Source: Eparchy of Newton

IN ACTS 16 WE SEE THE GOSPEL spread to Philippi, a town in western Macedonia near the border of Thrace. Originally established in the fourth century bc as a mining town and military garrison on an important east-west road, Philippi stood at the northernmost tip of the Aegean Sea, and was a prosperous city in the first century ad. It was considered a “miniature Rome,” governed by the laws of the capital by Roman officials.

Almost 900 miles from Jerusalem, Philippi was the northernmost place visited by St Paul in his journeys and the first place in Europe evangelized by the Apostle. Between ad 45 and 58 St Paul had visited a number of cities in Cyprus, Crete and Asia Minor (Turkey today) and would go on to visit the Greek cities of Thessalonica, Athens and Corinth. In all he made three circuits of this area, visiting some cities several times and spending over a year in some places where his message was well received.

Some ten years later, while in a Roman prison, Paul sent this community his Epistle to the Philippians, a letter included in the New Testament. In it we learn that the Philippians were Paul’s most generous helpers. “Moreover, as you Philippians know, in the early days of your acquaintance with the gospel, when I set out from Macedonia, not one church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving, except you only; for even when I was in Thessalonica, you sent me aid more than once when I was in need” (Philippians 4:15-16).
The next generation of Fathers – notably St Ignatius of Antioch and St.Polycarp of Smyrna – visited and wrote to the Philippian Christians. In the following generation St Irenaeus of Lyons referred to Polycarp’s Epistle to the Philippians as a forceful witness to the Gospel and a guide to salvation.

During the fourth through sixth centuries ad Philippi was a recognized Christian center in the Roman Empire. Its churches, particularly the great cathedral, were said to rival the churches of Constantinople. Weakened by invasions of Slavic tribes at the end of the sixth century, Philippi was largely destroyed by an earthquake in 619; after that it was little more than a village.

Philippi was rebuilt as a garrison in the tenth century as a defense against the neighboring Bulgar tribes. It prospered again at least until the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks when it fell into ruin. After the Greek War of Independence (1821-32) the area became part of the Kingdom of Greece. It was not until the twentieth century that archeologists began excavating the ruins of Philippi, identifying a number of structures including the great basilica of St. Paul.

Other Cities Visited by St Paul

Chapters from the Acts of the Apostles read in Church this week record St Paul’s ministry in the following places as well:

Phrygia and Galatia (Acts 16) – Provinces in western and central Anatolia, in what came to be called “Turkey in Asia;”
Troas (Acts 16, 20) – On the Aegean Sea, the chief port of north-west Asia Minor. With a population of 100,000 at its height, Troas was the seat of a bishop at least until the tenth century. The city was destroyed during the Ottoman invasions of the fourteenth century;
Thessalonika (Acts 17) – Already 400 years old when St Paul visited it, this city, Thessalonika remained an important center through the later history of the Roman Empire. It fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1430 and remained as capital of their Balkan province until 1912 when it was surrendered to Greece. In Byzantine times and again today it is considered its nation’s Second City;
Berea (Acts 17) – A small city in southwestern Macedonia, it has much the same history as its larger neighbor, Thessalonika;
Athens (Acts 17) – One of the oldest cities in Europe, it was the intellectual capital of ancient Greece. When St Paul was there, Athens had been given the status of a “free city” of the Roman Empire because of its classical past. It remained a center of pagan learning until ad 529 when the emperor closed its philosophical school. Conquered during the Fourth Crusade (1204), Athens quickly fell to the Ottomans until the Greek War of Independence in the nineteenth century. In 1838 it became the capital of modern Greece;
Corinth (Acts 18) – Julius Caesar founded the Roman city of Corinth in 44 bc on the site of the ancient Greek city destroyed a century earlier. It has been rebuilt again and again after successive invasions and earthquakes. After a particularly devastating earthquake in1858, New Corinth was built a few miles away. This too suffered a major earthquake in 1928. Its location on the Gulf of Corinth has always made it a hub for the transport of goods and materials to Europe;
Ephesus (Acts 19, 20) – One of the largest cities in the Mediterranean world (c. 250,000) in Paul’s day, Ephesus had been founded in the tenth century bc and prospered as the shrine city of the goddess Artemis. Destroyed in ad 263 by Gothic invaders, it was rebuilt as a Byzantine city. Its commercial importance declined as its harbor silted up and, by the time of the Ottoman conquest in the fourteenth century, Ephesus was a mere village. The town was completely abandoned in the next century.

