Reading the Fathers of the Church is an important exercise. If done with care and prayer the benefit to our life in Christ can be profound. The works of the Fathers are varied and include: dogma (the non-negotiables of our Faith), preaching, spirituality, teaching, exegesis (interpretation of Scripture), doctrine (not necessarily non-neogtiables, but nonetheless important aspects of our Faith) and theology (how we understand and approach God).
Often people do not know where to start and are overwhelmed by THE FATHERS or, sadly, find them dry and irrelevant to our “modern day.” Neither has to be true. The following list of 20 works is offered for a starting point for those who find themselves stuck, or, who wish to deepen their understanding of the Faith and grow in their life in Christ. The works are relatively short with our modern St. Sophrony having the longest work on this list. Most of these works can be read in a day while others like—On the Divine Names, On Pascha, We Shall See Him as He Is, On the Apostolic Preaching, On the Incarnation, Letters of Ignatius, Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit and The Ecclesial Mystagogy—will, and should, take longer.
The list is set up as a companion to the Church year in an effort to help the Orthodox Christian enter more deeply into this cycle put in place for us not to return over and over to a path we have already tread, but like hiking up a mountain in a circle, to steadily ascend toward the place of encounter with God—the Mountain of Sinai, the heights of Tabor, the peak of Moriah, the pinnacle of Zion and ultimately to the cross of Golgotha where we find our God with arms outstretched in love and asking us to join Him. May our Good and Loving God—who dwells in His Saints—bless your path.
Calendar
January
- Oration 39—On the Baptism of Christ (Gregory Nazianzus, Theophany, Jan 6)
- Oration 40—On Baptism (Gregory Nazianzus, Theophany, Jan 6)
- 38 Sayings of Anthony (Anthony the Great, Jan 17)
February
- Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit (Photios the Great, Feb 6)
- Tome of Leo (Leo the Great, Feb 18)
March
- Synodicon (Fathers of the 7th EC Council, 1st Sunday of Lent, The Sunday of Orthodoxy)
April
- On Pascha (Melito of Sardis, Holy Week)
May
- Oration 1—On Pascha and His Slowness (Gregory Nazianzus, Brightweek)
- Oration 45—On Pascha (Gregory Nazianzus, Brightweek)
June
- Oration 41—On Pentecost (Gregory Nazianzus, Pentecost)
July
- We Shall See Him as He Is (Sophrony of Essex, July 11)
August
- Homily—Discourse on the Transfiguration of our Lord (Gregory Palamas, Transfiguration, Aug 6)
- Homilies I, II, and III—On the Dormition of the Theotokos (John of Damascus, Dormition, Aug 15)
- On the Apostolic Preaching (Irenaeus of Lyon, Aug 23)
September
- The Ecclesial Mystagogy (Maximos the Confessor, Church New Year, Sept 1)
- Homily 51 (Isaac the Syrian, Sept 28)
October
- On the Divine Names (Dionysius the Areopagite, Oct 3)
November
- On the Incarnation (Athanasius the Great, Beginning of the Nativity Fast, Nov 15)
December
- Letters of Ignatius (Ignatius of Antioch, Dec 20)
- Oration 38—On the Nativity of Christ (Gregory Nazianzus, Nativity)