My beloved brothers and sisters in Christ Our Only True Lord, God, and Savior,
CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST! HE WAS, IS, AND EVER SHALL BE.
On August 6th Our Holy Orthodox Church Commemorates the Great
Feast-Day of the TRANSFIGURATION or Our Lord, God, and Savior
JESUS CHRIST.
Our Lord had spoken to His Disciples many times not only concerning His Passion, Cross, and Death, but also concerning the coming persecutions and afflictions that they themselves would endure. Since all these evils were near at hand, but the enjoyment of good things which they hoped to receive in their stead was yet to come, our Savior desires to give them full assurance, evidently and openly, concerning that glory which is prepared for those who endure to the end. Therefore, fulfilling that which He had promised shortly before, that "there be some standing here which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in His Kingdom" (Matthew 16:28), He took His three foremost Disciples and ascended Mount Tabor, where He was TRANSFIGURED BEFORE THEM. His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became white as light. Suddenly, together with this dread and marvelous effulgence of light \, there appeared those pinnacles of the Prophets, Moses and Elias, who spoke with the Lord Jesus concerning His saving Passion which was about to take place. Standing before HIm as reverent servants, they showed that He is the Lord of both the LIVING AND THE DEAD, for Moses came forth from Hades, having died many centuries before, and Elias, as it were from Heaven, whether he had been taken up while yet alive. After a little while a radiant cloud overshadowed them and our of the cloud they heard that same voice which has been heard at the Jordan at the Baptism of Christ, testifying to the Divinity of Jesus and saying: "This is My Beloved Son, in Whom I am well-pleased; hear ye Him" (Matthew 17:5).
Such are the marvels, truly worthy of God, celebrated in this present feast, which is an image and prefiguring of the future state of the righteous, whose splendour the Lord spoke of, saying: "Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun" (Matthew 13:43). It is because of this that the Kontakion hymn of this Feast is said daily (when there is not a great feast) in the Service of the Typica in perpetual commemoration of the glory that will be the lot of the Saints. According to the Holy Tradition, the Lord’s Transfiguration ( Gk. Metamorphosis) came to pass FORTY DAYS BEFORE HIS CRUCIFIXION, this is why Transfiguration is celebrated forty days before the holy Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.
Apolytikion (Dismissal) Hymn. Grave Tone
THOU was transfigured on the mountain, O Christ our God, showing to
Thy disciples Thy glory as each one could endure. Shine forth Thou on
us, who are sinners all, Thy light ever-unending, through the prayers
of the Theotokos. Light-bestower, glory to Thee.
Kontakion Hymn. Grave Tone
ON the mount Thou was transfigured, and Thy disciples, as much as they
could bear, beheld Thy glory, O Christ our God; that when they should
see Thee crucified, they would know Thy Passion to be willing, and would
preach to the world that Thou, in truth, art the Effulgence of the Father.
[Resources: The Great Horologion]
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"Glory Be To GOD
For
All Things!"
– Saint John Chrysostomos
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With sincere agape in His Divine and Glorious Diakonia (Ministry)
The sinner and unworthy servant of God
+ Father George
The Eastern Orthodox Christian Ethos 