Feast of Saint Sava Celebration

January 25, 2015 | News & Events, Uncategorized

When: January 25, 2015
Where: 2148 Michelson Drive, Irvine, CA

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Special Concert of the Jubilee Celebration

December 13, 2014 | News & Events, Uncategorized

When: December 13, 2014
Where: Saint Wilfrid of York Episcopal Church, Huntington Beach, CA

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Parable of the ten pounds

December 5, 2014 | Saint Theophan, Uncategorized

Fri­day. [II Tim. 1:1-2, 8-18; Luke 19:12-28] The par­a­ble of the ten pounds por­trays the en­tire his­to­ry of man­kind un­til the sec­ond com­ing of Christ. In it the Lord speaks of Him­self, of His suf­fer­ings, death, and res­ur­rec­tion to the Heav­en­ly Fa­ther, to reign over man­kind — all of which is His birth­right. Those who re­main on the earth are di­vid­ed in­to two parts: ser­vants, serv­ing the Lord through obe­di­ence to the faith, and those who do not want to have Him as king and serve Him, be­cause of their un­be­lief. To those who ap­proach the Lord through faith, with a read­i­ness to serve Him, are giv­en the gifts of the Ho­ly Spir­it in the ho­ly mys­ter­ies: this is a pound — and ev­ery per­son num­bered a­mongst the be­liev­ers re­ceives it for serv­ing. When ev­ery­one from the hu­man race ca­pa­ble of sub­mit­ting to the Lord sub­mits to Him, then He will come again, as One who has re­ceiv­ed the King­dom. His first job will be to judge a­mong the ser­vants: who ac­quired what with the grace giv­en. Then will fol­low judg­ment al­so over those who did not want to have Him as king; that is who ei­ther did not be­lieve, or who fell from faith. Im­print these truths in your mind and do not lose at­ten­tion to them, for then there will be a de­ci­sion — do not ex­pect any chang­es. Flee un­be­lief, nei­ther be­lieve idly, but bring forth the fruits of faith. Find­ing you faith­ful over a few things, the Lord will make you rul­er over man­y things (cf. Matt. 25:21).

The saying was hidden from them

December 4, 2014 | Saint Theophan, Uncategorized

Thurs­day. [I Tim. 6:17-21; Luke 18:31-34] The Lord told the dis­ci­ples a­bout His suf­fer­ing, but they did not un­der­stand any­thing He was say­ing; This say­ing was hid from them. Later, the faith­ful de­ter­mined not to know any thing, save Je­sus Christ, and him cru­ci­fied (I Cor. 2:2). The time had not come, they did not un­der­stand any of this mys­tery; but when the time came — they un­der­stood, and taught ev­ery­one, and in­ter­pret­ed for ev­ery­one. This hap­pens with ev­ery­one, not on­ly with re­la­tion to this mys­tery, but to all the oth­er mys­ter­ies as well. What is not un­der­stood in the be­gin­ning, with time be­comes un­der­stood; it is as if a ray of light en­ters the con­scious­ness and bright­ens what was for­mer­ly dark. Who elu­ci­dates it? The Lord Him­self, the grace of the Spir­it that lives in the faith­ful, one’s guard­ian an­gel — on­ly in no way the per­son him­self. He is a re­cip­i­ent, and not the cause. On the oth­er hand, an­oth­er thing may re­main in­com­pre­hen­si­ble for one’s whole life — not on­ly for in­div­id­u­als, but for all of hu­man­i­ty. Man is sur­round­ed by things he does not un­der­stand — some are ex­plain­ed to him in the course of his life, while oth­ers are left un­til the next life, where it will be seen. This ap­plies even to minds en­light­ened by God. Why is it not re­veal­ed here? Be­cause some things are in­com­pre­hen­si­ble, so there is no point in talk­ing a­bout them; oth­ers are not told out of con­sid­er­a­tions for health — that is, it would be harm­ful to know pre­ma­ture­ly. Much will be­come clear in the oth­er life, but oth­er sub­jects and oth­er mys­ter­ies will be re­veal­ed. For a cre­ated mind there is nev­er a sur­plus of in­scru­ta­ble mys­ter­ies. The mind rebels a­gainst these bonds: but wheth­er you reb­el or not, you can­not sev­er the bonds of mys­tery. Be­come hum­ble, proud mind, be­neath the strong hand of God — and be­lieve!