These Churches Today

The Church in Athens believes itself in continuity with the first century Christians in the city. It names as its first bishops Hierotheus, who lead the Church from before ad.52, and Dionysius (53-96). The eparchy of Corinth looks to the apostles Onesephorus, Silas and Apollos as its first-century leaders and the eparchy of Thessalonika traces itself back to the apostles Aristarchus and Silvanos, two of Christ’s Seventy disciples, and names Gaius as its first bishop, in the first century.

These eparchies, placed under the Patriarch of Constantinople in the fourth century, are currently dioceses in the Autocephalous Church of Greece. The Archbishop of Athens is the first hierarch of this Church, formed after the War of Independence.

The Apostolic Church of Cyprus, consisting today of twelve eparchies, traced its history back to the apostle St Barnabas who accompanied St Paul to the island in the first century. Five years later Barnabas returned to Cyprus and established the Church there.

The Apostolic Church of Crete, consisting of nine eparchies, is an Autonomous Church dependent on the Ecumenical Patriarchate. It claims the Apostle St Titus, the disciple of St. Paul, as its first head.

The provinces of Asia Minor were placed under the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Constantinople when that city was made the capital of the Roman Empire (ad 335). This is still the case, but few Christians reside there. In 1923 The “Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations” was signed by the governments of Greece and Turkey. Around 1.5 million Christians in Asia Minor were deported to northern Greece and 500,000 Muslims from Greece were relocated to Turkey. – around two million persons. Many of these Christians emigrated to North and South America as a result.

The patriarchate consists on five eparchies in Asia Minor and the “New Territories” ceded to Greece after the twentieth-century Balkan Wars and six eparchies in the Greek Islands (the Dodecanese). Some 30 diaspora eparchies in Western Europe, the Americas, Asia and Australia are also subject to the ecumenical patriarchate.

St. John Chrysostom answers this question briefly when he writes:

They say:

‘We can pray at home.’ You are deceiving yourself, O man! Of course, one can pray at home. But it is impossible to pray there as in church, where such a multitude of hearts are uplifted to God, merging into one unanimous cry. You will not be so quickly heard while praying to the Master by yourself, as when praying together with your brethren, for here in church there is something greater than in your room: Agreement, unanimity, the bond of love, and finally here are the prayers of the priests.

The priests stand before us, then, so that the prayers of the people, being weak, would be united to their more powerful prayers and together with them ascend to heaven. The Apostle Peter was freed from prison, thanks to the common prayers offered for him…. (Act 12:5-17). If the Church’s prayer was so beneficial for the Apostle Peter and delivered such a pillar of the faith from prison, why, tell me, do you disdain its power and what kind of justification can you have for this. Listen to God Himself, Who says that the multitude of people who pray to him with fervor moves Him to have mercy. He says to the Prophet Jonah: ‘Shall I not spare Nineveh, that great city, in which dwell more than 120 thousand people.’ He did not simply mention the multitude of people but that you might know that prayer together has great power.

St. John of Kronstadt adds:

Here in church is the one thing needful; here is a refuge from vanity and the storms of life; here is the calm harbor for souls seeking salvation; here is incorrupt food and drink for souls; here is the light, which enlightens every man who comes into the world; here is pure spiritual air; here is the well of living water springing up into everlasting life (John 4:14); here the gifts of the Holy Spirit are distributed; here is the cleansing of souls. The reading and singing in church are performed in a sacred language; all Christians must learn it, in order to comprehend the sweet sayings of their mother, who is preparing her children for heaven, for eternal life…. Here in church, a man will come to know the true nobility of his soul, the value of life and its aim or his assigned path; here he dispels the fascination of worldly vanity and worldly passions by acquiring sobriety in his soul; here he comes to know his destiny, both temporal and eternal; here he comes to know his bitter, profound fall and seduction by sin; here the Savior is to be found, ;particularly in His holy and life, creating Mysteries, and His salvation; here a man comes to know his true relationship with God and his neighbor or with his family and the society in which he lives. The church is an earthly heaven, the place where the closest union with the Divinity occurs; it is a heavenly school which prepares Christians for heavenly citizenship, teaching them about the ways of heaven, about the dwellings of heaven; it is the threshold of heaven; it is the place for common prayer, for thanksgiving, for glorifying the Triune God, Who created and preserves everything; it is unity with the angels. What is more precious and more honorable that the church? Nothing. During the divine service, as on a chart, the whole destiny of the human race is depicted, from beginning to end. The divine service is the alpha and omega of the destiny of the world and of men.

