Mission Perspective

Our mission perspective is the core belief of the Church as a hospital for the soul best understood within the context of the Kollyvades movement of the 18th century as described by Fr. George Metallianos:

“The Kollyvades emphasized the issue of worship…participation in the sacraments/mysteries of the Church accompanied by a parallel spiritual struggle. They strove for the correct observance of the Church’s typicon that would maintain the spiritual balance, and for the study of patristic works that would cultivate a patristic phronema, i.e. the Church’s mind. …They preserved the Apostolic-Patristic continuity in the Church: noetic prayer and hesychastic practice, asceticism and experience, those enduring and unalterable elements of the Orthodox identity.”

That being the case, the mission serves twice weekly Divine Liturgy and vigils, and daily matins and vespers. And Sunday liturgy is followed by trapeza (fellowship meal) with a patristic and hesychastic reading and discussion…the goal of which is the integration of hesychasm into our lives.

The sacraments of very regular and frequent Holy Confession and Eucharist are also central to the therapy of the soul and strongly encouraged – as well as frequent spiritual council with a confessor and/or spiritual father.

To that end we also endeavor to provide regular pilgrimages to St. Anthony’s Greek Orthodox men’s Monastery and St. Paisius women’s Russian Orthodox Monastery in Arizona.

In the same vein, the Mission catechesis and weekly Gospel messages  emphasize the   New Testament, patristic and hesychast teaching on the (Dionysion) mystery of the nature and essence of God and (the Palamic) participation in the uncreated light and energies of God …as well as patristic cosmology, christology, and hesychastic approach to anthropology (including ecclesiology and soteriology).