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Humility and the Big Bang
Read more: Humility and the Big BangThe following is an excerpt from Archimandrite Zacharias’ The Hidden Man of the Heart. As we draw closer to Pascha, my own heart is drawn towards that moment – the marriage supper of the Lamb. It is impossible to exhaust the subject of Pascha for within it is contained the whole of God’s plan for mankind. […]
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The Incarnation: Cause of All Things Made, and Caused by None
Read more: The Incarnation: Cause of All Things Made, and Caused by NoneThe title of this post is a chapter heading in George Gabriel’s Mary the Untrodden Portal of God. Gabriel occasionally strikes hard at the West and the book would perhaps be strengthened with a less combative approach to the differences of East and West in the faith (my own opinion), but I liked the book and […]
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A Story of Repentance
Read more: A Story of RepentanceOne of my favorite books comes from the last years of the Soviet Union. It is the story of Tatiana Goricheva, a member of the “intelligentsia” and a Soviet-era dissident. Her book, Talking About God Is Dangerous, offers fascinating insights into both a period of time and the period of a human soul’s conversion by […]
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Careful Devotion to Christ
Read more: Careful Devotion to ChristIn writing about monasticism, I recently made mention of what I called “careful devotion to Christ.” In turn, a reader asked me to write further on “careful devotion.” In many ways the great problem of our age is the two-storey universe (which is make-believe) in which we live as religious people. We live in a […]
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Monasticism – What Is Possible
Read more: Monasticism – What Is PossibleIn the 4th century, the great Bishop, Athanasius of Alexandria, wrote a biography on St. Antony of Egypt. St. Antony was among the first hermits. St. Athanasius was both a first rate theologian and an outstanding writer. For a time in which books were copied by hand, his small tome on St. Anthony became a […]
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Southern Orthodoxy – Personal Reflections
Read more: Southern Orthodoxy – Personal ReflectionsI am a native of the American South, born in a time when cotton still grew in the fields and Jim Crow laws made life hell for a black man. For all of its strange contradictions – the South truly was a Christ-haunted culture. When Martin Luther King, Jr., began his preaching and marching for […]
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Orthodoxy and the Christ-Haunted Culture of the South
Read more: Orthodoxy and the Christ-Haunted Culture of the SouthI continue my short series in honor of Vladyko DMITRI of the South. This wonderful talk was given by the priest, Paul Yerger, of Clinton Mississippi, a true gentleman. Archbishop DMITRI was deeply sensitive of the unique culture in parts of the South and of the proper role that Orthodox mission should play. His own […]
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Elder Sophrony and Appalachia
Read more: Elder Sophrony and AppalachiaWhy are the consequences of Adam’s disobedience so disastrous? Why does spiritual life in Christ take, in this world, the tragic form of a hand-to-hand battle against death? Why is God’s creation linked to this negation, to death, to this struggle full of pain? Why must I struggle against things which kill me without having […]
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Archbishop Dmitri and the Dignity of Man
Read more: Archbishop Dmitri and the Dignity of ManThe attacks come from two different directions – and the object is the destruction of man. This, for me is a short summary of a consistent prophetic word I have heard from Archbishop DMITRI of Dallas for the past 15 years. The Archbishop is set to retire on March 31 of this year. With his […]
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Archbishop DMITRI of Dallas Announces Retirement
Read more: Archbishop DMITRI of Dallas Announces RetirementThe first Orthodox bishop I ever met was Vladyko DMITRI of Dallas and the South. He was everything I had ever thought a bishop should be – faithful, dynamic, mission-minded, and with a heart of gold. He has been the Apostle to the South here in the United States, leading many men and women into […]
Thank you for this lovely reflection, Father Stephen. My earliest memory, which was before I was walking so very early,…