By now, we have all seen the horrifying photo of the three-year-old boy whose lifeless body washed up in Turkey, a victim of humanity’s neglect of the hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of refugees who are trying to escape Syria and other places in the Middle East to seek basic human needs. Among the many things we can do for these refugees, by far the most important is to pray for them, as the Holy – …

One of the most disturbing ideas I’ve heard in the recent push to “modernize” the Coptic Orthodox Church and make it more “attractive” to people in today’s society is the idea of priests putting aside their priestly cassocks in favor of pants, shirts, and collars, like other western clergy. The general arguments in favor of abandoning the priestly cassock essentially argue that it is too traditional to the point of alienating people in modern society. – …

Every mother has a story. Every mother came from somewhere, and where she came from affects how she raises her children and interacts with her husband. One mother, however, the mother of all of us, has a story that I think is awe-inspiring. The volumes that are written and could be written about our blessed mother, the Theotokos, the God-bearer and the Christ-Bearer, are countless. She’s not just some lady that got lucky. No, we know that God – …

One of the signs of modern courtship is the growing trend of elaborate marriage proposals, which are oftentimes choreographed and shared on social media. We see them all the time: a young man invites a young woman to some sentimental place (oftentimes with a view of the ocean) and “pops the question” (oftentimes using candles, signs, and/or balloons) shortly before all of their family and friends come out of hiding to congratulate them and celebrate. – …

The Early Fathers of the Church teach us that, when God created Adam and Eve, they were clothed in the Divine light of God Himself. Sadly, when they sinned, they lost the glory of God, and that’s when they realized they were naked. This is our past, which we lost because of sin. Through the lifegiving work of our Lord Jesus Christ, however, this is also our future. In Matthew 13:43, we hear from the – …

In or around the first year of the Lord, a meeting took place that would forever change the course of history. There was in those days an older woman living in the hill country of Judea. At this particular time, she was hiding, because something wondrous had happened to her. Despite the old age of this woman and her husband, a Jewish priest, and despite the fact that she, as a woman, was unable to – …