Saint George Greek Orthodox Church 70 West Street, PO Box 392 Keene, NH 03431-0392 The Rev. Dr. Theodore Stylianopoulos, Pastor Church: 352.6424 Home: 617.522.5768 College: 617.850.1238 Weekend: 835.6389 Email: [email protected] Website: www.stgeorgekeene.nh.goarch.org August 2010 Services Every Sunday In This Issue Father Ted’s Corner 2 Matins 9:00-10:00 a.m. Prayers and Saints 4 Diving Liturgy 10:00-11:30 a.m. Our Community 6 Daily Bible Readings 11 Worship Services in August August 1 Prosforo Bakers 10th Sunday of Matthew August 1: Maria Ioannou Procession of the Precious Cross August 15: Janet Harrison The Holy Seven Maccabees, Eleazar the August 29: Tiffany Mannion Martyr September 5: Vicky Balkanikos Matins: John 21:1-14 Epistle: St. Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians 4:9-16 Gospel: Matthew 17:14-23 Notable Feast Days in August August 8 August 6 11th Sunday of Matthew Transfiguration of Emilian the Confessor & Bishop of Cyzikos our Lord and Savior Our Holy Father Myronus the Wonderworker, Bishop of Crete Jesus Christ Matins: John 21:14-25 Epistle: St. Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians 9:2-12 August 9 Gospel: Matthew 18:23-35 St. Matthias the Apostle August 15 The Dormition of our Most Holy Lady the Theotokos and Ever August 16 Virgin Mary Translation of the Matins: Luke 1:39-49, 56 Image of Our Lord Epistle: St. Paul's Letter to the Philippians 2:5-11 and God and Savior, Gospel: Luke 10:38-42, 11:27-28 Jesus Christ August 22 Diomedes the 13th Sunday of Matthew Physician & Martyr of Agathonikos the Martyr of Nicomedea & his Companion Martyrs Tarsus Holy Martyr Anthuse Matins: Mark 16:1-8 August 20 St. Samuel the Epistle: St. Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians 16:13-24 Prophet Gospel: Matthew 21:33-42 August 29 August 24 Beheading of the Venerable Head of the Glorious Prophet, St. Kosmas Aitolos Forerunner and Baptist John Theodora of Thessaloniki August 27 Anastasios the New Martyr of Bulgaria Sts.Poimen and Phanourios Matins: Mark 16:9-20 Epistle: Acts of the Apostles 13:25-33 August 28 Gospel: Mark 6:14-30 St. Moses the Ethiopian 1 88:10-12: “Do You work wonders for the dead? Do the shades rise up to praise You? …Are Your wonders known in the QUESTION 1: Please explain what the soul is. ANSWER: The basic meaning of “soul” in the two pillars of Western civilization darkness, or Your saving help in the land of forgetfulness?” (psyche in the Greek tradition and nephesh in the Hebrew tradition) refers to the Concepts of reward and punishment at a day of judgment, along with the belief in bodily resurrection, arose in the mysterious vital element of consciousness, the breath of life, the life-principle that Jewish tradition several centuries before Christ out of sense of the need for ultimate justice, and especially as reward energizes the body and makes it capable of motion, feelings, thoughts and actions. for the righteous sufferers and martyrs of the faith. Hades then became a temporary abode where classes of sinners and righteous awaited judgment. The wicked who had already been punished in earthly life apparently would not be The term can simply mean “life” as when Jesus the Good Shepherd said He would lay down His life punished again, but would remain in the shadowy region. But sinners who had not been punished, would receive (psyche, John 10:11) for the sheep. Often the term “soul,” as also the term “heart” (kardia), signifies the their punishment on judgment day. The righteous however would lie in quietness or alternately be refreshed with a seat and center of the inner life of human beings, the source of emotions, deliberations and decisions. spring of water while awaiting their final reward in paradise. In some of these traditions the punishment came in the The rich fool deliberating the enlargement of his barns to store his crops said to his psyche (soul): “Soul, form of the destruction of the soul, or no bodily resurrection at all as reward, or bodily resurrection but destined for you have ample goods laid up for many years; take you ease, eat, drink, be merry” (Luke 12:19). punishment; and of course the opposite positive reverse as reward. These diverse forms of notions and elaborate Sometimes it is difficult to choose between “soul” or “life” as the precise translation as when Jesus said: punishments are recounted in pre-Christian apocryphal Jewish books such as 1 Enoch, 2 Baruch, Jubilees, and 4 Ezrah. “whoever wants to save his psyche (soul/life) will lose it; and whoever loses his psyche for my sake and The authors of the New Testament, and most notably the author of the Book of Revelation, presuppose diverse the gospel’s will save it (Mark8:35). knowledge of these traditions but do not provide one single teaching about the afterlife in detail. Father Ted’s Corner Ted’s Father