Mission Overview w LINKS

Welcome to St. Ephrem Mission

Our Links to:

• Church and Calendar Links;
• Notes on St. Ephrem the Syrian;
• IOC News, Seminary Life;
• Christology, Ecclesiology, Ecumenism,
• Liturgy, Icons, Ministries

Patron of the Our Mission

Icon of Our Holy Father Ephrem
written by the hand of KhouriaHeather



The script on the left:

Harp of the Spirit

and on the right:
Second Moses to Womankind

Notes on Ephrem the Syrian

Ephrem's 3 Harps

Ephrem of Nisibis in the Church's liturgy and history
with more Resource LINKS updated 2010

Eprhem on Eucharist: Qurbana as Living Medicine, Metanoia, Mystagogy
Griffith, Modern Theology

Ephrem on Eucharist: Pentecost - Qurbana - Church
Griffith, Modern Theology

(1) Ephrem: wiki resource

• (2) see also orthodox wiki on Ephrem

Scholarly biography of Ephrem the Syrian

Ephrem's Influence On The Greeks

Taylor, Hugoye

Ephrem: Inspiration to Byzantine Artists

Gavrilovic, Hugoye

Spiritual Father for Whole Church: Universal Appeal of Ephrem the Syrian

Griffith, Hugoye

Icon of the Many-Eyed Six-Winged Seraph
written by KhouriaHeather

Christ and Church:koinonia, metanoia, theosis
liturgical and iconographic styles
Ecclesiology and The Catholica

What is Orthodoxy?

A word of Introduction to the Church by Rev.Dr.V.C.Samuel

Tradition vs. Traditionalism

CONTINUITY AND CREATIVITY by Dr. Jaroslav Pelikan -- A reflection upon the Communion of the Saints: "Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living."

The People of God

George C. Papademetriou: an Orthodox understanding of the people of God.
God's creation of the human person as being in God's image is the place to begin for our understanding of the idea of the term "people of God."
excerpt:

• The concept "people of God" is based primarily on biblical presuppositions and a patristic understanding of ecclesiology. The people of God is the pleroma of the church; quahal, the congregation of God's people.
• The history of Israel is the history of the people of God, seen particularly in God's promise to Abraham and the covenant made with Israel on Mount Sinai.
• The creation of the Church by the Incarnate Logos of God established a new relationship with God's people that draw into the covenant all races and all human persons.


• Orthodox Ecclesiology: Understanding the Church through Christology and Pneumatology
From an Orthodox perspective, the Church is both catholic and local, invisible and visible, one and many...
The grace of the Trinity is the starting point for understanding the nature of the Church, and especially for her unity in multiplicity, as the Holy Spirit shares one life and one being. ...
How does the Church participate in God's mystery and grace? ...
The answer ...is in and through Christ.

Oriental Orthodox Wiki-info

Christology in the Oriental Orthodox and Eastern Orthodox Churches

Heavenly Liturgy: Hymns of the Seraphim, Eternal Praise, Liturgy as Icon

Patristics: Syriac Typology see also page sidebar links:

"Qurbana-Qurbono
re Naming the Mysteries"
"Rabbula Gospels and Syriac Scripts"
"Syriac to Aramaic re West-East"
"Korban, Exodos to Pesaho-Pascha"
"Syriac Hymns
re Madrasha - Memre
vis-a-vis
Byzantine Kontakia"

Syriac Teaching Songs: catechetics and mystagogy

"fides quaerens intellectum"
vis-a-vis
"fides adorans mysterium":

a Syriac "Phenomenlogy of Disclosure"
the Mystery-Symbol called "raza (sing.), raze (plur.)":

as anamnesis and eccelsiology ~
living kerygma re Eschatological Fulfillment
christology + pneumatology

Eccelsiology and Ecumenism

FOCUS: fellowship of orthodox christians united to serve. FOCUS home page

IOCC: International Orthodox Christian Charities

The Eastern Christian Churches
7th ed, Fr. Ronald Roberson: excellent info ONLINE TEXT
Assyrian Church of the East | Oriental Orthodox Churches | Eastern Orthodox Churches | Catholic Eastern Churches | Ecumenical Relations

Info LINKS: Oriental Churches
Indian Coptic Syrian Armenian Ethiopian Eritrean

More Ecumenical Resources

Ecumenical Notes FYI

Ecclesiology and Liturgy Resources

and in spanish: "Eclesiología católica y eclesiología ortodoxa"

Heavenly Liturgy
and
the Liturgical Year:

Christology,
Icons,
Eccelsiology
and
Ecumenism.

