Sermons & Homilies
While Orthodoxy has gotten attention lately for its new growth and spike in conversions, the true sign of Orthodoxy taking root here is the increase of her saints. We are blessed this year to add St. Olga of Alaska to our humble synaxis.
Today, we commemorate all the Saints who have ever existed. The reason for this is not because we might have missed some throughout the year, but to show that this is God’s desired end for all of humanity, not just the American land, not just the Russian land, not just the Serbian land, but for all lands and for all time. The net of holiness encircles the multitudinous variations of our human race. From the peasant to the prodigy, the idiot to the intelligent, the homeless to the hierarch, the monogamous to the monk; from the Patriarch Moses to Lazarus whose sores the dogs licked, the grace of God reaches out to all people, making sinners into saints.
Who was, who is, Schema-Archimandrite Panteleimon, known for so long to so many as Fr. Seraphim? Although I spent over a decade at his side as his unworthy cell-attendant, I still do not fully comprehend who he was and who he is. I took him for granted. I did not truly know him.
