Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Congratulations with the feast of the Resurrection of the Lord, as well as the feast of the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council. These fathers, i.e. bishops, gathered in the city of Nicea in the year 325 at the invitation of the Emperor St. Constantine the Great, to express in the most clear and understandable way possible the teaching of the Church on the Holy Trinity (the relationship between God the Father and the Word). This was necеssary because a certain priest called Arius began to spread a new and insolent teaching that the Word or Son of God is in substance different from the Father, i. e. He is not God. It is for this reason that the bishops gathered and taught that the Son is in truth of the same substance as the Father. To articulate this teaching, they composed the Symbol of Faith and set down that all should hold fast to it. Sure enough, we continue to hold to this Symbol of Faith. After all, we recite it daily during our morning prayers and sing it at each Liturgy!

The excerpt from Acts that was read today at the Liturgy wonderfully fits in with today’s feastday. We heard how the Apostle Paul, at the end of his third missionary journey, was hastening to Jerusalem to celebrate the feast of Pentecost there. Although he was rushing, he very much wanted to see, instruct, and bid farewell to the elders and overseers of the Ephesian Church. (Elders in greek are presbyters, i. e. priests; overseers in Greek are episkopoi, i. e. bishops. Therefore, St. Paul was calling the clergy from Ephesus and surrounding areas to come and meet him in Miletus). He bid them farewell because he knew that he would never see them again, that in Jerusalem he would be detained, and that his martyric struggles for Christ’s sake would begin. As an experienced pastor he saw that the future held problems, divisions and disagreements for the Church. Out of the midst of the clergy would rise false pastors that would lead people astray. Therefore he instructed the clergy to hold fast to his teaching and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Dear Brothers and Sisters, let’s follow after St. Paul and try to immediately begin our spiritual and mental preparation for the feast of the Holy Trinity, Pentecost! Let’s not be distracted by worldly cares from this preparation. Let’s remember that already then, in the first century, during the first Christian generation, there were temptations, false teachings, and divisions. This unsettled state of the Church hasn’t disappeared since then and continues to exist. In a miraculous fashion, despite everything, the Church and true faith in God have been preserved, thanks to good people who have preserved the faith that has been passed on to us from the Apostle Paul. Remembering this let’s safeguard this faith. To accomplish this, let’s not neglect the Epistles and thoroughly read and study them.

priest Alexis