Welcome - Introduction



Ethiopian Theotokos
written by the hand of KhouriaHeather

LITURGICAL SEASONS:
The Liturgical Calendar as a Theology of Seasons and Scripture

Calendar and Scripture Readings

Liturgical Calendar: continuous for easy scrolling entire year, with Scripture Links

Monthly Calendar: Liturgical Feasts links to Scriptures

News - Events
of the

Armenian, Coptic, Eritrean,

Malankara, Syrian
and
Eastern Orthodox Churches

On The Street, the Gift Of Life

Our Attitude to the Foetus

Lee Gatis

Faith, Reason and Politically Correct Death

Francis J. Beckwith

On The Churches, the mission to be one in Christ:

Let us pray for one another
remembering Cairo and Alexandria,
Aremnia and Tripoli, Mogadishu,Rwanda,
Kosovo, the Congo, Ivory Coast,
Let us never forget
The Holodomor and The Shoah ~

Let us always see
everywhere
about us
and
within us
the womb of Christ
+

Oriental Orthodox Blog

THEOLOGICAL DIALOGUE: ROMAN CATHOLIC AND ORIENTAL ORTHODOX CHURCHES Rome: Jan 25-28, 2011

VIDEO 2010: Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches

Photos in links above and below

Benedict XVI greets Orthodox Brothers in Christ

OBL: Orthodoxy Beyond Limits

International Orthodox Christian News Blog.
occasional traditionalisms, but usually reliable

Indian Orthodox Christian News

Malankara Orthodox TV. Online News in Text and Photo

Indian Orthodox Herald Newspaper Blog

News from the Catholicate

click here: ICON -- Indian Christian Orthodox Network

new ICON videos: Liturgies Interviews Events

Indian-Orthodox.net

Ecological Commission

IOC North America:

NorthEast American Diocese of the Indian Orthodox Church

Northeast Clergy Retreat 2010
Eastern USA Regional Conference 2010

SouthWest American Diocese of the Indian Orthodox Church

The NorthWest USA Regional Conference 2010

Mar Gregorios Orthodox Christian Student Movement (MGOCSM) all America and Canada

More Info: CHURCH CALENDAR

THE LITURGICAL YEAR AND CANONICAL PRAYERS OF THE CHURCH

An introduction by Rev. Fr. Dr. George Pulikottil and Rev. Fr. Dr. Mathew C Chacko. We are entering into another Liturgical Year in the Indian Orthodox Church by celebrating Purification and Sanctification of the Church this November 2, 2008.

Calendar Origins West and East

On the Origins of the Western Calendar

by Fr. Dale Johnson,
excerpt courtesy Shroro Syriac Orthodox Christian Digest:

How a Syriac Patriarch assisted the Gregorian Calendar's development
by way of Syrian monk librarians
helping Muslim scholars
to read Greek geometry
and the mathematics of Egypt and India...
The original 9 member commission to reform the Julian calendar under Pope Gregory XIII:

Christoph Clavius, German Jesuit
Cardinal Sirleto,

Vincentius Laureus Bishop of Mondovi
Antonio Lilius (Giglio) doctor of medicine
Petrus Ciaconus
Seraphinus Olivarius, Vatican jurist
Ignatius Dantes, Dominican friar (Ignazio Danti) and map maker
Teofilus Martius, Benedictine monk
and ...
Ignatius Nemet Allah I, Syrian Orthodox Patriarch

CHANT

Beth Gazo Music: Liturgical Chant of the Church

St. Mary's Malankara Orthodox Syrian Cathedral of Philadelphia

Chant Resources at Malankara Indian Orthodox Church website
and
Chant resources at Mar Gregorios Orthodox Christian Student Movement of All America and Canada

Syriac Treasury of Chants: Beth Gazo d-ne`motho
with links to the syrian modal system
see also: Guide to the 8 Modes and this link for examples: SyriacMusic.com

Feasts
of the Church Year

Beginnings

Beginning the Church Year of Feasts: an Advent of the Parousia
Christ in the Spirit in the Church
The Festal Calandar: an Apocalypsis of the Beginning and the End
The Church Year as a typos of Pentecost and The Kingdom
Sanctification Sunday and the Mysteries of the Kingdom
Dedication Sunday and the Catholica

Nativity Season
New Year's Day and The Eighth Day, A.D. 2009
Epiphany and Theophany
Theophany: Cosmos - Temple - Communio

