faith, as defined in St James, becomes the only recourse.

Standing center in Orthodox tradition concerning the Virgin Mary is a singular concept. She is the Theotokos, the woman who bore the life-giving God into human life. Any other title or characterization of this woman, who bore Christ, has to stand on this core truth.The major feasts of the Church, those which celebrate the events of Christ’s life, all have a Marian element. In the traditional liturgical year’s cycle of these events, there is always a “synaxis” on the day that follows an event of salvation history. For instance, the synaxisof the Feast of the Nativity celebrates the motherhood of Mary. Within the Divine Liturgy, Mary is always granted esteem because she is the Theotokos. Immediately following the Anaphora (lifting up of gifts) and the Consecration in the Divine Liturgy of St. Chrysostom, the famous hymn Axion Estin is always sung, recognizing Mary’s role in the miracle of the Eucharist:

It is truly right to bless you, Theotokos,
ever blessed, most pure, and mother of our God.
More honorable than the Cherubim,
and beyond compare more glorious than the Seraphim,
without corruption you gave birth to God the Word.
We magnify you, the true Theotokos.³

Mary, a young Hebrew woman, is the one human being to be praised by the angels of Heaven, who is ever blessed (filled with joy), most pure (filled with God’s presence and holiness), and mother (one who bore, nourished with her breasts, and raised up the man Jesus.) What can the believer do but magnify her, which is to raise her in esteem above all the inhabitants of Heaven.

Other than the many icons which celebrate Mary’s involvement in the life and work of Christ, in particular the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Crucifixion, the Ascension, and Pentecost, there are a host of other icons that magnify her cooperation with God’s plan of redemption and exemplify her life as a promise to all the faithful of God’s goodness, in particular the icon of the Dormition. Tradition teaches that at her death, Mary’s tomb was found empty. Most believe that she was taken from her burial site by her son to be with Him in Heaven. Others believe that perhaps she, too, awaits the final days to experience resurrection, but this is often the minority opinion. In every icon, there is a fathomless depth to the mystery of God that can be experienced in prayer and through contemplation of the icon.

No one knows the actual appearance of the Theotokos, but there is a strong, legendary tradition that she was painted by St. Luke. Whether or not there is truth to this legend, most Byzantine iconography portrays her with a characteristic appearance which involves: a narrow Semitic face, a long and slender nose, and dark brown eyes. Look for these features in ancient Byzantine icons, mentioning for example “the Mother of God, Salus Romani,” an 8th century icon found at Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome.⁴

Orthodoxy does believe, as do western Christians, that miracles can occur in connection with an icon. To delve into the history of miraculous icons of the Theotokos, is to open a search into the mystery of God that stretches far back into history and includes literally hundreds of icons. An illuminating article on this subject is found in Mother of God, Representations of the Virgin in Byzantine Art, a publication of the Benaki Museum in 2000. Alexei Lidov described the inherent academic difficulty in studying miracle-working icons:

A study of the stories about miracle-working icons could become a special sphere of research requiring the joint efforts of historians, art historians and philologists. Promising research areas are the study of the structure of these stories and of the interrelationship between archetypal, legendary, literary and real historical motifs. One of the difficulties is that archetypal models are sometimes not invented by the author, but are an integral part of the actual event.⁵

Lidov does, however, point out the value in studying the miracle-working icons of many centuries: “We immediately discover the important fact that a great deal of valuable historical information often not to be found in other sources has accumulated around the miracle.”⁶

Two well-known feasts reporting a miraculous aspect in Mary’s work and which also are associated with important liturgical feasts in most Orthodox traditions (especially Greek and Russian) are interesting to the ecumenical discussion of Mary as Mediatrix. They represent spiritual gifts that come to the faithful through the Theotokos, demonstrating a tradition of supplication to the Virgin Mary long before church divisions. The first feast, Theotokos of the Life-Giving Fountain, recalls an event in the 4th century in the environs of Constantinople. A young man who was to become the Byzantine Emperor, Leo the Great, was out for a daily walk when he heard the cries of a blind man with a critical thirst for water. At first, not finding any water to help the blind man, the young man then heard the voice of a woman calling him to a place of water. The place became a place of healings. The tradition of the Theotokos who gives Life-giving water, or she who metaphorically is the “Source of the Source” — that is she who is the source of Christ’s healings as represented by water, became an important feast celebrated today on the Friday following the Great Pascha, Easter. The Friday after Easter in “Bright Week” in most Eastern Orthodox churches is a surprisingly joyful celebration of Christ providing life and sustenance, physically and spiritually, to all the faithful, through his mother. The Fountain shrine is still present today, just outside modern Istanbul, having been built, destroyed and then restored many times throughout the centuries. The feast of the Theotokos of the Fountain, like all other Marian feasts, signifies a significant theological truth, in this case how Christ is the well of life, and his mother is but the fountain.⁷

