Author: Hieromonk Gabriel

The Pursuit of Happiness

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The New York times recently published an article about how to tell if you are gay, bisexual, transgender, etc. It included the usual hash of self-contradictory talking points, beginning with the assertion that LGBTQ feelings are completely normal, and then proceeding directly to an all-out attack on the idea that there can be any such thing as “normal” in the realm of sex or gender at all. But buried underneath all the…

On Political Philosophy, Fairy Tales, and the Spiritual Life

· Hieromonk Gabriel
It might, at first glance, seem strange that I spend so much time writing about political philosophy and propaganda on a site dedicated to Orthodoxy and the spiritual life. It might seem even stranger given the fact that I am a monk, and claim to have renounced the world. Why should I concern myself at all with political philosophy, much less write articles on the internet trying to convince others of my…

Making Saints: Toward Establishing Orthodox Schools

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The aim of totalitarian education has never been to instill convictions, but to destroy the capacity to form any conviction. -Hannah Arendt I’ve been writing a lot about Orthodoxy and education lately. However, I have as yet done little more than to point out the utter travesty which modern public education has become, as well as to emphasize the dire necessity of founding Orthodox schools for our children. Providentially, a friend forwarded me a…

On Doubt

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I was not always a Christian. For many years of my life — may God forgive me — I viewed Christianity as something primitive and simplistic, something irrational and even immoral (like so many of the children of modernity, I considered the entire concept of the Last Judgment as theologically and morally indefensible — such was the enormity of my pride). And for many years, like the young St. Augustine, I wandered…

Paradise 2.0: Google’s Plan to Program Heaven on Earth

· Hieromonk Gabriel
I’ve made some pretty serious claims on this site over the past few months. Even if many agree with some of the things that I’ve said, chances are high that many also think that I’ve been prone to hyperbole in certain cases. The central thesis of this blog, that modernity is essentially the gradual development of the new religion of the Antichrist, is no doubt a rather bold assertion which many regard…

Will Our Children Keep the Faith?

· Hieromonk Gabriel
The Catastrophe of Modern Education I have already written on multiple occasions of the urgent necessity of creating Orthodox parish schools in America. Our nation’s public schools have degenerated into prison-like institutions which have outlawed all mention of Truth (the Second Person of the Trinity), which forbid any public prayer to the Lord God, which teach sexual propaganda and promote infanticide to kindergarteners, which lead students to believe that they will likely be…

Abortion and the Graveyard of Europe

· Hieromonk Gabriel
Last weekend, Ireland voted overwhelmingly by referendum to repeal its constitutional ban on abortion. Once a country virtually synonymous with Christian faith and piety, Ireland has now become the first nation on the face of the planet to embrace by popular vote the murder of infants by their own mothers. In a very real sense this vote was nothing other than a referendum on Christianity. The constitution of Ireland begins with the…

The Meaning of Life

· Hieromonk Gabriel
Throughout all the ages of human history, mankind has been ceaselessly occupied with a single question: why? What is the meaning of life, what is the purpose of birth and death, of love and of suffering? Why have we appeared in this world which is so full of both beauty and misery? Men and women of every culture and nation, of every philosophy and religion, have sought for countless centuries to find…

The Inseparability of Church and State

· Hieromonk Gabriel
A glimmer of truth appeared in The Washington Post several days ago when Kathleen Parker responded to yet another legal battle being waged across the country relating to the separation of Church and State: can government entities grant funds or contracts to religious adoption and foster care agencies who decline to place children into the homes of same-sex couples? Parker criticizes the city of Philadelphia for answering “no” to this question, but she…

The Forgotten Beauty of Sacrifice

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“Love is not sentimentality, but sacrifice.” -Archimandrite Vasileios The Language Barrier One of the greatest difficulties which modern Americans face when encountering Holy Orthodoxy is one of language. I do not refer, however, to the outward obstacle of the use of Church Slavonic, Greek, Arabic, or any other of the languages of Orthodox immigrants to this country. I refer rather to the colossal problem of the usage of the English language. For…