Great Lent: Our Journey in His Baptism: the Revelation of the Waters of Theophany
Re-Turning to Great Lent, 2009

Paschal Season: Christ Our Pasch
March 25: Annuciation and Ecclesia Orans

• Ephrem on the Feast, Mary's fiat and Pentecost,
• The Qurban of Christ in the Spirit in the Church:
• Ecclesia Orans and the Mysteries of the Eighth Day

Hosanna Sunday: The Bridegroom, The Wheat, The Veil
The Easter Journey: a Liturgical Parousia of the Kingdom
Resurrection 2010 AD
Pascha 2009: Go to Gallilee, where you will see Him as He promised!
Ascension of the Lord

Pentecost, the Feast of the Church
Pentecost 2010 AD
Pentecost 2009 AD
Pentecost re. The 8th Day
Pentecost: Ascension to Epiclesis and Parousia

Pentecost and the Heavenly Liturgy of the Church:
Notes from Fr.B.Varghese "West Syrian Liturgical Theology":
Pentecost and Eschaton: A Cloud of Wintesses"
Pentecost: In-Gathering One Catholic Communio in Christ
Pentecost: The Diptychs and The Last Things

Transfiguration and Translation
Transfiguration: Midsummer Vision of the Feast, The Icon, and the Journey upon the Holy Mountain
Transfiguration: Epiphanic Light
The Taboric Light as 4 Dimensions of the Eighth Day:

• discipleship and beatitudes
• communio and theosis
• mystagogy and mysterion
• sanctus and gloria

More on The Transfiguration of the Lord
Transfiguration Tradition: St. Makarios and Macarian Themes

Endings

2010: Dormition and Translation of Theotokos, Assumption of Virgin Mother, Ascension of St. Mary
2009: Ascension of St. Mary

7 Sundays of the Holy Cross
Holy Cross: The Crown of the Calendar Year and Salvation History in Christ

NEW links re Indian Orthodox Sacred Art:

Mar Baselius School of Icon Writing & Liturgy

This School is a part of the Mar Baselius Catholicos Academy of Research (BACA) Kandanad East Diocese (Ernakulam District of Kerala State, South India)
of the Malankara Orthodox Church,
under leadership of His Grace Dr Thomas Mar Athnasius Metropolitan.
The School aims at developing an Indian system of iconography
as well as promoting icons in the entire Malankara Church.

Indian Orthodox Iconographer. VIDEO interview

Mural Traditions of Kerala Churches in India

Early iconographic images in the Indian Orthodox mileau. "The roots of the extant mural tradition of Kerala could be traced as far back as the 7th - 8th centuries A.D."

Kerala Church Architecture

various influnces, including Syrian Orthodox iconographic murals

The Stone Crosses of Kerala

There are two types of rock crosses in Kerala Churches broadly classified as St. Thomas cross and Nazraney sthambams.

Icons and the Oriental Orthodox Churches

Ethipiopian and Coptic Sacred Art

Earliest Illustrated Bible Found In Ethiopian Orthodox Monastery

See more Ethiopian sacred art here
and coptic sacred art here
and more coptic sacred art at the LA Coptic Diocese here
and this Coptic page with extensive links
See also various Coptic church images
and this page from the Coptic Monastery of The Holy Virgin

Seminarian News:

Our Malankara seminarians at St. Tikhon's Eastern Orthodox Seminary

Photos and Profiles of students and faculty, Young Adult Retreat, Visitors . . .

Blessings upon our 2008 Graduating Seminarians Graduation Photos and links to the Theological Programs for our seminarians at St. Vladimir's Seminary and St. Tikhon's Seminary.

Our Malankara Orthodox Theological Seminary in India

Kottayam

New Site:

Nagpur

February, 2011: our seminary was blessed with the visit of HG Alexios Mar Eusebius, Metropolitan of SouthWest Diocese, USA, as our Retreat Father for the Three Day Lent.
His Grace was accompanied by Dn. Gabriel from Spokane, WA. Formerly a faculty member, Eusebius Thirumeni has been for part of our seminary for a long time -- since its inception. He also held the position of Bursar and played a critical role in the growth of our seminary from its beginning.

Recent Site Visits
from Around the World

note:
green dots indicate 10 visits
white dots indicate 10+ visits

The 50th Day of Easter:
Pentecost Sunday

Pentecost – Harvest of the Holy Spirit
(Edited excerpt adapted from Fr. James Puthuparampil OIC, Bethany Ashram:)

The liturgy of Pentecost is one of the privileged occasions for us
to bear witness to the axiom that the norm of prayer is the norm
of faith ... lex orandi lex credendi.