ICON: Theotokos of the Fountain – See how Virgin Mary represents a fountain within a fountain, a source flowing with the waters of life which in reality flow from from the Source, her Son.⁸

A beloved title for the Theotokos in the Orthodox tradition is that of “the Panagia.” This term theologically relates most closely to the Roman Catholic dogma of the Immaculate Conception. In the sense of this title, Mary is completely holy, truly blessed and pure. The difference in the theological concepts concerning mankind’s nature and the result of sin as they relate to Virgin Mary, “Panagia” for Orthodox theology and “Immaculate Conception” for Roman Catholic theology, rests mainly on two terms that are commonly used in the ecumenical discussion between Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism – that of the theological understanding of “the Fall” for Orthodox theology and that of “Original Sin” for the Roman Catholic theology. Additionally, a further theological distinction has been discovered in the ecumenical exchange, that being that the Orthodox theologian prefers to speak of “the Fall” in terms of “justice or more specifically justification” and the Roman Catholic theologian tends to speak of the “juridical effects” of “original sin.” In over-simplistically stated terms, this means that the Orthodox view the salvific work of Christ more from a point of view of “justification,” where the Roman Catholic theologian views the salvific work of Christ as a satisfaction for the sin of mankind in a juridical way. In 1986, in an ecumenical discussion between Roman Catholic theologian Edward Yarnold SJ and Orthodox theologian Bishop Kallistos Ware, at an Ecumenical Society of the Blessed Virgin Mary meeting in Chichester, England, we find that these two theological positions may not be as untenable as we think. Bishop Kallistos agreed that he did not find himself “so very far apart from [Father Yarnold].”¹¹ Father Yarnold described the human condition, after Adam and Eve sinned against God, to mean that humans come into the world with a “God shaped hole in their hearts,” that “the sin of the race causes each to come into this world with this God shaped hole unfilled, with this capability of receiving the Holy Spirit unrealized … an inherited spiritual defect.” However, “because of the work for which God destined Mary, that God shaped hole was never left unfilled, there was never in her a lack of original justice.”¹² Bishop Kallistos stated he believed Virgin Mary was “from the very beginning of her existence … filled with grace for the task which she had to fulfill.” He responded affirmatively to Fr. Yarnold in saying: “Do I, as an Orthodox accept that, from the very beginning of her existence the Blessed Virgin Mary was filled with grace for the task which she had to fulfill? My answer is emphatically, Yes, I do believe that. But I also believe that she was given a fuller measure of grace at the Annunciation,”¹³ referring to the pouring out of the Holy Spirit to Mary at the moment of her fiat.

Bishop Ware explained that the Christian East sees a “continuity of sacred history” throughout the ages, putting the Mother of God in a line of humans who were seeking God in a prophetic and holy way, in a kind of growing closer and closer to the coming of salvation for humanity. Mary was “involved in the total solidarity of the human race, in our mutual responsibility”¹⁴ for the Fall.

Simply said, Orthodox theology thinks of the young Hebrew woman Mary of Galilee as a human like any other human who was or has ever been born. Her all-holiness was not a privilege, but truly a free response to God’s call. She was filled with the Holy Spirit and answered a total “yes” to the call of God’s plan for salvation.