Source: Eparchy of Newton

Beginning with chapter 8, the Acts of the Apostles tells how the message of Christ’s resurrection spread from Jerusalem to surrounding areas. We see the deacon Philip evangelizing and baptizing in Samaria, where he is joined by the apostles Peter and John. Philip then travels westward, as far as Caesarea, the Roman provincial capital. In chapter 9 we learn that there are believers in Damascus whom Saul goes to capture. Peter also travels, healing Aeneas in Lydda (Lod) and raising Dorcas in Joppa, both today suburbs of Tel Aviv. He then goes some 75 miles up the coast to Caesarea where he ministers in the house of Cornelius.

As often happens, persecution in one place led to the spread of the Gospel in another, Chapter 11 tells how persecution scattered the disciples even further: “as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch” (Acts 11:19), The Gospel had now gone over 300 miles in its journey around the world.

Contents [hide]
1 Antioch the Great
2 1st -3rd Centuries – Martyrs and Ascetics
3 4th-6th Centuries – Councils and Disputes
4 7th -13th Centuries – Occupation & Exile

ANTIOCH THE GREAT
Called “the Great” to distinguish it from cities in other provinces called Antioch, the city was founded in the 4th century bc by Seleucus I Nicator as a “court city” of his Seleucid Empire. In 64 bc Syria became part of the Roman Empire. Antioch eventually rivaled Alexandria as the chief city of the Middle East and played a particularly strong role in the Roman Empire.

Syria had a sizeable contingent of Jews who had full status as citizens. It is likely that the believers fleeing Jerusalem established themselves in the midst of this prosperous colony. We are told in Acts that these believers preached the Gospel, “only among Jews. Some of them, however, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and began to speak to Greeks also, telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus. The Lord’s hand was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord” (Acts 11:19-21). These first Gentile converts were called “Christians,” probably not a complement at first.

The new community was instructed by Barnabas, himself a Levite, who was one of the first disciples in Jerusalem. He brought Saul – now Paul – with him and they remained there about a year. After that, Barnabas and Paul were sent by the Church of Antioch to spread the Gospel, first in Cyprus, and then in Asia Minor.
Towards the end of the third century Rome created a “super-province” called the “diocese of the East,” with Antioch as its capital. Thus, when the principal local Churches were recognized at the First Council of Nicaea (ad 325), “Antioch and all the East” was placed third in rank, after Rome and Alexandria.

1ST -3RD CENTURIES – MARTYRS AND ASCETICS
While St Stephen the Deacon, killed in Jerusalem, is recognized as the Church’s first Martyr, its first woman-martyr was St Takla. Converted by St Paul in Iconium, Asia Minor, she lived for many years in Syria’s Isaurian Mountains. She was killed by pagan sorcerers, jealous of her influence over the local population.

The Church of Antioch numbers many martyrs from the official persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire. Among them its early bishops, Evodios (who died c. AD 68) and St Ignatius of Antioch, called “Theophoros” (the God-bearer), taken to Rome and martyred c. AD 107. Other much-revered martyrs of the age are Saints Lucian, a second century priest and catechist, Babylas, its third-century bishop, and the martyred soldiers Sergius and Bacchos.