Since this understanding is deeply biblical in character, before dealing with the liturgical aspect, it would be good to highlight here Christ’s words about the person and activities of the Holy Spirit:
If I do not go away, the Counselor will not come to you;
but if I go, I will send Him to you.Jn 16:7
Read more, click here to full Pentecost post.

Excerpt from Bishop Ware, "The Orthodox Way":
Note the theological epiphanies through the Spirit:
1
Incarnation;
Baptismal Theophany;
Trans-
figuration;
Pentecost;
2
The Sciptural Word in the Church, cf Acts 2.42 re "the breaking of the bread and the prayers": Anaphora, Anamnesis, Epiclesis;
3
Communio in the Name as "communio sanctorum" and "communio in sacris": Theosis as Christification of "our whole life in Christ" -- the Presence and Parousia of Emmanuel, God is with us!

And thus:
The Coming of the Holy Spirit: Pouring oil to overflowing
EXCERPT:
"It has been said that the Orthodox Church is the Church of the Holy Spirit
... Every prayer, every liturgical and sacramental action of the Eastern Church is done through an invocation to the Holy Spirit. His Presence and Activity ... is truly the original Pentecostal Church.

"Our mystical life is one of constant 'in-spiration' and our prayer life is our living link with the Spirit; ... which is, as the Fathers taught, the 'epiclesis of our Lord and Saviour' which we constantly call down on our souls to conform them to Christ.

"In the Spirit, we become
a community of priests, the Royal Priesthood,
called upon to constantly invoke the sacramental and mystical Name of Jesus
over ourselves and those around us
and upon the entire world God has created.
We do this as a priestly exercise to sanctify everything
in Christ
through the Holy Spirit
to the Glory of God the Father."
(end excerpt



All icons, and particularly this Icon of Hospitality and the Holy Trinity, are a liturgical mystagogy of the Parousia and Judgement at the Eschaton.
Written by the hand of St. Andrei Rublev some 25 years after he received the commission, the entire Icon mediates a sacramental epektasis of the Kingdom of God and the Heavenly Liturgy:
the Eucharist at the Heart of the Trinity --
the Eucharistic Life that is given us in the Original and Ongoing Pentecost of the Church of Christ that is One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic.

Great Lent: The Crown of the Year

the Crown of the Year

The Lenten Prayer of St. Ephrem the Syrian

O Lord and Master of my life,
take from me the spirit of sloth, despondency,
lust for power, and idle talk.
But grant unto me, Thy servant,
a spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love.
Yea, O Lord and King, grant me to see my own faults,
and not to judge my brothers and sisters.
For blessed art Thou unto ages of ages.
Amen.

More on the Prayer of St. Ephrem


Saint Ephrem's Hymns on Fasting



On the Passion of the Saviour
by Our Venerable Father Ephrem the Syrian:
 
"One of the most interesting passages in the poem
is that which describes the Holy Spirit as having come forth
in the form of a dove and rent the veil of the Temple
at the moment of the Lord's death":





Likewise the Holy Spirit,
who is in the Father,
when he saw
the beloved Son
on the tree of the Cross,
rending the veil,
the temple’s adornment,
suddenly came forth
in the form of a dove.

More texts by St. Ephrem

Hagiography of St. Mary of Egypt
From the Coptic Church:

by prayer and fasting the disciples set forth the Great Commission,
by prayer and fasting the martyrs offer their lives,
by prayer and fasting in her lenten journey
the Church receives the Crown of the Year


From the Coptic monk Matthew the Poor:
Monastery of St. Macarius in Wadi el-Natroun, Egypt:
"The point to understand is that fasting is a divine act of life, which we receive from Christ complementary to baptism and fullness. Since its beginning the Church has been occupied with infusing into its own body the acts of Christ’s life so they would become life-giving acts to all its members." On Fasting by Matthew the Poor

by St. John Chrysostom
On Fasting
Fasting is the change of every part of our life. . . Besides, we have a Lord who is meek and loving (philanthropic) and who does not ask for anything beyond our power. Because he neither requires the abstinence from foods, neither that the fast take place for the simple sake of fasting, neither is its aim that we remain with empty stomachs, but that we fast to offer our entire selves to the dedication of spiritual things, having distanced ourselves from secular things. If we regulated our life with a sober mind and directed all of our interest toward spiritual things, and if we ate as much as we needed to satisfy our necessary needs and offered our entire lives to good works, we would not have any need of the help rendered by the fast.

