How to Be an Orthodox Christian

How to Read the Holy Scriptures [EP. 6]

In this episode, Dcn Seraphim explores the Orthodox understanding of the Holy Scriptures as a verbal icon of Christ — a living encounter with the One who speaks through every page, from Genesis to Revelation. He looks at how the Church gave us the Bible, why Orthodox Christians use the Septuagint, what is meant by reading Scripture with the Fathers, and why typological reading is not an invention of the Fathers but an extension of the way the New Testament teaches us to read the Old. Along the way he draws on St. Irenaeus, St. Theodore the Studite, St. Isaac the Syrian, and St. John Chrysostom, and shows how the hymns and readings of the Divine Liturgy are themselves the Church's living school of biblical interpretation. The episode ends with practical guidance for daily Scripture reading at home.

Almsgiving: How to Be Like God [EP. 5]

In this episode, Dcn. Seraphim takes up the third great discipline of the Sermon on the Mount and shows why the Orthodox Church understands almsgiving not as an optional extra but as the practice by which we become like the God who gives Himself away. Drawing on Christ's teaching in Matthew 6 and 25, the Book of Tobit, the parable of the Widow's Mite, and the writings of Sts. Basil, Gregory the Theologian, John Chrysostom, and Clement of Alexandria, he traces almsgiving back to its roots in the very nature of the Trinity. He then turns to the practical questions: tithing, the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, parish stewardship, and how the whole Divine Liturgy forms us as a school of giving. Show notes: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WENS_5xjgyLnr5kJQPTiK3qqYTgi5Hd6/view?usp=sharing

Fasting: The Second Wing of the Christian Life [EP. 4]

Dcn Seraphim traces fasting back to the first commandment given in Eden — a commandment about food — and shows how the Fall itself was a failure of fasting, answered in the wilderness by the New Adam who refuses to turn stones into bread. Drawing on Basil, Chrysostom, John Climacus, and John Cassian, he distinguishes Orthodox fasting from dieting or self-punishment and presents it instead as the rider's training of the horse: a medicine for the soul whose dose must be fitted to each person through the Church's principle of oikonomia. Then, he walks through the Orthodox fasting calendar — the four great fasts, Wednesdays and Fridays, the approximately forty percent of the year spent in fasting — while pairing Christ's "when you fast" in Matthew 6 with Isaiah 58's warning that a fast without mercy is no fast at all. Practical guidance follows on how to live a fasting day, how cravings become occasions for prayer, and how every act of bodily restraint is oriented toward the Eucharistic table, where food is at last received on God's terms rather than seized on our own.

Prayer: The First Wing of the Christian Life [EP. 3]

Beginning with the desert story of Abba Macarius — "Lord, as You will, and as You know, have mercy" — this episode grounds Orthodox prayer in the simple act of turning toward God and asking for mercy. Dcn Seraphim moves from the definition of prayer as communion (Evagrius, Gregory Palamas, Anthony Bloom) into the Sermon on the Mount, walking phrase by phrase through the Lord's Prayer with the help of Chrysostom, Cyprian, Theophylact, Maximus, and Gregory of Nyssa. He then lays out the daily cycle of the Church and introduces a beginner's prayer rule as a trellis on which a prayer life can grow. The episode concludes with a demonstration of the rule at the icon corner and the encouragement that dryness in prayer is often the sign that God is drawing us deeper. PRAYER LESSON OUTLINE: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wY5vsnQr2ND9GciZbsfV4b148k7qzlUp/view?usp=sharing SAMPLE PRAYER RULE: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1d2WdXDHC7_-Uw0oYDtEWlsXJ4fwYSn_Y/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=113635573846427389195&rtpof=true&sd=true

Entering the Church of God [EP. 2]

Orthodox Churches are laid out very differently from almost any other kind of church you're likely to walk into in North America. Why are there so many icons? What's with the wall and curtain between me and the altar? Why are people lighting candles? How should you stand, behave, dress, and orient yourself in Church? These are things that our ancestors took for granted -- and things that are often the most difficult and intimidating for newcomers. In this video, Dcn. Seraphim gives a tour of his own church, and talks about how the whole plan of salvation is inherent in the architecture and iconography of an Orthodox temple. Outro music: Cherubic Hymn, Romanian Chant, Tone 8 Choir of St. Seraphim of Sarov Orthodox Cathedral