St Nicholas Antiochian Orthodox Church

09/02/2026

Blessed repose day of Fr. Seraphim Rose! May his memory be eternal!

If ever a human being lived on this earth who sought God with his whole heart, whatever sins or errors he may have had—and as the Orthodox requiem service says, there is no man who lives who does not sin—it was Fr. Seraphim Rose. – Fr Thomas Hopko To many familiar with either St Vladimir’s.....

08/30/2026

Blessed Afterfeast of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist! The icons of the feast portray St. John’s beheading as either a historical or a theological event (or even as a combination of the two perspectives). However, the true beauty of Orthodox iconography is that it makes the invisible visible; or in other words, it allows us to see the spiritual or theological truth. So, while St. John certainly suffered at the hands of the wicked King Herod and his family (as the first three icons show), his suffering was ultimately a gift that was offered to God, so that in the last icon all that remains is St. John’s preaching (represented by the axe that is laid at the root of the tree) and the complete offering that he made of himself to God as a pure and acceptable sacrifice. Having given this precious gift, St. John was able to preach to those in Hades that Christ Himself, the Son of God, and God-man was coming for everyone held captive there, so that, ultimately, he was the Forerunner of Christ both on the earth and in the dark places under the earth. May God bless all those who keep the memory of St. John today!

08/06/2026

Blessed Feast of the Transfiguration! What a joy to welcome 11 of our catechumens into the Holy Orthodox Church! Glory to God!

“When, O Christ our God, Thou wast transfigured on the mountain, Thou didst reveal Thy glory to
Thy Disciples in proportion as they could bear it. Let Thine everlasting light also enlighten us
sinners, through the intercessions of the Theotokos. O Thou Bestower of light, glory to Thee.”

08/03/2026

There has been so much rain in Pinellas county over the last few days! It is always a challenge to use our outdoor spaces during the hot summer months, but even more so when they are under 2.5 inches of standing water. Still, central Florida has been struggling with drought for much of the year, and we have needed the rain. Thank God that “He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Mat. 5:45)!

07/27/2026

Our new sign has been installed at St. Nicholas! It is visible from both directions of 76th Ave, which should make our church more inviting. Thank God that we continue to make these steps!

“I will place a sign among them… and they shall proclaim My glory among the nations” (Isa. 66:19)!

07/05/2026

Sometime between 1946 and 1956 St Nikolai Velimirovich delivered a homily that included the words below about the future of America and the Orthodox churches in America. It is a helpful reminder for us as we celebrate the 250th anniversary of our nation. In the words of St. Nikolai, may we become an adornment to America as we faithfully practice our Orthodox Christian faith, and acknowledge the Kingdom of Heaven as the true fatherland of all men!

“America is your cradle and your earthly motherland. It is a wonderful God’s country, and you are expected to be wonderful God’s people in this country. Remember that our greatest contribution to America is of a spiritual and moral nature. And that is precisely what America needs today. That is what every Christian country today needs most of all—in boundless measure. For all nations, especially the Christians nowadays traveling as if in a wilderness of confusion created by senseless materialism and its blind daughter atheism. I offer this to what leading American men and women are saying: “The only hope for us and for the world is to return to religion.” Again I say: “Our hope is in the Church.” You ought to listen to these words, too, and to ponder them. We live in very tragic times, which are made more tragic by easy-going and self-indulgent people who have never read the story of S***m, of Laish, or of Capernaum.

If I am correct in my observations, the greatest struggle of America these days is the struggle for the priority and superiority of spiritual and moral values over techniques and technological lordship: in other words, for predominance of the spiritual over the material, of goodness over cleverness. The Serbs often say of a clever man: “He is clever as the devil.” They never say: “He is good as the devil.”

America is constantly sounding the sympathetic watchwords: “dignity of man” and “liberty of men and nations.” But the deepest meaning of these watchwords can be found in the sacred teaching of Him without Whom we can do nothing. That meaning is found most explicitly in the threefold program of our Orthodox Church: spiritual vision, moral discipline, and competition in doing good.

