One of the marks of a Byzantine life is praying with icons. In fact, we use icons with prayer everywhere. There are icons all around the church, including the seasonal icon on the tetrapod, and all the icons on the iconostasis. Not only do our homes have icons, but we have dedicated icon corners! In …
Nativity of Christ: Byzantine Christmas One of the obvious differences in how the East and West celebrate the Nativity is the Calendar day. The Gregorian calendar, which is also the current calendar used by the secular world, places the date of Christmas on December 25th. And the Annunciation on March 25th, and so on. The …
It is that time of year again… we are counting down to a new year in the Church! September 1st is the beginning of the new Church year for Byzantine Catholics. You can read about why this is in our previous article about the Church New Year here. In that article I also included some …
Hope as a virtue is very particular to Christianity. In fact, without Christ, hope wouldn’t even make sense as a virtue. Because without Christ, hopes are mere optimistic ideals. And with Christ, our hope is firmly founded on faith and reason. Hope is necessary for our salvation. The one who has hope lives differently – …
Trying to establish a prayer life while busy? As a mom, a wife, and a friend, I both know and witness how hectic life can be. And especially since becoming a mom, I know how easy it is to be forgetful. The to-do list is longer than a yardstick. And even then, some important tasks …
Khrystos Voskres! Christ is Risen! Today we are discussing Bright Week, the “one joyous day” that begins Easter Morning and ends on Saturday. If you are looking to read about Easter Sunday (including what to put in your Easter Basket), check out our previous years’ article here. Bright Week is one joyous day in our …
Circumcision of Christ, Our Lord, God, and Saviour And Our Father among the Saints: Basil the Great 2000 years after Christianity, it feels odd to be talking about circumcision. So it was definitely worth it for me to spend time looking into why we celebrate Christ’s circumcision as a major feast day. The Meaning of …
The Theotokos is ready to help your make your prayer life great again (through the Rosary and other Marian prayers)! This is the third and final week in our Great Lenten series on deepening your prayer life. The first week we talked about praying with our Guardian Angel. And last week we discussed spicing up …
Icon corners are where it is at! Last week we talked about how to make your prayer life great again with your guardian angel. This week we are talking about deepening our prayer life with icon corners! Great Practice Two – Spice Up Your Icon Corner So before we can talk about how to improve …
A prayer rope, which can also be called Chotki or Komboskini, is a Byzantine prayer tool which dates back to the fourth century. St. Pachomius the Great (born in the 3rd Century) started the prayer rope as a way to keep track of prayers and prostrations. The most popular prayers that the prayer rope is …