Volume I, December,

Issue 1 2014

Christ is Born!
The Holy Protection
of the Mother of God
Greek Orthodox Cathedral
26-37 12th Street
Astoria, NY 11102
 On the 25th of December, according to the Church calendar—
which falls on the 7th of January on the civil calendar—,
we celebrate the Nativity of our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ.

Christ is born! Glorify Him!

Table of Contents
Page
The Nativity of Our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ……. 2
Sermon of Metropolitan Anthony of NY:
Sunday Before the Nativity…………………… 3

Teachings of the Holy Fathers on the Nativity……………… 6

Nativity Hymn in English, Greek, and Church Slavonic…… 7

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the Mother of God Printing Press.
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 The Nativity of Our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ

B ut when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His
Son (Galatians 4:4) to save the human race. And when nine
months were fulfilled from the Annunciation, when the Archangel
Gabriel had appeared to the Most-holy Virgin in Nazareth,
saying, Rejoice, thou that art highly favored … behold, thou shalt
conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a Son (Luke 1:28, 31), at that
time there went forth a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the people
of the Roman Empire should be taxed. In accordance with this decree,
everyone had to go to his own town and be registered. That is why the
righteous Joseph came with the Most-holy Virgin to Bethlehem, the
city of David, for they were both of the royal lineage of David. Since
many people descended on this small town for the census, Joseph and
Mary were unable to find lodging in any house, and they sought shelter
in a cave which shepherds used as a sheepfold.
In this cave-on the night between Saturday and Sunday, on the 25th
of December-the Most-holy Virgin gave birth to the Savior of the world,
the Lord Jesus Christ. Giving birth to Him without pain just as He was
conceived without sin by the Holy Spirit and not by man, she herself
wrapped Him in swaddling clothes, worshiped Him as God, and laid
Him in a manger. Then the righteous Joseph drew near and worshiped
Him as the Divine Fruit of the Virgin's womb. Then the shepherds came
in from the fields, directed by an angel of God, and worshiped Him as
the Messiah and Savior. The shepherds heard a multitude of God's
angels singing: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good
will toward men (Luke 2:14). At that time three wise men arrived from
the east, led by a wondrous star, bearing their gifts: gold, frankincense
and myrrh. They worshiped Him as the King of kings, and offered Him
their gifts (Matthew 2).
Thus entered the world He Whose coming was foretold by the
prophets, and Who was born in the same manner in which it had been
prophesied: of a Most-holy Virgin, in the town of Bethlehem, of the
lineage of David according to the flesh, at the time when there was no
king in Jerusalem of the lineage of Judah, but rather when Herod, a
foreigner, was reigning. After many types and prefigurings, messengers
and heralds, prophets and righteous men, wise men and kings, finally
He appeared, the Lord of the world and King of kings, to perform the
work of the salvation of mankind, which could not be performed by His
servants.
To Him be eternal glory and praise! Amen.
- The Prologue From Ohrid, December 25/January 7

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 Sermon of Metropolitan Anthony of New York
Sunday Before the Nativity
December, 24 2012/January 6, 2013

