With authority comes responsibility
When people are seeking professional help, they are vulnerable, and the trust they place in the professional makes them particularly open to exploitation. This is why we have institutions and lines of authority that hold professionals accountable. We can not allow anyone who is vulnerable, be they a child, or an adult, to be exploited or harmed by the very persons who are there to support them.
Those who hold positions of authority, be they police officers, teachers, physicians, psychologists, coaches, troop leaders, or clergy, must remember that one day they will stand before God, and give account for how they exercised their authority. None of us is beyond reproach, for we are all broken, but our brokenness can not be an excuse for failing to properly, and professionally, serve those who are in need of our help and support.
With love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon
Photo: The monastery has acquired a new English language hand painted and embroidered Epitaphios from Pokrov Monastery in Sofia, Bulgaria.
Saturday May 16, 2015 / May 3, 2015
Fifth Week of Pascha. Tone four.
Martyrs Timothy the Reader and his wife Maura of Antinoe in Egypt (286).
Venerable Theodosius, abbot of the Kiev Caves Monastery and founder of cenobitic monasticism in Russia (1074).
Venerable Peter the Wonderworker, bishop of Argos (10th c.).
New Hieromartyr Nicholas priest (1941).
Venerables Juliana (1393) and Eupraxia (1394) of Moscow.
St. Theophanes of Vatopedi, metropolitan of Peritheorion (14th c.).
Translation of the Dormition Icon of the Mother of God from Constantinople to the Kiev-Pechersk Far Caves (1073).
Pechersk Not-Wrought-by-Hand (1085), “Pechersk” (with Sts. Anthony and Theodosius) (1085), “Sven-Caves” (1288), “Yaskinsky” and Vlakhernsky” Icons of the Mother of God
St. Ansfried, bishop of Utrecht (1010).
Venerable Ecumenius the Wonderworker, bishop of Tricca (Greek).
Translation of the relics of Venerable Luke of Mt. Stirion (Greek).
New Martyr Ahmet the Calligrapher of Constantinople (Greek).
New Martyr Mary of Crete. (Greek).
St. Mamai, Catholicos of Georgia (744) (Georgia).
Venerable Fathers Michael and Arsenius the Georgians (9th c.) (Georgia).
Martyr Paul of Vilnius, Lithuania (17th c.).
Great-martyr Xenia the Wonderworker of Peloponnesus.
St. Glywys of Corwall.
Scripture Readings
Acts 15:35-41
35 Paul and Barnabas also remained in Antioch, teaching and preaching the word of the Lord, with many others also.
Division over John Mark
36 Then after some days Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us now go back and visit our brethren in every city where we have preached the word of the Lord, and see how they are doing.” 37 Now Barnabas was determined to take with them John called Mark. 38 But Paul insisted that they should not take with them the one who had departed from them in Pamphylia, and had not gone with them to the work. 39 Then the contention became so sharp that they parted from one another. And so Barnabas took Mark and sailed to Cyprus; 40 but Paul chose Silas and departed, being commended by the brethren to the grace of God. 41 And he went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.
John 10:27-38
27 My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. 28 And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand. 30 I and My Father are one.”
Renewed Efforts to Stone Jesus
31 Then the Jews took up stones again to stone Him. 32 Jesus answered them, “Many good works I have shown you from My Father. For which of those works do you stone Me?”
33 The Jews answered Him, saying, “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy, and because You, being a Man, make Yourself God.”
34 Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, “You are gods”’? 35 If He called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken), 36 do you say of Him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’? 37 If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; 38 but if I do, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in Me, and I in Him.”