​‘May we glorify Your mighty acts, your unspeakable plan of salvation for our sake’. (From the Matins Service of the Sixth Friday of Lent).

Pascha is a time of joy and light, because when we celebrate our Lord’s Resurrection, we anticipate the immortality of our own soul and the resurrection of our own body.

​St John of Damascus was born in 675 or 676 in Damascus to a family of civil servants. His father and grandfather were notable administrators in the Muslim court at that time and it is possible that St John also occupied this role for a time. Brought up with a Hellenic education as well as one in the culture of the Muslim Caliphate, St John used both in the service of Christ. The first was used to defend the veneration of icons when he was a monk at the Mar Saba Monastery near Jerusalem, and the second used to critique and highlight the inconsistencies within Islam. He reposed in the Lord in the year 749 at the Mar Saba Monastery.