Ancient Faith Ministries

Aug 5, 2025 • 2h 19m

"Tollhouses," the belief that after death a soul is subject to a series of questions or examinations about its life, is an area of disagreement in Orthodoxy. Where does the idea come from? Is it a firmly settled teaching expected of all Orthodox? Fr. Costas will join us! "Galway" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Aug 5, 2025 • 1 min

In her own lifetime she was a wonderworker through her holy prayers. She brought her husband back from idolatry to Christian faith; he later became bishop of Nazianzus. Her son Gregory's profound and devout writings bespeak the Christian upbringing she gave him. By her prayers she once saved St Gregory from perishing in a storm. She was a deaconess, and reposed in peace in 374.

Aug 4, 2025 • 1 min

During a persecution of Christians under the Emperor Decius, these seven Christian youths hid themselves in a cave outside Ephesus. When they were discovered, their persecutors sealed them in the cave to die; but God instead sent them a miraculous, life-preserving sleep. There they rested for about two hundred years. In the time of the Emperor Theodosius the Younger (408-450), a heresy that denied the bodily Resurrection of the dead began to trouble the people. The Emperor prayed God to reveal the truth to the people. At this time, some shepherds removed the stones blocking the cave in order to build a sheep-pen. They discovered the seven youths, who awoke in full health and told their miraculous story. The miracle was told throughout the empire, and the Emperor himself came to Ephesus and spoke with the youths. A week later, they again fell asleep, this time in death.

Aug 3, 2025 • 1 min

She was the mother of the Apostles James and John, the wife of Zebedee, and the daughter of Joseph the Betrothed, who was a widower when he became betrothed to the Mother of God. She was a disciple of the Lord and one of the Myrrh-bearing women who first brought tidings of the Resurrection to the world.

Aug 2, 2025 • 1 min

As Bishop of Rome from 254 to 257, he battled the Novatian heresy. By his prayers he once healed Lucilla, the daughter of the Roman tribune Nemesius; for this both father and daughter were baptized into Christ. Saint Stephen and twelve of his priests were beheaded during a celebration of the Liturgy, during the reign of Valerian.

Aug 1, 2025 • 46 min

Today we explore the story of Takume Sawabe, the first Japanese Orthodox Christian convert. The samurai who almost killed St. Nicholas of Japan. This short documentary was produced by Michael ( @mslfilms ) as a project at our recent Lampstand Institute at Ancient Faith Radio HQ. To hear more from attendees of the program and to hear Michael's interview watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t---4wJYUys&t=613s

Aug 1, 2025 • 5 min

Born in Russia in 1836, he became one of the great Orthodox missionaries of modern times. As a boy, he resolved to become a missionary in the far East. With the counsel and blessing of Bishop Innocent of Siberia and Alaska, he went to Japan in 1861 and joined a small Russian mission there. Though the mission's official purpose was to minister to the Russian consular community, the consul-general who invited Hieromonk Nikolai hoped to bring the light of the Orthodox Faith to the Japanese people as well. Realizing that he could only hope to convert the Japanese people if they understood one another well, Fr Nikolai immersed himself in the study of Japanese thought, culture and language. Over the course of his life he translated most of the Bible and most of the Orthodox services into Japanese, and became a fluent speaker of the language. He encountered much resistance: Preaching of Christian doctrine was officially banned in Japan, and a Samurai once approached him with the words "Foreigners must die!" It was this same Samurai who later became his first Japanese priest. In 1880 he was elevated to Bishop of Japan. During the Russo-Japanese war he remained in Japan and labored successfully to overcome nationalist strife that might have harmed or destroyed the Church in Japan. He encouraged all his Japanese faithful to pray for the Japanese armed forces, though he explained that as a Russian he could not do so, and excluded himself from all public services for the duration of the war. He sent Russian-speaking Japanese priests to the prison camps to minister to Russian prisoners of war. At the time of his repose in 1912, after forty-eight years in Japan, St Nikolai left a Cathedral, eight churches, more than 400 chapels and meeting houses, 34 priests, 8 deacons, 115 lay catechists, and 34,110 Orthodox faithful. The Church of Japan is now an autonomous Orthodox Church under the mantle of the Moscow Patriarchate.

Jul 31, 2025 • 3 min

"Saint Eudocimus was from Cappadocia, the son of pious and most illustrious parents, patricians in rank. He especially cultivated chastity and mercy, the one by never meeting the gaze of a woman, the other by cheerfully providing the needs of the poor. When he was made military commander of Cappadocia, he continued in his righteous ways, showing mercy and uprightness in all his dealings. Having so lived in piety, quietly and without ostentation, he was called from this life at the age of thirty-three, about the year 840, during the reign of the Iconoclast Theophilus. Not long after his burial, his grave became a fountain of unending miracles, as God revealed the virtue that Eudocimus had striven to hide; when his grave was later opened, his body was found incorrupt. His holy relics were translated to Constantinople." (Great Horologion)

Jul 30, 2025 • 49 min

Beth Thielman joins the conversation on disability in the church, clarifying that creating inclusive environments in our parish settings and ministries is more than saying "everyone is welcome," and then not taking steps to remove barriers for full participation in worship and church life. When we make pivots in the way we operate in order to make church life accessible, we offer a love that removes barriers which are for some of the faithful, like mountains.

