Orthodox Christians should find their identity in Christ and in the saving dogmas proclaimed about Him universally in Orthodox tradition. How we calculate Pascha (which was not set by the Apostles) is not one of those things.
I have been criticized a number of times recently because my approach to this pandemic has not been “How do we keep doing business as usual in face of all these obstacles?” but rather “Given that we have this problem, what do we do in the midst of it?” To me, though, the question is whether I believe this present state of things is given to me for my salvation.
We’re okay. Even when life around us is most definitely not okay. And suffice it to say that these past few months have been a whole barrel of not okay. This morning I woke, fuzzy-headed, as is usual these days. I always begin with remembering what day it is, as though I was stranded on a desert island and had to keep a calendar to keep my sense of time and season.…
There are generally three approaches that Christians have taken when it comes to their surrounding cultures: 1) Rejection, resistance, and hostility: This approach sharply distinguishes the Church from the world, emphasizing that the Church is so much “not of this world” that the world must be fled and an alternate community established. It is a posture that is fully closed to the world —…
Sunday of Pentecost, June 4, 2017 Acts 2:1-11; John 7:32-57, 8:12 Very Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. In his commentary on the events of that first Pentecost, the Venerable Bede, who was an English saint and Biblical scholar and commentator in the early eighth century, makes…