Latest Byzantine Podcast Episodes
Becoming an Altar
What God is Not - April 24, 2024 10:00 - 1 hourThis week Fr. Michael reflects on the names of Adam and Noah, how they're linked, and how they reflect the new Adam. Fr. Michael talks about becoming an altar and how we can live that out in our day-to-day lives. Want to be a backstage listener? Become a patron on Patreon! References: The Begi...
Weak Forever
What God is Not - April 17, 2024 10:00 - 1 hourThis week Mother Natalia comes to us with some hot takes fresh off her poustinia. She talks about fear, love, vulnerability, and weakness. She talks about each of those in our relationship with God as well as our relationship with others. This episode is deep! Follow and Contact Us! Follow us o...
Learning to Pray
What God is Not - April 10, 2024 10:00 - 58 minutesThis week Fr. Michael talks about how to pray and providing suggestions to friends who ask for help in praying. He talks about how prayer methods (rote prayer, contemplative prayer, etc.) work differently for each person, but ultimately how important prayer is to our daily lives and relationship...
If I Knew Jesus Loved Me #SEEK24
What God is Not - April 03, 2024 10:00 - 44 minutesThis week’s episode was recorded live at SEEK24. Fr. Michael and Mother Natalia are joined by Fr. Boniface Hicks. They talk about how our lives would change if we inherently knew that Jesus loved us. They talk about ways this is exhibited in daily life, in prayer, in the confessional. They also ...
Saint Seraphim of Vyritsa (1949) (March 21 OC)
Saint of the Day - April 03, 2024 05:01 - 1 minute ★★★★★ - 133 ratingsBorn in 1866, he married and had three children. In 1920, at the age of 54, he and his wife quietly separated and each entered monastic life. Eventually he became the spiritual father of the St. Alexander Nevsky Lavra in St. Petersburg, where, as a clairvoyant staretz, he also confessed thousands...
Our Holy Father Titus the Wonderworker (9th c.)
Saint of the Day - April 02, 2024 05:01 - 56 seconds ★★★★★ - 133 ratingsVery little is known of him. He took up the monastic life while still very young, and gave himself without reserve to the ascetical struggle, so much so that in the virtues of humility and obedience it was said that he exceeded 'not only the brethren, but all men.' In time, he became abbot of a m...
Our Holy Mother Mary of Egypt (4th-6th c.)
Saint of the Day - April 01, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes ★★★★★ - 133 ratingsHer radiant life is also commemorated on the Fifth Sunday of the Great Fast. The Life of St Mary of Egypt, written by St Sophronios of Jerusalem, is read in its entirety on the Thursday of the Great Canon during Lent. Click on the link to read it. The date of her repose is very unclear: it is g...
St Innocent, enlightener of Alaska and Siberia (1879)
Saint of the Day - March 31, 2024 05:01 - 2 minutes ★★★★★ - 133 ratingsHe was born in Siberia in 1797 to a clerical family, and became a married parish priest in Irkutsk. A devout explorer, John Kriukov, told him of the great spiritual needs among the Russian and native peoples in Alaska, then Russian territory. Moved to serve Christ in this very difficult environme...
Commemoration of an Uncondemning Monk
Saint of the Day - March 30, 2024 05:01 - 1 minute ★★★★★ - 133 ratings"This monk died joyfully because he had never in his life condemned anyone. He was lazy, careless, disinclined to prayer, but throughout his entire life he had never judged anyone. And when he lay dying, he was full of joy. The brethren asked him how he could die so joyfully with all his sins, an...
Our Holy Father John the Hermit (4th c.)
Saint of the Day - March 29, 2024 05:01 - 1 minute ★★★★★ - 133 ratings"He was the son of Juliana, a Christian woman of Armenia. While still a child, he left his mother and ran off to the desert. He was utterly aflame with love for Christ the Lord. In the beginning he entrusted himself to the guidance of a spiritual father, Pharmutius, who was so pleasing to God tha...
St Hilarion the New, abbot of Pelecete, Confessor (754)
Saint of the Day - March 28, 2024 05:01 - 58 seconds ★★★★★ - 133 ratingsHe took up the monastic life when very young, and lived as a recluse for many years, and gained the grace to heal sicknesses and drive out demons by his prayers. Later he became abbot of the Monastery of Pelekete in Bithynia. During the reign of the Emperor Leo the Isaurian, he and his monastery ...
Great & Holy Week Part 3
What God is Not - March 27, 2024 10:00 - 1 hourToday we conclude our series of the liturgies for Great and Holy Week. This week’s episode covers Great and Holy Friday, Great and Holy Saturday, and Pascha Sunday. This is our 200th episode. We're so grateful to our listeners for your prayers and support! Follow and Contact Us! Follow us on I...
St Matrona of Thessalonica (4th c.)
Saint of the Day - March 27, 2024 05:01 - 45 seconds ★★★★★ - 133 ratingsShe was a servant of the Jewish wife of the governor of Thessalonica. When she refused to enter the synagogue with her mistress, she was beaten, then locked in a cell until she starved to death. Finally, her mistress ordered her body thrown from the roof of the house and left to lie in the open. ...
Synaxis of the Archangel Gabriel
Saint of the Day - March 26, 2024 05:01 - 2 minutes ★★★★★ - 133 ratingsEach of the Great Feasts of the Church is followed by a commemoration of some holy one who figures in the events of the Feast. So, today we commemorate the Holy Archangel Gabriel, who brought the glad news of the conception of Christ to Mary, the Theotokos. The Prologue gives the following teachi...
New Confessor/Hieromartyr Tikhon, patriarch of Moscow (1925)
Saint of the Day - March 25, 2024 05:01 - 1 minute ★★★★★ - 133 ratingsBorn in 1865, he was tonsured a monk in 1891, and consecrated a Bishop in 1891. From 1900, he was Bishop of Alaska, with oversight of the Church throughout North America. In America, he consecrated the first Orthodox monastery on the continent and worked tirelessly to unite all ethnic groups as o...
Saint Zacharias the Recluse of Egypt (4th c.)
Saint of the Day - March 24, 2024 05:01 - 58 seconds ★★★★★ - 133 ratingsHis father, Carion the Egyptian, forsook his family to become a monk, taking Zacharias with him. Though very young, Zacharias manifested gifts of grace rarely seen among the elders of Sketis. Abba Moses once asked him, 'What does it mean to be a monk?', to which Zacharias replied by taking off hi...
Monk-martyr Nikon and 199 disciples, in Sicily (251)
Saint of the Day - March 23, 2024 05:01 - 2 minutes ★★★★★ - 133 ratingsHe was born in Neapolis (Naples) to a pagan father and a Christian mother, and became an officer in the Roman army. Though he was not baptised, his mother had secretly instructed him in the Christian faith. Once, in a battle, his company was completely surrounded by the enemy, and Nikon recalled ...
Martyr Drosida of Antioch, and five nuns (104)
Saint of the Day - March 22, 2024 05:01 - 55 seconds ★★★★★ - 133 ratings'The daughter of the Emperor Trajan, she was seized with five other women when they were gathering the bodies of the martyrs who had suffered for Christ by night, and was for this cruelly mutilated by the Emperor. The five women were terribly tortured and at last thrown into molten copper, where ...
Our Holy Father James the Confessor, bishop, of the Studion (8th c.)
Saint of the Day - March 21, 2024 05:01 - 52 seconds ★★★★★ - 133 ratingsHis birthplace and the place of his episcopate are unknown. He was a monk of the Studion monastery in Constantinople, and a disciple of St Theodore the Studite. As a bishop he was severely persecuted by the iconoclasts in the time of the Emperor Constantine Copronymus, enduring hunger, imprisonme...
Great & Holy Week Part 2
What God is Not - March 20, 2024 07:00 - 57 minutesThis week we continue our series of the liturgies for Holy Week. Today's episode covers Presanctified Liturgy on Holy Wednesday, matins for Holy Thursday, and Divine Liturgy on Holy Thursday. References: The Year of Grace of the Lord by A Monk of the Eastern Church Isaiah 61:1-3 Therapy of Spi...
