https://www.roeanz.com.au/parohia/780

Saint Gregory the Theologian Mission, Mona Vale (2026)

09/09/2026

Random thoughts

"A successful society of learners, or a flourishing philosophical school—read a genuine ecclesial community—must be solidly anchored in axiological criteria. Hierarchies, when they work in the Spirit’s parameters, are the outcome and the proof of solid criteria. But when the hierarchies are dysfunctional—such as when power takes precedence, not worthiness—the falsity of their axiological claims is obvious to all. When the Spirit’s criteria are no longer the norm, when the pyramid of power is substituted for the hierarchy of worthiness, the school must be closed down and reinvented. Genuine communities live only when what catalyses their rhythms is the Gospel’s truth. True ecclesial hierarchies must be axiological and ministerial, not authoritarian. Only when we accept this basic truth and act on it can the church return to being Christ’s school of disciples, which it no longer is. Saint Neilus warned us of the current situation long ago, in his Ascetic Discourse. Therefore, in order to rebuild our communities we must foster a context propitious for the birth of worthy guides. And to arrive there we must relearn what the church is, namely, a community solidly anchored in axiological criteria. The current system of institutionalised, pyramidal, power-driven hierarchies is not it."

An excerpt from D. Costache, The Orthodox Spring: A Diary, second edition (Sydney: AIOCS Press, 2021) 52–53.

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Română
https://www.facebook.com/aiocs.net/posts/pfbid02xEkGK8ci3ZPRZ3uchy3onRjoVqQcLEPC8RipyvF4SMF4wRhXGFNfT8XaPJYzLMnsl

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Academic works by the same author:

Nature Contemplation in Clement of Alexandria: Elements of the Method
https://www.facebook.com/sgtmission/posts/pfbid0nNpY7dD2xMPGaghUqD6of3EiowSQe6L5sRN28y1LDBR92ggdup2mFk9cHnJCEhZkl

A New Copernican Turn: Contemporary Cosmology, the Self, and Orthodox Science-Engaged Theology
https://www.routledge.com/A-New-Copernican-Turn-Contemporary-Cosmology-the-Self-and-Orthodox-Science-Engaged-Theology/Costache-Lewis/p/book/9781032863498

Humankind and the Cosmos: Early Christian Representations
https://brill.com/display/title/60404

Dreams, Virtue and Divine Knowledge in Early Christian Egypt
https://www.cambridge.org/au/universitypress/subjects/classical-studies/ancient-history/dreams-virtue-and-divine-knowledge-early-christian-egypt

Free access to most of his research and scholarly publications
https://aucd.academia.edu/DoruCostache

Full CV and list of publications
https://aucd.academia.edu/DoruCostache/CurriculumVitae

09/09/2026

Images of Feminine Holiness ©
Retold by Ani-Eliza Busuioc

Holy Martyrs Menodora, Metrodora, and Nymphodora
10 September

These three sisters lived in Bithynia during the reign of Emperor Maximian. They went to a deserted area, applying themselves to fasting and prayer. Soon, local believers heard of their way of life and many sought guidance and healing through their prayers. But Fronto, the governor, had them arrested. Moved by their beauty, he tried to convince them to bring sacrifices to the idols, promising that the emperor will give them in marriage to noble husbands and that they will have a pleasant life.

Menodora, the eldest, replied, “God made us beautiful by creating us in His image. Only Him do we worship. We do not need the rewards you mention. Who can surpass our Lord Jesus Christ, whose brides we are? Our souls belong to Him and to no one else.” Metrodora added, “What would be the gain of earning the world if we lose our soul? Compared to Christ, our Bridegroom, this world is as darkness is when compared to the sun.”

To this Fronto replied, “Keep talking, but you have no idea of the sufferings you will experience.” Nymphodora answered, “You cannot frighten us. Bring on your tortures. You will tire hitting us, but we shall not turn away from Christ. Torture will be for us paradise and death will be eternal life.” As Fronto kept pleading with them, Menodora answered that their joy in heaven will be endless, while these sufferings will be for just a short while. Then she prayed, “Lord Jesus Christ, our God, we will not reject You before people; we ask You, please do not reject us before Your heavenly Father.”

