Category: Ecclesiology

Can You Baptize Without Baptism? Review: The Ecclesiological Renovation of Vatican II by Fr. Peter Heers

· Fr. John Cox
Is it possible to receive an unbaptized person into the Orthodox Church without baptizing him? What would it mean to do such a thing? You might not expect a book about the Second Vatican Council to elicit such questions from Orthodox sacramental theology but Fr. Peter Heers’s 2015 doctoral thesis, published with the title The Ecclesiological Renovation of Vatican II (ERV2), does…

The Church and Homosexuality: A Meditation

· Hieromonk Herman (Majkrzak)
I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. —Romans 8:18 And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” At that saying…

Protestantism is Not United, Not Catholic, and Not a Church

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Editor’s Note: This article is part of an October 2017 series of posts on the Reformation and Protestantism written by O&H authors and guest writers marking the 500th anniversary of the nailing of Martin Luther’s 95 theses to the church door at Wittenberg on October 31, 1517. Articles are written by Orthodox Christians and discuss not just the Reformation as a historical…

The True Church and the American Church: How Protestant Ecclesiology Got Here

· Fr. Stephen De Young
Editor’s Note: This article is part of an October 2017 series of posts on the Reformation and Protestantism written by O&H authors and guest writers marking the 500th anniversary of the nailing of Martin Luther’s 95 theses to the church door at Wittenberg on October 31, 1517. Articles are written by Orthodox Christians and discuss not just the Reformation as a historical…

The Reformation at 500: An Orthodox View

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Editor’s Note: This article is part of an October 2017 series of posts on the Reformation and Protestantism written by O&H authors and guest writers marking the 500th anniversary of the nailing of Martin Luther’s 95 theses to the church door at Wittenberg on October 31, 1517. Articles are written by Orthodox Christians and discuss not just the Reformation as a historical…

Review of “Orthodox Christianity Volume IV: The Worship and Liturgical Life of the Orthodox Church” by Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev

· Fr. Gregory Winsky
ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY VOLUME IV: THE WORSHIP AND LITURGICAL LIFE OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH. By Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev. Yonkers: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2016. 382 pp. ISBN-13: 978-0-88141-522-0. In this fourth volume of his encyclopedic work Orthodox Christianity, Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev) of Volokolamsk has provided especially for us Orthodox Christians in America what just may be the most readable, comprehensive, and informative book on…

Orthodox Theologies of the Afterlife: Review of “The Departure of the Soul”

· Paul Ladouceur
Editor’s Note: The following is a review of The Departure of the Soul According to the Teaching of the Orthodox Church, published April 2017 by St. Anthony’s Greek Orthodox Monastery, Florence, Arizona. It was sent to us by Dr. Paul Ladouceur originally as four separate posts, but we have combined them here into one, since they are closely related and also since…

Why I Cannot Be a Post-Evangelical, Post-Denominational, etc., Christian

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
One of the things I’ve noticed in recent years is the growth of all kinds of “Post-_______” Christianity. By this I mean varieties of Christianity that are all generally within the Evangelical Protestant genre yet explicitly do not embrace any particular tradition. Typically, what this looks like is something recognizably Evangelical yet with a potpourri of different doctrinal, worship and pastoral emphases…