I n the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
O the condescension of God! O the condescension that was
shown by the Holy Trinity, which in Its common Will sent Him Who is
One of the Trinity, the Son of our Lord God the Father, sent Him to the
earth for the project, for the salvation of mankind. There were other
gods who took on the form of mankind, but these gods were not gods in
any case, they were demons. And they only took on human form to
work some kind of mischief, usually to take away one of our daughters,
or one of our sons, depending on the appetite of the moment of these
pitiable creatures, these ancient gods, whatever their name.
And so it was that our Saviour Jesus Christ not only came to earth,
not only did He appear as man, not only did He take on our form, but
He took unto Himself our nature, with all of its wrinkles, with all of its
moles, with all of its warts, took on all of those passions which are
called blameless passions that do not lead to sin, such as hunger, thirst,
fatigue. For He took on all of our nature so that He might renew it, so
that He might heal it. Because as St. Athanasius the Great said, as he
was defending the Divinity of our Saviour in the face of the Arian
heresy, he said, “That which has not been taken on has not been
healed.” That which our Saviour didn’t take on couldn’t be healed. So
He took on all of us, all of our nature, excepting sin, which is not part
of our nature. For sin is a parasite, sin is something that lives on us, but
no matter how long it lives on us, it never becomes part of us. One
might have a parasite in his body that may live as long as he does. But
that parasite, whether it is a tapeworm or a heartworm or any of the
other parasites to which we are heir, will never ever become human or
even part of us.
So He took on our human nature that He might heal it. He took on
our human nature that not only would those of Israel, the Chosen
People, be saved, but also even those who were not of Israel, that is us.
But already there is a hint; there is a hint of this spreading out of the
Grace of God into the nations, when we read His family tree, as the
Holy Apostle St. Matthew has declared it to us. For if I was writing my
family tree, if I was tracing my lineage, there are a good many people
in the names that we heard today, that I would prefer to leave out,
because they are no credit to me. And there is even one from the
nations, Ruth, who was not of Israel, and yet she, together with her
husband Boaz, gave birth to one of the ancestors of our Saviour.
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 For our Saviour did not come only to save one nation, but He came
to save all the nations. He came to save all of the people. He took on
our nature that He might heal it. And that healing was accomplished by
His Incarnation, by those things that He suffered at the hands of people,
by those things that He underwent, the torments He underwent, having
been betrayed, and arrested, and tormented, and tried as if He were a
common criminal. And then executed in a manner that was saved for
the worst of criminals, that is crucifixion. But it was on that Cross, that
the handwriting that was against us was torn. The nails, and the lance,
and the crown of thorns, and the Cross itself, all acted together so that
the writing that was against us might be blotted out, and that once again
we may become children of the Most High.
So here we are in the midst of winter, where all around us it seems
that everything is, for all intents and purposes, dead. No fruits, few
leaves, those few trees that our Lord made to remain green, being the
only assurance that this death is not permanent and is not everywhere.
But it is still a dark and dreary time. Yet in the middle of this dank, cold
season, in the middle of all of this death, there is a light. And that light
is the Feast of the Birth of our Saviour Jesus Christ. There is a light
shining in that dark cave; there is a light pouring down from the
Heaven. For that star, although it appeared to be a star, was not a star. It
was the Glory of God; it was the uncreated Glory of God that shone
forth, and which led the Magi from Persia to that little cave. Not to a
palace, not to a great home, a mansion of a prince, but to a cave, and
not only to a cave, but to a manger. A manger is that container,
whatever it may be made of, that husbandmen and farmers will put the
food that the animals eat: the hay, the grain. They will put it there, so
that the animals might eat. What could be more humble than this? What
further humiliation could our Saviour undergo? And yet even as we
contemplate that cave, and that manger, and that light, and that glory,
and that angelic song, we remember, even as the Most Holy Theotokos
is about to learn, that her Son will be tortured and crucified, and that
this sword will pierce her heart also.
We have been given the greatest gift, my dear brothers and sisters.
We have been given the greatest gift that there is, and that is our
Orthodox Faith. It is the faith that we have from God Himself, of
correct worship, of correct knowledge, insofar as it is possible for
people to understand. We have been given this unbelievable gift from
the Father of Lights: this Holy Orthodox Faith. That Faith that we
confess, and that we really should be living. For we should be living
according to our confession, and not according to the world’s decisions
on how we should live.

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 We have received this great gift. Many gifts were given to our Lord
that evening, that night in Bethlehem. We know that the skies were full
of joy and heavenly singing of the choirs of Angels that filled the night
sky with their glorious hymns. We know that the earth gave Him the
cave in which He was born. We know that the Magi gave Him gifts:
gold, frankincense, and myrrh. All of these having a symbolic meaning;
all of them meaning something. Gold as to a King, frankincense as the
worship due to a King, and the adoration due to Him, and myrrh
portending His death. Because it was with myrrh and with other such
spices that His Body was anointed and wrapped, in the manner of the
Jews in burial. The shepherds gave Him their wonder. We know that the
human race gave Him the All Pure Mother, from whom He took our
nature. We know that humanity in general gave to our Saviour that gift.
But I know that any honourable person, when he is granted a gift as
great as our Orthodox Faith, a gift as great as our salvation through the
crucified and risen Christ, a gift as great as that which we profess and
which we try to live; that each of us, subjectively, wants to give Him
something, as a matter of honour. We have to give Him something.
So this was asked of an elder, and the elder said, “Christ asks of you
that you give Him your sins.” That you give Him your sins so that He
might cleanse you; give Him your sins so that He might lighten you,
give Him your sins that you become a true child of the Light; give Him
your sins that He might take them on Himself, so that He might tear up
our indictment, so that He might cure us totally, each individually,
subjectively. For it is true that objectively salvation is there, for the
taking. But unless we accept it subjectively, I myself, then that
salvation may as well not be there.
Give Him your sins; give Him your sins that you might become the
light-bearing children of God, so that our Saviour can say on that Day,
“Behold.” He can say to His Father, “Behold the children that You have
given Me,” and that we might, by the Grace of God, be among those
children; that we might have as an advocate Christ Himself; that we
will not need anyone else to stand for us. Because on that Day, no one
else can stand for us, no lawyer can argue for us, but only Christ
Himself, Who will stand Advocate before the Throne of the Majesty, in
which He Himself will sit to judge mankind.
So it is that I ask of myself and of you, to prepare a place for Him,
to turn your heart into a manger wherein might recline the King
of Glory. And if He is in you, then you too will all be light; you too will
all be saved; you too will also be among those who will inherit that
great inheritance that has been prepared for those who love God and
those who worship Him in an Orthodox fashion, those who have loved

