Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Barton Decker, barber
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This past Friday, I made another assay into the streets of and around Emmaus to find myself a decent barber shop. My first haircut experience in Emmaus, to put it frankly, hurt. I have no idea exactly why that gent had such a need to dig the clippers with such fervor into my neck, but, suffice it to say, once I did my fiduciary…
Glory to God for All Things
The Death of Christ - The Life of Man
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A recent comment posed a fundamental question with regard to the Christian faith: Why do we believe that Christ had to die? What is the purpose of His death on the cross? Preliminary Thoughts Part of the information accompanying the question was the experience (of Mary K) with teaching on the atonement that centered largely on the wrath and anger of God. (I paraphrase and summarize) We sinned  (both ourselves and Adam…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Ancient History meets American History
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On Saturday the 15th of August, after we completed services for the Dormition, members of the Orthodox Church of Emmaus, Pennsylvania, manned a booth at the festival marking the 250th anniversary of the founding of the Borough of Emmaus. One could say that we are a church obsessed with history, and so it is only fitting that we should make one small footprint into…
Glory to God for All Things
How Simple Should Christianity Be?
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There is a tendency in our modern world to make things as simple as possible. We hide the complexities behind a keyboard (I don’t know how my computer works – or not very well) or we treat things that seem complex as unnecessary obfuscations. This same drive to simplify was very much alive in the 16th century as Christianity underwent reform in many places of the world. Thomas Cranmer, the English Reformer,…
Glory to God for All Things
What's the Point?
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For a man who does not believe in God – nothing points to God. For a man who believes in God – everything points to God. So who’s right? There is almost no argument between these two experiences. For someone who does not believe in God my own contention that everything points to God is pretty much meaningless. In extraordinary cases we can listen to each other and struggle to understand what…
Glory to God for All Things
The Agent of Change
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A continuation of the series on culture and the individual. As inhabitants of our modern culture, we find ourselves trapped in a world of “cause and effect.” It is a physical explanation of the universe that has, for all intents and purposes, become a universal metaphor, dominating religion and the most personal aspects of our lives. We see ourselves as the agents of change – or responsible for the disasters that litter…
Glory to God for All Things
Dostoevsky on the Individual
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The following passage from The Brothers Karamazov is taken from one of the “Talks and Homilies” of the Elder Zossima – one of the key characters in the novel. His thoughts echo earlier articles here that contrast man as “individual” (isolation) to man as Person (brotherhood and communion). I plan to offer a series of thoughts on the position of the Christian in a consumer culture. Look at the worldly and at the…
Praying in the Rain
Spiritual Interpretations
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In the epistle for this Sunday, (I Cor. 9:2-12), St. Paul asks the rhetorical question: “Who works as a soldier at his own expense?” That is, he asserts the obligation of a community to financially support those who “sow spiritual good” among them, an obligation that St. Paul had not pressed upon them, “rather than put an obstacle in the way of the Gospel of Christ.” On the one hand the Corinthians…
Praying in the Rain
Making Solomon King, Twice
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In 1 Chronicles 29:22b-24, we read: “And they made Solomon the son of David King a second time…and all Israel listened to him. All the leaders and the mighty men as well as all the sons of King David his father, were subject to him.” A second time? Why had I never seen that before? The note in the OSB says that the two enthronements prefigure the two comings of Christ. What…
Glory to God for All Things
The Mystery of Faith - Sacrament and Icon
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Recent questions have been raised about the difference between icons and sacraments in the Orthodox Church. It is an easy place for confusion to occur – particularly when seen from the outside. The Church in the West, particularly the Roman Catholic Church, developed a carefully-worded and defined understanding of sacrament during the Middle Ages. This definition depended on matters such as the authority of its institution, the intention of its performance, and…
Glory to God for All Things
The Role of Icons
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Icons are not about art. Icons are not about left-overs of Byzantine style. Icons are not about the idolatrous impulse within fallen humanity. Icons are about the very nature of our salvation. The history of Western theology, particularly the opposition to icons within the Protestant movement, has removed one of the most traditional components of Christian theology and handicapped the modern imagination and understanding of our relationship to God. Our encounters with…
Glory to God for All Things
Bad Icons
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And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into His likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:18). It is a teaching of the Fathers concerning the holy icons that we do not truly “see” them if we have no reverence for that which they depict. Icons are “windows into heaven,” but…
Glory to God for All Things
The Face of God
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Orthodox Christians mark August 16 as the Feast of the Icon “Not Made With Hands,” the miraculous face of Christ first left on a cloth sent to King Abgar of Edessa. The stories of the icon are swathed in the mists of history – but the image (or representations of it on icons) remain among the most popular of Orthodox images. It is frequently the icon that graces the entrance of a…
