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The Kingdom of God in the Gospel of Matthew - Part 1

By Dr Lydia Gore-Jones (Senior Lecturer in Biblical Studies)

The topic first came to me as a research question. At the opening of every Divine Liturgy, we hear the acclamation, “Blessed is the Kingdom of the Father and Son and the Holy Spirit!”. But what does Scripture say about the Kingdom of God? I decided to begin with the Gospel of Matthew, and what I discovered was this. The “Kingdom of God” is not only a central theme in Matthew, but a fundamental structural scheme around which Matthew shaped his version of the Gospel narrative. Through Matthew’s perspective, who interpreted Scripture through the lens of Christ, we are enabled to see that the entire Bible is concerned with...

World Day of Prayer for Creation

By Sr Dr Margaret Beirne RSC (Associate Professor of Biblical Studies)

Today, 1 September, we celebrate a time-honoured Christian feast day, known as the ‘Feast of Creation’ within the Orthodox Church and today universally celebrated across the ecumenical world as the ‘World Day of Prayer for Creation.’ The earlier title, ‘of creation’  was a feast of thanksgiving to God for the ‘gift of creation’, based on the creation accounts in the first two chapters of the Book of Genesis; the latter, ‘for Creation’ reflects the more recent growing movement of ecological awareness and conversion...

An Empty Tomb and the Bridal Chamber

By Dr Lydia Gore-Jones (Senior Lecturer in Biblical Studies)

“The Bible says nothing,” a non-Orthodox friend asked me, “about the death of Mary and her assumption, does it?” He was absolutely right. There was no historical records, and neither the Gospels nor Patristic writings in the first four centuries of Christianity mention anything about Mary’s life after the Pentecost. St Epiphanius of Salamis, who died in 403, writes that people examining the scriptures “will find no evidence there either on the death of Mary, nor on whether she died or not, nor whether she was buried or not buried...

The Cross and the Crown: The Road to Sainthood

By Associate Professor Philip Kariatlis (Sub-Dean)

This coming Sunday, our Holy Orthodox Church invites us into a radiant celebration—the Sunday of All Saints. It is a day unlike any other: we do not honour a single saint, nor a particular group of saints—whether these be martyrs, monastics or confessors. Rather, we lift our eyes to the entire company of God’s friends—first and foremost, to the Theotokos, followed by the Apostles, the Prophets, the Martyrs, the Teachers, the ascetics, the righteous and the unknown—every man and woman of every time, every place, and every circumstance who sought Christ, and whose lives were crowned by divine love...

The Feast of Pentecost: The Fulfilment of the Promise

By Associate Professor Philip Kariatlis (Sub-Dean)

Fifty days after Pascha, the Church celebrates the great feast of Pentecost (from the Greek Πεντηκοστή, meaning “the fiftieth day”), which marks the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples (cf. Acts 2), as Christ had promised his disciplees during His earthly ministry (cf. John 14:26; 15:26). On this day, the Lord’s followers were “clothed with power from on high” (Luke 24:49), receiving the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit...

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