if you are a Latin Catholic and older like me… you will remember how Vatican 2 changed everything, including the destruction of many alters and religiously precious relics. However, this presented an opportunity for Orthodox laity to rescue discarded relics.
Two small relics from St. Paul and St. Peter… possibly you’ve heard of them??
In the Orthodox Church, keeping relics is encouraged, admonishing laity to keep and pass down in the family. Latin Catholics have a bigger challenge with having relics viewed as sinful.
Patristix is a great site to grab interesting short stories to explore; however, for real drive time learning I recommend PatristicNectar.org .
Careful my friends, Father Josiah might hook you into a journey into Holy Orthodoxy; last I heard he has about 150 taking classes to enter.our little Orthodox Church of which we are so fond.Me and Stephan from Patristix and Australia after the consecration of the church.
One of the fastest growing churches in America is a church that’s been here a long time. This is the Orthodox Church. I had a discussion once with a couple of Priests who stated that they were surprised with all the converts and said the couldn’t understand because they hadn’t done anything differently. Orthodoxy is a land of stability amidst a sea of often unwanted change.
In the picture above, I have a representative sample of activities in Orthodox Church in America that I am a member: a sunset view of our church in Santa Maria, our priest (Father Lawrence) and his wife the Matushka Cheryl at our home offering the yearly blessing, our prayer corner (think of it as a Rolodex of who you might ask to pray or intercede for you), a relic of St. John Crystosum ( one of the most influential in Christianity that many outside Orthodoxy don’t know or have forgotten), the last prayer corner of Tzarina Alexandra, a gathering to break bread and a selfie of me and a friendly Bishop at the consecration of our church after the mortgage was paid off!!
Our church has a diverse group of members: Syrian, Romanian, Spanish and of course, Russian among others. Bring out the food and it’s a good time!
Did you watch any Viking show recently and wondered what Crosses they were really wearing?
Well, I started looking around and I found typically small “budded” ( symbolizing the Trinity) crosses which had the most appeal to me. They probably were worn on a thin leather string around the neck.
Many can be found on ancient battle grounds in Russia and the Ukraine.
Me and my Tesla X… I love love love it!!! It’s in Stealth gray, has Tetradactyl wings, the best climate control, opens with your phone and every bell and whistle that you could want! And in case you didn’t know, it’s very fast! It can achieve Plaid levels of speed ( refer to Space Balls).
my wife likes it because she likes driving for Free! We have solar panels and a Tesla home battery so we “refuel” at home! ❤️. It has a huge range. I haven’t had this much fun since my Harley FatBoy!
here’s the scary part, I haven’t put the accelerator down all the way yet!
