Holy Trinity Panagia Grigoroussa Greek Orthodox Church

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Holy Trinity Panagia Grigoroussa Greek Orthodox Church

Parish Priest,The Very Rev. Fr. George Tolias. ph. +1647.893.3111
Fr. George email

06/24/2026

Light of Light, The Orthodox Truth
The Nativity of Saint John the Baptist
June 24
☦️🙏☦️🙏☦️
Today, we celebrate the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist, the holy Prophet, Forerunner, and Baptist of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Saint John holds a unique place in salvation history. He was chosen by God before his birth to prepare the way for the coming of the Messiah. Filled with the Holy Spirit even while in his mother's womb, he leaped for joy at the presence of Christ when the Virgin Mary visited Saint Elizabeth.
Living a life of prayer, repentance, and asceticism in the wilderness, John boldly called people to turn back to God. He baptized the Lord in the Jordan River, revealing Christ to Israel and witnessing the manifestation of the Holy Trinity.
Our Lord Himself praised John, saying: "Among those born of women there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist"

(Matthew 11:11).
"He must increase, but I must decrease" (John 3:30).

(John 1:29)29.The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

Saint John teaches us humility, courage, repentance, and unwavering faithfulness to the truth.

May the holy Prophet, Forerunner, and Baptist of the Lord, Saint John the Baptist, intercede for us all, and all those who seek Christ with sincerity and love.

06/19/2026

Light of Light Light of Light, The Orthodox Truth

Thaddeus (Jude) the Apostle & Brother of Our Lord
June 19
Among the Twelve Apostles was Jude, also called Thaddeus. He preferred to be known as Jude or Thaddeus so that he would not be confused with Judas Iscariot, the disciple who betrayed the Lord.
After the Resurrection and Pentecost, Jude Thaddeus carried the Gospel eastward. According to ancient Christian tradition, he preached in Samaria, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Persia. These were lands where Christ was unknown, and where pagan religions held great influence.
Through his preaching, many people embraced the Christian faith, including members of the nobility. As the number of converts increased, opposition also grew. Pagan priests and local authorities accused him of disturbing the established order and turning the people away from their ancestral gods.
Jude was arrested, threatened, and beaten, yet he refused to deny Christ. He remained steadfast in his faith and continued proclaiming the Gospel.
Eventually, he suffered martyrdom alongside the Apostle Simon the Zealot. According to tradition, Jude was beaten severely with a club and then put to Thaddeus (Jude) the Apostle &
Through his preaching, many people embraced the Christian faith, including members of the nobility. As the number of converts increased, opposition also grew. Pagan priests and local authorities accused him of disturbing the established order and turning the people away from their ancestral gods.
Jude was arrested, threatened, and beaten, yet he refused to deny Christ. He remained steadfast in his faith and continued proclaiming the Gospel.
Eventually, he suffered martyrdom alongside the Apostle Simon the Zealot. According to tradition, Jude was beaten severely with a club and then put to death. Though his body perished, his witness endured.
Over the centuries, Christians came to venerate Saint Jude as the patron saint of desperate and seemingly impossible causes. His life reminds us that no situation is beyond the mercy and power of God. his body perished, his witness endured.
Over the centuries, Christians came to venerate Saint Jude as the patron saint of desperate and seemingly impossible causes. His life reminds us that no situation is beyond the mercy and power of God.