Syria was one of the first areas in which asceticism began to thrive. A group of virgins settled near St Takla’s dwelling after her death. It still exists as the Monastery of St Takla, near Maaloula, Syria. Another historic monastery still in existence is the nearby Mar Sarkis (St. Sergios) Monastery. Built in the fourth century on the remains of a pagan temple, it is one of the oldest monasteries in the Christian world. It is thought to have been built prior to the First Council of Nicea (ad 325) because it has a round (originally pagan) altar, a practice prohibited at that Council.

Antioch’s most famous ascetics were its fifth-century Stylites, Symeon and his disciples who spent their lives on platforms built on columns in a deserted area near today’s Aleppo. Devotees –even including legates of the Byzantine emperors Theodosius II and Leo I – consulted Symeon from a ladder placed against the column. Ruins of the column and the church built around it remain today.

4TH-6TH CENTURIES – COUNCILS AND DISPUTES
Syria was also a center of the theological controversies with the Arians over the divinity of Christ, with the Monophysites, over how He could be both God and man and with the Monotheletes, over how He could be perfect man if He had no human will – all of which led to the early Ecumenical Councils. A lasting division in the Church arose between those who accepted the fifth century Council of Chalcedon and those who did not.

This council based its decisions on Greek philosophical expressions which differed from the terminology used previously, notably by St Cyril of Alexandria. This caused the non-Greek communities in the East – Armenians, Copts, and the Syriac-speaking part of the Antiochian Church – to reject this council. The patriarchates of Alexandria and Antioch were divided into Chalcedonian Greek (Melkite) and non-Greek Churches. These non-Chalcedonian Churches are today called “Oriental Orthodox”.

Thus by the seventh century Christians of the Middle East were divided into “Roum” (Romans, i.e. Greeks), Jacobites (Copts and non-Chalcedonian Syrians), and Nestorians (the Church of the East).
7TH -13TH CENTURIES – OCCUPATION & EXILE

The weakened Chalcedonian or Greek patriarchate of Antioch was diminished further in succeeding centuries. The Arab conquerors saw the Greek Christians as allies of their enemies, the Byzantine Empire. They were persecuted more for being Romans that for being Christians. Many fled to places like Cyprus and Sicily.

During this time there was often no patriarch or one living outside the area. The Empire recaptured Antioch in 969 and provided the Church with 115 years of security and peace. This was shattered in 1085 when the Seljuk Turks conquered the area, soon followed by western Crusaders.

In 1098, Crusaders took the city, and set up a Latin kingdom with a Latin patriarchate. The Greek patriarchate continued in exile in Constantinople. During the nearly two centuries of Crusader rule, the Greek patriarchs of Antioch in exile gradually adopted their hosts’ Byzantine rite in place of their own Antiochian usage. Finally, in 1268, Egyptian Mamelukes seized Antioch from the Latins and the Greek patriarch was able to return to the region. By this point, a series of earthquakes and economic changes had reduced the importance of Antioch and the patriarchs relocated their headquarters to Damascus, the new capital of Syria.

Source: Eparchy of Newton

“All the widows stood around him, crying…” (Acts 9:39). The description of the recently deceased Dorcas or Tabitha does not mention that she was a widow. It does note, however, that those who mourned her were not her relatives but widows. It is likely, then, that Dorcas herself was a widow.

As we know from the institution of deacons, care for widows was one of the first functions that the earliest Christians undertook. It was not long before these women were organized into formal groups with specific responsibilities in the Church.

St Paul’s First Epistle to Timothy, written 20 to 25 years later, includes a chapter devoted to overseeing the formal group of widows in the Church at Ephesus. The epistle indicates that this group should include:

∙ Widows Who Had No One to Care for Them – “Give proper recognition to those widows who are really in need. But if a widow has children or grandchildren, these should learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grand-parents, for this is pleasing to God. The widow who is really in need and left all alone puts her hope in God and continues night and day to pray and to ask God for help. But the widow who lives for pleasure is dead even while she lives. Give the people these instructions, so that no one may be open to blame. Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (verses 3-8).

That families care for their elderly members is a hallmark of most traditional societies. There are always exceptions, however, due to inability, greed or other circumstances such as upheavals in societies. In 2012 China enacted a law requiring adult children to visit their parents regularly, As Chinese traditional society changes into a modern urban nation, the elderly are often left to their own devices. The new law threatens court action against those who abandon or neglect their parents.

