As a modern, educated man, I have a rather broad interest in the arts, music, poetry, literature and history. My father was a golf pro and my mother was a professional church pipe organist and piano teacher. My maternal grandmother played honky tonk piano, the banjo and taught ballroom dancing. I was formally trained in classical oil painting, but prefer to paint in impressionist freestyle. My photographic interests are directed toward traditionally expressed scenic photography. I love opera and country western, equally. I hold to liberal views when it comes to the environment, ecology and universal health for all. I’m conservative in regards moral and fiscal issues facing our country today, yet rather libertarian when it comes to individual freedom of expression.
My conservative religious views are tempered by a strong love of people that has afforded me a wide range of friendships, spanning religious, political, cultural and racial barriers. I’m perfectly comfortable enjoying a cup of coffee with a rabbi in the morning, listening to opera with an elderly shut-in the afternoon and spending time with college students in the evening.
These personal things about me are worthy of sharing because they demonstrate the great truth that in Christ, there is room for everyone in the Orthodox Church. I attribute my ability to be comfortable with a wide variety of people to the universality of Orthodoxy. The Church is a living organism that brings healing to the world as a hospital of the soul and as one of her therapists (priests) I am called to be all things to all men (and women). The Christ that I’ve invited to reign supreme in my life is Lord of all. He loves everyone equally and has called me, as his creature, to emulate this love for all those who cross my path.
In these days of great polarization not seen in this country since the Civil War, it is imperative we Christians not allow political and religious differences to impact the way we interact with others. We must have hearts that are filled with love, not fear. In Christ there is only hope. Economics, politics, governments and all earthly catastrophes are transitory. A life in Christ is eternal.
With love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon
Prayer request: I’ll be having a Cardioversion at Swedish Cherry Hill Medical Center in Seattle early Thursday morning, with my cardiologist hoping to bring my heart out of Atrial fibrillation. I therefore covet your prayers.
Thursday September 29, 2022 / September 16, 2022
16th Week after Pentecost. Tone six.
Great-martyr Euphemia the All-praised, of Chalcedon (304).
New Hieromartyr Gregory Raevsky priest (1937).
New Hieromartyr Sergius priest (1942).
Translation of the relics of St. Alexis of Moscow (2001).
Repose of St. Cyprian, metropolitan of Kiev (1406).
St. Photius, metropolitan of Kiev (1431).
St. Kushka of Odessa confessor (1964).
St. Sebastiana, disciple of St. Paul the Apostle, martyred at Heraclea (86).
Martyr Melitina of Marcianopolis (2nd c.).
Martyrs Victor and Sosthenes at Chalcedon (304).
Venerable Dorotheus, hermit of Egypt (4th c.).
Martyr Ludmilla (927), grandmother of St. Wenceslaus, prince of the Czechs.
Venerable Procopius, abbot, of Sazava in Bohemia (1053).
New Martyrs Isaac and Joseph, who suffered at Karnu, Georgia (808) (Georgia).
The Icon of the Mother of God, named “Support of the Humble” (1420).
St. Ninian, bishop of Whithorn (Candida Casa) ( 432) (Celtic & British).
Venerable Edith, nun, of Wilton, England (984) (Celtic & British).
Venerable Cyprian of Serbia (Serbia).
The Scripture Readings
Ephesians 1:1-9
Greeting
1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God,
To the saints who are in Ephesus, and faithful in Christ Jesus:
2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Redemption in Christ
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, 5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.
7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace 8 which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, 9 having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself,
Mark 7:24-30
A Gentile Shows Her Faith
24 From there He arose and went to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And He entered a house and wanted no one to know it, but He could not be hidden. 25 For a woman whose young daughter had an unclean spirit heard about Him, and she came and fell at His feet. 26 The woman was a Greek, a Syro-Phoenician by birth, and she kept asking Him to cast the demon out of her daughter. 27 But Jesus said to her, “Let the children be filled first, for it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.”
28 And she answered and said to Him, “Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs under the table eat from the children’s crumbs.”
29 Then He said to her, “For this saying go your way; the demon has gone out of your daughter.”
30 And when she had come to her house, she found the demon gone out, and her daughter lying on the bed.