Glory to God for All Things
New Martyrs from Optina
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Glory to God for All Things
Can There Be Morality on the Moon?
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I rarely refer people to a blog article by someone whom I don’t know. But I was recently directed to an article by William Gairdner that does an excellent job of looking at the fact that none of us lives in a “moral bubble.” Our lives are always connected to the lives of others. In Orthodoxy this is a fundamental doctrine of the nature of persons. His article, though largely exploring the…
Glory to God for All Things
Lost in Translation
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Engaging in conversations about the Orthodox faith – with others born and nurtured in the West – I sometimes feel that something is “lost in translation.” I say, “Church,” and something else comes to the listener’s mind: either something Roman or something Protestant, perhaps Anglican. I begin to explain that Orthodoxy cannot be explained or defined in terms of either Rome or Protestantism, for Orthodoxy did not come from Rome or from Protestantism…
Glory to God for All Things
What Is at Stake?
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In the struggle to come to the wholeness of Personhood – to become the “true self” rather than to sink into the “false self” our very existence as spiritual beings is at stake. If you read across Orthodox books that center on the issue of Personhood – a common theme becomes visible. Our fall and our brokenness leave us vulnerable, even in our religious efforts, to the development of a “false self”…
Glory to God for All Things
Hopko on the Cross of Christ
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An excerpt from Fr. Thomas Hopko’s commencement address at St. Vladimir’s. The whole is the address is exquisitely true and I would encourage you to read all of it. The link to the whole commencement address is given at the bottom of this post. …I can tell you that being loved by God, and loving Him in return, is the greatest joy given to creatures, and that without it there is no…
Glory to God for All Things
Hope and the Heart - Fr. Dmitri Staniloae
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The following comes from Fr. Dmitri Staniloae’s Orthodox Spirituality. (pg. 178) You have the experience of the congestion [crowdedness] of the heart when you are disturbed, and “ample room” when you are peaceful. But uneasiness, in regard to the future is the fruit of uncertainty, just as peace is the fruit of certainty. Care is the offspring of the fear of the future, thus of uncertainty, of the timidity that it won’t…
Glory to God for All Things
The Struggle of the Person
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I have begun to touch on issues of the “false self” and the “true self” for which we could find other language, a number of different metaphors. Theologically all this is grounded in the proper understanding of what it means to exist as a person. Of course, it means to exist in a completely unrepeatable, unique existence. There will never be another you. It also does not mean to exist in isolation…
Glory to God for All Things
The False and True Self
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Part of the experience of being involved in religious activities in the late 60’s and early 70’s was the not infrequent encounters with members of cults (they seemed to be everywhere). I’m not certain how I would define a cult (not purely by doctrine but certainly by its destruction and control of its members as whole persons). I worked in a “coffee house” (which in that particular time period, oddly enough, was…
Glory to God for All Things
I Pause to Give Thanks
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Numbers only mean so much – but Glory to God for All Things passed the 200,000 views mark this morning – all since late October. I generally write at night before going to bed – it clears my head and puts a better ending on the day. I am deeply moved that so many (and from so many places across the globe) read, and share kind comments and questions. May God bless…
Glory to God for All Things
Where the Truth Abides
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The old addage, “Seeing is believing,” pretty much sums up our modern attitude to the world around us. Common sense and a modest commitment to reason both accept the notion that the world is, pretty much as we see it, and that what we see is the truth of things. Over the years I’ve heard any number of believers suggest that they would like to be able to go back in a…
Glory to God for All Things
How Do We Know One Another?
