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Ancient Faith Blogs presents a select group of writers and thinkers who regularly post on matters of theology, culture, art, parish, and family life.
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Faith Encouraged
You Know Me
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Christ is risen! He was wondering why I was looking at him in such an intense way. He had just said something that I completely misunderstood, and, if he meant what I thought he meant, well, let’s just say we may need to step outside! Once he realized I misunderstood him, his confusion turned to panic and he immediately started to explain himself. Whew! That was close. But that’s the way of…
The Morning Offering
Fasting
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The importance of fasting for the Orthodox Christian Our fasting is pleasing to the Lord when it is accompanied by mercy and kindness, and done without hypocrisy or pride. Fasting brings the passions under control by not only taming the body, but bringing victory over the demons. Fasting gives us power over the demons because it has a powerful impact…
Faith Encouraged
I Am the Door of the Sheep
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Christ is risen! There is a huge difference between knowing about someone and actually knowing them. I’ve heard this truth illustrated by talking about identical twins. We have two sets of twins in our parish; one set is easy to distinguish because one is a boy and the other is a girl. But the second set of twins are identical girls! Somebody just meeting the girls would have a hard time telling…
The Morning Offering
The Internet
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The good, the bad, and the ugly There is a lot of good that can be discovered on line. Many years ago I was charged by my archbishop with the task of addressing our Diocesan Pastoral Conference on the subject of “Fasting According to the Early Church Fathers”. Only after having agreed to the task of preparing such a lecture…
Walking an Ancient Path
Liturgy Survival Guide: Focusing on the Scriptures
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Faith Encouraged
Do You Take Offense at This?
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Christ is risen! He looked at me and said something I never expected: “Conflict is necessary for close friendship and healthy relationships.” What? I hated hearing that. In fact, it made me question whether I was trusting the right person with this particular challenge. It was a sticky situation that meant I had to confront someone with a hard truth, and I was trying to avoid that, if at all possible. But…
The Morning Offering
Clericalism
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The corrupting influence of clericalism Orthodoxy has traditionally avoided clericalism, yet in more recent times corruption of priestly service has enter the doors of the Orthodox Church. It has led some clergy to be motivated by a desire for power and prestige, with their sight so clouded as to endanger not only their own souls, but the souls of the…
Eastern Christian Insights
Overcoming the Paralysis Caused by the Fear of Death: Homily for the Sunday of the Paralytic in the Orthodox Church
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Acts 9:32-42; John 5:1-15 Christ is Risen! We all face difficult circumstances in our lives that we are tempted to think will never change. Sometimes we lose hope of gaining health and strength when we have been sick and weak in body or soul. Problems in marriage, family life, or other relationships may seem beyond healing or repair. Before the difficulties of our lives, let alone the persistent problems of the world,…
The Morning Offering
Anger
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In every way we must strive to restrain anger Abba Evagrius the Monk said that, “Anger is by nature designed for waging war with the demons and for struggling with every kind of sinful pleasure. Therefore angels, arousing spiritual pleasure in us and giving us to taste its blessedness, incline us to direct our anger against the demons. But the…
The Morning Offering
The Beauty of God
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Being the beauty of God in a darkened world When others see how we negotiate our life, how we treat our fellow workers, our neighbors, and our family, they should witness in us devotion and praise of God. Our deeds and our speech must reveal the love of God to all those who come in contact with us. Our whole…
Father Bill's Blog
126. War and Peace: Part One - Christ, the Early Church, the Just War Theory
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Christ is risen! Truly he is risen! “Wars and Rumors of Wars” The time to think about war rationally is before we get into one. Once war begins it’s too late. Then all sorts of emotions and reactions, pride and propaganda take over. And after people are killed in war, there is a fervent and very natural desire to prove that our brave men and women did not die in vain – even…
Faith Encouraged
Eat My Flesh; Drink My Blood
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Christ is risen! “Stubborn, stubborn, I tell you.” I can still hear the words of my grandmother fussing about a relative who simply refused to hear “good sense” as she called it. “That boy is a stubborn as a mule!” I confess, as I enter the latter half of my own life, I can look back and see some places where I was just plain stubborn. And my active refusal to hear…
The Morning Offering
The Great Gap
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The need to reunite a society divided by age There are two major populations within our society that are seeing a statistical rise in the number of suicides. At a time when a growing body of research shows that people with the most social power pay scant attention to those with little such power, our nation’s youth, and the elderly,…
Roads from Emmaus
"Tolkien" Film: How Christian Reviewers are Getting it Wrong (SPOILERS)
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No Other Foundation