06/01/2026

Light of Light, The Orthodox Truth
The Holy Spirit in Orthodox Theology

The Holy Spirit in The Orthodox Theology
is understood as the Third Person of the Holy Trinity — fully God, eternal, uncreated, worshipped and glorified together with the Father and the Son.
The Orthodox Church confesses in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed:
“And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, Who proceeds from the Father, Who together with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified…”
This teaching was defended especially by:
Saint Basil the Great ,
Saint Gregory the Theologian,
Saint Gregory of Nyssa and
Saint Athanasius the Great.
The Holy Spirit Is Fully God
The Orthodox Church rejects the ancient heresy of the Pneumatomachians (“fighters against the Spirit”), who claimed the Holy Spirit was a creature.
The Fathers taught that:
the Spirit sanctifies,
gives life,
reveals God,
dwells in the saints,
and performs divine actions.
Therefore He cannot be a created being.
Saint Basil writes that the Holy Spirit is:
inseparable from the Father and the Son,
sharing the same divine essence,
and worthy of the same worship.
The Spirit Proceeds from the Father.
One of the distinctive Orthodox teachings is that the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father alone.
Christ says in John 15:26:
“the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father…”
The Orthodox Church therefore rejects the later Western addition of the Filioque (“and the Son”) to the Creed.
The Father is understood as:
the sole source (arche) within the Trinity,
eternally begetting the Son,
and eternally causing the procession of the Holy Spirit.
This preserves the monarchy of the Father within Holy Spirit in the Life of the Church
In Orthodox spirituality, the Holy Spirit is not an abstract theological idea. The Spirit:
sanctifies the Church,
acts in the Mysteries (Sacraments),
illumines Scripture,
transforms the believer,
and leads humanity to theosis (union with God by grace).
The entire life of the Church is Pentecostal.
At every Divine Liturgy, the priest invokes the Holy Spirit in the Epiclesis: that the bread and wine may become the Body and Blood of Christ.
Pentecost
The feast of Pentecost is the great revelation of the Holy Spirit to the Church.
In Orthodox understanding:
Pentecost is not merely a past event,
but the continual life of the Church in the Spirit.
The descent of the Spirit upon the Apostles fulfilled Christ’s promise that the Comforter would come.
The Holy Spirit and Theosis
A central Orthodox teaching is that salvation is participation in the divine life by grace.
The Holy Spirit:
purifies,
illumines,
and deifies the believer.
As Saint Seraphim of Sarov famously taught:
“The true aim of the Christian life is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit.”

05/30/2026

Light of Light, The Orthodox Truth
Saint Macrina Tje Elder

Macrina, grandmother of St. Basil the GreatSt. Macrina the Elder was the matriarch of a famously faithful family—her son and four of her grandchildren were named saints.

Two of these grandsons helped shape the faith that we proclaim today—Basil the Great, a doctor of the Church, and his brother, Gregory of Nyssa, who helped the Church better articulate her understanding of the Trinity. Both of these men played crucial roles in formulating the Nicene Creed that Cathol

still recite every Sunday at Mass. Macrina raised both of these men and their influential younger sister, Macrina the Younger. She gave all these great saints their first religious instruction as children.

During a persecution of Christians, Macrina was forced to flee with her husband to safety. They left their home and hid in the woods for seven years. They were often hungry and had to live off of the land and whatever animals they could hunt. Not long after they were finally allowed to go home, another round of persecution took effect, and their possessions were confiscated.

Despite all these trials and tribulations, Macrina lived a long life and died around the year 340. She is a patron saint of widows and those facing poverty.

St. Macrina the Elder, grandmother who raised a great family for the Church—pray for us!

05/27/2026

Light of Light The Orthodox Truth

Saint John the Russian
Μay 27
☦️🙏☦️🙏☦️
Saint John the Russian was a humble Russian Orthodox soldier born around 1690 in what is now Ukraine or southern Russia. During the war between Russia and the Ottoman Empire, he was captured by the Turks and sold into slavery to a Turkish officer in Cappadocia, in Asia Minor.
Although he endured hardship, humiliation, and pressure to abandon his Christian faith, Saint John remained steadfast in his love for Christ. He lived in a stable beside the animals, praying constantly, fasting, and serving his master with humility and kindness. His holy life and patience impressed both Christians and Muslims alike.
God granted him the gift of miracles even during his lifetime. One well-known miracle occurred when he mysteriously brought a plate of pilaf to his master, who was far away in Mecca, proving that God had glorified His faithful servant.
Saint John fell asleep in the Lord around 1730. His body was later found incorrupt, a sign of God’s grace. After the population exchange between Greece and Turkey in the 1920s, his holy relics were transferred to the village of Prokopi on the island of Euboea (Evia), Greece, where they remain today and continue to work many miracles for the faithful.
His feast day is celebrated on May 27 in the Orthodox Church. ☦️🙏