Jul 30, 2025 • 2 min

She was the daughter of Scanderbeg, Albania's national hero. She married Stefan, Prince of Serbia, a kinsman of Scanderbeg who sought refuge in his court. Stefan, a gentle, God-fearing man, had been blinded by the Turkish Sultan. Princess Angelina, loving him despite his loss of his vision and his worldly kingdom, married him with her father's blessing. Together they had two sons, George and John. When their sons were grown, Albania was ravaged by an invasion of the Turks. Stefan, with Angelina and their sons, fled to Italy, where they lived until his repose in 1468. The widowed Angelina buried her husband in his Serbian homeland and devoted her remaining years to good works. Her elder son George gave up his princely title and entered monastic life. John married but died without children in 1503. When Angelina had outlived her two sons as well as her husband she too entered monastic life. She was buried with her sons at Krušedol monastery in northern Serbia. There her miracle-working relics are venerated to this day, and a service is held each year in her memory. She, her husband and her two sons are all glorified as saints of the Church.

Jul 29, 2025 • 2 min

She was a maiden from Antioch who lived (perhaps as a slave) in the house of Sabina, wife of a Senator. When Seraphima brought the senator's wife to faith in Christ, the governor summoned Seraphima before him. When she held firm in her faith, he cast her into prison and send several young men to her cell by night to defile her. When they arrived, she was praying to God, and an angel of the Lord appeared before them, clothed in light and bearing a sword; and the young men fell down unconscious. Finally, Seraphima received her martyr's crown when she was beheaded by the governor's order. Sabina, the senator's wife, recovered and buried her body, from which a healing myrrh flowed. This was during the reign of Hadrian.

Jul 29, 2025 • 1h 50m

What is the body, and why does it matter what we do to it or with it after someone dies? Will you or someone else control your final destiny? The Church does not give cremation as an option. Why not? Why does the choice made for you by others at the end of your life matter? "Galway" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Jul 28, 2025 • 2h 9m

This month, Molly and Cynthia talk with Father Paul Jannakos on the topic of loneliness, what it can stem from, and offer solutions.

Jul 28, 2025 • 3 min

"Saint Irene, who was from Cappadocia, flourished in the ninth century. Because of her great beauty and virtue, she was brought to Constantinople as a prospective bride for the young Emperor Michael (8422-867); however, as St Joannicius the Great foretold, it was God's will that she assume the monastic habit instead. She shone forth in great ascetical labors, and suffered many attacks from the demons; while yet a novice, she attained to the practice of St Arsenius the Great, of praying the whole night long with arms stretched out towards Heaven (see May 8). God showed forth great signs and wonders in her, and she became the Abbess of the Convent of Chrysovalantou. She was granted the gift of clairvoyance and knew the thoughts of all that came to her. She appeared in a vision to the king and rebuked him for unjustly imprisoning a nobleman who had been falsely accused. Through a sailor from Patmos to whom he had appeared, St John the Theologian sent her fragrant and wondrous apples from Paradise. She reposed at the age of 103, still retaining the youthful beauty of her countenance. After her repose, marvellous healings beyond number have been wrought by her to the present day." (Great Horologion)

Jul 27, 2025 • 1 min

He was born in Nicomedia; his father was a pagan, his mother a Christian. Through her he was taught the Christian Faith and baptized by St Hermolaus (July 26). He became a physician, and practiced his art with compassion and generosity, healing many more through his prayers as by his medicines. His parents had named him Pantoleon ("in all things a lion"), but because of his great compassion he was re-named Panteleimon ("all- merciful"). He once healed a man of blindness by calling on Christ, which led the once-blind man to embrace the Faith. When asked how he came to be healed he named Panteleimon as his healer and proclaimed his newfound faith in Christ. For this the pagans executed him, then arrested Panteleimon, who after many tortures was beheaded in 305. He is counted as the foremost of the Unmercenary Physicians.

Jul 26, 2025 • 2 min

She was born near Rome to pious parents. Since she was born on a Friday, she was named Paraskeve (Friday in Greek; literally "preparation" or "preparedness" because Friday was the Biblical Day of Preparation for the Sabbath). From early childhood she studied the scriptures, consecrated herself to a monastic life, and brought many to faith in Christ by her example and teaching. During the reign of Antoninus she was arrested because she was a Christian. When ordered to worship the idols, she answered "Let the gods that have not made heaven and the earth perish from off the earth" (Jeremiah 10:11). For this, after severe tortures she was beheaded in 140.