Enraged, Fronto had the younger sisters removed while Menodora was stripped off of her clothes and savagely beaten. Her body being broken, with her last breath she cried, “Lord Jesus, my joy and the love of my heart, receive my soul in peace!”

After four days, the governor showed to Metrodora and Nymphodora the body of their sister, telling them that this is the fate that awaits them. But the girls exclaimed, “Blessed are you, our sister, for you received the martyr’s crown! Pray to the Lord, in whose presence you now are, so that we, too, come to Him and rejoice for ever.” Since Fronto tried to persuade them, they affirmed their desire to die for Christ, as their sister did.

At that, the governor had Nymphodora removed from the hall, and ordered that Metrodora be hanged and burned alive. After two hours of horrible ordeal, he commanded the torturers to beat her with iron bars. Thus did Metrodora surrender her soul in the Lord’s arms. After this, they had Nymphodora torn apart with iron claws. She kept praying under the torture, for which reason they started to beat her with the same iron bars till she died. Thus did the three virgins glorify the Holy Trinity, by their martyr’s death.

Fronto ordered that their bodies by burned on a huge pyre. But fire from the sky fell on him and on the executioners, consuming them entirely, while the rain extinguished the pyre on which they attempted to cremate the bodies of the three martyrs. Several believers retrieved the bodies of the saints, burying them with reverence in one grave.

Through their prayers, Lord Jesus Christ, our God, have mercy on us!

[Trans. from Romanian and adapt. by D. Costache https://aucd.edu.au/team-members/professor-doru-costache/]

The source of the image:
https://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2013/09/the-venerable-virgin-martyrs-menodora.html

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09/09/2026

Images of Feminine Holiness ©
Retold by Ani-Eliza Busuioc

Saint Anna, the Mother of the Lord’s Mother
9 September

According to legend, Anna was the daughter of priest Mathan, from the lineage of Aaron. She was the wife of Joachim, living in Nazareth, in Galilee. They were righteous, living in obedience to God, but they had no children after fifty years of marriage. This was for them reason of great sadness. When Joachim brought gifts to the temple, the high priest would not accept them saying that not having children was sign of being bereft of divine blessing.

Utterly wounded, Joachim went into the desert where he spent time in fasting and prayer, asking to receive mercy as Abraham did in his old age. Upon hearing of the high priest’s misbehaviour and of her husband’s decision to go for a retreat, Anna cried bitterly. Going into her garden, she saw a bird’s nest with young hatchlings. She started to cry, saying, “Alas, I do not measure up even to the birds, which rejoice at having their offspring. I am not even like the earth, which engenders fruitful plants. I am the lowest sinner among Israel’s daughters. They all have their children, but I do not have this comfort. Lord, you have gave Sarah a child when she was an old woman, you who blessed Anna with hr child, Samuel the Prophet, listen to my prayer too. Heal my pain so that I may offer you the fruit of my womb.”

An angel of the Lord appeared to her, assuring her that her prayer was heard and that the Lord will bless her with a daughter, Mary, who will become a blessing for all the nations. Rejoicing, Anna proceeded to travel to Jerusalem, to give thanks to God at the temple. Meanwhile, the angel appeared to Joachim, giving him the good news and asking him to travel to Jerusalem. Joachim and Anna expressed their gratitude to God together.

Once their daughter was born, they took good care of her till the age of three, when they brought her to the temple, dedicating her to God. After a few years, Saint Joachim passed to the Lord, at the age of eighty, while Anna went to the temple where she spent her time close to Most-Holy Mary, in prayerful devotion. After two more years, Saint Anna reposed in the Lord, at the age of seventy-nine.

Through her prayers, Lord Jesus Christ, our God, have mercy on us!

