Catechetical Resources

Catechetical Readings

Let me give thee this charge also.  Study our teachings and keep them for ever.  Think not that they are the ordinary homilies; for though they also are good and trustworthy, yet if we should neglect them to-day we may study them to-morrow.  But if the teaching concerning the laver of regeneration delivered in a consecutive course be neglected to-day, when shall it be made right?  Suppose it is the season for planting trees:  if we do not dig, and dig deep, when else can that be planted rightly which has once been planted ill?  Suppose, pray, that the Catechising is a kind of building:  if we do not bind the house together by regular bonds in the building, lest some gap be found, and the building become unsound, even our former labour is of no use.  But stone must follow stone by course, and corner match with corner, and by our smoothing off inequalities the building must thus rise evenly.  In like manner we are bringing to thee stones, as it were, of knowledge.  Thou must hear concerning the living God, thou must hear of Judgment, must hear of Christ, and of the Resurrection.  And many things there are to be discussed in succession, which though now dropped one by one are afterwards to be presented in harmonious connexion.  But unless thou fit them together in the one whole, and remember what is first, and what is second, the builder may build, but thou wilt find the building unsound. – St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures

Instructions for Catechumens by St. John Chrysostom

On the Law of God by St. Philaret of New York

The Catechetical Lectures of St. Cyril of Jerusalem 

The Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith by St. John of Damascus

Lives of the Saints

The Prologue of Ochrid by Bishop Nikolai Velimirovic

Selected Lives from the Synaxarion of St. Demetrius of Rostov

The Life of St John Chrysostom by St. Demetrius of Rostov

The Life of St Anthony the Great by St. Athanasius the Great

The Life of St Martin of Tours by Sulpitius Severus

Russia’s Catacomb Saints by Prof. I. M. Andreyev

Archive of Orthodox Life Magazines with many extended Lives of Saints

Various audio recordings of the Lives of Saints

The Holy Fathers

The Ladder of Divine Ascent by St. John Climacus

Archive of many writings from the Holy Fathers

Archive of many patristic commentaries on the Holy Scriptures (avoid the commentaries included by papist heretics).

My Life in Christ in text and in audio by St. John of Kronstadt

A Spiritual Psalter by St. Ephraim the Syrian

The Path to Salvation by St. Theophan the Recluse (Word document download)

Archive of Orthodox Life Magazines with many homilies from recent Fathers of the Church

One Thing Needful – book of sermons by Archbishop Andrei (Rymarenko) of blessed memory (+1978)

Various audio recordings of writings from the Holy Fathers

Holy Scriptures

Orthodox Psalter According to the Seventy (Boston translation)

The Septuagint (PDF) and a side by side English and Greek edition online

The King James Bible 1611 (PDF – suggested for the New Testament only)

The Holy Canons

The Canons of the Holy Apostles

The Canons of the Ecumenical Councils

The Canons of the Provincial Councils

The Canons of the Holy Fathers

Prayers and Liturgical Books

Orthodox Psalter (Boston translation)

Various Prayer and Service Books in English

A Spiritual Psalter by St. Ephraim the Syrian

Liturgics

If any one desire to fulfill his duty of obedience to the Church, how may he learn what she requires of her children? 

This may be learned from holy Scripture, from the canons of the holy Apostles, the holy œcumenical and provincial Councils, and the holy Fathers, and from the books of Ecclesiastical Rules and Rubrics. – Met. Philaret of Moscow, The Longer Catechism of the Orthodox Church

Abridged Typicon (Book of Rubrics)

Liturgics by Archbishop Averky

Orthodox Apologetics

Do you think that you can stand and live if you withdraw from the Church, building for yourself other homes and a different dwelling, when it is said to Rahab, in whom was prefigured the Church, “Thy father, and thy mother, and thy brethren, and all the house of thy father, thou shalt gather unto thee into thine house; and it shall come to pass, whosoever shall go abroad beyond the door of thine house, his blood shall be upon his own head?” – St Cyprian of Carthage, Treatise I – On the Unity of Church

Christianity or the Church? by Abp. Hilarion (Troitsky)

The Orthodox Veneration of the Mother of God by St. John of Shanghai

Door to Paradise by Monk John Marler

The Heresy of Ecumenism

Those who attack the Church of Christ by teaching that Christ’s Church is divided into so-called “branches” which differ in doctrine and way of life, or that the Church does not exist visibly, but will be formed in the future when all “branches” or sects or denominations, and even religions will be united into one body; and who do not distinguish the priesthood and mysteries of the Church from those of the heretics, but say that the baptism and eucharist of heretics is effectual for salvation; therefore, to those who knowingly have communion with these aforementioned heretics or who advocate, disseminate, or defend their new heresy of Ecumenism under the pretext of brotherly love or the supposed unification of separated Christians, Anathema!