For the dignity of man—in other words, the superior value of man—has real and eternal meaning only if you know and acknowledge the Kingdom of Heaven as the true fatherland of all men, from which we originated and to which we are returning as children of one common Father, Who is in heaven. And freedom is most useful, joyful, and sacred if you exercise moral discipline over yourself and practice competition in doing good.

These are the fundamentals upon which you can build your individual and communal happiness. And you have received these fundamentals as a glorious heritage, never to part with. By practicing this spiritual heritage in your daily life, you will become an adornment to America. And through you all Americans will come to know and appreciate our ancient Church of the East and her spiritual heroes, whom we are praising today."

Editor’s note: The following homily was delivered by St. Nikolai Velimirovich in America, sometime between his (second) arrival in America in 1946 and his death in 1956. It was published in the journal Orthodox America, volume 19, number 5. Years ago, I received permission from Orthodox America to...

07/01/2026

At the beginning of the 1960’s, Fr. Seraphim Rose predicted what the s*xual revolution would mean for those who went through it and those who come after. He says,

“In the ‘free world’ a great exploitive force is that of ‘s*x.’ It seems to be today a vast, impersonal power that holds men in its jaws, leading them on not only to reproduce their kind but - thanks to the many devices for ‘exploiting’ this power more efficiently - to indulge this impersonal force for its own sake. Some may object that ‘s*x’ is indeed a very ‘personal’ thing, but nothing could be further from the truth. Like all other human impulses, the s*xual instinct may be subordinated to the power of personality and attain its proper place as an expression of married, chaste love; but only the most naive romanticist could affirm that such is the ‘s*x’ that is exalted today. S*x as pleasure, as an expression of man’s freedom to do as he pleases: this is what it means to be contemporary man. Marriage, [when] banished from the Church, has become a mere license for s*xual activity; s*x has become the basis of marriage, another case of the ‘lower’ usurping the role of the higher. The easy divorce laws make of marriage as practiced by most moderns merely a kind of legalized promiscuity.

“Promiscuity is indeed the rule. S*x is good, wholesome, free, say the moderns, use it freely with whomever you please. This attitude is revealed in the face of contemporary man: that blank, greedy, faceless, totally outward face, hungry for ‘experience’ of any sort, ready to exploit - let us not deny the evidence of those horrible faces - who devour anyone and everyone with whom they come in contact. How different, how utterly foreign and incomprehensible to contemporary man, is the face of the Christian ascetic, who by striving to master instead of indulge the passions reveals an inwardness undreamed of by the moderns. These moderns think they are being ‘realistic’ when they frankly admit their slavery to s*xual impulses; well, of course, they are being ‘realistic’ since such slavery is indeed true of weak men, men who will not strive for anything higher than the obvious - but they are surely indulging in the wildest fancies when they think that by doing this they become ‘free.’ ‘S*xual freedom’: this coupling of words that represent totally incompatible realities (since ‘s*x’ as practiced today is slavery) is but another instance of that modern incompetence to do anything but follow one’s passions and accept whatever vulgar slogan justifies this aim” (Fr. Seraphim Rose: His Life and Works, 151-152).

Here, Fr. Seraphim’s diagnosis of the sickness of the modern world is even more true today than when he wrote it, especially with so much easier access to po*******hy, a hook up culture that is fueled by dating apps, and non-monogamy that is championed as a permanent lifestyle choice or orientation. But the prognosis is also the same - Christian asceticism centered on the life of the Holy Orthodox Church: prayer, fasting, alms-giving, confession, godly relationships with a spiritual father, godparents, and brothers and sisters in Christ; keeping the commandments. These are the things that help us to become persons as we encounter God and then personalize every aspect of our lives - including s*x and s*xuality. May God have mercy on us!

06/28/2026

Fr. Nathaniel returned from serving as a session priest at Camp St. Thekla in South Carolina. Thank God for our Antiochian camps and the other Orthodox camps here in Florida and throughout the U.S. that are offering our kids a powerful experience of the Orthodox Christian faith each summer!