NEW! Orthodox Teen Talk Online (OTTO). Join a group of Orthodox teens as they discuss real-life issues, including the Sanctity of Life. In this newest episode, listen in as a group of Orthodox teens discuss "Dating." Click here or listen below.

It’s every parent’s nightmare: you are at the mall or a store and suddenly your child is gone. You look everywhere and in an instant your heart jumps and your mind begins to think the unthinkable.

"Obedience is to accept and live the life God has given us, and this is a wonderful (though very difficult) road to humility, that places us directly on the Way of Christ."

"Great Lent is such an important annual event in the life of an Orthodox Christian that it’s something we always have in the back of our mind, especially as we enter a new year and begin the approach to Lent. This week we very consciously enter the period of preparation for Great Lent. Forgiveness Sunday, which marks the beginning of the Fast, is only 3 weeks away."

On this week's Come Receive the Light, Fr. Chris speaks with Fr. Michael Nasser about "Project Mexico", and with Dr. David C. Ford about the life and missionary vision of Saint Innocent of Alaska. Please join us for this and more!

Our journey through Great Lent toward Pascha is one that will involve fasting and prayer—not as a way to punish ourselves, but as a way to heighten our prayer life and draw our entire being into a prayerful communion with our Creator.

Orthodox Christians exhort one another to “enter the Fast with joy”. Repent with joy? Yes! And we can do so precisely because we understand that repentance brings healing and union with God, and not a judicial acquittal from an angry judge on the last day.

NEW! Check out our new and improved "Programs" page. You can access a substantial archive of OCN's programs and can also easily subscribe to each show as its own podcast. New episodes will be added as they are aired, and even more content will be added to the archives from the OCN vault in the coming weeks.

On this week's Come Receive the Light, Fr. Chris will be speaking with Fr. Tom Avramis about Trinity Children’s Foundation. Also, on The Ark & Rudder, you can hear Mother Katherine Weston on "Integrating Psychotherapy with Orthodox Anthropology", as well as the words of Fr. Stanley Harakas. Please join us for this and much more!

After tuning in to this week's episode of Come Receive the Light, check out the accompanying free CRTL study guide, for a provocative discussion of what is "normal."

After tuning in to this week's episode of Come Receive the Light, check out the accompanying free CRTL study guide, which examines what it means to be "childlike." Download, print & share it with friends!

The United Nations estimates that 4.2 million refugees and internally displaced persons have fled their homes in Iraq since 2003. International Orthodox Christian Charities is currently reaching out to Iraqi refugees in Syria, as well as disadvantaged Syrians. Find out more in this new interview with Amal Morcos, IOCC's Director of Communications, who recently visited Syria. Click here or listen below.

The battle for “Church” is not a battle of “valid” versus “invalid”; “visible” versus “invisible”; “scriptural” versus “traditional”; “Protestant” versus “Roman Catholic”. These are the sixteenth century battles of western European Christianity, already 500 years removed from Orthodox Christianity. The real question is “what did Jesus actually leave with us?”

Have you heard of people prophesying the future or speaking in tongues? What does the Bible have to say about such practices? Find out in this week's episode of Get Wisdom, and learn more from the accompanying study guide. Click here or listen below.

Are you ready to take a spiritual quiz? In this homily on the Parable of the Talents, Fr. Aris Metrakos asks every individual, and the Church, to assess the gifts that God has given them. Click here or listen below.

In this week's Just Thinking, Fr. Chris and Rod Dreher talk about Family and Civilization, the recently republished magnum opus of Carle Zimmerman, a distinguished sociologist who taught for many years at Harvard University. Click here or listen below.

On this week's Come Receive the Light, Fr. Chris speaks with Andy Lekos about the work of Short Term Missions at the Orthodox Christian Mission Center. Guests on The ARK and The RUDDER include Dr. Philip Mamalakis of Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology and Fr. William Chiganos. Join us for this and much more!

After tuning in to this week's episode of Come Receive the Light, check out the accompanying free CRTL study guide, which explores missions as an act of love. Download, print & share it with friends!

His Eminence, Metropolitan Kallistos (Timothy) Ware, will be giving lectures in Northern and Southern California in February/March 2008. These lectures will be recorded and available on www.MyOCN.net, as well as on The ARK and The RUDDER.

Join us for a lecture, brunch, and book signing with noted author Frederica Mathewes-Green on Bright Saturday, May 3, in Rocky River, Ohio.

"True fasting doesn’t change God, it changes us. We voluntarily go hungry in order to tame our deeper passions of sin...True fasting isn’t about food—though it is through food that we begin to train ourselves for spiritual battle. To say no to a simple meal aids us in saying no later to further and viler temptations."

What does it REALLY mean to love someone? Find out in the newest episode of Get Wisdom, the radio Bible study for teens and families. This week, learn what the Holy Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13 about the importance of loving others. Listen to the show, download the accompanying study guide and share both with the teens in your life. This weekly series is perfect for Sunday Schools and youth groups. Listen Now >>

The Meeting of the Lord in the Temple is one the twelve major feasts of the Orthodox Church. There are many important things we could discuss about this feast, most notably, it’s one of the many times in Christ’s life when we see the Author of the Law subjecting Himself in obedience to the Law. But I’d like to focus on St. Symeon, and his role in this feast—his life before the Meeting, his Meeting of the Lord, and the words he speaks on this occasion of the Meeting of the Lord in the Temple.

"While some Christians walked away from the world denouncing it, the Three Hierarchs seized the world and confronted it. They did not cower before the world but rather transformed it with the light of the resurrection."

Check out the OCN TV page for a presentation on Christianity in Palestine throughout the centuries by Fr. Constantine Nasr, a ninth generation priest from the Holy Land. Watch Now >>

In the newest episode of Just Thinking, Fr. Chris talks with Rod Dreher, a columnist with the Dallas Morning News, about the social and spiritual implications of current trends in Internet usage. Listen Now >>

After tuning in to this week's episode of Come Receive the Light, check out the accompanying free CRTL study guide, in which you can explore virtual reality and what it means from an Orthodox point of view. Download, print & share it with friends!

On this week's Come Receive the Light, Fr. Chris discusses "Linking Faith With Learning at Fordham University" with Aristotle Papanikolaou. Guests on The ARK and The RUDDER include Dr. Philip Mamalakis of Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology and Fr. Stanley Harakas. Join us for this and much more!

Has the Holy Spirit given YOU a gift? Check out the newest episode of Get Wisdom to find out what 1 Corinthians 12, and the Fathers of the Church, have to say on the issue. Listen Now >>

In Sunday's Epistle reading, St. Paul writes, “but above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection” (Colossians 3:14). Above mercy and humility and even forgiveness, there is love.