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Him and His Coming, those who have responded to His invitation,
those who have given up their sins, that they might be loosed from
those sins. For He is true, and He will not gainsay His prophecies for us,
but will give us of His Kingdom. To Him, and to His Father, and to the
Holy Spirit be glory and honour unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Teachings of the Holy Fathers on the Nativity

And so, my brothers, the feast of the Nativity of Christ reminds us

that we are born of God, that we are sons of God (I John 3:1), that we
have been saved from sin (Matt. 1:21) and that we must live for God
and not sin; not for flesh and blood, not for the world which lies in evil
(I John 5:19). What does the Incarnation of the Son of God require of
us? It requires of us to remember and hold in sacred honor the fact that
we are born of God; and if we have sullied and trampled upon this
birthright with our sins, we must restore it by washing it with tears of
repentance; we must restore and renew blessedness, truth and holiness
which has been destroyed. ‘Now God became man, that He may make
Adam a god’ (Stichera for lauds of Annunciation).
-St. John of Kronstadt, My Life in Christ

There is no need to fear that God should seem to suffer constraint in

the tiny body of a child: for God is not in size, but in moral power…
That moral power, without changing for the worse, took to itself the
rational soul, and through that the human body, and the whole man, to
change it for the better; in condescension taking from it the name of
humanity, in generosity bestowing on it the name of divinity.
- Blessed Augustine of Hippo, Letters, 137.8

“And she brought forth her firstborn Son…” (Luke 2:7)

By firstborn he here means, not the first among several brethren, but
one who was both her first and only son; for some such sense as this
exists among the significations of ‘firstborn.’ For sometimes also the
Scripture calls that the first when it is the only one; as ‘I am God, the
First, and with Me there is no other’ (Isa. 44:6). To show then that the
Virgin did not bring forth a mere man, there is added the word firstborn;
for as she continued to be a virgin, she had no other son but Him Who
is of the Father also proclaims by the voice of David, ‘And I will set
Him Firstborn high among the kings of the earth’ (Psalm 88:27).
- St. Cyril of Alexandria,
Commentary on the Gospel of St. Luke, Homily 1

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 Christ is born! Glorify Him!
Nativity Hymn
Troparion, Tone 4

(English)
Thy Nativity, O Christ our God,
hath shined the light of knowledge upon the world;
for thereby, they that worshiped the stars
were instructed by a star
to worship Thee, the Sun of Righteousness,
and to know Thee, the Dayspring from on high.
O Lord, glory be to Thee.

(Greek)
Η γέννησις Σου Χριστέ ο Θεός ημών
ανέτειλε τω κόσμω το φως το της γνώσεως.
Εν αυτή γαρ οι τοις άστροις λατρεύοντες
υπό αστέρος εδιδάσκοντο.
Σε προσκυνείν τον ήλιον της δικαιοσύνης
και σε γιγνώσκειν εξ ύψους ανατολήν.
Κύριε δόξα Σοι.

(Church Slavonic)
Рождество Твое, Христе Боже наш,
возсия мирови свет разума:
в нем бо звездам служащии звездою учахуся
Тебе кланятися Солнцу правды
и Тебе ведети с высоты востока:
Господи, слава Тебе!

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the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Holy Protection of the Mother of God
for proper disposal.
Thank you.