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Learning from the Centurion: A Faith that Christ Marvelled

by Assoc. Professor Philip Kariatlis (Sub-Dean)

The appointed Gospel reading Sunday for 28 June 2026—observed in the liturgical calendar of the Church as the Fourth Sunday of Matthew—recounts the well-known encounter between Christ and a Roman centurion (Mt 8:5–13) from Capernaum. The centurion is depicted as a distinguished officer from within the Roman army, who had been entrusted with the command of approximately eighty soldiers and, consequently, vested with considerable authority and military responsibility...

The Sunday of All Saints: The Fruit of Pentecost

by Assoc. Professor Philip Kariatlis (Sub-Dean)

On the Sunday immediately following the great feast of Pentecost, the Church celebrates the Feast of All Saints. At first glance, one might wonder why the Church has placed this commemoration at this particular point in the liturgical year. Yet this arrangement is neither accidental nor arbitrary. Rather, it reveals a profound theological truth at the very heart of the Christian life: the Feast of All Saints is the continuation, fulfilment, and visible manifestation of Pentecost...

Sunday of the 318 God-bearing Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council (325 AD): Their Significance for our Life Today

by Assoc. Professor Philip Kariatlis (Sub-Dean)

Within the liturgical cycle of the Church, the Sunday immediately following the feast of the Ascension is dedicated to the memory of the three hundred and eighteen Fathers who assembled at Nicaea in 325AD, for what would become known as the First Ecumenical Council. This gathering stands as one of the most significant events in the history of Christianity, for it was there that the Church, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, articulated with greater precision the apostolic faith in the person and mission of Jesus Christ. Indeed, in the face of doctrinal controversy...

Seeing with the Eyes of the Heart: The Sunday of the Blind Man in the Orthodox Tradition

By Dr Andrew Mellas (Senior Lecturer in Church History and Liturgical Studies)

In the children’s story, ‘The Little Prince’, the fox tells us: “Now here is my secret, very simply: you can only see things clearly with your heart. What is essential is invisible to the eye.” Of course, the author of this tale, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, is drawing upon a Christian tradition that has long spoken of the heart as the deepest faculty of spiritual perception within the human person. Saint Paul’s prayer that “the eyes of your heart may be enlightened (πεφωτισμένους τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς τῆς καρδίας ὑμῶν)”[1] expresses an eternal truth of Orthodox spirituality...

The God Who Approaches First: Christ and the Samaritan Woman

by Assoc. Professor Philip Kariatlis (Sub-Dean)

The Fifth Sunday of Pascha commemorates the profound and remarkable encounter between Christ and a Samaritan woman by the well of Jacob (John 4:5-42). In the Gospel passage, the Lord gently yet deeply elevates a conversation concerning physical thirst into a revelation about “living water.” Indeed, it is this divine and life-giving gift of “living water” which alone can truly quench the ineffable yearnings of the human soul, becoming deep within a “spring of water gushing up to eternal life” (Jn 4: 14). The dialogue in question...

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