Orthodox theology considers that humanity “fell” from God in the sin in the Garden, but that humanity continues to be born in the “image of God, (GN 1:27)” throughout the subsequent ages with the same integrity of human nature as Adam and Eve before their disobedience. The world, however, in fact the cosmos, into which subsequent human beings are born, is broken. They are whole and made in the image and likeness of God but come into a world that is filled with sinfulness. The Theotokos came into the world embracing a beautiful “imago Dei,” and received a fullness of God’s grace at the Annunciation that prepared her for her task. The fullness of the Holy Spirit came upon her with her agreement and for the subsequent Incarnation (Lk 1:35): “And the angel said to her in reply, ‘the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.’” In yet another ecumenical paper, Bishop Kallistos wrote:

Mary is an icon of human freedom and liberation. Mary is chosen, but she herself also chooses. Luke’s narrative speaks not only of divine initiative but also of human response, setting before us the entire dialectic of grace and freedom. Mary was predestined to be Mother of God, but she was also free.¹⁵

Orthodox theologian Dr. George S. Gabriel, in his book about the Theotokos entitled Mary the Untrodden Portal of God, contrasts the concepts of the all-holiness of Mary and Mary as Immaculate Conception:

The dogma of the Immaculate Conception severs Mary from her ancestors, from the forefathers, and from the rest of mankind. It marginalizes the preparatory history and economy of the Old Testament as well as the true meaning and holiness of the Theotokos herself. By severing her from fallen mankind and any consequences of the fall, this legalistic mechanism makes her personal holiness and theosis nonessential in the economy of salvation and, for that matter, even in her own salvation. Moreover, “it places in doubt her unity of nature with the human race and, therefore, the genuineness of salvation and Christ’s flesh as representative of mankind. [Qutoing, A., Yevtich, TheTheotokos: Four Homilies on the Mother of God by St. John of Damascus, 3].”¹⁶

For many Catholics, this theological debate concerning “Immaculate Conception” versus “the Panagia” is upsetting. However, in the ecumenical world there are three steps that have been discovered for churches to move forward together: 1) all must repent, 2) all must listen, and 3) all must reflect. In the Orthodox mind, words can bind down the mystery of God and words of dogmas about the Virgin Mary can become a problematic division. Ultimately, it will be those theologians, both Orthodox and Catholic, who approach these theological questions in the spirit of repentance, who pray, and who listen intently to each other, who will enlighten us further and perhaps find a ground of union. The experience of the mystery of God in liturgy and iconography of the ancient eastern tradition may help to resolve this conflict.

On another theological issue, which Protestants often question, can we say that Mary, the mother of Christ, is to be called “ever Virgin”? Undeniably, it is the Patristic heritage that upholds this truth of faith in the affirmative. The title “ever a virgin,” aeiparthenos, dates probably in its terminology to the 4th century. Origen refers to this idea of the perpetual virginity of Mary, and St. Athanasius clearly upholds it. From patristic times, Joseph is considered to be a widower who took on the responsibility of young Mary, as chosen to do so by his temple community. The brothers and sisters of the Lord, as mentioned in the New Testament, are consequently considered, in Orthodox tradition, to be Joseph’s children.

There are two special liturgical prayers of significant length that are important in the Orthodox tradition – the Akathistos (translated as “not sitting”) and the Paraklesis(Supplications to the Virgin). Again, there is a strong connection between these liturgical prayers and an iconographic tradition. The Akathistos hymn which is, in itself, a service prayed weekly throughout Great Lent, centers on the mystery of the Incarnation. Authorship is attributed to 5th-6th century hymnist Romanos the Melodist, but scholars find that his sources for the magnificent chanted poetry may have actually derived from more ancient Syriac poetry. The hymn, probably popular for many years for supplication to the Virgin Mary, was sung at a moment of crisis in the 10th century when Constantinople was menaced by invading marauders, the Avars. The legend is told that the people stood and sang the hymn all night long and the city was subsequently saved, thereby giving the title to the hymn, “Not Sitting.” In the Akathistos, a deeply mystical response is sung to repeated greetings of joy regarding the Theotokos. The greeting is a paradoxical phrase repeated over and over in the Akathistos, showing Orthodox regard for the mother of Christ to be awe-filled and beyond any kind of absolute comprehension. It is a phrase that portrays Mary, the mother of Christ, as one who experienced a betrothal with God, a spousal relationship that represents God’s offer of love and hope for response that is actually deeply biblical. The hymn represents a series of salutations to Mary, such as “Rejoice, To You through whom joy shall shine forth. Rejoice! To You through whom the curse will vanish. Rejoice! The recalling of the fallen Adam. Rejoice! The redemption of Eve’s tears. Rejoice! O height beyond human logic. Rejoice! O depth invisible even to the eyes of Angels. … Rejoice, Bride Unwedded.” Each section ends with the remarkable, “Rejoice, bride unwedded (Chaire, nymphe anymphete).” In the paradox, lies a remarkable mystery of spousal love that God offers.