[Trans. from Romanian and adapt. by D. Costache https://aucd.edu.au/team-members/professor-doru-costache/]

The source of the image:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Anne

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08/09/2026

Faith & Wellbeing: A Shrink's Corner ©
by Steven-John M. Harris

In the last column, I described how the developmental attachment process can skew how we relate to God, and how this can be an asset. Awareness of our limitations helps us stand before God realistically, “as we are.” Today, I wish to discuss a dimension of our mental condition that becomes alarming and can result in diagnoses.

Symptoms, problems, and disorders develop, and while they’re unwanted, I want to say something about how these disturbing developments can be helpful. First, we can compare medical conditions to this idea. Influenza, for example, commonly includes a fever, a symptom that, if treated too readily, could inhibit healing. As long as the fever is not dangerously high, it helps white blood cells fight the virus. With mental symptoms and conditions, many of them offer meaning that may assist in the healing process. In psychology/psychiatry, we have a technical term: psychopathology. We can break this word down: psyche = psyche, pathos = suffering, and -logy = the study of something. Psychopathology is then the meaning of the suffering of the psyche. So, symptoms may reveal something about the meaning of our suffering. I’d like to illustrate this with a few examples.

In the middle of the last century, a young trainee in Jungian Analysis, Marie-Louise von Franz, describes a young psychotic patient who stated to her that she went to the moon. This was at least a few decades before humans had landed on the moon. Disturbed and perplexed, von Franz told Carl Jung in supervision, who, in turn, told her to ask the young woman when she went to the moon. The patient indicated that she went to the moon as a younger woman, during a time she was being r***d repeatedly by a family member. Taken literally, the statement is delusional; symbolically, it reveals a whole problem that had been hidden in the private shame of this woman.

Another woman was hospitalised after she became gravely suicidal. She reported the delusion that her mother had already killed her. She had viewed a wedding cake with the bride-and-groom statue on top. Seeing the statue, she indicated that the bride and groom were dead. After she began to stabilise, she reported a recent history of her mother sabotaging her marriage, requiring her to work and surrender all the money that she made because she claimed that the patient owed her rent and expenses. These actions left her practically destitute. The symbolic language of killing her helped uncover the dynamics behind her psychotic depression. Her mother’s treatment of her was sucking the life out of her—financially.

In my experience, the so-called “delusions” and other mental health symptoms, almost without exception, reveal something about the meaning of their disturbance. In our everyday experience, we should take note of our “problems” because sometimes this is where we need help in life and where we should pray for God’s mercy. This awareness may help us spiritually. The Scriptures are full of related examples that we may also take symbolically. Being healed from blindness or deafness may also relate to opening our eyes or hearing what we were previously ignorant of. God may provide clues right in front of us to show us how we need Him.

Image: 3rd-century Christian fresco depicting Jesus as "Good Shepherd"
https://www.dailysabah.com/life/3rd-century-christian-fresco-shows-jesus-as-good-shepherd/news

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07/09/2026

Saint Gregory the Theologian Mission
https://www.facebook.com/sgtmission

The Birth of the Lady
8 September 2026

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCtZOYISqgg

Readings
Philippians 2:5–11; Luke 10:38–42; 11:27–28

Discussion after the scriptural readings

For reflection:
D. Costache, Reading Scripture in the Orthodox Church: The Festal Cycle (Sydney: AIOCS Press, 2019) 67–69.

Saint Gregory the Theologian's Romanian Orthodox Parish, Inc.
Westpac Bank BSB 032-196 Account number 648939
PayPal account: paypal.me/SGTMission

07/09/2026

OUR NEXT SERVICE
https://www.facebook.com/sgtmission

Recordings found at
https://www.youtube.com/

TYPIKA Privately

The Birth of the Lady
8 September

Readings
Philippians 2:5–11; Luke 10:38–42; 11:27–28

The text of the service
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/s3rzzcsloxslmet0ab1ud/2026-09-08-Typika-Birth-of-the-Lady-privately.pdf?rlkey=1g8tx2n8fhimv0d5wovx3pgva&st=w0wyiv0g&dl=0

For reflection:
An excerpt from D. Costache, Reading Scripture in the Orthodox Church: The Festal Cycle (Sydney: AIOCS Press, 2019) 67–69.

