Saint Nicholas Orthodox Church - Salem, MA

Saint Nicholas Orthodox Church - Salem, MA Saint Nicholas Orthodox Church in Salem, MA — serving Orthodox Christians on the North Shore of Boston since 1901.

A welcoming parish community for worship, prayer, and fellowship in the traditions of the Orthodox Church, with Divine Liturgy every Sunday. 64 Forrester Street
Salem, MA 01970

Church phone: 978-744-5869

Here are a few photos from the night service on March 24 for the Feast of the Annunciation.With love, reverence, and gra...
03/26/2026

Here are a few photos from the night service on March 24 for the Feast of the Annunciation.

With love, reverence, and gratitude, we offer our treasures to the Mother of our Lord, asking for her prayers, protection, and intercession. May the Most Holy Theotokos keep all of us under her loving veil and lead our hearts closer to Christ.

With gratitude to God, we share joyful news!Emma Casablanca placed in 3 out of 4 of her dance events and won All-Around ...
03/18/2026

With gratitude to God, we share joyful news!

Emma Casablanca placed in 3 out of 4 of her dance events and won All-Around at her recent competition. She was standing proudly next to her best friend Ava, who also placed — the only two from their gym to place in that category.

We rejoice with their families and wish the girls continued success and blessings!

03/16/2026

Deacon John's sermon on Sunday 03/15/2026

03/11/2026

Deacon John's sermon on Sunday 03/08/2026

03/03/2026

Father Lawrence's sermon on Sunday 03/01/2026.

Have You Seen the Oldest Icon of the Triumph of Orthodoxy?On the first Sunday of Great Lent — March 1 — the Church celeb...
02/27/2026

Have You Seen the Oldest Icon of the Triumph of Orthodoxy?

On the first Sunday of Great Lent — March 1 — the Church celebrates the Triumph of Orthodoxy, commemorating the victory over iconoclasm and the restoration of holy icons to the life of the Church.

The earliest surviving image that symbolically expresses this feast and the veneration of icons is a 14th-century Byzantine icon kept in London at the British Museum.

The icon is divided into two tiers. At the center of the upper tier is the icon of the Mother of God, the “Hodegetria” (“She Who Shows the Way”), set upon the Holy Table; two angels in red garments support it. The Seventh Ecumenical Council (787) affirmed that this icon is to be honored alongside the Cross and the Gospel, which also rest upon the Holy Table.

To the left stands the righteous Empress Theodora with her son Michael: after the death of her iconoclast husband, she restored Patriarch Methodius, convened a council, condemned the iconoclasts, and returned the icons to the churches.

To the right stand St. Methodius, who led the restoration of icons and served a moleben (a service of supplication) in Hagia Sophia, and St. Theodore the Studite, a tireless defender of icons who continued to witness to the truth even in imprisonment.

The lower tier shows those who endured persecution and confessed the faith. In the center are St. Theophanes of Sigriane, who suffered imprisonment and died in exile, and St. Stephen the New, a spiritual father to the monks of Constantinople — they hold an icon of Christ, reminding us that the holy image has been restored to its rightful place: in prayer and in the Church. To their right is St. Theophylact the Confessor, Bishop of Nicomedia, who resisted the return of heresy and suffered for his confession. Next are the brothers St. Theodore and St. Theophanes “the Branded,” whose faces were inscribed with mocking verses by red-hot needles for defending the holy icons.

To the left is the martyr St. Theodosia holding an icon of Christ Emmanuel; she was killed for refusing to let a soldier throw down the image of the Savior from the gates of Constantinople. Between her and the central figures are monks-confessors whose names can no longer be read, because the inscriptions are damaged — yet their witness remains.

When we enter the church, we step into eternity — and Christ reveals Himself to us in the icon. An icon is a reflection of Christ, a way for us to see Him as the apostles saw Him; the Church provides every generation an equal opportunity to meet the Savior. Through signs of holiness, the icon lets us behold that radiance which the Lord allowed the apostles to see in Him on Mount Tabor.

02/26/2026

Dear friends,

How did you come to the Orthodox faith?

Some were baptized in childhood. Others found their way during times of illness or hardship. Some first came because they wanted to baptize their children and were themselves received into the Church. And some simply walked in out of curiosity — and discovered they had found their spiritual home. Or was your journey different?

We would love to hear your story. Please feel free to share in the comments.

You are also welcome to send us your full story via Messenger if you would like us to share it in a separate post.

May God bless you all.

Calendar for March 2026.
02/26/2026

Calendar for March 2026.

02/25/2026

Father Lawrence's sermon on Sunday 02/22/2026.

02/23/2026

Fellow clergy and friends,
I pray you all are well and have weathered this winter storm.
Let us all give thanks for shelter and our warmth!
Let us all say a prayer for those who are outside and have nowhere to go and take a moment to be extra grateful for what we have. Also, pray for those who have to be outside and those who are taking care of the sick and the poor on days like these.
Please note that due to the storm, we will NOT HAVE SERVICE TONIGHT.
Be assured that I will read the SNC Prayer List and I will commemorate all of you in my evening prayers.
Stay home and be safe.

For those who would like to take 10 mins of Spiritual Reading tonight, please read:

Isaiah 1:1-20
Genesis 1:1-13
Proverbs 1:1-20

Pay attention to Genesis! This reading today is here for a reason.

Tonight, we would have read the first part of the Canon of St. Andrew. I have copied the first two odes. You can read them quietly and ponder what Lent can mean for you.

Notice the first ode deals with Creation and the second ode is Redemption.