In the ancient centuries of the Eastern Church, icons were connected with the singing of the Akathistos hymn. Most often, long processions would wind through narrow streets from shrine to shrine, with faithful singing the many verses of the hymn while carrying an iconographic banner or icon on stands.

The Service of the Small Paraklesis to the Most Holy Theotokos, is a liturgical service sung in the two-week Lenten period before the Feast of the Dormition, (paraklesis refers to a kind of salutation and petitioning set of prayers.) It is one of the most popular of Marian hymns and obviously demonstrates, that from ancient times Mary, the mother, is considered the mediator of the love and care of Her Son. The concluding verse of the Small Paraklesis in itself demonstrates the importance of her mediation as well as the humility of her motherhood:

I have you as Mediator
Before God who loves mankind;
May He not question my action
Before the hosts of the Angels,
I ask of you, O Virgin
Hasten now quickly to my aid.

You are a tower adorned with gold,
A city surrounded by twelve walls,
A shining throne touched by the sun,
A royal seat for the King,
O unexplainable wonder,
How do you nurse the Master?¹⁷

To enter an Orthodox Church building is to enter into the tradition of an ages-old spiritual culture where the faithful can prayerfully encounter Mary and her Son in liturgical prayer and iconography. Such an experience is discovered in liturgical chant and icons. One lights a candle and brings his or her own living light into the place of prayer. Then, it is the custom that one regards the icon of the Theotokos, bends, kisses the Child in her arms thus revering the Mother who bore Him. One then enters the community and joins the voices of joy and petition that abound, offering a sacrifice of one’s heart and one’s hands. One can’t avoid the icon of the Platytera offering her Son from the holy altar. One receives the Body and the Blood of Christ as Mary, Christ’s mother, received the body and blood of God’s son. One prays for those departed to God’s hands. On leaving the church building, one sees the icon of the Dormition above the departure way. One reflects. It is time to live the rest of one’s life with hope that Mary’s Dormition is the promise, the promise of a life with Christ that will never end. This is the Orthodox way, living with Mary.

---

© Virginia Kimball, Adjunct Professor, Department of Theology, Merrimack College, North Andover, MA September, 2006

---

[1] John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology, Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes (New York: Fordham University Press, 1979), 8-9.
[2] These three icons, Hodegetria, Eleousa, and Deesis are found on Orthodox Photos, http://www.orthodoxphotos.com/Icons_and_Frescoes/Icons/Mother_of_God/index.shtml
[3] “Online Chapel,” Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, The Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, http://www.goarch.org/en/Chapel/liturgical_texts/liturgy_hchc.asp (Accessed July 20, 2006.)
[4] Image found on website, http://www.iconsexplained.com/iec/00351.htm (Accessed July 20, 2006.)
[5] Alexei Lidov, “Miracle-working Icons of the Mother of God,” in Mother of God, Representations of the Virgin in Byzantine Art, edited by Maria Vassilaki (Skira Editore, Milan, Italy, and Benaki Museum, Athens, Greece, 2000), 49.
[6] Lidov, 47.
[7] Virginia Kimball, Liturgical Illuminations: Discovering Received Tradition in the Eastern Orthros of Feasts of the Theotokos, Doctoral Dissertation, International Marian Research Institute, Dayton, Ohio, 2003.
[8] Icon Gallery, Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, http://www.goarch.org/en/resources/clipart/icondetail.asp?i=95&c=Theotokos&r=lifegivingfountain
[9] Icon of the Theotokos of Protection, privately owned by author.
[10] Platytera icon, apse and iconostasion, St. George’s Antiochian Church, Lowell, MA, http://www.saintgeorgelowell.org/photo14.html
[11] Bishop Kallistos T. Ware and Edward Yarnold SJ, “The Immaculate Conception, A Search for Convergence,” Ecumenical Society of the Blessed Virgin Mary, ESBVM Congress, Chichester, England, 1986, 11.
[12] Ware and Yarnold.
[13] Ware and Yarnold.
[14] Ware and Yarnold, 6.
[15] Kallistos Ware, “Mary Theotokos in the Orthodox Tradition,” The Ecumenical Society of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 1997, 14.
[16] George S. Gabriel, Ph.D., Mary, the Untrodden Portal (Thessalonica and Ridgewood, NJ: Zephr, 2000), 68.
[17] The Service of the Small Paraklesis (Intercessory Prayer) to the Most Holy Theotokos, translated and set to meter by Demetri Kangelaris and Nicholas Kasemeotes (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1984), 37-38.

