The Nicene Creed was created to exclude. This goes against the grain of our modern secular society, where the word “inclusive” has become a magic word, conjuring up warm feelings of virtue, righteousness, and goodness. To be inclusive is to be good; to exclude is to be bad. The magic is, I think, rooted in the American Civil Rights Movement, where certain people were unjustly excluded from certain things (such as employment…

The event in Crete, originally billed as “the Great and Holy Council”, has generated much interest, and more than a few photo-ops. The secular media might be forgiven for thinking that here we have Byzantium on parade. In particular the secular world might be forgiven for concluding that Orthodox leadership is all about power, pomp, and long titles, along with perhaps jewellery and brocade.   Take for example the opening toast of the…

The event scheduled to be held (at time of writing) in Crete this coming Pentecost and usually termed “the Great and Holy Council” is sometimes referred to in terms that suggest that it will be the Eighth Ecumenical Council. Pundits often say such things as “the last such council to be held in the Orthodox Church was over a thousand years ago”, referring to the Seventh Ecumenical Council held in Nicea in…

Those for whom ancient history is irrelevant and who equate “old” with “out-dated” (or better yet, “medieval” with “barbarically primitive”) will have trouble appreciating the Fathers of the First Council of Nicea, since they met and produced their work well over a thousand years ago, in 325 A.D. How could a creed so old be remotely relevant today? Accordingly, some churches have produced their own creeds (such as the United Church of…

Every time the Divine Liturgy is served, priest and deacon stand before the Table of Oblation/ Prothesis and prepare the bread and the wine for the coming Eucharist. In the case of the bread, this involves taking five loaves (in the Russian tradition; one large loaf in the Greek tradition), preparing one large cube of bread to be “the Lamb” (the consecrated bread which becomes the Eucharistic Body of Christ), and making…

I am a great fan of the BBC series “Call the Midwife”, which features a group of Anglican sisters working among the poor in a London neighbourhood as midwives. Their order is fictional, but is based upon the actual order and London experiences of the Community of St. John the Divine, then working in London and now moved to Birmingham. Being such a fan of the series, I wanted to check out…