Glory to God for All Things
Rejoice, O Virgin - A Blessed Feast
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Glory to God for All Things
Being Famous Doesn't Make You Moral
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The news story is so common that the name can be left blank.  “N. confessed today that he has been unfaithful to his wife and children and let down his fans. ‘I want to say I’m sorry for what I’ve done and ask God’s forgiveness.’” I do not believe that our nation is suffering a rash of infidelities. We are suffering a rash of cheap shots – easily made because the targets…
Glory to God for All Things
The Last Battle
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The Scriptures end with the description of a battle that is truly “apocalyptic” in its scale: all the forces of evil arrayed against all the forces of good. It is grand theater, having caught the imagination of countless generations (and even Hollywood). I do not know quite what to make of the description. That it describes a reality, I do not doubt. What that reality will look like to its bystanders (if…
Glory to God for All Things
The Inverted Pyramid
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No greater image of prayer and the love of God has been given in our modern time than that of the Elder Sophrony’s Inverted Pyramid. The subject of such prayer has risen. I thought to share this as an effort to shed some light. Fr. Sophrony [Sakharov], in his book on St. Silouan, presents this theory of the “inverted pyramid.” He says that the empirical cosmic being is like a pyramid: at…
Glory to God for All Things
The Icon We Love Most
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An early post on icons – hopefully part of a short series… Years ago when I was studying in an Anglican seminary (mid-70’s), I had the beginnings of my interest in icons. I owned a couple, and read what little was available on the topic in English at that time (believe it or not there was a time when not many books were available in English on the topic of Orthodox Christianity).…
Glory to God for All Things
The Time for Prayer
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A brother asked a hermit, “If I oversleep and miss the time for prayer, I hesitate to keep the rule of prayer. I am embarassed and do not want the brothers to hear me praying.” The hermit gave him this advice: “If you sleep late, get up and shut your door and windows. Then pray your psalms. Both day and night belong to God. You will glorify God whatever time it is.”…
Glory to God for All Things
The Experience of Prayer
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As a foolish man I go so far in this post as to speak of the experience of prayer. I write this not to speak of great experiences but, if possible, to quiet our minds, and to speak a word of peace in a culture that is full of madness and spiritual delusion. There are many wonderful spiritual stories to be found in the lives of the saints and elders. Many people,…
Glory to God for All Things
Prayer Before Bed
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Some written prayers are simply better than anything you can think of yourself.  There are phrases in this traditional Orthodox “prayer before bed” that speak worlds. “…or seen the beauty of someone and been wounded by it in my heart…” To the Holy Spirit: O Lord, the Heavenly King, the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth: have compassion and mercy on me, Thy sinful servant! Absolve me, who am unworthy. Forgive all the…
Glory to God for All Things
Beginning to Pray
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I have written from time to time on the nature of prayer. I was recently asked by a reader to offer a reflection on “beginning to pray,” which seems to me to be an invitation to write about something that happens for me, by necessity, every day. I cannot write as a man of great experience in prayer. But I have had years of experience in beginning to pray. If the reader…
Glory to God for All Things
Transfiguration and the Bridal Chamber
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There is a propensity in our modern world to break things down – to analyze. We have gained a certain mastery over many things by analyzing various components of their structure and manipulating what we find. It has become the default position of modern thought. This power of analysis, however, is weakened by its very success. Frequently the truth of something lies not in the summary of its parts but in the…
Praying in the Rain
50 Years And Not Much Like a Saint
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Today is my birthday—big 5-0. Am I an adult yet? Bonnie and I were talking this morning over oatmeal and blueberries (the blueberries this year are awesome) about the bishops and the scandals and the various responses. She said, “I wonder what St. Nektarios would do?” That was a word to my heart. St. Nektarios didn’t fight, he bore and prayed—and became holy. May God grant us wisdom to speak our conscience,…
Glory to God for All Things
The Fullness of Faith
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I prefer to use the term “fullness” when describing the Orthodox faith because it is far more explanatory than simply saying that we are the “true Church,” etc. “Fullness,” of course does not deny this, but it moves us onto more fruitful ground. In this post I offer a short list of what seem to me important consequences of giving one’s life to the “fullness of the faith.” This is a reprint…
Glory to God for All Things
Speaking With Authority
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And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes (Matt. 7:28-29). Authority is an interesting phenomenon – though not often what people may think. I remember the first few years of my ministry – fresh from seminary. There is probably no one in the religious world who knows more than a newly-graduated seminarian. I was…
Praying in the Rain
Me and Elder Prophyrios
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No, I have never physically met Elder Prophyrios. My relationship with the Elder began the first time his book, Wounded by Love came into my house. Everyone, it seemed, was talking about it, so I got a copy. I jumped right in when my copy arrived and was quickly disturbed by what I read. Obedience is the theme of the Elder’s monastic training, and I found that disturbing. It was disturbing not…