Introduction to Archbishop Alfred DeLeo

Archbishop DeLeo’s calling by God to the Christian Family in the mission field started at an early age, but he did not act upon it until the late 1970’s.  Starting in the late 1970’s, Archbishop DeLeo began a long, arduous and tumultuous journey with his relationship with God.

In an Independent Catholic Church, in April, 1981, Archbishop DeLeo was ordained a Deacon, and in May, 1984, ordained as a Priest.  In August, 2000, Archbishop DeLeo was consecrated as a Bishop.  Then in December, 2002, elevated to the position of Archbishop.

His zealousness for fighting against prejudices and discrimination, advocating for the less fortunate and poor, fighting for unpopular but necessary causes, challenging his government to improve the quality of life for its citizens, became the driving force of his desire for the Priesthood.

Archbishop DeLeo is currently residing in Europe and is serving in the Christian Mission field in Europe and Eastern Europe for his Church working to improve the quality of medical care in poor countries.

Archbishop DeLeo is in Good Standing with the The Saint Francis of Assisi Mission Church (of the Old Catholic Orthodox Church of Cluj-Napoca Synod Diocese); The Old Catholic Orthodox Bishops of the Western Rite; The Roman Catholic Church; The Eastern Orthodox Churches; The Christian Orthodox Catholic Church; The Old Catholic Orthodox Church, Cluj-Napoca Synod; Grace Church of Miami Shores; the Anglican Church; Independent Catholic Churches; and their affiliated Churches and Missions world-wide.

Archbishop DeLeo is currently the acting, Presiding Archbishop-Primate and Apostolic Administrator of The Old Catholic Orthodox Bishops of the Western Rite; The Christian Orthodox Catholic Church; and the The Old Catholic Orthodox Church, Cluj- Napoca Synod.

To work with the people on the local level, he takes time out of his busy schedule to devote time as the Parish Priest at The Saint Francis of Assisi Mission Church (of the Old Catholic Orthodox Church of Cluj-Napoca Synod Diocese) in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, and when visiting his home in Florida, he assists as Parish Priest at Grace Church of Miami Shores.

As part of his primary duties, Archbishop DeLeo oversees all of the world-wide mission projects for the Church.  Archbishop DeLeo is the former Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Italy, Romania, Bulgaria and India.

Archbishop DeLeo is consecrated “Sub Conditione”.  As such, under the Sub Conditione rule, Archbishop DeLeo’s Valid Order is in the Line of Succession of the Apostles (Apostolic Succession)

Though Archbishop DeLeo is the top-ranking Archbishop of his Church, and at present there is no Office of Cardinal in his Church, his equivalent rank-in-standing to other Catholic Church jusrisdictions is as follows: he is recognized as a Superior\Major (Cardinal) Archbishop in the Roman line under the Roman Catholic Church and the Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church, and a Metropolitan or Patriarch under the Eastern Orthodox (Byzantine) line by the Eastern Orthodox (Byzantine) Catholic Churches, and all Old Catholic, Independent Catholic and Anglican Churches.

During the week of March 10 – 17, 2006, in his love for and dedication to God, Jesus Christ, and the Catholic Faith, Archbishop DeLeo re-committed his life to God and Jesus Christ and was re-confirmed, re-ordained, re-consecrated and sub conditioned as a Bishop, and again, elevated to Archbishop under Sub Conditione.

Sub Conditione consecration is a procedure in which two already consecrated bishops consecrate each other, thereby sharing their apostolic lines. In that way, each of their churches recognizes without question the apostolic succession of the other. This has been used, for example, to remove doubts about the validity of Anglican and Episcopalian successions by adding the universally recognized Old Catholic line.

During and after the Second World War, Mar Georgius I, Patriarch of Glastonbury and Catholicos of the West began unifying the various strands of Old Catholics and independent Catholics. By 1956, through sub conditione consecrations, he had accumulated all sixteen lines of Apostolic succession known to exist: Syrian-Antiochene, Syrian-Malabar, Syrian-Gallican, Syro-Chaldean, Chaldean-Uniate, Coptic Orthodox, Armenian-Uniate, Order of Corporate Reunion, Old Catholic, Mariavite, Nonjuring, Anglican, Russian Orthodox, Russo-Syrian Orthodox, Greek-Melkite, and Liberal Catholic.

