Blog Posts
“Why should I pray to Blessed Xenia of St. Petersburg for help?” I asked my persistent friend, Ginny, as we chatted on our cell phones. “After all, she was homeless—like me! Why should she care if I get a home?”
It was an oddball phone call. I’d been living with various family members for eight months after becoming widowed and selling my home in Connecticut during the real estate boom of 2021, and I was tired of living out of a suitcase, and even more tired of disrupting the lives of my children and siblings. I had sought housing out West in an effort to be nearer to my sons and grandchildren, but the high cost of living had deterred me, and the intermittent wildfires and smoke had spooked me.
The liturgical year in the Orthodox Church begins on September 1st. And if you are on the new calendar, today is the day!
Happy New Year from Axia!
(detail, Eye of Providence icon, from Mount Athos Gifts / Etsy)
August 27 (NC) is a time when some people’s thoughts turn to baking.
We are working on something exciting… women’s prayer walks! They are still in the pilot stage, but they will be quiet, contemplative events for Orthodox women. More to come!
From author, theologian, professor--and recent Axia webinar presenter--Carrie Frederick Frost:
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I wanted to write in the wake of the Axia blog posts about my book.
My experience of this book was not that it wrote itself—it was not easy to write it—but that I had to write it; I was compelled to write it because I love my church and I felt that the issues laid out in the book were not being comprehensively addressed elsewhere. I felt that one book on women in the Orthodox church that clearly laid out the situation was needed.
We often hear about the importance of befriending the saints and the blessings associated with our connection to them. I confess that I did not understand this concept for most of my life. As a child, saints were awe-inspiring yet simultaneously foreign and out of reach. However, a desert mother called out to me when I was friendless and spiritually barren.
This is last in our series of four blog posts by women from different jurisdictions, this week focusing especially on theological methods. We'll be holding a webinar on July 30 by Carrie Frederick Frost, who will be speaking about her new book, Church of Our Granddaughters, focusing on menstruation. (You can register for that event here.) This is by Rachel Contos, who is currently studying for a PhD in Theological Ethics: