A reader's comment on an old posting of mine (from 2007) took me back to read the same. It seemed worth re-posting. Some things bear repeating - again and again, as they say. Perhaps one of the greatest disservices done to Christians by the spate of "Left ...
As we celebrate Christ's Paschal victory - these thoughts are offered on the nature of our deliverance. One of the Psalms appointed for use in this season declares: "Now is the change of the Most High." Pascha is indeed God's change - which is why we ourse ...
There has been a tendency in much teaching about the notion of salvation by grace to ground the image in a legal or forensic metaphor. Thus, we are saved by grace in the sense that someone else's goodwill and kindness (God's) has now freed us from the cons ...
A few years ago, a major American magazine dubbed a particular age-group as the "me generation." It would have been more accurate to describe the whole of modernity as a "me generation." For it has been a hallmark of our age to fashion a particular underst ...
This year I will make the annual pilgrimage back to South Carolina to be with family for the (American) Thanksgiving holiday. Fewer of my children will be there - a mark of the maturing of their own families and the difficulty of travel at this time of yea ...
Few passages of Scripture are more familiar in the Orthodox Church than the Beatitudes - Christ's sayings from the Sermon on the Mount which begin, "Blessed are...." With familiarity comes the occasional lack of attention, in which we forget to ask, "What ...
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 expe ...
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 uni ...
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 ...
The recent questions about knowing God - which I have described as something that often comes to me in the "peripheral vision" of my life - seems somehow related to the perception of beauty as well. Beauty often seems to be "greater than the sum of its par ...
Met. Jonah of the OCA today addressed a group of conservative Anglicans. In the course of outlining what would be necessary for true ecumenical dialog and union, he stated, "the renunciation of Calvinism as a heresy." This probably came as a surprise to ma ...
Conversation this past week on this site has centered around mercy and justice and the understanding of the sacrifice of Christ. I began with an article on a quote by St. Isaac of Syria, who famously questions the human concept of justice and its relation ...
I will add an additional thought (related to the previous article) on the future "justice" of God. There are many who imagine theologically that at some later point, a final judgment, God's justice will be manifest. In this manifestation of justice, the pu ...
St. John, in the prologue of his gospel, says the following: And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father (John 1:14). In his first Epistle he says the following: ...
Originally posted in February 2007. I have updated a few things. It is a piece that is quite relevant as my youngest child graduates high school this week. The fullness only grows. Sometimes I sit down to write with an idea and I know that I am either get ...
I offer a brief apology to Buddhists - forgive me if I have mischaracterized your religious practices. We are enjoined by St. Paul to have within us the mind that was in Christ - specifically in His self-emptying love in going to the Cross (Philippians 2 ...
Reflecting on my last two posts, The Nature of Things and Our Salvation and Beauty and the Salvation of the World, I have a question: What is the nature of things such that beauty should matter? It is a commonplace in our culture to think that "beauty is ...
Dr. Alexander Kalomiros, author of the River of Fire and other well known Orthodox writings, offers these simple thoughts on the Orthodox Life. They are taken from the small book, Nostalgia for Paradise. When the ascetical life of a Christian and the pr ...
The River of Fire Copyright 1980 St. Nectarios Press THE RIVER OF FIRE by ALEXANDRE KALOMIROS As presented at the 1980 ORTHODOX CONFERENCE sponsored by St. Nectarios American Orthodox Church Seattle, Washington A reply to the questions: (1) Is God reall ...
Perhaps more than any culture in history - America has championed the individual. The context for this cultural development was the nation’s historic resistance to the class structures of 17th and 18th century Europe (and later) as well as a positive res ...
Perhaps more than any culture in history - America has championed the individual. The context for this cultural development was the nation's historic resistance to the class structures of 17th and 18th century Europe (and later) as well as a positive respo ...
I heard this from Archimandrite Zacharius, the disciple of the Elder Sophrony: The Elder Sophrony once said that if a man would give thanks always and for everything, he would have kept the saying which Christ gave to St. Silouan: "Keep your mind in hell ...
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 ...
We can say without hesitation that God is the ultimate author of Beauty, and what we know and love of beauty is an echo or stronger of our desire for the Beautiful God. It becomes a major problem of sin, largely unrecognized, when beauty begins to rece ...
It is frequently the case that Orthodox theology uses the word "fullness" to describe its understanding and life of the gospel. This is a far more apt expression than simply saying "we have the truth." Fullness, I think, better describes something. Truth ...
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 the top sit the powerful of the earth, who exercise dominion over the nations (cf. Matt. 20: ...
The second Sunday after our Lord's Pascha is always remembered as the "Sunday of the Myrrhbearers," when the Church remembers the women and men who cared for our Lord's body after His death on the Cross. Joseph and Nicodemus are the two men remembered. M ...
I ask for grace in writing this, lest I go beyond my ability. It seems to me well worth saying as discussions of the relationship between Scripture, dogma and science have surfaced. I offer this as food for thought as well as a ground of discussion. F ...
There has been a tendency in much teaching about the notion of salvation by grace to ground the image in a legal or forensic metaphor. Thus, we are saved by grace in the sense that someone else's goodwill and kindness (God's) has now freed us from the co ...
Everyone capable of thanksgiving is capable of salvation. Fr. Alexander Schmemann I do not believe it is possible to exhaust this topic and that there are many things worth saying in a second article. Most specifically I want to write on what seem to me ...
I have mentioned in earlier posts the new work by Aristotle Papanikolaou Being with God. It is not an easy read but brings its rewards. Papanikolaou offers the first comprehensive study of the works of Met. John Zizioulas and Vladimir Lossky, two of th ...
I have posted several articles recently about the relationship of the Orthodox Church to American culture - most of which have been critical of one element or another of culture. I want to look at the whole question from a different angle today. First, ...
I thought I would bring the discussion down from the heady heights of theology and into the place where I spend my time and the bulk of my life. Being saved in the Church is a very day-to-day and moment-to-moment thing. Getting started: Do I cross mysel ...
One of the more common topics both on this blog and on a number of other Orthodox sites are questions about the Atonement. In general the Atonement refers to how it is we understand that Christ reconciled us to God. When we say, "Christ died for our sins ...
How do we know God? The question is simple and straightforward - until we begin to answer it. I have written lately much about icons, and particularly the Seventh Council's contention that "icons do with color what Scripture does with words." This simpl ...
Preliminary - Death in a Two-Storey Universe I have written before about the two-storey universe that is part of our cultural inheritance in the modern world. I have noted that the default position of our culture is secular protestantism. I have explaine ...
Having pointed out that much of popular Christian language (and some images in sacred texts) lend themselves to the notion of a "two-storey" universe - and having noted that the second storey as the dwelling place of all things spiritual has almost insur ...
In giving birth you preserved your virginity, In falling asleep you did not forsake the world, O Theotokos. You were translated to life, O Mother of Life, And by your prayers, you deliver our souls from death. Troparion of the Feast - Tone 1 It is easy ...
Pope Benedict XVI has just released a clarification on the documents of Vatican II where he explains what is meant by calling the Orthodox "Churches" while still maintaining that they are "defective." In a major problem that exists between Orthodox under ...
I could not resist using the title from the R.E.M. hit of a few years ago for this post, though it's really not about losing one's religion: it's more about losing your soul. In one of my favorite C.S. Lewis novels, That Hideous Strength, Lewis tries hi ...
This article may also be read at the Website, Orthodox Europe Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev: Christ the Conqueror of Hell The Descent of Christ into Hades in Eastern and Western Theological Traditions A lecture delivered at St Mary’s Cathedral, Minneapolis, ...
One of the most pervasive rules in Christian believing is the Latin phrase, "Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi," usually rendered, "The Law of Praying is the Law of Believing." It is a simple way of saying both that we believe what we pray (praying will inevitabl ...
One of the intellectual problems encountered by atheism, though not one that is frequently mentioned, is its tendency to reductionism. If the universe is closed, then ultimately the story of things is much less complex than they might otherwise be and fa ...
The following is from my earlier post of Florovsky on Ecumenism: The entire western experience of temptation and fall must be creatively examined and transformed; all that “European melancholy” (as Dostoevsky termed it) and all those long centurie ...
I have a 19 year-old son, who would probably rather watch episodes of almost any science fiction show than eat pizza (almost). He particularly loves shows about time travel. In a town like Oak Ridge, it's possible to have serious discussions with serious ...
Another candidate for consideration within the New Testament (particularly the New Testament as Interpretation) is the Johanine Corpus, the writings of St. John. I am particularly intruiged by its development of a theology of "glory." Glory is not new ...
I will quickly confess that I am not a philosopher. I am not trained in the subject and always struggled in the few doctoral classes that were in the area of "Philosophical Theology." Thus, this will not be a philosophical response that settles matters f ...
This Friday and Saturday the Orthodox Church focuses its liturgical attention on the ancient hymn known as the Akathist, the "the hymn we sing unseated, i.e., Akathismos" (what hymn would you sing while seated methinks?). St. Romanos the Melodist was the ...
From Fr. Sophrony's We Shall See Him as He Is Divine Love begets reverent audaciousness. Thus a handful of Apostles, hitherto faint-hearted, after the descent of the Holy Ghost were filled with courage and took on the whole of the rest of the world in sp ...