Bishop William Donovan who consecrated Bishop Bowman on April 18, 1996 was in the direct line of Archbishops Wadle and Aneed.  The Principal Consecrator, Bishop Donovan, was, at that time, the Primate of the American Catholic Church. Bishop Orlando Lima y Aguirre,  in the Old Catholic line of Bishops Vilatte, Mathew, De Landas, and Carfora was a second consecrator.  Bishop Grant Cover, an independent Anglican bishop, was Bishop Bowman’s third consecrator

Later in 1996, Bishop Bowman was consecrated sub conditione by Archbishop Maurice McCormick.In 1998, Bishop Bowman was again consecrated  sub conditione by  Bishop John Reeves, the pastor of St. Peter the Apostle, and Bishop of the Catholic Church of The Americas, Diocese of St. Petersburg, Florida, who is in the Bishop Vilatte line and also has a succession from Bishop Carlos Duarte Costa of Brazil, a Roman Catholic bishop who broke with Rome.

In 2006, Archbishop Alfred DeLeo re-affirmed and re-dedicated his life to God.  He was re-confirmed in the Catholic Faith, re-ordained, and re-consecrated sub conditione by Bishop Robert Bowman, thus bringing him in line with true Apostolic Succession.  

[Go Up]Lines of Succession

ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH
&
BRAZILIAN CATHOLIC APOSTOLIC CHURCH
1. Scipione Rebiba, Auxiliary Bishop of Chieti, Titular Patriarch of Constantinople, was elected Titular Bishop of Amicle and Auxiliary to  Gian Pietro Cardinal Carafa, Archbishop of Chieti (who later became  Pope Paul IV) on March 16, 1541. Rebiba consecrated Guilio Antonio Santoro.

2. Guilio Antonio Santoro, Archbishop of Santa Severina, was consecrated on March 12, 1566 in the Pauline Chapel of the Vatican Apostolic Palace. His co-consecrator’s were Annibale Caracciolo, Bishop of Isola and Giacomo de`Giacomelli, Bishopemeritus of Belcastro.  Santoro consecrated Girolama Bernerio.

3.  Girolama Bernerio, O.P., Bishop of Ascoli Piceno, was consecrated on September 7, 1586 in the Basilicaof the Twelve Holy Apostles, Rome. His co-consecrator’s were Guilio Masetti, Bishop of Reggio Emilia and Ottaviano Paravicini, Bishop of Alessandria. Bernerio consecrated Galeazzo Sanvitale.

4. Galeazzo Sanvitale, Archbishop of Bari. He was consecrated April 4, 1604 in the Chapel of the Apostolic Sacristy, Rome. His co-consecrator`s were Claudio Rangoni, Bishop of Piacenza and Giovanni Ambrogio Caccia, Bishop of Castro di Toscana. Sanvitale consecrated Lodovico Ludovisi.

5. Lodovico Ludovisi, Cardinal Archbishop of Bologna, was consecrated on May 2, 1621 in the private chapel of  Sanvitale, near St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome. Assisting  Sanvitale were Cosmo de Torres, Titular Archbishop of Hadrianopolis and Ottavio Ridolfi, Bishop of Atiano.  Ludovisi consecrated Luigi Caetani.

6.  Luigi Caetani, Titular Patriarch of Antioch, was consecrated on June 12, 1622 in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome. Assisting Ludovisi were:  Galeazzo Sanvitale, Archbishop emeritus of Bari and  Vulpiano Volpi, Archbishop emeritus of Chieti.  Caetani consecrated Ulderico Carpegna.

7.  Ulderico Carpegna, Bishop of Gubbio was consecrated on October 7, 1630 in the Pauline Chapel of the Apostolic Palace of the Quirinal, Rome. His co-consecrator’s were Antonio Ricciulli, Bishop emeritus of Belcastro and Vicegerent of Rome, and Benedetto Landi, Bishop of Fossombrone. Carpegna consecrated Paluzzo Cardinal Paluzzi Altieri Degli Albertoni.

