Eastern Orthodox Christianity 2.0

Christ is Risen!  Indeed He is Risen!
Yes, on the Third Monday of Pascha yesterday morning - May 12 (NS)! - some snow stuck to the ground in higher elevations of southwestern Pennsylvania (link may break), the Commonwealth where I and alot of other Orthodox live!
This discussion goes back to my recent post occasioned by the (Western) Good [...]

NEOPHYTE OPINION ALERT
Numerous Orthodox hymns and prayers include the past tenses of the verb to shine, referring in one way or another to light, often God’s Uncreated Energies as Light, as frequently discussed in this blog, whether directly from a Person of the Trinity, or indirectly through a Saint, Angel, or the Theotokos (God-Deliverer).
Allow me [...]

The main meaning of the Greek verb baptizo, from which the English word baptism is ultimately derived (as Mr. Portokalos advised us!), is to dip, as in water.
Christianity as such didn’t invent the practice of dipping converts in water.  The Old Testament Church sometimes baptized proselytes, and so did some other Near Eastern religions.  But dipping [...]

I just came upon the NY Times obituary for Fr. David Kirk of Emmaus House/Harlem in New York City, who reposed last May 23, the week before Pentecost.  The obit is reproduced at Wikipedia. More details at The OCA.  This seems to be a website archive/homage of him.  There’s quite a bit about him through Google, [...]

Tomorrow is March 17, the feast of St. Patrick of Armagh, Enlightener of Ireland.  Because it’s also Monday of Holy Week for Western Christians (as well as some Eastern Catholics, and Orthodox in Finland and some in Estonia) - the earliest it’s come since 1856 - some towns and churches held St. Patrick’s Day parades and [...]

IIUC, some say one of the reasons for the adoption of the Gregorian calendar in the West starting in the 1580s, and in favor of the Orthodox New Calendar or “Revised Julian Calendar” starting in the 1920s, was that with the movement of the astronomical Vernal Equinox with respect to the ‘official’ - or what [...]

OK, OK, now that we’ve all had a laugh over a Vatican bureaucrat-archbishop’s politically-correct-sounding interview, first things first: what he was really about (Latin perspective).  For further background, from other sources on the WWW, I gather that what he was doing in the first place was providing advice to priest-confessors / spiritual directors in the [...]

(Opinion Alert: Just a few ruminations.) 
Was it an accident that Rome and Constantinople’s break in communion of 1054 became permanent?  Like I’ve said, there were previous ones.  Doctrinal divergence?  Even this hadn’t prevented patching-up differences previously.  And between 1054 and 1453 there were several attempts to do so again.  The last one actually resulted in [...]

I found this quote about Orthodoxy’s ‘long, ornate’ prayers at a source I don’t wish to identify for moral reasons.  But I think it says something profound:
Orthodox prayers go in the same format that the Lord’s Prayer goes– first glorifying God, establishing from the person praying their humility, their desire for His will, etc. I have seen [...]

I contributed this to a Catholic Answers forum thread while looking for something else over there:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jimmy B
What is the difference between Catholic Salvation and non-Catholic Christian Salvation? Is there Salvation outside the Roman Catholic Church?

I can’t speak with authority about Eastern Catholics. But the Latin Church teaches that salvation is to see [...]

The valuable copy of the Priest’s Service Book that used to be available on the site of Sts. Peter and Paul OCA parish in Meriden, Connecticut, seems fully available via the Wayback Machine.
It’s the Russian-oriented translation (into English) by Archbishop DMITRI of Dallas and the South, including directions (rubrics), prayers, and hymns from very many [...]

From Eusebius, Oration of Constantine 12:
[D]octrine was entrusted to wise people. The truths they communicated could then be kept carefully and with pure consciences by their households. Then true, steadfast obedience to God’s commands could be established and produce boldness in the face of death. Such boldness comes from a pure faith and genuine holiness [...]

On Monday August 1, we entered the Transfiguration / Dormition Fast, which continues through 8/14. (It’s usually just called the Dormition Fast.) And it occurred to me that Orthodox commemorate Mary’s falling asleep on the 15th, but the West, her Assumption, which we say took place within three days of her burial. That is, the [...]

John 7:17 (NKJV):
If anyone wants to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God or [whether] I speak on My own [authority.]
Here was discussed the fact that those who experience Energetic Union with God/Glorification perceive fundamental o/Orthodox Christian teachings therein. Now John 7:17 seems to reinforce that testimony. If [...]

From Prophet of Roman Orthodoxy: The Theology of John Romanides, by Andrew J. Sopko, Dewdney, BC, Canada: Synaxis, 1998, pages 41-42:
Lest glorification/divinization be equated with a mystical ecstasy, it will suffice to say here that the true experience always contains a revelation of the Holy Trinity in uncreated glory. In the realization that there is [...]