More on The Crown of the Year

by Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev
Christ the Conqueror of Hell
The Descent of Christ into Hades in Eastern and Western Theological Traditions

5 by Alexander Schmemann

On Fasting and Liturgy

Great Lent

Of Water and the Spirit: A Liturgical Study of Baptism


For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy

Church, World, Mission: Reflections on Orthodoxy in the West

Other Lenten Reflections

Armenian scholar Vigen Guroian:
On Paradise, Pascha, and Springtime ~
Links to Guroian essays and podcasts

by the Czech president and poet Vaclav Havel, 1995
Forgetting We Are Not God:
What is lacking in the only meaningful way of dealing with future conflicts between cultures? Wherein lies that forgotten dimension of democracy that could give it universal resonance? I am convinced that it lies in what I have already tried to suggest-in that spiritual dimension that connects all cultures and in fact all humanity.

by David B. Hart, 2003
Christ and Nothing :
Christ's sacrifice as 'Qurban': "The cross of Christ is not simply a sacrifice, but the place where two opposed understandings of sacrifice clashed. . ."

Re-Turning to Great lent

The First Sunday of Great Lent
starts by commemorating the first miracle performed by Jesus:
turning water into wine at the wedding feast at Cana of Galilee.

A common translation (NRSV) of Jn 2.3-4:

When the wine gave out,
the mother of Jesus said to him,
“They have no wine.”
And Jesus said to her,
“Woman, what concern is that to you and to me?
My hour has not yet come.”

An english Peshitta translates the last line: "My turn has not yet come."

Layers of meaning in such a turn of events
in the words of the Word we "behold the man"
recollecting the turns and transformations of His Hour:

• the body of history and humanity that thirsts for salvation,
• His Body that suffers Gabbatha and Golgotha,
• His Body that gloriously lives as the Church;
• His hour at Pentecost that will anoint and transform her with the Spirit anew, all within her own ongoing fiat to the promptings of the same Spirit who conceived Him in her body~

Just as reception of the Holy Eucharist forms the Body of Christ in us,
so too does celebration in the Liturgical Year form Christ in us,
as we are also collectively transformed into the Body of Christ:
from humble birth to the full stature
of a human life transfigured
in the Divine Light of Theosis, or Deification.

--Excerpt from Kalapurayil
essay below

The Liturgical Year as a Transforming Parousia
excerpts of essay by Joseph Kalapurayil, posted at St. Gregorios IOC, San Francisco.

Just as reception of the Holy Eucharist forms the Body of Christ in us,
so too does celebration in the Liturgical Year form Christ in us,
as we are also collectively transformed into the Body of Christ:
from humble birth to the full stature of
a human life transfigured in the Divine Lightof Theosis, or Deification.

By following this cycle of the Church Liturgical Calendar, we can get into the rhythm and flow of the Christian story, to experience it, to learn it, to re-live it through the telling and the doing.

Far from being simply a calendar, the liturgical year in the life of the Church is the life of Christians living in community as brothers and sisters - in awareness of God's kingdom, remembering the entire communion of Prophets, Apostles, Saints and all of God's people on Earth and in Heaven, being renewed by God's saving love, helping one another, witnessing Christ's good news, and waiting for the fullness of the coming Kingdom according to God's timing...

In entering and participating in these eternally present events, we are changed; we are transformed. This allows us to proclaim with Saint Paul:
I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.(Gal 2:20)


But, there is a certain order to the Church’s presentation of the Gospel teachings and the primary events of our Sacred History.

Sacred word and image comes alive in these services, offering the participant the greatest encounter with our Living Tradition.

All this effort culminates in the ultimate goal of the Christian and the dynamic essence of the Liturgical Year: a means to bring about our UNION WITH CHRIST.

The Church invites us, through our participation in the Liturgical Year, to re-live the entire life of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We enter union with our Lord: in His Nativity, His growth in Nazareth, His ministry, passion, death, resurrection, ascension, and the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. ‘Each liturgical feast renews and in some sense actualizes the event of which it is a symbol; it takes the event out of the past and makes it immediate. The liturgical year is, for us, a special means of union with Christ.’

Just as reception of the Holy Eucharist forms the Body of Christ in us, so too does celebration in the Liturgical Year form Christ in us, as we are also collectively transformed into the Body of Christ: from humble birth to the full stature of a human life transfigured in the divine light of Theosis, or Deification. This is the path of sanctity, the path of sainthood.

See Also Observing Great Lent essay by J. Kalapurayil