Bulgarian hierarchs concelebrate with Ukrainian schismatics in Istanbul
https://orthochristian.com/160274.html

For the first time, hierarchs of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church concelebrated with representatives of the graceless “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” sect yesterday at Life-giving Spring Monastery in Istanbul.

"The aim is not to judge one's neighbour... If we are on the watch to see our own faults, we shall not see those of our neighbour... Bear your own faults and do not pay attention to anyone else, wondering whether they are good or bad. Do no harm to anyone, do not think anything bad in your heart towards anyone, do not scorn the man who does evil... do not rail against anyone, but rather say, "God knows each one." Do not agree with him who slanders, do not rejoice at his slander, and do not hate him who slanders his neighbour. This is what it means not to judge. Do not have hostile feelings towards anyone and do not let dislike dominate your heart... This is what peace is..."

+Saint Moses the Ethiopian

☦️📖The Scripture Readings for today: Friday, May 17th, 2024. It is the second week of Pascha + Christ is Risen! Truly He is Risen! Listen online at OrthoRadio.com. Support Orthodox Sentinel Ministries, Inc - a registered 501c3 non-profit organization: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=VY73D62NY8AFN.

A prayer to memorize and to incorporate into your prayers during Lent: https://fatherjohn.blogspot.com/2021/03/the-prayer-of-st-ephrem-syrian.html

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The Prayer of St. Ephrem the Syrian

Lent is about to begin, and one prayer we should all memorize and incorporate into our daily prayers during Lent is the prayer of St. Ephrem...

Patriarch Neofit of Bulgaria laid to rest (+VIDEO)
https://orthochristian.com/159197.html

His Holiness Patriarch Neofit of Bulgaria was laid to rest in Sofia on Saturday, March 16.

☦️📖 The Scripture Readings for today, March 15th, 2024 (+Maslenitsa). Listen online at OrthoRadio.com. Support Orthodox Sentinel Ministries, Inc - a registered 501c3 non-profit organization: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=VY73D62NY8AFN.

O Holy Master, Almighty Father and pre-eternal God, Who alone made and directs all things; Who rises up quickly against the evil of the impious ones; Who, by providence, teaches Thy people preservation of justice and the obliteration of evil on earth; Who condescends to raise up warriors for the protection of the people of God: we entreat Thee with compunction, that as Thou didst give David power to defeat Goliath, and as Thou didst condescend through Judas Maccabeus, to seize victory from the arrogant pagans who would not call on Thy Name; so too, grant protection to us, Thy servants against the enemies rising against us as we go forth to do spiritual battle against the evil one and those who do his will rather than Thine.

For Thou art a merciful God, and lovest mankind, and unto Thee do we ascribe glory, to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen. +

Thus did He manifest His Almightiness, born of the Virgin, preserving the virginity of the Virgin intact, and He was born of God with neither complication, travail, evil nor a separation of forsaking the immutable Divine Essence, born God from God. Since mankind abandoned God, in place of Him worshipping graven images of humans, God the Word thus assumed the image of man, so that in banishing error and restoring truth, He should consign to oblivion the worshipping of idols and for Himself to be accorded Divine honour, since to Him becometh all glory and honour unto ages of ages. Amen.

© 1996-2001 by translator Fr. S. Janos.

People entered into the Cave, thinking not at all about this beforehand, and it became for them an holy temple. God entered into Egypt, in the place of the ancient sadness there to bring joy, and in the place of dark gloom to shed forth the light of salvation. The waters of the Nile had become defiled and harmful after infants perished in it with untimely death. There appeared in Egypt That One, Who upon a time turned the water into blood and Who thereafter transformed these waters into well-springs of the water of rebirth, by the grace of the Holy Spirit cleansing away sins and transgressions. Chastisement once befell the Egyptians, since in their errors they defied God. But Jesus now is come into Egypt and hath sown in it reverence for God, so that in casting off from the Egyptian soul its errors, they are made amicable unto God. The river waters concurred worthily to encompass His head, like a crown.
In order not to stretch out in length our discourse and briefly to conclude what is said, we shall ask: in what manner was the passionless Word made flesh and become visible, while dwelling immutably in His Divine Nature? But what shall I say and what declare? I see the carpenter and the manger, the Infant and the Virgin Birth-Giver, forsaken by all, weighed down by hardship and want. Behold, to what a degree of humiliation the great God hath descended. For our sakes "impoverished, Who was rich" (2 Cor. 8: 9): He was put into but sorry swaddling cloths – not on a soft bed. O poverty, source of all exaltation! O destitution, revealing all treasures! He doth appear to the poor ‑‑ and the poor He maketh rich; He doth lay in an animal manger – and by His word He sets in motion all the world. He is wrapped in tattered swaddling cloths – and shatters the bonds of sinners having called the entire world into being by His Word alone.
What still should I say and proclaim? I see the Infant, in swaddling cloths and lying in the manger; Mary, the Virgin Mother, stands before it together with Joseph, called Her husband. He is called Her husband, and She – his wife, in name but so and seemingly wedded, though in fact they were not spouses. she was betrothed to Joseph, but the Holy Spirit came upon Her, as about this the holy evangelist doth speak: "The Holy Spirit shalt come upon Thee, and the power of the MostHigh wilt overshadow Thee: and He to be born is Holy" (Lk. 1: 35) and is of the seed of Heaven. Joseph did not dare to speak in opposition, and the righteous man did not wish to reprove the Holy Virgin; he did not want to believe any suspicion of sin nor pronounce against the Holy Virgin words of slander; but the Son to be born he did not wish to acknowledge as his, since he knew, that He – was not of him. And although he was perplexed and had doubts, Who such an Infant should be, and pondered it over – he then had an heavenly vision, an Angel appeared to him and encouraged him with the words: Fear not, Joseph, son of David; He That shalt be born of Mary is called Holy and the Son of God; that is: the Holy Spirit shalt come upon the Immaculate Virgin, and the power of the MostHigh wilt overshadow Her (Mt. 1: 20‑21; Lk. 1: 35). Truly He was to be born of the Virgin, preserving unharmed Her virginity. Just as the first virgin had fallen, enticed by Satan, so now Gabriel bears new tidings to the Virgin Mary, so that a virgin would give assent to be the Virgin, and to the Nativity – by birth. Allured by temptations, Eve did once utter words of ruination; Mary, in turn, in accepting the tidings gave birth to the Incorporeal and Life-Creating Word. For the words of Eve, Adam was cast out of paradise; the Word, born of the Virgin, revealed the Cross, by which the thief entered into the paradise of Adam. Though neither the pagan Gentiles, nor the Jews, nor the high-priests would believe, that from God could be born a Son without travail and without man, this now is so and He is born in the body, capable to endure suffering, while preserving inviolate the body of the Virgin.

☦️📖 The Scripture Readings for today (01.03.2024). Listen online at OrthoRadio.com. Support Orthodox Sentinel Ministries, Inc - a registered 501c3 non-profit organization: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=VY73D62NY8AFN