The Indomitable Courage of Women
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The myrrh-bearing women are an image of the Church. Taken together they reveal the broad catholicity of the Church, for they were a diverse lot, and included both the conventional married woman, Mary the mother of Joses, and the highly unconventional Mary Magdalene. They also reveal the primacy of devotion to Jesus, for their mutual devotion to Him was the only thing that bound them together. And, not least, they also reveal…
Faith Encouraged
Do Not Murmur Among Yourselves
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Christ is risen! As I was studying what to write today, I wanted to look up the meaning of the word “murmur.” Do you know what popped up first in my research? Yep, heart murmurs. The sound your heart makes when it’s sick. I thought about this for a while and decided there was real wisdom here. When I am murmuring (think questioning or doubting or complaining), that’s the “sound” my soul…
The Morning Offering
Blessed is the Kingdom
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Blessed is the kingdom of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit The Divine Liturgy begins with the words, “Blessed is the kingdom of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, now and forever and to the ages of ages”. This kingdom is our true home and our lives as Christians are…
A Light So Lovely
The Crisis of Modern Culture: Ivan Ilyin's Opening Salvo
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In about one month, I will be presenting a lecture on the creation of Christian culture at the Ancient Faith Writing and Podcasting Conference. Part of my presentation will be a brand new translation of Ivan Ilyin’s fascinating work on the subject of The Foundations of Christian Culture. It has not, as far as I know, ever been translated. But it deserves to be studied and considered by all culture creators, especially because of the…
Faith Encouraged
The Bread of Life
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Christ is risen! In the church I was raised we just didn’t do the Lord’s Supper very often. In fact, there are years where I can’t remember if we did it at all through a particular year. And that didn’t strike me as strange or unusual. After all it was just a “memorial” of a past event. Nothing more. Imagine my surprise when I learned that this attitude towards the Bread and…
The Morning Offering
Open Wide the Doors
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Open wide the doors of the Church to everyone The subject came up among clergy of our diocese as to whether it was proper to allow a man to attend services while wearing an earring. The point, as it seems to me, is to make him feel welcomed enough to want to be in church to begin with. Requiring the…
Glory to God for All Things
Why Does God Hide?
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God hides. God makes Himself known. God hides. This pattern runs throughout the Scriptures. A holy hide-and-seek, the pattern is not accidental nor unintentional. It is rooted in the very nature of things in the Christian life. Christianity whose God is not hidden is not Christianity at all. But why is this so? In a previous article, I wrote: Our faith is about learning to live in the revealing of things that…
Faith Encouraged
The Resurrection of Life and the Resurrection of Judgement
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Christ is risen! One of the oldest manuscripts we have for the earliest days of the Christian Faith outside the Gospels is the Didache or “The Teaching of the 12 Apostles.” This ancient writing dates from the First Century A.D. and begins with an intriguing phrase: “There are two ways, one of life and one of death, and there is a great difference between these two ways.” It seems this basic wisdom of two…
The Morning Offering
The Incarnation and Deification
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God shares His Divinity with our humanity The idea that Christ would have incarnated in the flesh, even if Adam and Eve had not fallen, was taught by a number of early Church Fathers. Although not a formal teaching of the Orthodox Church, the understanding comes from the view that the Logos took on our flesh because God wished to…
Faith Encouraged
Unless You See A Sign
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Christ is risen! He was almost breathless telling me about the event he experienced. It was overwhelming to him. He and several friends from his parish were thrilled to have a myrrh streaming icon come to their community and this precious Orthodox convert was simply amazed at witnessing this sign of God’s presence and reality. I experienced this beautiful event myself and shared his awe and wonder at God’s goodness and mercy…
The Morning Offering
The Nous
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The eye of the soul and the mind of the heart There is the seen, and there is the unseen, the material and the immaterial. That which is material can be scientifically examined and experienced, the immaterial can only be seen and experienced spiritually. These are two worlds that are only seemingly at odds with one another. If you attempt…
The Morning Offering
My Mom
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Grateful for the love of my mother The most important gift I received from my mother was the gift of love. She loved me, and demonstrated her love for me throughout my childhood. She also showed me how to love others, and that ability to be willing to be open to love, and to demonstrate love, eventually allowed me to…
Glory to God for All Things
On the Elder Aimilianos
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This interview is with my Archbishop, whom I have come to love and enjoy. His own story is quite interesting. A descendant of Prince Golitzin (one of the Russian royal families) and a child of the Church, his studies at Oxford in Patristics brought him up against a wall of questions and doubts. His doctoral work was on Dionysius the Areopagite. He said in a conversation with me that the press of…