Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
The Pentecostal Fountain
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Note: An audio recording of this sermon is also available via Ancient Faith Radio. Sunday of Pentecost, June 8, 2014 Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. We come now to the “last day of the feast,” the fiftieth day from Pascha, the day of Pentecost. On this…
Nearly Orthodox
Air dancers
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It has a name and it’s an awesome name. I was wondering about it for weeks, having driven by the same wind-whipped inflatable character near the car wash on Western Avenue. Its arms were outstretched, its wide smile and bright eyes popping out with each cycling of air through its slender body; collapsing and filling over and over. It got my attention. That is its only job. So I went online to…
Nearly Orthodox
The answer to gun violence...
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Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Facing Antioch: Hopes for the Antiochian Archdiocese Nominating Convention and Beyond
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We in the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America come now to a historic moment, one that has not been seen for nearly half a century. That may sound a bit melodramatic, especially considering that we are really only a small community, both when compared with the rest of our country and especially when compared with the Orthodox world in general. But it…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Coming this Fall: Ancient Faith Blogs
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Ancient Faith Ministries, the people who bring you Ancient Faith Radio and Ancient Faith Publishing (formerly Conciliar Press) have officially announced a new project for this Fall: Ancient Faith Blogs. The beans being spilled: If you’re like me, you follow several Orthodox blogs, but you don’t have the time or inclination to look into other such blogs that may or may not share the…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Spiritual Renewal and the Healing of the Blind
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Sunday of the Blind Man, May 25, 2014 Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. Christ is risen! On this sixth and final Sunday during the forty days we celebrate Christ’s resurrection, we begin to contemplate the completion of this celebration with the account from John’s Gospel of…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Becoming a Bridge: Christ and the Woman at the Well
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Note: An audio recording of this sermon is also available via Ancient Faith Radio. Sunday of the Samaritan Woman, May 18, 2014 Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. Christ is risen! Today on this fifth Sunday of the great feast of all feasts, Holy Pascha, we meditate…
Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy
The Future of Protestantism and Catholicism: A Few Orthodox Comments
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Over at First Things, R. R. Reno reflects as a Roman Catholic on his recent attendance at Peter Leithart’s Future of Protestantism conference, in which Leithart et al advocated for a post-Protestant future, especially in terms of what Leithart calls “Reformed Catholicism.” Reno notes that, while Protestants like Leithart may be looking at engaging with Catholicism to imagine their own future, Catholics…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
"We speak one language: Antiochian": More Thoughts on the Future of the Antiochian Archdiocese and Orthodoxy in America
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If you’ve done any reading from modern Orthodox saints, you know that there is a certain tone among the holy elders of Greece, another from Russia and so forth. Each culture enculturates the Gospel in its own authentic way and speaks of the truth of Jesus Christ with its own voice. One of the things which makes the particular Antiochian voice distinct—although it is…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Light from Antioch: The Future of the Antiochian Archdiocese and Orthodoxy in America
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Notes: The following is a personal reflection and represents only my own views. This piece is also available as an audio recording via Ancient Faith Radio. This past Friday, I had the blessing along with other clergy of the Diocese of Charleston and Oakland and also the Diocese of Washington and New York to meet with His Eminence, Metropolitan Silouan (Moussi) of Argentina in…
Nearly Orthodox
the fasting, the feast, the fire
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There is so much to Pascha in the Orthodox tradition. It’s a rich bounty of Liturgies, opportunities to connect, to pray, to wait, to watch, to breathe deep. Each service has its own particular draw, its own voice with which to speak. None speaks to me at this point in my journey as well as the midnight office. This is to be expected I suppose. It’s the most visible and tangible offering…
Nearly Orthodox
Good Friday: this floating space
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I’m suspended here, in this floating space just before Pascha, in the air, in the water, it’s hard to explain. Before I have coffee in the morning there’s that groggy brain poking through, telling me I have to get up, get going, get things done but I’m not really listening. It’s automatic now, this waking up at 6am whether I need to be up or not. And so I get up, stretch…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Raising Authentically Christian Children: Good News and Bad News
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My friend Seraphim Danckaert published an article today on the O&H site that I think every Christian (Orthodox or not) should read: Losing our Religion: On “Retaining” Young People in the Orthodox Church. Why? Almost every kind of church throughout America is losing kids. So read it first before reading the rest of this. Okay, done? First, some bad news: If you’re counting on…
Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy
Losing our Religion: On “Retaining” Young People in the Orthodox Church
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A recent article on the challenge of interfaith marriage in Greek Orthodoxy has been circulating widely on Facebook.[1] One reason for the article’s popularity is its startling claim that 90% of Americans with Greek roots are no longer in communion with the Orthodox Church. Similarly dismal statistics are likely true for most Orthodox jurisdictions in the United States, but the article in…
Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy
The Ecumenism of Fr. Georges Florovsky
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A short piece on the ecumenism of Fr. Georges Florovsky has been written by Florovsky scholars Fr. Matthew Baker and Seraphim Danckaert and published in Orthodox Handbook on Ecumenism: Resources for Theological Education. It’s brief but fascinating it its detail. Here are a few highlights: Georges Florovsky (1893-1979) was the leading architect of Orthodox ecumenism in the 20th century. He combined magnanimity…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Ten (Possibly) Surprising Facts about Fred Phelps
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Besides being a heretical hate-monger who pushed the envelope of the definition of constitutionally protected speech, Fred Phelps, the late leader of the Westboro Baptist Church, had a number of perhaps surprising facets to his life. Here are ten of them, all culled from the Wikipedia article dedicated to him. 1. In the ’60s and ’70s, Phelps was a notable civil rights lawyer in…
Nearly Orthodox
The problem with poetry...
