Welcome to Monachos.net in Passion Week 2012

Welcome to Monachos.net, a web site dedicated to the study of Orthodox Christianity through its patristic, monastic and liturgical heritage. This introduction describes the site's nature and focus, with a brief overview of its main content areas.

As the whole Orthodox world continues in the rigiour and renewal of Great Lent, the 'forty days' leading to Holy Pascha, Monachos.net again provides a host of resources on the Fast. We invite you to visit the many materials available for the Great Lenten season.

In this Holy & Passion Week, see:

• Our Central Passion Week Area - Filled with hundreds of resources for the Fast, from daily patristic readings to service texts, studies on the Fathers commemorated in Lent, reflections on the lenten days, etc.
• An Explanation of the Presanctified Liturgy - An outline of the Divine Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts, as celebrated on various weeksdays throughout Great Lent.
• A reading from St Melito of Saris on the Passover of Christ: a special patristic selection for Holy Week.
• Homily by St Leo the Great on the Passion of Christ - on Christ's Passion on the Cross, first preached on Holy Wednesday.
• 'Mother, Do Not Weep for Me' - A poem on the themes of Great Saturday, by Timothy Jeffries Johnson.

Visit our active Discussion Community forum - Take some time to explore one of the key resources of Monachos.net: our extensive Discussion Community, which recently won the Eastern Christian New Media 2009 & 2010 award for 'Best Forum' on the Orthodox internet, with over 102,000 posts pertaining directly to the legacy of the Church Fathers and monastic traditions.

A Word From the Holy Fathers is our web start-page, providing random quotations from the Church Fathers, drawn from an ever expanding database of over 500 passages. You can even create an account and add patristic quotations yourself.