8. Paluzzo Cardinal Paluzzi Altieri Degli Albertoni, was consecrated on May 2, 1666 Bishop of Montefiascone e Corneto, in the Church of San Silvestro in Capite, Rome. Assisting  Carpegna were Stefano Ugolini, Titular Archbishop of Corinth and Giovanni Tommaso Pinelli, Bishop of Albenga. Altieri consecratedPietro Francesco (Vincenzo Maria) Orsini de Gravina, O.P..

9. Pietro Francesco (Vincenzo Maria) Orsini de Gravina, O.P., Cardinal Archbishop of Manfredonia (who later became Pope  Benedict XIII), was consecrated on February 3, 1675 in the Church of SS. Domenico e Sisto, Rome. His co-consecrator’s were Stefano Brancaccio, Archbishop-Bishop of Viterbo e Tuscania and Costanzo Zani, O.S.B., Bishop of Imola. Orsini consecrated Prospero Lorenzo Lambertini.

10. Prospero Lorenzo Lambertini, Titular Archbishop of Theodosia, who became Pope Benedict XIV in 1740, was consecrated on July 16, 1724 in the Pauline Chapel of the Apostolic Palace of the Quirinal, Rome. Orsiniwas assisted by  Giovanni Francesco Nicolai, O.F.M.Ref., Titular Archbishop of Myra and  Nicola Maria Lercari, Titular Archbishop of Nazianzus. ( **Prospero Lorenzo Lambertini and those previous to him, are in the Episcopal Lineage of His Holiness,  John Paul II – Karl Wojtyla**). Lambertini consecrated Carlo della Torre Rezzonico.

11. Carlo della Torre Rezzonico, was consecrated on March 19, 1743 and became Pope Clement XIII in 1758. His co-consecrator’s were Archbishops Scopio Borghese and  Ignatius Reali. Pope Clement XIII (Rezzonico) consecrated Bernadinus Giraud.

12. Bernadinus Giraud, was consecrated on April 26, 1767 and became a Cardinal in 1771. Assisted by Archbishop  Marcus Antonius Conti and Bishop Iosefus Maria Carafa, Cardinal Giraud consecrated on February 23, 1777 Alexander Matthaeus.

13. Alexander Matthaeus, who became a Cardinal in 1779, was consecrated on February 23, 1777. Assisted by Bishops Geraldus Macioti and  Franciscus Albertini, Cardinal Matthaeus consecrated Pietro FrancescoCardinal Galeffi. 

14. Pietro Francesco Cardinal Galeffi, who became a Cardinal in 1803, was consecrated on September 12, 1819. Assisted by Archbishops Ioannes Franciscus Falzacappa and Iosephus della Porta Rondiana, Cardinal  Galeffi consecrated Giacomo Filippo Cardinal Fransoni.

15.  Giacomo Filippo Cardinal Fransoni was consecrated on December 8, 1822 and became a Cardinal in 1826. Assisted by Patriarch Joseph Valerga and Bishop  Rudensindus Salvado, Cardinal Fransoniconsecrated Carlo Cardinal Sacconi.

16. Carlo Cardinal Sacconi was consecrated on June 8, 1851 and became a Cardinal in 1861. Assisted by Archbishops Salvator Nobili Vitelleschi and Franciscus Xaverius Fredericus de Merode, Cardinal Sacconiconsecrated Edward Henry Cardinal Howard.

17. Edward Henry Cardinal Howard was consecrated on June 30, 1872 and became a Cardinal in 1877. Assisted by Archbishops Alessandro, Sanminiatelli, Zabarella and Bishop Guilio Lenti, Cardinal Howardconsecrated Mariano Cardinal Rampolla del Tindaro.

18. Mariano Cardinal Rampolla del Tindaro was consecrated on December 8, 1882 and became a Cardinal 1887. In Brazil, Cardinal  Rampolla del Tindaro consecrated Joaquim Cardinal Arcoverde de Albuquerque Cavalcanti.

19. Joaquim Cardinal Arcoverde de Albuquerque Cavalcanti was consecrated, for the Roman Catholic Church, on October 26, 1890 and became a Cardinal in 1905. Cardinal de Albuquerque Cavalcanticonsecrated Sebastião Leme Cardinal da Silveira Cintra.

