Best of DIAKONIA and SOPHIA

by Fr. Edward Hughes
from DIAKONIA Summer 2009

The Ladies are the very foundation of the Orthodox Christian Church. There is no doubt that this has been true from the very, very beginning. When our Lord was about his public ministry, traveling and preaching all over the Eastern shore of the Mediterranean, the Scriptures tell us that there were "Many women… which followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering unto Him." (Mt. 27, 55). At the Cross, besides these women from Galilee, there were "Many other women which came up with Him unto Jerusalem." (Mk 15:41) Among these women were those blessed women who were the first to know of the glorious Resurrection. It was they who evangelized the Apostles, telling them the good news which they had learned first from the Angels.