In the Greek philosophical tradition the soul, in contradistinction to the body, came to be thought of as The Church Fathers such as St. John Chrysostom, St. Basil, and St. Gregory the Theologian were cautious about the higher and eternal element which upon death is released from the material body as from a tomb into speculation concerning life after death and reserved about the Book of Revelation which to this day is not read in the another metaphysical form of existence. This dichotomy of soul and body is often assumed in the worship of the Orthodox Church. On the contrary, the Western tradition during the second millennium was popular understanding by many today. However, in the core Hebrew and Christian tradition, body and soul enthralled with Dante-like descriptions of hell derived from the Book of Revelation and the Jewish apocryphal books, belong together, forming a complete person as a psychosomatic unit, and both body and soul are receptive of and illustrated these descriptions in paintings. Those paintings based on the Book of Revelation were imitated in grace and holiness. St. Paul states: “Glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:20). The consequence of this latter Orthodox iconographic style by monastics in Mt. Athos after the 14th century and became part of the popular view is presupposed by the teaching of the resurrection as the completion of the human person, albeit in a Orthodox tradition. Many Orthodox saints and writers assume the general view of hell as a place of punishment, even transformed body and soul reflecting the glory of God. Finally, in the Hebrew and Christian tradition, the soul is by means of material instruments such as fire, whether of the soul after death or both soul and body after the not of itself eternal, as in the case of the Platonic philosophical tradition, but created and contingent. The soul resurrection. However, there is another quite different and spiritual Orthodox interpretation of hell based on certain attain the attribute of eternity only by the sustaining grace of God. Orthodox luminaries such as St. Isaac the Syrian, St. Gregory of Nyssa and St. Gregory the Theologian. According to this teaching, there surely is a hell, but not as a material place of punishment created by God for eternal chastisement QUESTION 2: Can you tell me how the apostles died? I thought only one died a natural death. of sinners using devils and such things as fire. According to this view, there was a time when hell did not exist. Angels and human beings created hell at the moment they chose evil and turned against God. Hell is a spiritual state of Historical evidence pertaining to the death of the apostles is scarce. According to Acts 12:2 the apostle ANSWER: separation from God and inability to experience the love of God, while being conscious of the ultimate deprivation of James, brother of the apostle John, was killed by Herod Agrippa I, grandson of King Herod the Great. The other it as punishment. Because God is a God of love, He is incapable of establishing anything evil, including a place of hell apostle James, not of the twelve, but the one called the brother of the Lord and the leader of the Jerusalem Church, for the eternal punishment for His wayward children. God is full of light and full of love, and can shine forth only was killed by initiative of the Jewish high priest Ananias around 65 A.D. The apostles Peter and Paul also quite light and love. likely suffered martyrdom in Rome around the same date. A much later Christian tradition has it that the apostle Andrew suffered martyrdom in Greece. The apostle John, brother of the martyred apostle James, both of the Nevertheless, those who deliberately refuse to believe in God, refuse to obey Him, and refuse follow His ways of light twelve, died in ripe old age. All other reports of the deaths of the apostles are uncertain. and love, will experience the same divine light and love as “hell” because they are unable to share in that divine light and love, and will know this fact as immense deprivation, a psychic anguish greater than any material punishment, the “scourge of love” as St. Isaac put it. This view of hell, QUESTION 3: In Dante’s Inferno the images of hell are clearly defined and illustrated. Dante was which comes as a tremendous surprise to Western Christians, a Catholic. What is the Orthodox Church’s view of hell and how did it evolve to be different from maintains the God continues to love sinners at all times, even the Catholic tradition? those who are in hell, but tragically His love does not work ANSWER: Truth be told, there is an amazing diversity of concepts and descriptions of hell both in the Bible and positively with them because it is willfully refused, as also by the demons, and thus the resulting consequence of hell as the Christian traditions.