St Peters Orthodox Church

Before we can delve into the specific teachings regarding the liturgy of the Church, it is essential that we gain an understanding of the pattern or shape of the liturgy. The image of man ascending the mountain to meet with God and God descending upon the mountain to reveal Himself to man is a consistent theme throughout both the Old and New Covenants. In this teaching we discuss how the Mass, the...

Father Michael Keiser sets the stage for this series by teaching us essential truths regarding the central focus of Christian worship. In the liturgy of the Church, heaven and earth are joined together and Christ is in our midst in no different way than when He was with His disciples in the upper room that very night. Fr. Michael also shares with us the historical development of Christian worship...

Every time an angel appears to humanity, humanity falls down in fear and wonder at the angelic being. But when the Archangel Gabriel appears to the Blessed Virgin Mary at the Annunciation, it is he who is in wonder at this precious human vessel chosen by God to bear God within her and deliver Him to the human race for the salvation of the world. Tonight we explore the honor and reverence given by...

The greatest struggle of the Christian is not fighting against the fallenness within the soul or the enemy whose playground is our brokenness. The greatest struggle of the Christian is to remain in Christ and the battlefield on which the Christian must fight is the battlefield of the mind; the battlefield of the thoughts. Today we reflect on how we can bring Christ our God into the moments of temp...

St. John Kronstadt is an Orthodox Saint of the 19th Century. He is the Orthodox Patron Saint for all clergy in the Orthodox Church. He is so because of the way he lived out his own Priesthood while on the earth. St. John has so much wisdom that he communicated regarding fulfilling the calling of the ordained Priesthood. But the wisdom he shares shows us so much about what it means to live out the...

March 13, 2022 - Jesus being led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness to fast for 40 days, then be tempted by Satan afterward, and ultimately casting Satan and his temptations and distractions away sanctified for all the 40 days of Lent where we fast and pray. The end result of our fasting and prayer is great growth in the Fruit of the Holy Spirit self-control. Through fasting touched by grace w...

The Priests in the Old Covenant had a very defined role in their ministry to God and to His people. This session explores how their place under God in creation reveals to us many truths as to our vocation as the Priesthood of all believers.

By virtue of our Baptism, we are all called and ordained to be a Kingdom of Priests by our Lord Jesus Christ. But what is our vocation as this Royal and Holy Priesthood? How do we live out faithfully that which we have been ordained to fulfill in creation? Today we look at the three priesthoods: The Priesthood of Christ our Great High Priest, the Priesthood of the Clergy in the Church, and the Pri...

Ash Wednesday 2022 - Tonight the blessed ashes are placed on our foreheads that the gift of our mortality might remain at the forefront of our minds. We tend to live each day as if we have a promised tomorrow. What if we lived in the reality that this is never promised. Our mortality each day would be the gift that would move us toward Christ and His mercy; as those truly dependent on Him for life...

March 6, 2022 - How we need to grow in our understanding that the very nature of God is mercy. And how we tend to limit our understanding of mercy to be mainly in the realm of justice and acquittal; the release from the guilt of our sins that Christ offers by His great forgiveness. That is certainly a part of the mercy that God is. But His mercy goes beyond just forgiveness and acquittal. Today we...

February 27, 2022 -In the Gospel of St. Luke 8, our Lord tells the Parable of the Sower. This parable is as much if not more about the importance of the condition of the soil as it is the seeds that have been scattered. God, through His prophet Hosea, calls His people to break up their fallow ground for it is time to seek the Lord. The reason their hearts had become hard is that they had given the...

February 20, 2022 - Today begins our three-week preparation to enter into the Season of Great Lent. We are given the words of St. Paul from 1 Corinthians 9 where he exhorts all of us to run the race with great self-control and effort to obtain the prize. But we must understand the reason for our spiritual laboring and efforts. For we do not fast, pray, and give alms to the needy to earn anything f...

