Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Congratulations with the feast of the Resurrection of the Lord!

Today we heard an excerpt not from the Epistle to the Corinthians, but from the next letter of St. Paul – from the Epistle to the Galatians. Galatia was a Roman province in the middle of Asia Minor. Its capital was Ankyra. The inhabitants were Greeks, as well as hellenized Celts or Gauls, who had made their way to that region from Europe, almost three hundred years before the birth of Christ. This locality received its name from these people.

The holy Apostle Paul twice visited Galatia and founded several Christian communities in the different cities of this province. The new faithful, both from the Jews as well as many pagans, quickly and zealously accepted faith in Christ from the Apostle Paul, who as a consequence became quite fond of them. The devil, seeing the success of the Christian mission, could not leave things as they were. Thus, after the Apostle’s departure, he prompted other men to come into Galatia to persuade the new members of the Church to accept the teachings of the Judaizing heresy. The proponents of this heresy taught that along with faith in Christ, it was compulsory to also fulfill all the tenets of the Jewish Law. To achieve their ends, these people needed to first destroy the authority of St. Paul. We saw the same thing in the Church of Corinth, although the situation there with the Apostle’s detractors was nowhere close to being as serious as in Galatia. To a certain extent the heretics were successful in their task. They were able to convince some that Paul was not a true apostle, that he had never seen Christ, that he had learned from the real apostles but later had changed their teachings to his own liking, etc. Consequently many of the faithful in Galatia abandoned their former freedom in Christ and enslaved themselves to the Jewish Law. It is to address these problems that the Apostle wrote that letter which we began to read today.

During the Liturgy we heard Paul defending himself against the accusation that he was not a real apostle and just a bad disciple of the others. He reminds them in what miraculous manner he was converted to Christ and how he instantaneously changed from a furious persecutor of the Christians to a most zealous preacher of the crucified and risen Christ. Without the interference of God such things don’t happen. Of course a person can change, he can change his beliefs, but most often this takes much time, but here we see that everything was instantaneous. This was a miracle. Paul also reminds the Galatians that for quite a time, for a whole three years after his conversion, he did not see any of the apostles and therefore could not have studied under them. When he finally went to Jerusalem, he spent fifteen days with Peter and, apart from him and James the brother of the Lord, saw none of the other apostles. Here it is also clear that he did not study at that time, nor were his faith or teachings examined, but that he simple came so as to personally meet Peter. These facts help to support what Paul had written in the beginning of today’s excerpt, namely that the teaching that he preached was not a human construct, for it was received by him not from men, but by revelation from Jesus Christ.

Today in the 21st century, throughout the whole world, new ideas and new teachings have appeared, which are spread by modern-day “prophets,” be they Hollywood stars, environmental or political activists, or popular bloggers, etc. We hear marvelous words about freedom, prosperity, and equality, but at the same time, a new law is imposed on mankind which doesn’t allow anyone to express diverse ideas or positions. Say the wrong thing and you will lose your job, your acquaintances and friends will abandon you. Instead of freedom, prosperity, and equality, we have an oppressive law that saves no one. It’s depressing, but let’s remember that all this relates to the outward, physical, and transitory, and that we have true freedom, prosperity, and equality in Christ Jesus. Let’s remember that we have accepted our faith not from men, but through the apostles, and especially the Apostle Paul, from God Himself. Therefore, let’s not despair, but instead let’s rejoice that even among so much unpleasantness we have such a divine and wonderful treasure.

priest Alexis