The Reformation: A Revolution of Conscience

Editor’s Note: This article is part of an October 2017 series of posts on the Reformation and Protestantism written by O&H authors and guest writers marking the 500th anniversary of the nailing of Martin Luther’s 95 theses to the church door at Wittenberg on October 31, 1517. Articles are written by Orthodox Christians and discuss not just the Reformation as a historicalā€¦

Philosophy According to Christ: Were the Fathers ā€˜Corruptedā€™ by Greek Philosophy?

It is a recurring popular trope, especially in some Protestant circles, to dismiss the Church Fathers on the grounds that they were ā€œseducedā€ or ā€œcorruptedā€ by Greek philosophy and that their understanding of the faith displays the cultural milieu of the day, rather than proper biblical exegesis. Even many scholars have claimed that attempting to read the Bible as the Fathers didā€¦

Vladimir Lossky on Ecumenical Dialogue

I recently came across Paul Ladouceur’s translation of an article by Vladimir Lossky on “The Doctrine of Grace in the Orthodox Church,” published in the St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 58, no. 1 (2014). The whole article contains matters of interest to readers here, but I’d just like to highlight its inclusion of a rare statement by Lossky on his understanding of ecumenicalā€¦

One Will per Nature per Person: A Response to Peter Leithart

Over at his First Things blog, ironically (or fittingly?) adorned with an icon of the baptism of Christ from the Arian baptistry of Theodoric the Ostrogoth, Peter Leithart has a novel idea about the problem of the wills of Christ: It is sometimes argued that the Christological formula of essence and person determines the way to understand person and essence in Trinitarianā€¦

Review of ‘Orthodox Readings of Aquinas’ by Marcus Plested

Dylan Pahman [Note: A version of this review was published in The American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 88, no. 1 (Winter 2014): 184-187. Published here with permission.] ORTHODOX READINGS OF AQUINAS. By Marcus Plested. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Pp. 276. $99.00 Hard Cover, ISBN: 978-0-19-965065-1. The encounter between the works of Thomas Aquinas and the Orthodox Church is often told in aā€¦

Grace and Wrath in the Orthodox Tradition

Eric Jobeā€™s recent series on justification (Part I, Part II, Part III) has spurred some discussion regarding the role of divine wrath in Orthodoxy. To simplify: Some readers seemed to believe that there was no place in Orthodoxy to speak of the wrath of God at all. Our salvation, to them, has nothing to do with deliverance from Godā€™s wrath. Rather thanā€¦

The Moral Christian: A Response to Fr. Stephen Freeman

In a recent post at Glory to God for All Things, ā€œThe Un-Moral Christian,ā€ Fr. Stephen Freeman critiques what he sees as common conceptions of Christianity as moral, defined as ā€œthe rules and standards by which we guide ourselves.ā€ These, he writes, are external and can be described and discussed. They are the rules by which we choose how to behave andā€¦