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Nearly Orthodox
Godparenting...
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I have four god-daughters- one Orthodox and three non-Orthodox. The non-Orthodox god-daughters are my niece, the daughter of my bestie, Paula and the daughter of my bestie, Dina. Jennifer, Agatha and Meg are lovely, intelligent and creative as they enter into their preteen and teenage years respectively. I’m incredibly proud of them and I’m thankful I’ve had the chance to walk alongside with their parents and watch them grow. When our kids…
Nearly Orthodox
A Lenten Classic
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Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy
Is Orthodoxy the Same Everywhere?: Understanding Theological Controversy Within the Church
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What do we mean when we say that Orthodoxy is the same everywhere? One of the “features” of Orthodoxy that is commonly put forward especially by converts as proof of the truth of the Orthodox Christian faith is that Orthodoxy is the same everywhere. They may point to the unanimity of liturgical practice, that all Orthodox look to the same councils and…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Returning to the Paradise I've Never Seen
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Sunday of Forgiveness, March 2, 2014 Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. Today is called the Sunday of Forgiveness, most especially because of the service that we will celebrate here this evening, Forgiveness Vespers, when all of us will ask each other to forgive what we have…
Nearly Orthodox
forgiveness...
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For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. -Matthew 6:14-15 In the Orthodox tradition Lent begins like wading into water. We spend time transitioning from where we’ve been to where we want to go. We spend a week preparing to remove meat from our diet, offering prayer and awareness and…
Nearly Orthodox
Bigger than...
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Miles is a whirlwind, a hurricane human. In our small dining room I coach him constantly to lower his voice. I assure him he can still make his point, still get the floor with all of us sitting there. In the dining room he sits in the back corner of the long table, the table that takes up most of the space. It fills the room. He tilts his chair back, throwing…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
The Gift of the Cross
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He could not have known. In the joy only a 21-month-old is capable of at successfully worming his way into papa’s inner sanctum, he began to explore its secrets and soon made his way to that low table that had so many wonderful things lying on it. Amid the prayerbooks, candles and even a brass hand censer was a ceramic Celtic standing cross papa…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
12 Reasons Why I Became and/or Remain an Orthodox Christian
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Lists like this are usually so much clickbait, I know, but I thought it was nevertheless worthwhile to compile a list of most of the reasons why I became and/or remain an Orthodox Christian. Some of these things were not really on my radar when I became Orthodox in 1998, but they are part of the reason why I genuinely do love belonging to…
Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy
"I Don't Worship God by Singing": So Why Bother Going to Church?
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A reader alerted me to best-selling author Donald Miller‘s Feb. 3 post “I Don’t Worship God by Singing. I Connect With Him Elsewhere,” and I was immediately struck by both the rightness and the tone of his critique: I’ve a confession. I don’t connect with God by singing to Him. Not at all. I know I’m nearly alone in this but it’s…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Meeting the Lord
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Meeting of the Lord in the Temple, February 2, 2014 Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. We arrive now at the fortieth day from our Lord’s birth, when His mother and foster father Joseph bring Him to the Temple in Jerusalem to fulfill what was written in…
