The Orthodox liturgical tradition is very, very old, and still retains vestiges that reflect much older circumstances. For example, immediately prior to the Eucharist proper the deacon cries out to the doorkeeper, “The doors! The doors!” That is, he is telling the doorkeeper to close and guard the doors lest the Roman soldiers break in and arrest them all for what the Roman law considered a capital offense—viz. attendance at the Christian…
Lately I have been strolling down memory lane, a favourite haunt of old men. And there I found a group of young children, boisterous boys, preparing to play a game. The game required a leader, and so they engaged in a ritual to determine which of them was “It” (always spelled with a capital “I”)—they “counted toes”. For the uninitiated, the sacred and invariable ritual of counting toes worked like this: all…
What is the essence of Orthodoxy? For some it is doctrinal rigour and its partisans are keen to sniff out any hint or whiff of possible heresy. Like modern Byzantine heirs of the Spanish Inquisition (now sadly expected by everyone online) they scroll through the pages of blogs and OCA catechetical manuals for imprecise or infelicitous phrases to denounce with a kind of triumphant joy. For others it is liturgical fullness and…
I am happy to pass along a new online learning opportunity offered by St. Athanasius College. They have asked me to teach several courses on the historical books of the Old Testament, as well as the wisdom literature, and the prophets, and I have gladly consented. The lectures on the wisdom literature include my verse-by-verse commentaries on many of the psalms, lifted from my (hopefully soon to be published) commentary on the…
The differences separating Orthodoxy from the many Baptist churches are too numerous to address in a blog post—or perhaps even in a large door-stopper of a book. Here I would like to examine but one of those differences—viz. the Baptist refusal to baptize infants and their insistence upon a personal confession of faith from the candidate before baptism. This doctrine or policy is often called “anti-paedobaptism” (i.e. anti-child baptism, from the Greek…
It is sometimes imagined that the Resurrection of Christ finds its full significance as the last happy chapter in the story of His life, so that after a gruelling chapter about His betrayal, arrest, crucifixion, and burial, the tale can end with the Evangelist concluding, “And He lived happily ever after”. Consistent with this is a theological view which finds the sole significance of His Resurrection as proof that the price Jesus…