“If any woman who is a believer has widows in her care, she should continue to help them and not let the church be burdened with them, so that the church can help those widows who are really in need” (verse 16).

∙ Widows 60 Years of Age and Older – “No widow may be put on the list of widows unless she is over sixty, has been faithful to her husband, … As for younger widows, do not put them on such a list. For when their sensual desires overcome their dedication to Christ, they want to marry. Thus they bring judgment on themselves, because they have broken their first pledge. Besides, they get into the habit of being idle and going about from house to house. And not only do they become idlers, but also busybodies who talk nonsense, saying things they ought not to. So I counsel younger widows to marry, to have children, to manage their homes and to give the enemy no opportunity for slander. Some have in fact already turned away to follow Satan” (verses 9, 11-15).
By the time this epistle was written widows in Ephesus has a recognized status in the Church. Like the bishops and deacons, enrolled widows had to show a certain stability of life before they could be enrolled. They had to be content with their station in life, to be psychologically free to pledge themselves to the service of God and the Church. This is the same principle behind the later regulation that married men could be ordained deacons, but once ordained could not marry.

∙ Widows Known for Doing Good –  “… and is well known for her good deeds, such as bringing up children, showing hospitality, washing the feet of the Lord’s people, helping those in trouble and devoting herself to all kinds of good deeds” (verse 10).
Dorcas is described in the Scripture as “always doing good and helping the poor” (Acts 9:36). We do not know what else she did but we do know that she made “robes and other clothing” (Acts 9:36) because the mourners displayed them to Peter. Handiwork was a preferred occupation for women in the Church for centuries, lay and monastic. In nineteenth-century Britain a “Dorcas Society” was founded to provide clothing and other necessities to the poor. Chapters that continued to exist since then diversified to include other forms of community service.

WIDOWS IN LATER CENTURIES
Widows’ institutes continued to be a feature of Church life in the second and third centuries. We find references to them in the letters of St. Ignatius of Antioch, in The Shepherd of Hermas and in the works of Clement of Alexandria and Origen.

The late second-century Didascalia or Instructions of the Apostles describes the principles governing enrolled widows in Antioch. Bishops are enjoined to only enroll widows over 50 who are mild and even-tempered. They were to be at the service of the bishop and have one particular occupation. Didascalia 15 lays down this precept: “A widow should have no other care save to be praying for those who give, and for the whole Church.”

In 1899 the Syriac Catholic Patriarch, Mar Ignatius Ephrem II Rahmani published a fifth-century Syrian work called The Testament of Our Lord Jesus Christ. In the Syrian Church at the time widows seem to have served as eldresses. They are charged with instructing other women, supervising the deaconesses, and visiting sick women, “but in the church let her be silent” (Testament 40). A prayer for instituting widows is given in which the bishop prays that the widow be instituted “for edification and good example.” In this prayer the widows are called “those who sit in front” in recognition of their special status within the Church.

In The Testament’s order for the Oblation (Liturgy), however, the widows are positioned “within the veil” on the left side of the sanctuary, behind the presbyters. The widows are directed to receive the Eucharist after the deacons, but before the readers and subdeacons.

This is the last reference to an order of widows that survives from the early Church. It is assumed that this order, like those of virgins and deaconesses, was absorbed in the newer institution of monasticism. Women monastics would exercise many of the same functions as these earlier women both in their monasteries and in the churches of the people.

WIDOWS TODAY
Up to our own day widows and other older women continued to contribute their handiwork and other forms of service to the Church. Many of our churches dating from the nineteenth century were supported by the older women in the community who baked or cooked various foods every week to raise money for their church.

More recently the Church has focused on providing senior citizens (men as well as women) with opportunities to socialize (bingos, trips etc.). Would not some of these seniors find new life devoting themselves to prayer and/or service? The Church might best serve them by reminding them of the words of St. Paul: “The widow who lives for pleasure is dead even while she lives.”

