Orthodoxy 101 set to begin at St. George on Wednesday September 12th!

Please make plans to join your parish family beginning on Wednesday September 12th after weekly vespers for our Orthodoxy 101 series! As Orthodox Christians we understand that learning about he most holy Faith is an unending a lifelong endeavor and that catechism doesn’t end when one enters the Orthodox Church. This instructional series weaves the essential topics of a proper catechesis into the story of salvation in human history and will take us through the end of the year an into Pascha of 2013 and is intended to be parish-wide, from lifelong cradle Orthodox, to recent converts, to seekers. Our format will begin with our midweek vespers of paraklesis service followed by a pitch-in dinner together, and then the lesson. Relevant Orthodox hymns will also be included in the lesson materials as well as various insights into Orthodox customs and practices. Participants should bring a spiral notebook or tablet with them for note-taking and each class will take just over an hour to complete. Please make every effort to attend!

The units included are as follows

• What is Catechism & How to Receive Spiritual Instruction
• Creation; “Let us make man in Our Image”
• The Holy Trinity
• Humanity Unhinged
• Orthodox Cosmology
• The Way Back & the Divine Dilemma
• The Answer to the Dilemma arrives; The Incarnation
• Essential Christology
• The Life and Ministry of Christ
• The Voluntary and Life-giving Passion of Christ & the Resurrection
• From Pascha to Pentecost
• The Birth of the Church and Orthodox Ecclesiology
• The Church begins to Grow in the 1st Century
• The Development of Christian Worship
• Liturgical Worship and the Sanctification of Time
• The Imperial Persecutions
• The Period of the Seven Ecumenical Councils
• The Canonization of the New Testament
• Iconography
• Holy Tradition
• The Estrangement of East and West, the seeds of Schism planted
• 1054AD, 1204AD and Why these important dates matter
• Orthodoxy of the Middle Ages
• Greek and Russian Diaspora, Orthodoxy in the New Land
• Sacramental living; Consecrating the Significant Moments of Life
• Orthopraxia, Orthokoinonia; Why we do what we do
• Fasting; an essential Tool but not a Virtue
• Holy Confession as Restoration and Healing
• Alms-giving and the Stewardship of our material resources