Ode 1

A Helper and a Protector has become salvation to me.
This is my God, Whom I will glorify.
God of my fathers
I will exalt Him for in glory was He glorified.
Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me.
How shall I begin to mourn the deeds of my wretched life? What can I offer as first fruits of repentance? In Your compassion, O Christ, forgive my sins.

Come, my wretched soul, and confess your sins in the flesh to the Creator of all. From this moment forsake your former foolishness and offer to God tears of repentance.

My transgressions rival those of first created Adam, and because of my sins I find myself naked of God and of His everlasting kingdom.

Alas, my wretched soul, why are you so like Eve/ You see evil and are grievously wounded by it; you touch the tree and tasted heedlessly of its deceiving fruit.

Instead of the person Eve, I have within my inward being an "Eve" of passionate thoughts which though seemingly sweet never lose their bitter taste.

For failing to observe just one of Your commandments, O Savour, Adam was justly exiled from Eden. What then shall I suffer for continually ignoring Your words of life?

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.

O Trinity above all essence and worshiped as One God, take from me the heavy burden of sin, and since You are compassionate grant me tears of repentance.

Now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.

O Theotokos, Hope and Protection of those who sing to you, take from me the heavy burden of sin and as one pure Lady accept me as I repent.

Ode 2

Attend O heaven and I will speak,
I will sing of Christ,
Who from the Virgin took flesh to dwell with us.
Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me.
Listen, O heaven, and I will speak. O earth, hear the cry of one returning to God and singing His praises.

Look down on me in Your mercy, O compassionate God and Saviour, and accept my fervent confession.

More than all have I sinned; I alone have sinned against You, O God my Saviour, but have compassion on me, Your creature.

Through love of pleasure has my form become deformed and the beauty of my inward being has been ruined.

O compassionate One, as You saved Peter when he was about to sink, so reach out now to me, for a storm of evil surges around me.

O Saviour, I have defiled the garment of my flesh and polluted that which You fashioned within me according to Your own image and likeness.

With passions have I darkened the beauty of my soul and permitted my whole inward being to become mire.

I like naked, having torn up the garment which my Creator fashioned for me in the beginning.

I am ashamed, for the serpent deceived me and my garment is in tatters.

O compassionate One, like the pr******te who anointed Your feet so now do I offer You tears. Have mercy on me, O Saviour.

I like naked and ashamed, for the beauty of the tree, which I saw in the middle of the garden, deceived me.

The demons have cut deep wounds of passion into my back; their lawlessness has made it like a plowed field.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.

O God of all, I sing of You as One yet Three in Person, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.

O Most holy Theotokos, Virgin alone praised everywhere, pray fervently that we may be saved.

God Bless you all,
Fr Lawrence

If it is impossible to be reconciled with a person, let that impossibility come from him, but not from us…“The last Sund...
02/20/2026

If it is impossible to be reconciled with a person, let that impossibility come from him, but not from us…

“The last Sunday before Great Lent, the Holy Church remembers Adam’s expulsion from Paradise. This Sunday is also called Forgiveness Sunday, because a wonderful passage from the Gospel according to Matthew is read, in which the Lord says:

‘For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:
But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.’
(Matthew 6:14–15)

Why does the Heavenly Father not forgive the person who himself refuses to forgive others? We often quarrel with one another, unfortunately. Even if one does not want it, it happens that the other takes offense. And offense, quarrels, ill will push one person away from another. God is love, and having created man in His image and likeness, the Lord desired that man should live in love.

But the devil, on the contrary, wants to divide all people. One of the meanings of the word ‘devil’ is ‘the divider.’ He wants to divide nations among themselves, divide families, divide parents and children, make friends quarrel, and so on. Therefore, the one who participates in a quarrel submits to the devil, follows the thoughts he puts into his mind, assents to them in his heart; he fulfills the will of the devil and by this separates himself from God. And the separation of a person from God is sin.

Therefore, the Lord said that the Heavenly Father will not forgive. It is not because He counts who owes what to whom: as if, ‘since you do so, then I will do so too.’ No—simply, a person, separating himself from another, acting against love, acts against God. And if against God, then he cannot enter into eternal life, nor attain spiritual life; that is, he cannot come to know God.

When a person holds an offense against someone, by that very fact he holds an offense also against God, because he goes against God’s commandment—that is, he rejects God Himself.

And what is forgiveness? Two people quarreled, and then made peace, forgave each other—that is, there is no longer that wall between them; they are again abiding in love; the evil that was between them has gone away. The same is forgiveness from God. God forgives—this means God unites Himself with the person; God comes to him, lives together with him.

Therefore, when someone offends us, insults us, does us some evil, then if we want to attain eternal life, want to be disciples of Christ, we must struggle with ourselves and forgive that person. Someone will say: but the other one is at fault. Yes, without question, he offended you. The sin he committed remains sin—but you must forgive. Again: why ‘must’? Well, no, of course you do not ‘have to’ at all; everyone is free to live as he wishes: you may choose Paradise, or you may choose hell. This is a matter of the free choice of the person.

It happens that it is impossible to be reconciled with a person, but let that impossibility come from him, but not from us. The Apostle Paul says:

‘If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.’
(Romans 12:18)

Strive that division not come from you. Your heart must always be open to reconciliation, open to love. In this way we will attain the Kingdom of Heaven.”

— From a sermon by one of the best-known Russian preachers of our time, Archpriest Dimitry Smirnov.

02/19/2026

Father Lawrence's sermon on Sunday 02/15/2026.

Address

Salem, MA

Telephone

(978) 744-5869

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