June 21, 2020

Our Father's Business
Sunday Sermon

- Fr. Gregory Edwards Ph.D - Dean -


Today in Orthodoxy is the 2nd Sunday of Matthew as well as Father’s Day in the United States. The Gospel reading comes to us from Matthew 4:18-23 and accounts for us the calling of Jesus’ first four disciples. Father Gregory shares with us an inspiring message about discipleship and connects the Gospel to fatherhood. The Gospel takes us back to the beginning of Christ’s ministry just after His Baptism and temptation in the desert, to His calling of the first four disciples for seemingly no other reason than that they showed a willingness to work. This is the cycle of the Church to call people and shape and mold them in the Christian life as Christ did with His disciples and in our case with the guidance of our spiritual fathers the priests. Jesus came to work and was about His Father’s business working at the age of twelve in the temple teaching the people. Jesus called the disciples knowing their hearts and seeing their willingness to work but said that the harvest is plentiful and the laborers are few. Each of us as Orthodox Christians should work to become disciples in our corner of the world with excellence in whatever we have been called to do both in and out of the Church.



The Rev. Fr. Gregory Edwards, Ph.D., was raised in Virginia and eastern Pennsylvania, and became a member of the Orthodox Church while studying for his Bachelor's degree

307 19th Street South, Birmingham, AL 35233 | Fr. Gregory Edwards, Dean | 205.716.3080

Photography Credits: Beth Hontzas - Music: Presbytera Katerina Makiej





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The Rev. Fr. Gregory Edwards, Ph.D., was raised in Virginia and eastern Pennsylvania, and became a member of the Orthodox Church while studying for his Bachelor's degree in Religious Studies at Brown University. After completing a Master's Degree in the New Testament and early Christianity at Florida State University, he conducted doctoral studies in Greece at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, graduating summa cum laude in 2012. Ordained in 2007, he served parishes in Thessaloniki and Volos for 9 years. He and his wife Presvytera Pelagia lived in Greece from 2006-2016, where their four children were born. He has served as Assistant Professor of Missiology at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Seminary in New York since 2014. Before coming to Birmingham in March 2019, Fr. Gregory served St. George Greek Orthodox Church in New Port Richey, FL from 2016-2019.