February 13, 2022 - If we think negatively about repentance, if we believe that repentance has a negative sense to it, then we have been deceived by precisely the deception of Satan to Adam and Even when God came calling for the in the Garden after they had sinned. Repentance is life-giving and healing. We enter into preparation for Lent in Pre-Lent next week. Today's sermon reminds us of what rep...

February 6, 2022 - In the Gospel of St. Matthew and chapter 13, our Lord tells the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares. Tares are weeds that, when they are young, resemble very closely the appearance of the wheat. But as they mature, they begin to look different and give off a poison that damages the wheat around them. The Church Fathers speak of the tares in different ways. One way they see the ta...

February 2, 2022 - Tonight we see Jesus Christ as a babe brought to the Temple and place in the arms of blessed St. Simeon. Even as a babe Christ our God brought illumination to humanity. And it is God's illumination to us as the Light of the World that we consider this evening. The Incarnation was the illumination, that is, the revelation of God to mankind so that man could know God. But with thi...

As we go through our normal everyday life, is the physical and finite realm all that we perceive as the reality around us. If so, we tend to live a one-dimensional existence. In the Christian life, everything physical opens to us a window through which we can the more true reality that Christ has bowed heaven to earth in order to reveal Himself and His Kingdom to us. Jesus said in the Sermon on th...

When God spoke all of creation into existence, He did so that we would share in His Divine life in and through all that He had created. We were to be the icons of God to the whole of creation showing forth His glory and nature as we would ever become more like Him from our fellowship with Him in the Garden of Eden, paradise. This lesson shows us the parallel between that existence and purpose in p...

January 30, 2022 - God is a God Who reveals Himself to His people that His people can truly know Him. In the Old Testament, one of the ways God would reveal Himself to His people was to give them a name by which they could know Him and His nature more clearly. Today, in the Gospel reading of St. Matthew 8, we have the testimony of the healing of the leper and the healing of the centurion's servant...

God is a God Who longs to reveal Himself to His people so that they may truly know Him. This has always been true in the way that God has given instruction and wisdom as to how His people should worship Him. The design of the tabernacle and temple, the design of post-Pentecost temples, the liturgical seasons that celebrate and remember Him, and even the Scriptures assigned to the worship and remem...

All theology is the Divine revelation of God to man and not just some intellectual pondering of ideas about God. God reveals Himself to man and man, then, grows to know God through that experience. Today we look at the creation narratives and how the nature of God is revealed even through the creation of all things. We are encouraged to open the eyes of our soul to behold His revelation to us so t...

January 23, 2022 - Today we hear of Jesus' first miracle turning the water into wine at the wedding in Cana from the Gospel of St. John chapter 2. The substance of the water, as Christ is present at the wedding, is changed in its nature completely. By the Creator, the water took on color, became fragrant, gained taste, and grew in potency. Its nature changed and its use became a blessing to all. T...

January 16, 2022 - We speak so often of the wonder of the Kingdom of God now manifest in the earth because of Christ. Today we are reminded that the gateway to having the eyes of our soul opened to this great wonder, and our lives experiencing the profound realities of His Kingdom, is to be consistent in doing the most simple things. Start with the disciplines of the most simple spiritual discipli...

January 9, 2022 - We are all in need of the daily Epiphany of Christ to us; that is, to see the manifestation of Christ in our lives that we may come to truly know Him. When the Magi looked upon God in the face of Jesus Christ, everything changed within them. Today we reflect on how prayer is the table of fellowship offered to us for that very Epiphany. When we sit at table with Christ in prayer w...

January 6, 2022 - The Magi came from the East learned in many of the world's religions and believing a religion other than that of the God of the Hebrews. God led them to the place where He manifested Himself in the person of Jesus Christ. When they saw God in Christ, they would be forever transformed in their hearts and would never be the same again. Every Christ needs the constant manifestation...

December 26, 2021 - Today is the Feast of St. Stephen the Protomartyr. By looking at his life as well as his persecution and martyrdom, we can see many very important aspects of how to live faithfully to Christ in times of building persecution. As our culture grows more godless and persecution of Christianity is on the rise, we must understand how to posture ourselves before God in order to live a...