church bell from below

No Other Foundation

Reflections from Fr. Lawrence Farley

Fr. Lawrence Farley

About Fr. Lawrence Farley

Fr. Lawrence serves as Rector Emeritus of St. Herman's Orthodox Church in Langley, BC. He is also author of the Orthodox Bible Companion Series along with a number of other publications.

Commentary on the Divine Liturgy: the Gospel

I would like to conclude this commentary series on the Divine Liturgy (or at least the first part of the Liturgy, the so-called “Liturgy of the Catechumens”) with a reflection on the reading of the Gospel. In the Liturgy, after the...
Read more →

Commentary on the Divine Liturgy: the Epistle

In the Orthodox Divine Liturgy, after the Trisagion Hymn comes the chanting of the prokeimenon and of the epistle. In many places the prokeimenon now has practically no purpose or significance, and looks like a verbal tag chanted in...
Read more →

Book Review: The Departure of the Soul

Lately a new book has become available, The Departure of the Soul, published by St. Anthony’s Greek Orthodox Monastery in Arizona. Its full title is, The Departure of the Soul According to the Teaching of the Orthodox Church; a...
Read more →

Commentary on the Divine Liturgy: the Trisagion

In the Divine Liturgy, after the antiphons, comes the Trisagion Hymn, prefaced by a prayer in which the celebrant prays that the God who is hymned by the seraphim, the cherubim, and by every angelic power in heaven, may also deign to...
Read more →

Unquenchable Fire

One can often tell how far a heresy has spread and how much it needs the antidote of refutation by the amount of ink it gets in blog columns. I remember one young priest writing in a church magazine a piece summarizing the Church’s...
Read more →

Commentary on the Divine Liturgy: the Antiphons

In the Divine Liturgy, after the Great Litany, come the three antiphons and their litanies/ prayers. These antiphons exist in several forms. The original Greek practice is to use psalms for the antiphons, interspersing the verses of the...
Read more →

What Good is the Holy Fire?

The so-called “Holy Fire” is the name given to the fire that appears on ends of the candles of the Patriarch of Jerusalem and others every Holy Saturday. The Patriarch, accompanied by a church crammed filled with others, awaits for the...
Read more →

Sanfilippo’s “Conjugal Friendship”

Recently the Public Orthodoxy site has published a piece by Giacomo Sanfilippo under the title “Conjugal Friendship”. In it Sanfilippo writes, “To the question, ‘Can two persons of the same gender ‘have sex’ with each other?’ we hear...
Read more →

Part One: Of Gay Sex and Leaven

What does the Orthodox Church think about gay sex? The official answer is not hard to find. The Orthodox Church has always condemned gay sex as sinful and as something therefore not allowed to Christians. The case of gay sex is not much...
Read more →

Converting the Heathen

In the 1996 edition of National Geographic magazine (paged through in a waiting room) I found an article on my old hometown of Toronto, in which a Torontonian commented on how the great urban city had changed over the years and become...
Read more →

Rejoinder to Dr. Ladouceur

One dubious joy of publishing anything more controversial than a cookbook is that of attracting critical responses. One such critical response came lately from Dr. Paul Ladouceur, resident of Quebec, Canada, and a distinguished teacher...
Read more →

Understanding Pascha

In recent months I have come to the conclusion that the best place to understand the significance of Pascha is in a cancer ward, or a hospice for the dying, or by a deathbed. When one stands in any of these terrible places, one enjoys an...
Read more →

The Apostasy of Judas

he hymns of Holy Week travel straight like arrows to the heart. There we learn of the harlot’s gratitude to Christ, she who formerly lived in the dark and moonless love of sin. We learn of the one who laboured long to serve the Master...
Read more →