Saint Gregory the Theologian's Romanian Orthodox Parish, Inc.
Westpac Bank BSB 032-196 Account number 648939
PayPal account: paypal.me/SGTMission

07/09/2026

The Birth of the Lady
8 September

Philippians 2:5–11 Believers should emulate Christ’s mind, or rather his way of thinking. As his action (that is, the incarnation) revealed, his mind was humbly set. For, being glorious in the divine form before the incarnation, he did not begrudge being like one of us and so he put on the slave’s form of our fallen nature. He further descended obediently (to the will of God) unto death, like one of us, but his death was on a cross, dishonourable. On account of his humility, God exalted him to the extent that only those who acknowledge his (divine) name as Lord will be able to praise (thus, know) God (and so inherit eternal reward).

Luke 10:38–42; 11:27–28 Martha endeavoured to set up a great feast in honour of Jesus while her sister Mary sat at the Lord’s feet, listening to his words. In the rush of hospitality, Martha asked the Lord to order Mary to help her, but he pointed out that Martha’s festive worries were no match for Mary’s choice to listen to him. No one could take from Mary the joy of listening to the Word, whereas Martha’s worries lead nowhere. At hearing this, a woman praised the Lord by blessing his mother. Jesus replied that blessed are those who obey God’s word.

Wisdom. Today we celebrate the birth of our Lady, Most Holy Mary, the Birth-giver of God. But in order to keep the festival with orthodox reverence we must remember that her life points towards her Lord and ours; she is a living icon of Christ, not the goal of our hope. There are many reasons for which we revere her, from the holiness of her life to her willingness to obey the Lord, from her service to him to the protection she continuously offers to God’s people. Unlike those of us who worry greatly without serenely reworking our lives in order to develop a compassionate heart, she supremely embodied the virtues of the two sisters. She had Martha’s practical aptitude for service and Mary’s contemplative quality. This is why no anxiety clouded her desire to serve. She was rightly blessed, then, by the woman in the crowd for harmonising the virtues of Martha and Mary. Above all, she was blessed for becoming the chalice of Christ’s incarnation and the cornucopia who nourished him as an infant. Only a mother, such as the anonymous mother in the crowd, could have appreciated the privileged relationship between the Lady and her Son, the Lord incarnate. Her glory is her Son. But this is the actual crux of today’s celebration. We do not venerate her primarily for her virtues. Through the lens of the last lines in the Gospel reading, we revere her for her close relationship with Christ, for her transformation into his icon and into a living pointer to him. Ultimately, it is Christ whom we glorify when we revere her. It is Christ who is God-who-saves, as his Hebrew name, Jesus, testifies. It is his selflessness which prompted his incarnation for our salvation, as the apostolic letter reminds us. In his name she rejoices. In her Son and Lord she is saved. Her birth is a step in the preparation of his incarnation—a way of glorifying him. We celebrate her by learning from her to appropriate the mind of Christ through dedicating our lives to him, as she did. When, like her, we allow God to lead and guide us, Martha’s worry becomes for us unclouded service, making room for contemplating the Word of God, whose name is above all names—the Lord who saves those who listen to him.

Message. Following in the footsteps of Most Holy Mary, all believers should adopt the mind of Christ and, through faithful service, inherit the promise.

An excerpt from D. Costache, Reading Scripture in the Orthodox Church: The Festal Cycle (Sydney: AIOCS Press, 2019) 67–69.

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05/09/2026

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The Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost
6 September 2026

Readings
2 Corinthians 1:21–2:4; Matthew 22:2–14

Discussion after the scriptural readings

For reflection:
D. Costache, Reading Scripture in the Orthodox Church: The Sunday Cycle (Sydney: AIOCS Press, 2018) 53–54.