Source: Eparchy of Newton

One feature of the Paschal season in Byzantine Churches is the reading of the Acts of the Apostles. Every day, beginning with Pascha itself, this story of the early Church is read at the Divine Liturgy. While the text of Acts itself begins with Christ’s ascension, our public reading of it begins as we commemorate His resurrection. While Christ’s followers struggled until Pentecost to grasp the reality of the resurrection and its meaning for mankind, the Church sees Pascha as the source of its life, the fountainhead of its existence to this day.

Divine power in the Church comes from the empty tomb and the blessing of the risen Christ upon His disciples – “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22) – which we also hear read on this Sunday. The paschal liberation in Christ from captivity to death begins to touch individuals and communities as the Church develops in the first century AD.

Acts paints a picture of the first Christian community in Jerusalem, then in Samaria, in Damascus and Antioch and the cities of Asia Minor. Finally Acts affirms that within the lifetime of the apostles a Church had been established in Rome, capital of the empire, the focus of life in the Mediterranean world of that era. The events recorded in this book would occur again and again through the centuries as the Church became established among different peoples and cultures.
Some of these characteristics listed in today’s passage, Acts 5:12-20, are:

Signs and Wonders (vv.12, 14-16) – The Church is first of all characterized as a transforming presence, just as Christ’s own earthly ministry was, according to the Gospels. The sick are healed just by Peter’s passing shadow, and those “tormented by unclean spirits” (v.16) are delivered.

To this day physical healings are regularly reported at saints’ graves or shrines, in connection with their relics or wonder-working icons. The 10th-century shrine of St George near Istanbul is one such place. Remarkable here is that most of those who come by the thousands to this shrine are Muslims. One of the priests at the shrine, Father Ephrem, confided, “During my three years here, we ourselves are witnesses of miracles, such as the healing of paralytics, mutes, and the giving birth to children.”

Just as physical healing was not the chief object of Christ’s ministry, the Church’s focus is chiefly on spiritually healing the whole person. The Church’s therapy may include Confession, spiritual guidance and the Mystery of Holy Unction, given “for healing, for relief from every passion, from defilement of flesh and spirit, and from every illness” (oil blessing prayer).

Proclaiming Christ (v. 12) – Rabbis and scholars would regularly be found gathering at Solomon’s Porch, a colonnade east of the temple. It became the place where the first followers of Jesus would go to share the Gospel, sure of a curious audience.

The town square and the coffee house have in their time been places where Christians have gone to gather and to make their faith known to others. Today cyberspace may be the ultimate Solomon’s Porch. As Pope Benedict XVI recently wrote, “I would like then to invite Christians, confidently and with an informed and responsible creativity, to join the network of relationships which the digital era has made possible… In this field too we are called to proclaim our faith that Christ is God, the Savior of humanity and of history, the one in whom all things find their fulfillment.”

Reluctance of the Religious Establishment (v. 13) – While people from the Jewish rank and file were drawn to the Gospel message, their religious leaders at first held back and then directly opposed this teaching which threatened their power among the people.

The apostles encountered the same reception from the leaders of Israel as had the Lord Jesus, John the Forerunner and other prophets. Politicians – be they political or religious – may be more concerned with keeping “good order” than with seeking the will of God.

A famous expression of this conflict between leaders and the Christ of the Gospel is the “Parable of the Grand Inquisitor” in Feodor Dostoievsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. In it an atheist tells his brother, a monk, that Christ would be arrested and condemned to death were He to return today because His teachings would disturb the established way things are done.

Growth (v.14) – A major theme in the book of Acts is that, before the death of the chief apostles, the Church had spread from the first group at Solomon’s Porch to the very heart of the empire, Rome itself. The Church began with “locals,” Jews from Galilee and Judea. Hellenized (Greek-speaking) Jews soon joined them as did “proselytes,” those pagans who had adopted the Jewish belief in one God, but had not formally joined the Jewish people as this would demand complete separation from their non-believing family and associates. Finally other pagans, never drawn to Judaism began accepting Christ ultimately outnumbering the first Jewish believers.