05/24/2026

Light of Light The Orthodox. Truth

The Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council

THE A***N HERECY

The heresiarch Arius was a Libyan by race and a protopresbyter of the Church of Alexandria. In 315, he began to blaspheme against the Son and Word of God, saying that He is not true God, consubstantial with the Father, but is rather a work and creation, alien to the essence and glory of the Father, and that there was a time when He was not. This frightful blasphemy shook the faithful of Alexandria. Alexander, his Archbishop, after trying in vain to correct him through admonitions, cut him off from communion and finally in a local council deposed him in the year 321. Yet neither did the blasphemer wish to be corrected, nor did he cease sowing the deadly tares of his heretical teachings; but writing to the bishops of other cities, Arius and his followers requested that his doctrine be examined, and if it were unsound, that the correct teaching be declared to him. By this means, his heresy became universally known and won many supporters, so that the whole Church was soon in an uproar. Therefore, moved by divine zeal, the first Christian Sovereign, Saint Constantine the Great, the equal to the Apostles, summoned the renowned First Ecumenical Council in Nicaea, a city of Bithynia. It was there that the shepherds and teachers of the Church of Christ gathered from all regions in the year 325. All of them, with one mouth and one voice, declared that the Son and Word of God is one in essence with the Father, true God of true God, and they composed the holy Symbol of Faith up to the seventh article (since the remainder, beginning with "And in the Holy Spirit," was completed by the Second Ecumenical Council). Thus they anathematized the impious Arius of evil belief and those of like mind with him, and cut them off as rotten members from the whole body of the faithful. Therefore, recognizing the divine Fathers as heralds of the Faith after the divine Apostles, the Church of Christ has appointed this present Sunday for their annual commemoration, in thanksgiving and unto the glory of God, unto their praise and honour, and unto the strengthening of the true Faith.

05/21/2026

Saints Constantine and Helen, Equal to the Apostles
Saint Constantine the Great was the Roman Emperor who ended the persecution of Christians and greatly advanced the Christian faith throughout the Empire. After his victory over Maxentius, he saw the sign of the Cross in the sky with the words, “In this sign, conquer,” and trusted in God’s help. In 313, he issued the Edict of Milan, granting freedom to Christians and ending the persecutions.
Constantine later moved the capital of the Empire from Rome to Byzantium, which he rebuilt as Constantinople, the future center of Christian civilization. Seeking unity in the Church, he convened the First Ecumenical Council in Nicaea in 325, where the heresy of Arius was condemned. Though later misled by Arius’s supporters, Constantine continued to support the Church and defended its peace.
Near the end of his life, Constantine received Holy Baptism and confessed his faith in Christ before his repose in 337. The Church honors him as “Equal to the Apostles” for his immense contribution to Christianity.
Saint Helen, the mother of Constantine, was known for her deep piety, charity, and devotion to Christ. After her son became emperor, she was honored as Augusta and worked tirelessly to build churches and support Christians throughout the Empire.
Her greatest achievement was her pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where, according to Holy Tradition, she discovered the Precious and Life-Giving Cross of Christ in 326. Through prayer and divine guidance, the True Cross was identified by a miraculous healing. Saint Helen then built churches at the Holy Sepulchre, Bethlehem, and the Mount of Olives.
She later brought relics of the Holy Cross to Constantinople and continued her holy works until her repose at about eighty years of age. The Church honors both Saints Constantine and Helen for their role in establishing and strengthening Christianity throughout the world. ☦️🙏

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54 Clinton Street
Toronto, ON
M6G2Y3

Telephone

+14165371351

Website

http://www.gometropolis.org/

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