Catechetical Resources for Those Desiring to Learn the True Orthodox Faith

Catechetical Resources

Catechetical Readings

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 

Treatise on the Lord’s Prayer by St Cyprian of Carthage 

The Longer Catechism of Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow 

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

Holy Scriptures

Orthodox Psalter 

The Septuagint (PDF)

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

Liturgics

Abridged Typicon (Book of Rubrics)

Liturgics by Archbishop Averky

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

Orthodox Apologetics

Christianity or the Church by St Hilarion (Troitsky)

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

Door to Paradise by Monk John Marler

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?”

Ca+ St Cyprian of Carthage, Treatise I – On the Unity of Church

The Heresy of Ecumenism

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

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!

The Heresy of Cyprianism (Crypto-Ecumenism)

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

We ordain that a bishop or presbyter who has admitted the baptism or sacrifice of heretics be deposed. For what concord hath Christ with Belial, or what part hath a believer with an infidel?

– Apostolic Canon 46

The Heresy of Sergianism

About the “Moscow Patriarchate” by Archbishop Averky

Sergianism as an Ecclesiological Heresy by Vladimir Moss

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

The Heresy of Name-worship

On the Name of God by Vladimir Moss