Saint Gregory the Theologian's Romanian Orthodox Parish, Inc.
Westpac Bank BSB 032-196 Account number 648939
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05/09/2026

Images of Feminine Holiness ©
Retold by Ani-Eliza Busuioc

Saint Elizabeth the Righteous, Saint John the Baptist’s Mother
5 September

Elizabeth was a descendant of Aaron, the first priest, being related to Anna, the mother of Virgin Mary, God’s Birth-giver. Together with priest Zachariah, her husband, she led her life in obedience to God and good deeds. But they were old by now and had no children.

Once, when Zachariah served to God at the temple, the Lord’s angel appeared to him, saying, ‘Do not be afraid, Zachariah. God favours your prayer and so Elizabeth, your wife, will become fruitful giving birth to a son whom you shall name John. Many will rejoice for his birth.’ Zachariah could not believe the news and remained mute till what the angel announced came to happen.

As Saint Luke the Evangelist mentions, Elizabeth kept secret her pregnancy till its sixth month. Then the Virgin Mary visited her. Mary had received the angelic good news and, through the Holy Spirit, she conceived the Lord Jesus in her womb. At seeing Mary, Elizabeth’s baby stirred in her womb. Elizabeth, inspired by the Holy Spirit, exclaimed, ‘Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb! But what an honour for me, to be visited by the Mother of my Lord! Indeed, as I heard your greeting, the baby leaped for joy in my womb. Blessed is she who believed that all that the Lord said were true!’

When Elizabeth gave birth to her child, the family and the acquaintances wanted to name him after his father. But in that moment Zachariah’s doubt was forgiven and, being able to speak, told them that the child’s name is John. Then he prophesied that the boy will become a prophet of the Most-High, walking before the Lord and preparing the way for Him.

The tradition tells us that when Herod sent soldiers to kill the young boys in Bethlehem and the Messiah together with them, he remembered John, the son of Zachariah and Elizabeth. Being aware of the wondrous circumstances of his birth, to make sure that the Messiah is killed, he sent the soldiers after him too. The soldiers arrived at Zachariah’s home but could not find the boy because Saint Elizabeth fled with him to the mountains. The soldiers pursuing them, Elizabeth prayed with tears to God to defend her and her son. When the soldiers approached, she cried out to the mountain, ‘Mountain of God, receive in your bosom a mother and her son!’ The mountain opened and kept them safe from the soldiers.

Because the soldiers returned to him empty-handed, Herod sent them back to Zachariah, who at the time was in the temple. The soldiers asked for the boy in Herod’s name. As Zachariah claimed to be ignorant as it was during his service days at the temple, the soldiers killed him.

Elizabeth lived forty more days after her husband was killed, inside the mountain which welcomed her and her son in a cave. There it was a spring and a fig-tree which provided her and her son with fruit when they were hungry. Elizabeth surrendered her soul to the Lord in that cave. An angel took care of John till he grew up in the wilderness, in preparation of his ministry to Israel.

Through her prayers, Lord Jesus Christ, our God, have mercy on us!

[Trans. from Romanian and adapt. by D. Costache https://aucd.edu.au/team-members/professor-doru-costache/]

The source of the image:
https://au.pinterest.com/pin/38139928080073926/

Saint Gregory the Theologian's Romanian Orthodox Parish, Inc.
Westpac Bank BSB 032-196 Account number 648939
PayPal account: paypal.me/SGTMission

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04/09/2026

OUR NEXT SERVICE
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Recordings found at
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TYPIKA Online, via Zoom
(Do you want to contribute live? Please contact the priest for the Zoom link)

The Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost
6 September, 09:00 AM AEST

Readings
2 Corinthians 1:21–2:4; Matthew 22:2–14

The text of the service
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/dqcvxaxea5hr3dob2cqu9/2026-09-06-Typika-t.5.pdf?rlkey=g18766qi6mdu6vkemqzqpjplo&st=sjpypogr&dl=0

For reflection:
An excerpt from D. Costache, Reading Scripture in the Orthodox Church: The Sunday Cycle (Sydney: AIOCS Press, 2018) 53–54.

Saint Gregory the Theologian's Romanian Orthodox Parish, Inc.
Westpac Bank BSB 032-196 Account number 648939
PayPal account: paypal.me/SGTMission

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