Established in 1926, St. John the Baptist Ukrainian Orthodox Church is located in Johnson City, NY, about an hour southeast of Ithaca and Cornell University. I found it by chance while researching local monasteries.
I was immediately impressed by how welcoming the priests and congregation were to a complete stranger. With their kind permission, I was allowed to photograph the Sunday morning Divine Liturgy, a Eucharist service with roots going back over 2,000 years to the earliest days of Christianity. I couldn’t help but be profoundly moved by the sense of peace, devotion and community invoked by this ancient ceremony.
The Orthodox Church, in all its forms, is the oldest continuous denomination of the Christian faith. It places great importance on preserving the connection to Christ's teachings and Christianity’s holy traditions. (Wikipedia)
"The Lord loves all people, but He loves those who seek Him even more. To his chosen ones the Lord gives such great grace that for love they forsake the whole earth, the whole world, and their souls burn with desire that all people might be saved and see the glory of the Lord."
St. Silouan the Athonite, Writings, IX.8
“As it is impossible to verbally describe the sweetness of honey to one who has never tasted honey, so the goodness of God cannot be clearly communicated by way of teaching if we ourselves are not able to penetrate into the goodness of the Lord by our own experience.”
St. Basil the Great, Conversations on the Psalms, 29
“No matter how much we may study, it is not possible to come to know God unless we live according to His commandments, for God is not known by science, but by the Holy Spirit. Many philosophers and learned men came to the belief that God exists, but they did not know God. It is one thing to believe that God exists and another to know Him. If someone has come to know God by the Holy Spirit, his soul will burn with love for God day and night, and his soul cannot be bound to any earthly thing.”
St. Silouan the Athonite, Writings, VIII.3
“But if I go to the east, He is not there; if I go to the west, I do not find Him. When He is at work in the north, I do not see Him; when He turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of Him. But He knows the way that I take; when He has tested me, I will come forth as gold. My feet have closely followed His steps; I have kept to His way without turning aside. I have not departed from the commands of His lips; I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my daily bread. But He stands alone, and who can oppose Him? He does whatever He pleases. He carries out His decree against me, and many such plans He still has in store. That is why I am terrified before Him; when I think of all this, I fear Him. God has made my heart faint; the Almighty has terrified me. Yet I am not silenced by the darkness, by the thick darkness that covers my face.”
(Job 23: 8-17)
“Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in Heaven. He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”
(Jesus Christ, from Matthew 5:44-45)