St Cuthbert the Wonderworker, Bishop of Lindisfarne (687)
Saint of the Day - March 20, 2024 05:01 - 1 minute ★★★★★ - 133 ratings'Saint Cuthbert was born in Britain about the year 635, and became a monk in his youth at the monastery of Melrose by the River Tweed. After many years of struggle as a true priest of Christ, in the service both of his own brethren and of the neglected Christians of isolated country villages, he ...
Martyrs Chrysanthos and Daria, and those with them at Rome (283)
Saint of the Day - March 19, 2024 05:01 - 1 minute ★★★★★ - 133 ratingsChrysanthos was the only son of Polemon, a prominent pagan in Rome. As befit his status, he was given every opportunity for secular learning, but seemed unable to acquire worldly wisdom. By God's providence, copies of the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles came into his possession and, reading ...
St Ananias (Aninus) the Wonderworker (?)
Saint of the Day - March 18, 2024 05:01 - 2 minutes ★★★★★ - 133 ratings"Born in Chalcedon, he was little of stature, like Zaccheus, but great in spirit and faith. He denied himself to the world at the age of fifteen and settled near the River Euphrates in a little hut, where he atoned for his sins, and prayed to God, at first with his teacher Mayum and then, after M...
St Alexis, the Man of God (411)
Saint of the Day - March 17, 2024 05:01 - 2 minutes ★★★★★ - 133 ratingsHe was born of pious and noble parents in Rome in the time of the Emperor Honorius. His parents, Euphemianus and Agalais, set a high standard of godly living: his father, though wealthy, sat down to dine only once a day, at sunset. By his parents' arrangement Alexis was married at a young age. Ho...
Holy Apostle Aristobulus of the Seventy, first Bishop of Britain (1st c.)
Saint of the Day - March 16, 2024 05:01 - 1 minute ★★★★★ - 133 ratings"He was the brother of the Apostle Barnabas and was born in Cyprus. He was a follower of the Apostle Paul, who mentions him in his Epistle to the Romans (16:10). When the great Apostle Paul created many bishops for different parts of the world, he made this Aristobulus bishop of Britain (i.e. Eng...
Holy Martyr Alexander (270-275)
Saint of the Day - March 15, 2024 05:01 - 1 minute ★★★★★ - 133 ratings"He was from the town of Side in Pamphylia. The Emperor Aurelian's governor asked him who he was, to which Alexander replied that he was a pastor of the flock of Christ. 'And where is this flock of Christ', further enquired the evil and suspicious governor. Alexander replied: 'Over the whole worl...
St Benedict of Nursia, abbot (547)
Saint of the Day - March 14, 2024 05:01 - 2 minutes ★★★★★ - 133 ratingsHis name, Benedictus, means "Blessed" in Latin. He was born in 480 in Nursia, a small town northeast of Rome. He had only rudimentary schooling: he wrote later of his fear that through book-learning he might 'lose the great understanding of my soul.' At an early age he fled to a monastery where h...
Great & Holy Week Part 1
What God is Not - March 13, 2024 10:00 - 1 hourThis week we're kicking off a three part series where we walk through the liturgies for Holy Week. Today's episode covers Holy Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. References: The Year of Grace of the Lord by A Monk of the Eastern Church Great Lent by Fr. Alexander Schmemann Behold the Bridegroom Us...
Translation of the Relics (847) of St Nicephoros, Patriarch of Constantinople (827)
Saint of the Day - March 13, 2024 05:01 - 1 minute ★★★★★ - 133 ratingsHis main commemoration is on June 2; today we commemorate the return of his holy relics to Constantinople. Nicephoros was Patriarch during the time of the iconoclasts, and openly opposed the Emperor Leo the Armenian's heretical policies. For this he was exiled to a monastery on the island of Pr...
St Gregory the Great (the Dialogist), Pope of Rome (604)
Saint of the Day - March 12, 2024 05:01 - 1 minute ★★★★★ - 133 ratingsHe was born in Rome to a wealthy senatorial family. He received a good education in secular and spiritual learning, and became Prefect of Rome. While still in the world, he used his great wealth mostly for the good of the Church, building six monasteries in Sicily and another in Rome itself. At t...
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