All Saints of America Orthodox Christian Church in Salisbury, CT

06/15/2026

05/21/2026

Jesus did not live with His disciples after His resurrection as He had before His death. Filled with the glory of His divinity, He appeared at different times and places to His people, assuring them that it was He, truly alive in His risen and glorified body.

To them He presented Himself alive after His passion by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days, and speaking of the Kingdom of God (Acts 1.3).

It should be noted that the time span of forty days is used many times in the Bible and signifies a temporal period of completeness and sufficiency (Gen 7.17; Ex 16.35, 24.18; Judg 3.11; 1 Sam 17.16; 1 Kg 19.8; Jon 3.4; Mt 4.2).

On the fortieth day after His passover, Jesus ascended into heaven to be glorified on the right hand of God (Acts 1.9–11; Mk 16.19; Lk 24.51). The ascension of Christ is His final physical departure from this world after the resurrection. It is the formal completion of His mission in this world as the Messianic Saviour. It is His glorious return to the Father Who had sent Him into the world to accomplish the work that He had given him to do (Jn 17.4–5).
. . and lifting His hands He blessed them. While blessing them, He parted from them and was carried up into heaven. And they returned to Jerusalem with great joy (Lk 24.51–52).

The Church’s celebration of the ascension, as all such festal celebrations, is not merely the remembrance of an event in Christ’s life. Indeed, the ascension itself is not to be understood as though it were simply the supernatural event of a man floating up and away into the skies. The holy scripture stresses Christ’s physical departure and His glorification with God the Father, together with the great joy which His disciples had as they received the promise of the Holy Spirit Who was to come to assure the Lord’s presence with them, enabling them to be His witnesses to the ends of earth (Lk 24.48–53; Acts 1.8–11; Mt 28.20; Mk 16.16–14).

In the Church the believers in Christ celebrate these very same realities with the conviction that it is for them and for all men that Christ’s departure from this world has taken place. The Lord leaves in order to be glorified with God the Father and to glorify us with himself. He goes in order to “prepare a place” for and to take us also into the blessedness of God’s presence. He goes to open the way for all flesh into the “heavenly sanctuary . . . the Holy Place not made by hands” (see Hebrews 8–10). He goes in order send the Holy Spirit, Who proceeds from the Father to bear witness to Him and His gospel in the world, making Him powerfully present in the lives of disciples.

The liturgical hymns of the feast of the Ascension sing of all of these things. The antiphonal verses of the Divine Liturgy are taken from Psalms 47, 48, and 49. The troparion of the feast which is sung at the small entrance is also used as the post-communion hymn.

Thou hast ascended in glory O Christ our God, granting joy to Thy disciples by the promise of the Holy Spirit. Through the blessing they were assured that Thou art the Son of God, the Redeemer of the world! (Troparion).

When Thou didst fulfill the dispensation for our sake, and didst unite earth to heaven, Thou didst ascend in glory, O Christ our God, not being parted from those who love Thee, but remaining with them and crying: I am with you and no one will be against you! (Kontakion).

Read sermon: https://www.oca.org/fs/sermons/sermon-on-the-ascension-of-the-lord

Music downloads: https://www.oca.org/liturgics/music-downloads/ascension-of-our-lord

04/26/2026

Christ is risen!

On this Third Sunday of Pascha, we continue to contemplate the world-changing reality of the empty Tomb. In particular, this Sunday calls us to contemplate our role in bringing news of this reality to our fellowman. Last Sunday, Thomas Sunday, took place in the intimate setting of the sealed upper room; we saw how a single disciple, a single heart, could be changed by direct encounter with the Risen Christ. This Sunday, however, we consider the Myrrh-bearers, and how an angel commanded them to proclaim the Resurrection to the apostles. After all that we have seen and heard, how are we called to share this light, joy, peace, and hope with others? An angel brought a message to the women, the women shared it with the apostles, the apostles shared it with others, and finally that message has reached us. How shall we continue to pass this message – this all-powerful, all-transformative word of Christ’s Resurrection? – on to those whom God has placed in our lives?

We need not get carried away. “Are all apostles?” asks St. Paul rhetorically, and the implied answer is “no.” The angel, the women, the apostles: each of these had a different role in announcing the Gospel. We don’t all have to be missionaries to distant lands or street-corner evangelists. But all of us may announce the power of the Resurrection by forgiving wrongs, living in the joy of Christ’s victory, striving to conduct ourselves in accordance with the Gospel, and repenting with hope when we fail. In this way at least we can bear a meek and quiet witness to others – and to ourselves – concerning the life-changing power of Christ’s Pascha.

04/19/2026

The Lord’s Pascha, as the feast of feasts, cannot be celebrated just one day a year or in just one way. We regard all of Bright Week as one unending day of the Resurrection, and even as we close the royal doors after liturgy on Bright Saturday, we do not take our leave of Pascha until the very eve of Ascension. We continue to dedicate Sundays throughout the year to the commemoration of Christ’s Rising. And, today, on Antipascha, “in place of Pascha,” we combine the commemoration of Thomas’s touching with the celebration of the Resurrection as if it were a “typical” great feast of the Lord. Truly, as I wrote on Pascha, Christ’s Resurrection transforms all of time, and though we were to celebrate it every day with a new and glorious service, we would never grasp it fully with our minds or exhaust the joy that it brings. After all, the joy of the Resurrection follows us not just throughout the year, but beyond all years, into eternity, where the saints celebrate Christ’s Pascha throughout the endless ages.