Is the number of Christians still growing today? In 2011 BBC reported that more people go to church on Sunday in China than in the whole of Europe. In 1900 there were approximately 10 million Christians in Africa, mostly in the historic Coptic and Ethiopian Churches and among Italians, Greeks and other settlers. A little over a century later the number has reached 500 million. And where, in 1900, Africans accounted for only 2% of the world’s Christians, today they number 20%.

Persecution (v. 17-18) – As the number of Christian’s in the Roman Empire grew, they came to be seen as a threat to the state. Christians in the empire were persecuted from time to time and from region to region until ad 311, when the Great Persecution of Diocletian came to an end.

Religious persecution has often been carried out with political overtones. When Rome was persecuting Christians, they were welcomed in its neighboring rival, the Persian Empire. When Rome embraced Christianity the Persians began persecuting Christians as Roman sympathizers.

Today Christians may be persecuted outright for political reasons, as in North Korea, or in strongholds of other religions in Asia and Africa. In the historically Christian nations of the West, the contemporary “powers that be” have increasingly marginalized religion, striving to keep it behind church doors for people who fancy that sort of thing. Public figures regularly pit Christian values against “human rights,” “women’s health” and the like. Thus even Mother Teresa of Calcutta was vilified for calling abortion “a great destroyer of peace” when accepting the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize. One lives Gospel values in the public sector at one’s own risk.

Divine Protection (vv.19-20) – The apostles, miraculously delivered from prison, went right back to the temple. As was reported to the Sanhedrin: “Look, the men whom you put in prison are standing in the temple and teaching the people!” (v. 25). When questioned about why they had disobeyed the council’s demand that they stop, Peter and the others replied with a phrase that has repeatedly been used since against opponents of the Gospel: “We ought to obey God rather than men” (v. 29).

From the apostles’ preaching at Solomon’s Porch to our own day the Holy Spirit, given by Christ, has protected and made fruitful the proclamation of the Gospel.

If any man be devout and love God, let him enjoy this fair and radiant triumphal feast.
If any man be a wise servant, let him rejoicing enter into the joy of his Lord.
If any have labored long in fasting, let him now receive his recompense.

If any have wrought from the first hour, let him today receive his just reward.
If any have come at the third hour, let him with thankfulness keep the feast.
If any have arrived at the sixth hour, let him have no misgivings; because he shall in no wise be deprived therefore.
If any have delayed until the ninth hour, let him draw near, fearing nothing.
If any have tarried even until the eleventh hour, let him, also, be not alarmed at his tardiness; for the Lord, who is jealous of his honor, will accept the last even as the first; he gives rest unto him who comes at the eleventh hour, even as unto him who has wrought from the first hour.

And he shows mercy upon the last, and cares for the first; and to the one he gives, and upon the other he bestows gifts.
And he both accepts the deeds, and welcomes the intention, and honors the acts and praises the offering.
Wherefore, enter you all into the joy of your Lord; and receive your reward, both the first, and likewise the second.

You rich and poor together, hold high festival.
You sober and you heedless, honor the day.
Rejoice today, both you who have fasted and you who have disregarded the fast.
The table is full-laden; feast ye all sumptuously.
The calf is fatted; let no one go hungry away.
Enjoy ye all the feast of faith: Receive ye all the riches of loving-kindness.

Let no one bewail his poverty, for the universal kingdom has been revealed.
Let no one weep for his iniquities, for pardon has shown forth from the grave.
Let no one fear death, for the Savior’s death has set us free.
He that was held prisoner of it has annihilated it. By descending into Hell, He made Hell captive.

He embittered it when it tasted of His flesh. And Isaiah, foretelling this, did cry:
Hell, said he, was embittered, when it encountered Thee in the lower regions.
It was embittered, for it was abolished.
It was embittered, for it was mocked.
It was embittered, for it was slain.
It was embittered, for it was overthrown.
It was embittered, for it was fettered in chains.
It took a body, and met God face to face.
It took earth, and encountered Heaven.
It took that which was seen, and fell upon the unseen.

O Death, where is your sting? O Hell, where is your victory?
Christ is risen, and you are overthrown!
Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen!
Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice!
Christ is risen, and life reigns!
Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in the grave!
For Christ, being risen from the dead, is become the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. To Him be glory and dominion unto ages of ages. Amen.