Great Feasts & Saints
This feast, celebrated August 6, commemorates Christ's divine glory revealed to Peter, James, and John on Mount Tabor.
What is the Transfiguration?
This council, called in 325 AD by Emperor Constantine, produced the first part of the Nicene Creed.
What is the (First) Council of Nicaea?
This is the main Sunday service of the Church, during which bread and wine are consecrated as the Body and Blood of Christ.
What is the Divine Liturgy?
This three-barred design, with a slanted bottom bar, tops most Orthodox church domes and crosses.
What is the Orthodox (three-bar) cross?
This final book of the New Testament was written by St. John while exiled on the island of Patmos.
What is the Book of Revelation?
This 4th-century bishop of Myra, beloved for secret gift-giving, inspired the figure of Santa Claus.
Who is St. Nicholas?
This 1st-century woman is honored as 'Equal to the Apostles' for spreading the Gospel in Samaria after meeting Christ at a well.
Who is St. Photini (the Samaritan Woman)?
This wall or screen of icons separates the nave from the altar area in an Orthodox church.
What is the iconostasis?
Orthodox Christians use this hand gesture, joining the thumb and first two fingers, when making the sign of the cross.
What is the Orthodox sign of the cross?
This Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, traditionally produced by seventy scholars, is the Old Testament text used liturgically in Orthodoxy.
What is the Septuagint?
This empress, along with her son the emperor, is credited with the discovery of the True Cross and is commemorated on May 21.
Who is St. Helen (and St. Constantine)?
This event in 1054 marks the formal break in communion between Rome and Constantinople.
What is the Great Schism?
This liturgy, attributed to an Archbishop of Constantinople, is celebrated on most Sundays throughout the year.
What is the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom?
This icon type shows Christ as ruler and judge of all, usually placed in the central dome of an Orthodox church.
What is the Pantocrator?
Given by Christ in the Gospel of Matthew, this prayer begins 'Our Father, who art in heaven.'
What is the Lord's Prayer?
This 40-day fasting season precedes Pascha and begins with Clean Monday.
What is Great Lent?
This city, once the capital of the Byzantine Empire, fell to the Ottomans in 1453.
What is Constantinople?
This liturgy, celebrated only about ten times a year including most Sundays of Great Lent, is attributed to a 4th-century bishop of Caesarea.
What is the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil the Great?
Celebrated on the first Sunday of Great Lent, this feast commemorates the restoration of icon veneration in 843.
What is the Sunday of Orthodoxy (Triumph of Orthodoxy)?
This New Testament author, a physician by trade, wrote both a Gospel and the Book of Acts.
Who is Saint Luke?
This 14th-century Archbishop of Thessaloniki defended the practice of hesychasm and is commemorated on the Second Sunday of Great Lent.
Who is St. Gregory Palamas?
This 8th- and 9th-century controversy over the veneration of icons was finally resolved at the Seventh Ecumenical Council in 787.
What is Iconoclasm?
This service marks the midpoint of Great Lent, when the cross is brought out for veneration on the Third Sunday.
What is the Sunday of the Veneration of the Cross?
According to tradition, this image of Christ's face was miraculously imprinted on cloth without human hands.
What is the Mandylion (the Icon 'Not Made by Hands')?
This Old Testament book tells of a devout widow who saves her people by beheading an invading Assyrian general.
What is the Book of Judith?