Jul 25, 2025 • 5 min

She was born to a noble family in Constantinople: her father Anysius Secundus was a senator. She was betrothed to a nobleman who died before they could be wed; resisting all advice to take another husband, Olympias devoted herself entirely to God, giving her large inheritance to the Church and to the poor. She served as a deaconess, first under the Patriarch Nektarios, then under St John Chrysostom. When St John was sent into exile, he advised her to remain in Constantinople, and to continue to serve the Church whatever patriarch took his place. But as soon as the holy hierarch went into exile, a fire destroyed a large part of the City, and St John's enemies accused the holy Olympias of setting the fire. She in turn was exiled to Nikomedia, where she reposed in 408. She left instructions that her body be placed in a coffin and thrown into the sea, to be buried wherever it was cast up. The coffin came to shore at Vrochthoi and was buried there at a church dedicated to the Apostle Thomas. Her relics have continued to be a source of great miracles of healing.   During his exile, St John Chrysostom wrote a number of letters to St Olympias, seventeen of which have been preserved through the centuries. In one he writes: 'Now I am deeply joyful, not only because you have been delivered from sickness, but even more because you are bearing adversities with such fortitude, calling them trifles — a characteristic of a soul filled with power and abounding in the rich fruits of courage. You are not only enduring misfortune with fortitude, but are making light of it in a seemingly effortless way, rejoicing and triumphing over it — this is a proof of the greatest wisdom.'

Jul 24, 2025 • 3 min

She was from Tyre in Syria, the daughter of a pagan named Urban. She is a miraculous example of one brought to faith in Christ without any human intervention. When she was about eleven years old, her father, seeing her great beauty and wanting to protect her from men until she was grown, made her live alone on the top floor of a fine house, with slaves, all worldly comforts, and gold and silver idols. Passing the time by looking out the window, Christina came by her meditations on the beauty and order of nature to believe in the one, living God. An Angel of the Lord then came to her, who marked her with the sign of the Cross and instructed her in the truth of the Gospel. The newly-enlightened Christina smashed all the idols in her room, so infuriating her father that he sent her to be tortured and beheaded for her faith. Her father, though in good health and in the prime of life, died that night. Christina was subjected to horrible tortures and mutilations, and finally died by the sword, her faith unshaken.   Troparion to St Christina: O Lord Jesus, unto Thee Thy lamb doth cry with a great voice:* O my Bridegroom, Thee I love;* and seeking Thee, I now contest, and with Thy baptism am crucified and buried.* I suffer for Thy sake, that I may reign with Thee;* for Thy sake I die, that I may live in Thee:* accept me offered out of longing to Thee as a spotless sacrifice.* Lord, save our souls through her intercessions,* since Thou art great in mercy.

Jul 23, 2025 • 2 min

He was a disciple of St Peter, born in Antioch. St Peter took him to Rome (he was bishop of Antioch before being bishop of Rome, so Antioch is as much the 'see of Peter' as is Rome) and made him Bishop of Ravenna. In Ravenna, he healed the wife of the military governor of a grave illness, after which the governor and his household confessed Christ and were baptized. Apollinarius was able to form a house church in the governor's home, from which he labored for the Gospel for twelve years. Eventually, he was condemned to exile in Illyria for his faith, and began a life of missionary travel in the Balkans, travelling as far as the Danube. After twelve years of this work, he was driven back to Italy by the hostility of some of the pagans. He was received with joy by the people of Ravenna, which aroused the envy of the pagan elders, who denounced him to the Emperor Vespasian. When the elders asked permission to kill Apollinarius, the Emperor only gave them permission to drive him from the city, wisely saying 'It is not seemly to take revenge on behalf of the gods, for they can themselves be revenged on their enemies if they are angered.' But, in defiance of the Imperial decree, the pagan leaders attacked and killed Apollinarius with knives. His holy relics are preserved in Ravenna, in a church dedicated to him.

Jul 22, 2025 • 2 min

She was from the town of Magdala on the Sea of Galilee, for which reason she is called "Magdalene." The Lord Jesus cast out seven demons from her, after which she became His faithful disciple, following Him even to the Cross when most of His disciples had fled. With the other holy Myrrh-bearers, she prepared the spices to anoint His body and carried them to His tomb. There she was one of the first witnesses to the Resurrection, and the first to proclaim it.   Various traditions hold that, after Christ's ascension, she traveled to Rome, where she presented the Emperor with a red egg and proclaimed "Christ is Risen!" For this reason her icons often show her holding a red egg, and from this the tradition of distributing red eggs at Pascha is said to have arisen. She is then said to have travelled to Ephesus where she helped St John the Theologian in his gospel ministry before reposing there.   Mary Magdalene is sometimes identified with the "sinful woman" of the Gospels, but this is not the Church's tradition. Neither the Gospels nor the sacred hymnography of the Church make this connection.   The name 'Madeleine' is a form of 'Magdalene'.