As Halloween approaches, we post a widely circulated letter by Bishop Irenee of ROCOR on the question of whether Orthodox Christians may take part in the day’s activities. The text is an excerpt from a letter to a mother and father, written in 2012, when His Grace was still an Archimandrite.

Anything done by force, without love and freedom, does not enter the eternity of God.

The Divine Liturgy…helps us to enter into the whole tragedy of humanity and to pray for people’s suffering. We live Christ’s prayer in Gethsemane and His Crucifixion on Golgotha. The Divine Liturgy helps us to penetrate into the whole of humankind and to pray for the departed and for sinners. The ‘spirit’ of the Divine Liturgy is the ‘spirit’of sacrificial love, the depth of Christ’s self-emptying and His prayer in Gethsemane, which we should imitate.

Excerpts from the essay “Christianity and the Church,” by New Martyr St. Hilarion Troitsky 

…

Is it because God’s Name is not holy that we must ask for it to be hallowed?  How can this be if He is the source of holiness? Is it not from Him that all things in heaven and on earth are sanctified? Why, then, does He ask us now to hallow His name? The name of God is by nature holy and all-holy, and the source of sanctification. When it is named, it sanctifies all things on which it is pronounced, and it does not admit of any increase or diminution of sanctity. However, God wants and loves that His name should be glorified by all His creatures as the prophet-psalmist says: Bless the Lord all his works (Ps.102:22). And He demands this, not so much for Himself, but that the creatures themselves may be sanctified by Him. For this reason, whatever we do, all must be done to the glory of God, according to the Apostle who says, And so, whether you eat, or drink, or whatever [else] you do, do it all to the glory of God (1Cor. 10:31). 

St. John Chrysostom: The Prophet of Charity

Nativity Message of St. John Maximovitch, 1962

The Word became flesh; that is, the Son of God, co-eternal with God the Father and with the Holy Spirit, became human - having become incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary. O, wondrous, awesome and salvific mystery! The One Who had no beginning took on a beginning according to humanity; the One without flesh assumed flesh. God became man - without ceasing to be God. The Unapproachable One became approachable to all, in the aspect of a humble servant. Why, and for what reason, was there such condescension [shown] on the part of the Creator toward His transgressing creatures - toward humanity which, through an act of its own will, had fallen away from God, its Creator?