St Philaret of New York and the Heresy of Ecumenism by Vladimir Moss

The First Sorrowful Epistle of St. Philaret

The Second Sorrowful Epistle of St. Philaret

The Third Sorrowful Epistle of St. Philaret

The Heresy of Cyprianism (Crypto-Ecumenism)

We reject the so-called theory of “Cyprianism” as being heretical because it states that a “church” that professes heresies can be the Church of Christ and that true believers should simply be “resistors” but at the same time members of such a heretical body.  It also professes that local and smaller synods of the Church do not have the power to declare that those who have been proven to be heretics based on the teachings of the Church, are no longer part of the Church. – Holy 2008 Sobor of the Russian True Orthodox Church

After a careful examination of the teachings of Metropolitan Cyprian of Oropós, which he sets forth in his “Ecclesiological Thesis”, the Sobor of Bishops of the Russian True Orthodox Church has determined Cyprianism to be an ecclesiological heresy, falling under the anathema of Ecumenism, which was issued by the Sobor of Bishops of the ROCOR in 1983, and later confirmed by the Sobor of Bishops of the ROCOR in 1998. It is also the dogmatic determination of the RTOC (in agreement with the determination of the Holy Sobor of 2008: «Regarding the Confession of Faith and the Ecclesiological Foundations of the Russian True Orthodox Church.»). The Sobor of Bishops analyzed the position of other jurisdictions of the TOC toward this heresy and has determined it to be a false teaching of hidden ecumenism – Crypto-Ecumenism. – Holy 2017 Sobor of the Russian True Orthodox Church

The Historical Confession of Faith of the Genuine Orthodox Christians of Greece Regarding the New Calendar State “Church”. And in video.

The celebration of a Mystery and the giving of Holy Communion to New Calendarists was forbidden from the time that the Schism created by the State Church began. Therefore, it is necessary that you uphold this position without deviation, in obedience to the understanding of all that has been handed down to us in the Church. Should any from the New Calendar desire to enter our ranks, it is absolutely necessary that they make a Confession of Faith in regard to all that has been transmitted unto us by our God-bearing Fathers, and that they renounce and condemn every heresy and innovation, among which is the New Calendar in the Greek Church, which became Schismatic from its acceptance thereof in 1924 until the present, according to the very confession of the innovator, Archbishop Chrysostom Papadopoulos, and, as a consequence, its mysteries are deprived of sanctifying Grace. – 1974 Encyclical of the Genuine Orthodox Church of Greece

The record of the 1986 GOC defrocking of Cyprian, including summaries of his heretical teachings and evil history with the Church up to that point in time.

The Holy Synod on November 4, 1986 (November 18 by the Civil New Calendar) defrocked the Metropolitan of Oropos Cyprian Koutsoubas and it returned him to the order of monks, because he fell into the heresy of Ecumenism and cut himself off from our Church. This is a sad event for the history of our struggle, as it has been proven that the defrocked Metropolitan Kyprianos Koutsoubas for more than a decade of years managed to deceive the Church of the True Orthodox Christians of Greece pretending to be a pure Orthodox Christian. He even managed to climb the ladder of all the levels of the priesthood, becoming a bishop, while his heart was literally being devoured by the kakodox sermons of new-calendaristic ecumenism. – The Voice of Orthodoxy: official periodical of the GOC, Issue 811, Jan-Feb 1987

The heretical 1984 Ecclesiological Thesis published by the Cyprianites (and still published on their official “resistors” website). This document teaches the following heresies:

1. That there are divisions in the Church, which is comprised of healthy and sick members. The Cyprianites are “healthy” members of the Church, “World Orthodoxy” are the sick “mother church”.
2. That heretics are in the Church.
3. That the mysteries of pseudo-orthodox heretics must be considered valid until they are condemned by an Ecumenical or Pan-Orthodox Council.

“That ye may all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions [schisms] among you.” The emphatic force of the word “schism,” I mean the name itself, was a sufficient accusation. For it was not that they had become many parts, each entire within itself, but rather the One [Body which originally existed] had perished.  For had they been entire Churches, there might be many of them; but if they were divisions, then that first One was gone. For that which is entire within itself not only does not become many by division into many parts, but even the original One is lost. Such is the nature of divisions. – St. John Chrysostom on I Corinthians 1:10.

Cyprianism: Crypto-Ecumenism – The Heresy of Our Days by Protopresbyter Victor Melehov

A Commentary on the Union Between The GTOC and The Greek Synod in Resistance (Cyprianites) by Protopresbyter Victor Melehov

Determination of the RTOC Holy Synod regarding the 2014 GOC and Cyprianite Union

Adding Sergianism to Cyprianism by Bishop Philaretos of Pallini and Western Europe

The Fruits of Schism by Protopresbyter Victor Melehov

The Misuse of the Monastic Fathers’ Expression “The Royal Path” by Bishop Philaretos of Pallini and Western Europe

The Heresy of Sergianism

Being in all his activity an anti-church heretic, as transforming the Holy Orthodox Church from the house of the grace-filled salvation of believers into a graceless, carnal organization deprived of the spirit of life, Metropolitan Sergius has at the same time, through his conscious renunciation of the truth and in his mindless betrayal of Christ, become an open apostate from God the Truth. – St Victor of Vyatka

About the “Moscow Patriarchate” by Archbishop Averky

Sergianism as an Ecclesiological Heresy by Vladimir Moss

The Heresy of Name-worship

The lies that Bulatovich has contrived are those swept away like cobwebs. He has served the glorious name of Jesus in his evil-pursuit as corruptly as have the Jesuits who have given His name in the wickedness of their extraneous earthly ends. – Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky)

Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky) on the Heresy of Name-worshipping

On the Name of God by Vladimir Moss