04/19/2026

Great and Holy Saturday is the day on which Christ reposed in the tomb. The Church calls this day the Blessed Sabbath.

By using this title the Church links Holy Saturday with the creative act of God. In the initial account of creation as found in the book of Genesis, God made man in his own image and likeness. To be truly himself, man was to live in constant communion with the source and dynamic power of that image: God. Man fell from God. Now Christ, the Son of God through whom all things were created, has come to restore man to communion with God. He thereby completes creation. All things are again as they should be. His mission is consummated. On the Blessed Sabbath he rests from all his works.

Holy Saturday is a neglected day in parish life. Few people attend the services. Popular piety usually reduces Holy Week to one day—Holy Friday. This day is quickly replaced by another—Easter Sunday. Christ is dead and then suddenly alive. Great sorrow is suddenly replaced by great joy. In such a scheme Holy Saturday is lost.

In the understanding of the Church, sorrow is not replaced by joy; it is transformed into joy. This distinction indicates that it is precisely within death that Christ continues to effect triumph.

We sing that Christ is "...trampling down death by death" in the troparion of Easter. This phrase gives great meaning to Holy Saturday. Christ’s repose in the tomb is an "active" repose. He comes in search of his fallen friend, Adam, who represents all men. Not finding him on earth, he descends to the realm of death, known as Hades in the Old Testament. There he finds him and brings him life once again. This is the victory: the dead are given life. The tomb is no longer a forsaken, lifeless place. By his death Christ tramples down death.

—Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann, Great and Holy Saturday

02/15/2026

In his epistle to the Romans, St. Paul speaks of “that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.” The Last Judgment, which we remember today, is part of the Gospel, part of the Good News of Jesus Christ. Why? As St. Romanus the Melodist says in his kontakion for St. Elijah, the name of God’s justice is mercy. On the Last Day, all who have desired and chosen God’s mercy through repentance and their own acts at mercy will receive mercy; all who have chosen something else, using their God-granted gift of free will, will receive something else. Seen in this light, the parable of the sheep and the goats is not a frightening morality to story that “guilts” us into acts of care for others. Rather, it is an affirmation of that principle found in the Lord’s Prayer: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Those who choose to accept God’s love and mercy will find themselves compelled to share that same love and mercy with others, especially the least among their brethren.

02/08/2026

When the father runs out to meet his prodigal younger son, the former has nothing to gain, no profit motive, no angle: he is simply overflowing with love for his child for no other reason than the latter is his child. Likewise, our heavenly Father needs nothing from us, and he does not love us because of what we do; he loves us for who we are, not as defined by our often-sinful actions, but as defined by our relationship to him. We are his beloved creation, and, through baptism, his beloved children. When we were still rebels, sunk in sin and staunch in opposition to his divine sovereignty, God came running into the world to meet us, his arms stretched wide on the Cross in order to embrace our prodigal selves.

Glory, O Lord, to thy fathomless love and mercy!

02/02/2026

Joyous feast!

Today’s feast is a feast of liminality. For one, it stands on the threshold between Christmastide and Lent. Christ still appears to us as a newborn Child, just as he did at his Nativity, but the lingering joy of the holy birth is blended with tragic foreboding as Simeon, having pronounced his canticle of light and peace, follows it with prophecies of the Savior’s Passion.

This feast also stands at the threshold between the Old Covenant and the New: St. Joseph, bearing his two doves, fulfills the Old Covenant, even while Christ, presented in the temple as an offering to the Father, foreshadows the New Covenant that he will author on the Cross with his own precious Blood.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, presented in the temple and met by Simeon and Anna for our salvation, have mercy on us! Amen.

01/25/2026

Though the Sunday of Zacchaeus is sometimes understood to be the first pre-Lenten Sunday, it is in fact the final Sunday of the season after Pentecost. Nevertheless, it is certainly a foreshadowing of the penitential season to come. The example of Zacchaeus – his pledge to restore fourfold everything he wrongly took – reminds us that repentance is not merely feeling bad about our sins; it is a real change, and this change includes efforts to make amends for past wrongs. Though the Great Fast is still a month away, even now we would benefit from taking to heart the example of the penitent Zacchaeus and examining our consciences: whom have we wronged? And what concrete steps can we take in order to make things right? May God grant us the grace to restore our relationships with others and to do good unto them henceforth.

12/25/2025

Christ is born! Glorify him!

As we celebrate the midwinter feast of the Lord’s saving Nativity in the flesh, in some parts of North America, snow lies thick across the ground, blanketing the whole landscape in white. Many of us who live in other parts of the country are merely dreaming of such a white Christmas. But whether the snow is real or imagined, outside our doors or in our heads, it is undoubtedly a potent popular symbol of this holiday. From an Orthodox Christian perspective, the symbolism could not be more appropriate: the one whom we worship lying in the manger is none other than the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world. By his Blood, we, who were stained with sin, are clothed in the snow-white garment of his righteousness. God has become man, and all of creation is restored to relationship with the Creator: the whole world is covered in the white light of his grace, shining forth from the crib in Bethlehem. Glory to him who has shown us the light!

Christ is born! Glorify him!