20. Sebastião Leme Cardinal da Silveira Cintra, was consecrated on June 4, 1911 and became an Archbishop in 1921. Assisted by  Dom Alberto Jose Goncalves and Dom Benedito Paulo Alves de Souza, Archbishop de Silveira Cintra consecrated Carlos Duarte Costa.

21. Carlos Duarte Costa who had been ordained a Roman Catholic priest on April l, 1911. Costa was consecrated a Roman Catholic bishop on December 8, 1924 and remained such until he retired in 1945. Costa retired because Rome refused to take a stand against the relocation of War Criminals from the Nazi regime to his homeland of Brazil. He served as the Patriarch of the Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church from 1945 to 1961. Bishop Carlos Duarte Costa consecrated Milton Cunha. 

22.  Milton Cunha was consecrated on June 5, 1960.  Bishop Cunha consecrated  Propheta and Giuseppe Santo Eusebio Pace. 

23. Giuseppe Santo Eusebio Pace was consecrated on October 3, 1968. Bishop Pace consecrated Ignazio Antonio Teodosio Pietroburgo.

24.  Ignazio Antonio Teodosio Pietroburgo was consecrated on October 15, 1978. Bishop Pietroburgoconsecrated Donald Lawrence Jolly-Gabriel. 

25.  Donald Lawrence Jolly-Gabriel was consecrated on June 25,1980 and he consecrated Denis Martel. 

26. Denis Martel was consecrated on July 8, 1995. Bishop Martel consecrated John Robert Reeves. 

27. John Robert Reeves on September 29, 1996. Bishop Reeves consecrated:

28. Robert M. Bowman in 1998.

29. Alfred DeLeo was re-confirmed in the Catholic Faith, re-ordained, and re-consecrated between March 10 – 17, 2006, sub conditione by Bishop Robert Bowman, thus bringing him in line with true Apostolic Succession..

30. Jerry Stephenson was consecrated on March 27, 2009, sub conditione by Bishop Alfred DeLeo, thus bringing him in line with true Apostolic Succession.

[Go Up]

It took me about a year but I am finally an ordained priest. I’ve been

wanting to become a priest since I was 14 years old and I was thinking

this probably would not happen anymore until I learned about the

independent Catholic and Orthodox churches. I really wanted to be in a

mainline denomination I really felt home with the Episcopal Church

but that was not in the cards for me. I also tried with the Lutheran

ELCA it took me about a year but I am finally an ordained priest. I’ve

been wanting to become a priest since I was 14 years old and I was

thinking this probably would not happen anymore until I learned about

the independent Catholic and Orthodox churches. I really wanted to be

in a mainline denomination I really felt home with the Episcopal

Church but that was not in the cards for me. I also tried with the

Lutheran ELCA and United Methodist Church but they also have no

place for people with learning disabilities to be clergy. No I know I’m

not the smartest or the brightest but I know my passion for Christ is

very real and I am truly grateful to the Archbishop Alfred Deleo who

has given me this chance. I learned that he is Registered sex offender

and people said because of this my ordination was a ballot and no one

would do anything with my church because of that. Many in the

independent Catholic Church are very petty individuals who make it

very hard to become clergy and some of them will make it way too easy.

Many clergy do not even have a college education let alone a seminary

education. I have a seminary education and I am very proud of that

because I was told that I wasn’t smart enough or good enough to go to

college to let alone get my masters in divinity. I am also working on my

doctors of ministry which I hope to accomplish in the next two years.

So maybe I’m not good enough for the Episcopal Church or the

Lutheran Church or the Methodist Church I have found a home with

the independent Catholic Church. I cannot speak for others but I

promise you if you come to my church to worship and allow me to be a

pastor for you I will do my best to represent you and teach you about

the gospel. And I would never allow register sex offender to be alone

with children ever. I’d like to practice the Episcopal church policy

where you never meet with anybody alone and you only meet with

children with their parents there. There’s nothing more that show their

safety is paramount to the ministries. I sometimes will screw up with

my worthy because I like social Grace and I have dysgraphia but I

promise you I will give you the very best I can and I thank you for g

Giving me a chance. I will try not to let you down by also no I will not let you down.

Matins Gospel John 20:19–31 (42nd Sunday)
Epistle Hebrews 9:11–14
Gospel Mark 10:32–45
Index of Readings
MATINS GOSPEL
(42nd Sunday)
John 20:19–31

EPISTLE
Hebrews 9:11–14

GOSPEL
Mark 10:32–45