On February 12, on Sunday of the Prodigal Son priest Igor Tarasov served the Divine Liturgy at St. George’s Church. On that day the Church also celebrated feast of the Three universal Hierarchs and Teachers, Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian and John Chrysostom.
Following the Gospel lesson Fr. Igor lectured on Divine Liturgy. This time he described the importance of the Gospel reading, instructed on how faithful should behave at such an important moment of the Liturgy. Walking around, lighting candles is inappropriate when you listen to the Gospel. A proper position is to stand, listen attentively and to bow your head a little.
At the end of the service Fr. Igor said a couple of words about the feast of the Three Hierarchs.
“Introduction of the feast to honor those three Saints together was to overcome a division which took place among the Orthodox. Each group argued that one of these Hierarchs was greater than others. Thus all the three appeared in a dream to a bishop to proclaim that they are equally honored in heaven. This teaches us not to divide, not to create a party or a group within the Church. Orthodox Christians should not argue that their parish, their priest, their bishop or their particular jurisdiction is better. We may like our own more but we cannot claim that other Orthodox are worse. We cannot divide the Body of Christ which is the one Church,” – said Fr. Igor.