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One of the more curious aspects of Christ’s resurrection appearances are the stories told of Him not being recognized at first. I have heard what seem to me to be silly explanations – that “the disciples were grief stricken and therefore did not recognize Him” – is one that seems completely implausible to me. It seems implausible primarily because grief does not work in such a manner. Indeed, my own acquaintance with…
Glory to God for All Things
Friendship
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There are many who have written on the subject of friendship over the centuries. It is an important topic and one that is worth thinking about. I began thinking about it this morning because I received an email from my friend, Fr. Al Kimel (Roman Catholic), telling me of a new Pontifications website. Al is a friend whom I first met in the late 80’s when I was doing work at Duke.…
Glory to God for All Things
The Faith of the Apostles
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We have learned from no others the plan of our salvation than from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and at a later period, by the will of God, handed down (tradiderunt) to us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith… Matthew issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while…
Glory to God for All Things
Man and Nature
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Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow said that “the truth of the Holy Scriptures goes far beyond the limits of our understanding,” adding that man was created last in order to enter into the cosmos “like a king and high priest.” According to the teaching of the Fathers, man’s royal and priestly role gives an ecclesiological accent to biblical cosmology. For St. Maximus the Confessor, the world is a “cosmic temple” in which man…
Glory to God for All Things
He Became Sin
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One of the (dis)advantages of travel, is that you are likely to get bored in your hotel room and turn on the tv, or get bored in your car and turn on the radio – and thus you will see or hear what you might otherwise have missed. It seems that any town in South Carolina has twice as many Christian radio stations as any town in Tennessee – if that can…
Glory to God for All Things
A Few Quiet Thoughts
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I spent the day with one of my daughters, taking care of business needs, and visiting my aging parents. Tonight I’m back in my hotel room and ready for the drive home tomorrow. Looking back over the blog for the past several days – and maybe because I’m tired and my emotions are a little brittle tonight (seeing people I love and don’t see enough always leaves me a little brittle) –…
Glory to God for All Things
On Loving Your Enemy
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From Fr. Sophrony: However wise, learned, noble a man may be, if he does not love his enemies – that is, love his every fellow-being – he has not attained to God. Contrariwise, however simple, poor and ignorant a man may be, if he carries this love in his heart, then ‘he dwelleth in God and God in him.’ A question was recently raised in our conversations about what exactly constitutes an…
Glory to God for All Things
Back Home (sort of)
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I have spent the day traveling down to South Carolina for a short family visit, and to connect with one of my daughters to help her in buying a car (just the joys of being a parent). My last couple of posts have been dealing with our relationship to place – in settings such as Church or home (or city). There are larger spaces, such as being in your home state, or…
Glory to God for All Things
Reading the Readers
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I like to buy books at a bargain – when I can and if I can. These days, books often come at a bargain with Amazon’s listing of used books. Occasionally the prices are almost irresistable (especially for a book lover). What has become of occasional interest to me can only happen with a used book. The ad reads, “some writing in the margins.” I can hardly resist. There is the book…
Glory to God for All Things
The Shape of Heaven
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I am feeling my way forward with this post – that is to say – I have some thoughts that are probably still in formation – so bear with me. That human beings have a particular relationship with icons is, to me, part of the dogma of the Church. It is not an expressed dogma – the Seventh Ecumenical Council made its defense of icons dependent on the right understanding of the…
Glory to God for All Things
Small Things, Great Hopes
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On the surface it was not a world-shaking event. A friend of the parish loaned me a DVD last week. The DVD was a Russian DVD – with English subtitles. Again, not a world-shaking event. Thus, let me take a few minutes to explain why I felt the earth move. The movie in question is The Island, or Ostrov, to call it by its Russian name. It has won a number of…
Glory to God for All Things
Putting Things Back Together
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One of the most striking features of the day of Pentecost, in the Scriptural account, is the emphasis on diversity. The mission to the Gentiles is a major theme in Luke’s writings (which includes Acts) and thus Pentecost has great importance for him. The disciples gathered in an upper room as they had so many times before in the preceding weeks. But now the promise they had been given was fulfilled – the…
Glory to God for All Things
On the Feast of Pentecost
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O Heavenly King, the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, Who art everywhere and fillest all things; Treasury of Blessings, and Giver of Life – come and abide in us, and cleanse us from every impurity, and save our souls, O Good One. On this day (Sunday) the Orthodox Church marks 50 days after the feast of Pascha and commemorates the gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church as recorded in the…
Glory to God for All Things
That the Gospel Should be Shared in Love - St. Silouan
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The following is another excerpt from Father Sophrony’s Saint Silouan of the Athonite. Father Silouan’s attitude towards those who differed from him was characterized by a sincere desire to see what was good in them, and not to offend them in anything they held sacred. He always remained himself; he was utterly convinced that ‘salvation lies in Christ-like humility’, and by virtue of this humility he strove with his whole soul to…
Glory to God for All Things
Back to Metaphors
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Suppose you have the occasion to sit with someone, an interested party, and explain to them the Christian faith. How do you tell the story? When I was in college we had groups who shared the 4 Spiritual Laws – a version of a Christian story, but not the one I would tell. We do not think long and hard enough about the imagery and language that we use. Frequently, our religious…
Glory to God for All Things
If You Would Celebrate Pentecost - Love Your Enemies
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From the Elder Sophrony’s St. Silouan the Athonite. This commandment of Christ’s, ‘Love your enemies,’ is the reflection in our world of the Triune God’s all-perfect love, and constitutes the corner-stone of our whole teaching. It is the ultimate synthesis of all our theology. It is the ‘power from on high’ and the ‘abundance of life’ that Christ gave us. It is the ‘baptism of the Holy Ghost, and with fire’ that…
Glory to God for All Things
Humility and Love
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The following is from the Afterword of Father Sophrony’s Saint Silouan the Athonite. If we cast our thoughts back over the bimillenary history of Christianity we are dazzled by the enormous wealth of Christian culture. Vast libraries full of the grandiose works of the human mind and spirit – innumerable academies, universities, institutes, where hundreds of thousands of young people drink thirstily of the living waters of wisdom. Tens of thousands of…
