Author: Hieromonk Gabriel

Caesaropapism in the New York Times

· Hieromonk Gabriel
Several days ago, I wrote briefly about the increasingly prevalent attitude that meaningful action is a synonym for political action. I was thinking that it would be worth reflecting on this subject further, and then conveniently Paul Krugman decided yesterday to illustrate my point for me: A funny thing is happening on the American scene: a powerful upwelling of decency. Suddenly, it seems as if the worst lack all conviction, while the…

On Doing Nothing

· Hieromonk Gabriel
People all across the country are demanding action in response to the latest school shooting. And although there have been exceptions, generally action is implicitly assumed to mean political action. This is one of the defining characteristics of modern life — we are far more politicized now than at perhaps any other time in human history. So much so that even to call for a moment of silence is being seen as…

The Unity of the Faith

· Hieromonk Gabriel
We are gathered here together on the first Sunday of Great Lent to celebrate the Triumph of Orthodoxy. This feast was originally established to commemorate the victory of the venerators of icons over the iconoclasts, but more generally we also commemorate on this day the victory of the true Orthodox faith over all the heresies that have challenged it throughout history. There is an interesting fact which we easily overlook about this…

A Tale of Two Cities

· Hieromonk Gabriel
Today during Matins we heard for the third and final time this year the singing of the beautiful and haunting psalm “By the waters of Babylon.” The chanting of this psalm is extremely solemn, contrasting sharply with the joyous Polyeleos which precedes it and the Magnification which sometimes follows it. Both the rarity of this psalm’s chanting and the starkness of the emotional contrast surrounding it serve to draw our attention to…

A Sickness Unto Death

· Hieromonk Gabriel
[Edit: apparently the widely-cited report that this is the 18th school shooting of 2018 is inaccurate, thank God. Others put the number between 3 and 10. I post this in the interest of accuracy, not because it in any way diminishes the gravity or the urgency of the spiritual crisis we are facing.] May God forgive us. Seventeen people gunned down in a Florida high school in another school shooting. Nearly as many wounded.…

The Gates of Death

· Hieromonk Gabriel
Today’s feast has many meanings, many aspects, and even many names. It is sometimes called the Meeting of the Lord, sometimes the Purification of the Virgin, sometimes the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, and finally, especially in the West, it is known as Candlemas – the Feast of the Light that shown upon St. Symeon and which we remember by blessing candles on this day. This multiplicity of names and meanings…

Fighting the Wrong Battles

· Hieromonk Gabriel 1 Leave a Comment on %s
David French wrote yesterday about the cultural hostility towards religious freedom in America, warning that: Over the long term, this is the real threat to religious freedom. It’s not, ultimately, the government. It’s the combination of media and cultural pressure — of external and internal anger — that slowly but surely bends church institutions to its will. This is an extremely important point for all sincere Christians to understand — and the…