Saturday, August 22, 2015
Family Convention at Mountain View (USA)
See the report from the Convention at Mountain View Russian Religious and Cultural Centre. Bishop Andronik headed the summer gathering. Metroplitan Demetrios of America (Church of the True Orthodox Christians of Greece) participated.
Bishop Sophrony of St Petersburg and parishioners in Russia sent a video greeting:
The family is a new Eden, planted by God.
The husband and wife are placed in this garden, in order to cultivate it.
“Keep thy tongue from evil,
and thy lips from speaking guile.
Turn away from evil and do good;
seek peace, and pursue it.”
Apostle Paul in his Epistles greets spouses as “the house church”. And in this small domestic church, the husband and wife help one another attain spiritual perfection, preparing for eternity.
Our life is a school of love. And the first lessons in that school we receive in our own family.
The family of the holy Royal Martyrs of Russia provide us with a magnificent example of that which resurrects all the best in man – which is true love in Christ.
“Father asks to pass on to everyone…that you should remember that the evil that is in the world, is going to become even more powerful, but evil does not conquer evil, rather, only love.”
(Letter from the Tsar family, Tobolsk, 1918)