Stray Sheep

November 27, 2014 | Saint Theophan, Uncategorized

Wednes­day. [I Tim. 1:18-20, 2:8-15; Luke 15:1-10] The par­a­ble a­bout the stray sheep and the lost sil­ver piece. How great is the Lord’s mer­cy to­ward us sin­ners! He leaves all those who are prop­er and turns to the im­prop­er to cor­rect them; He seeks them, and when He finds them, He Him­self re­joic­es and calls all the heav­ens to re­joice with Him. How is it that He seeks them? Does He not know where we are who have step­ped a­way from Him? He knows and sees all; but if it were on­ly a mat­ter of tak­ing and trans­fer­ring them to His own, all sin­ners would im­me­di­ate­ly re­ap­pear in the same ranks. But one must first dis­pose them to re­pen­tance, so that their con­ver­sion and re­turn to the Lord would be free; and this can­not be done by com­mand or oth­er ex­ter­nal or­der. The Lord seeks a sin­ner by guid­ing him to re­pen­tance. He ar­ranges ev­ery­thing a­round him so that the sin­ner comes to his sens­es, and, see­ing the a­byss in­to which he has been rush­ing, re­turns. All the cir­cum­stances of life are di­rect­ed in this way, all meet­ings with mo­ments of sor­row and joy, even words and looks. And the in­ner ac­tions of God through the con­science and oth­er right thoughts ly­ing in the heart nev­er cease. How much is done to con­vert sin­ners to the path of vir­tue, while sin­ners still re­main sin­ners!… The en­e­my cov­ers them in dark­ness and they think that ev­ery­thing is all right, and all will pass. If wor­ries a­rise they say, “To­mor­row I will stop,” and re­main in their for­mer state. Thus day af­ter day pass­es; in­dif­fer­ence to their sal­va­tion grows and grows. A bit more and it will hard­en in­to sin. Who knows if con­ver­sion will come?

Whoever confesses the Lord, confesses God

October 29, 2014 | Saint Theophan, Uncategorized

Wednes­day. [Col. 3:17-4:1; Luke 9:44-50] Who­so­ev­er shall re­ceive Me, re­ceiv­eth Him that sent Me, said the Lord, while He that sent Him is God. Con­se­quent­ly, who­so­ev­er con­fess­es the Lord, con­fess­es God; where­as who­so­ev­er does not con­fess Him, does not con­fess God. You will say: I con­fess Christ to be a great, most wise, uni­ver­sal teach­er. No, con­fess Him as He Him­self speaks of Him­self, that He and the Fa­ther are one, per­sons of one Di­vine na­ture, sep­a­rate, but one in hon­our and co­reign­ing. If one does not con­fess thus, no mat­ter how much he has hon­oured the Lord, it is the same as if he does not con­fess Him; while not be­ing His con­fes­sor, he does not con­fess the Fa­ther ei­ther, he does not con­fess God. That is why, no mat­ter what dis­plays you make of hon­our­ing God, you do not hon­our Him if you do not con­fess the Lord Je­sus Christ as the On­ly-Be­got­ten Son of God, in­car­nate for our sake, and Who saved us through His death on the cross. It is not all the same which God one con­fess­es as long as one con­fess­es: those who wor­ship the sun and stars, or in­vent­ed crea­tures, are not call­ed hon­our­ers of God, be­cause they did not con­sid­er as God what is God. Thus, who­so­ev­er does not con­fess the Lord is not an hon­our­er of God, be­cause he does not con­fess the God who is the true God. The true God does not ex­ist with­out the Son co-eter­nal and co-un­o­ri­gi­nate. There­fore, once you cease to con­fess the Son, you no long­er con­fess the true God. On­ly God will dis­cern what your con­fes­sion is worth; but since for us God is re­veal­ed as the true God, a­part from this rev­e­la­tion one can­not have the true God.

Talija Folklore Performance

October 11, 2014 | News & Events, Uncategorized

When: October 11, 2014
Where: Saint Paul Greek Orthodox Church, Irvine, CA

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How To Make Vegan Chocolate Truffles

September 24, 2014 | Fasting Recipes, Uncategorized

For more fasting recipe videos, visit Mary’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/marysmerrykitchen

Quote from the Monk Martyr Michael of St Savvas

September 18, 2014 | Saints & Martyrs, Uncategorized

The king then, full of wrath, said: “Do either of two things: deny thy faith or choose a bitter death.” The athlete of Christ answered:  “Do thou one of three things: leave me to go to my elder, for I have done no wrong; or send me to Christ with martyrdom; or become a Christian and reign for eternity in the heavens.”

The Lives of the Saints of the Holy Land and the Sanai Desert

Monk-Martyr Michael of St. Savvas Lavra

Serbian/European Food Festival

September 14, 2014 | News & Events, Uncategorized

Bring your family and friends to enjoy this unique dining experience – the best in homemade Serbian and European food and pastries.

When: September 14, 2014 | Noon – Evening
Where: 2148 Michelson Drive, Irvine, CA

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