{"id":11462,"date":"2023-03-06T23:18:51","date_gmt":"2023-03-07T04:18:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stpeterorthodoxchurch.com\/?p=11462"},"modified":"2023-03-06T23:18:51","modified_gmt":"2023-03-07T04:18:51","slug":"st-peter-news-march-7-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stpeterorthodoxchurch.com\/st-peter-news-march-7-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"St. Peter News March 7, 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"

Second Sunday of Great Lent
\nSt. Gregory Palamas<\/h2>\n

The Divine Liturgy of St. Basil<\/h4>\n

The Holy Fathers slain at the monastery of Mar Sabbas; New-martyr Myron of Crete<\/h4>\n
\n\"St.<\/p>\n

St. Gregory Palamas<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

From “A Man Fully Alive<\/a>” by Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick.<\/p>\n

On the Second Sunday of Great Lent we celebrate St. Gregory Palamas, the archbishop of Thessalonica in Greece for a number of years in the 14th century, right around the same time that Geoffrey Chaucer was born, the man who wrote The Canterbury Tales.<\/p>\n

But before he became an archbishop, Gregory was a monk on the holy mountain of Athos. During his time there and also when he later became an archbishop, Gregory was involved in a controversy that cut straight to the heart of this longing for life that all of us who are sons and daughters of Adam share.<\/p>\n

At that time, there was a certain heretic named Barlaam, who was from the southern part of Italy, which was Greek-speaking at the time. Barlaam made the claim that the highest possible knowledge of God that anyone could have was through the mind, that the philosophers knew God better than the prophets and even the apostles.<\/p>\n

Gregory answered that the human mind, while a great gift from God, was not actually capable of the kind of intimate knowledge and communion that Adam had received from God, that there was something much deeper, that the Christian could actually know God and see Him with the heart, as a light shining in. And indeed, sometimes this heart knowledge of God was so powerful and so pervasive that some people were actually seeing the light of God with their physical eyes.<\/p>\n

Isn’t that why we’re here? Don’t we want to see God? Aren’t we here not just to learn about God with our minds, but truly to know Him with our hearts?<\/p>\n

Read Fr. Damick’s complete essay<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Read a brief history of St. Gregory Palamas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/div>\n

Services This Week<\/h2>\n