February 5, 2009 in Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Tags: bishops, child raising, Christianity, Doctors of the Church, Eastern Christianity, Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, eastern religion, Evangelicalism, Fathers of the Church, Fundamentalism, good works, grace, grace alone, grace and works, grace vs works, Martin Luther, Orthodox bishops, Orthodox Christianity, Orthodox Church, Orthodox monks, Orthodox saints, orthodoxy, podvig, Protestantism, raising children, Reformation, religion, Russian Christianity, Russian Orthodox Church, Russian Orthodoxy, saints, sin, spiritual fathers, spirituality, struggle, temptation, Theophan of Poltava, Theophan the Recluse, virtue, works, works righteousness
Short reflection inspired by St. Theophan the Recluse is here.
(Theophan, sometimes called Theophanes [the original Greek version of his name], was a 19th-century bishop in Russia who retired early from the active episcopate – hence “recluse” – and became an incredible spiritual father and writer! A real latter-day Father of the Church. He even wrote [...]
October 16, 2008 in Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Tags: Christianity, Early Christian Writers, early Christianity, early church, Early Church Fathers, Eastern Orthodoxy, Fathers of the Church, humility, Orthodox Christianity, orthodoxy, religion, self-restraint
From one of the greatest Fathers of the Church, St. Gregory of Nazianzus (presumably Gregory the Theologian, aka Nazianzen), honored East and West, courtesy of the masthead at http://www.palamas.info/:
Not to everyone, friends, does it belong to philosophize about God, not to everyone; the subject is not so cheap and low. And, I will add, not [...]
October 8, 2008 in Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Tags: Christ, Christianity, deification, distractions, Divine Energies, Divinization, Early Christian Writers, Eastern Christianity, Eastern Orthodoxy, Fathers of the Church, God, heart, Hesychasm, hesychia, Jesus, mental health, mental illness, nepsis, neptic, noetic, nous, Orthodox Christianity, Orthodox Psychotherapy, orthodoxy, psychology, psychotherapy, purification, religion, saints, sin, spiritual direction, spiritual discipline, spirituality, temptation, Theanthropos, Theosis, Uncreated Energies
From Saint Symeon the New Theologian, one of the key Fathers of the Church (his feast is commemorated this Sunday 12 October, and two hymns of his feast are here):
Our holy fathers have renounced all other spiritual work and concentrated wholly on this one doing, that is, on guarding the heart,* convinced that, through this practice, they [...]
September 22, 2008 in Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Tags: apocryphal gospels, ascetic theology, asceticism, Bible, Blessed Mother, Blessed Virgin Mary, Christianity, deification, Divine Energies, Divine Energy, Divinization, doctrine, early Christian writings, Early Church Fathers, Eastern Christianity, Eastern Orthodoxy, Fathers of the Church, free will, glorification, grace, Gregory Palamas, Hesychasm, hymns, Immaculate Conception, liturgy, Mary, Mary of Nazareth, monasticism, Mother Mary, mother of Christ, Mother of God, mother of Jesus, mysticism, Orthodox Christianity, Orthodox liturgy, Orthodox Tradition, orthodoxy, Palamism, Patristics, prayer, religion, religious controversy, religious doubt, religious questioning, Russian Orthodoxy, saints, salvation, Scripture, Scripture and Tradition, Second Temple, sin, spirituality, St Gregory Palamas, Temple (Jerusalem), temptation, Theosis, Theotokos, Uncreated Energies, Uncreated Energy, women saints, worship
I know nothing about the recent controversy over this, referenced at the beginning of this article from St. Tikhon’s Monastery in Pennsylvania (anonymous), and was surprised to hear about it. But this article seems to address it well, briefly, and Orthodoxly. It also highlights the misinterpretation or misunderstanding of Patristic writings that is possible unless one [...]
June 11, 2008 in Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Tags: Christian spirituality, Christianity, Church Fathers, church history, deification, Divinization, Early Christian Writers, Early Church Fathers, Eastern Christianity, Eastern Orthodoxy, Evangelicalism, Fathers of the Church, glorification, heartland, kansas, Middle America, Orthodox Christianity, orthodoxy, Patristics, Protestantism, religion, Roman Catholicism, salvation, spiritual guidance, spirituality, theology, Theosis, wichita
Says an Antiochian Orthodox bookstore owner in Wichita, Kansas,* in this 2002 Publishers Weekly roundup / preview of then-new Orthodox books entering the mainstream book market (in English in the United States).
(*–For the record, home of 5 Orthodox churches, visible at orthodoxyinamerica.org.)
March 29, 2008 in Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Tags: orthodoxy, Orthodox Christianity, Eastern Christianity, Orthodox mission, Catholicism, Christianity, religion, Eastern Orthodoxy, Patristics, Middle Ages, Spirit, Theophany, Fathers of the Church, Western Christianity, Jesus Christ, Roman Catholicism, Roman Catholic Church, Holy Spirit, Catholic Church, sacraments, John 3:22, John 4:1, John 4:2, Jn 3:22, Jn 4:1, Jn 4:2, baptism, initiation, Christ, Jesus, councils, ecumenical councils, Original Sin, Ancestral Sin, Dark Ages, Scholasticism, Scholastic theology, Schoolmen, Roman Catholic, pseudomorphosis, Chrismation, confirmation, oikonomia, Great Mandate, Great Commission, mission
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 [...]
November 18, 2005 in Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Tags: church tradition, Eastern Christianity, Eastern Orthodoxy, Fathers of the Church, fear, Orthodox Christianity, orthodoxy, Patristics, persecution, terror, terrorism, tradition
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 [...]
November 17, 2005 in Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Tags: deliberation, Eastern Orthodoxy, Fathers of the Church, feast days, gender, iconography, icons, liturgy, OCA, Orthodox Christianity, Orthodox Church in America, orthodoxy, Patristics, relationships, saints, sex, theology, women, women in the church, women saints
What follows is an extended quote (from pp. 9-10) from Women and Men in the Church, a 1980 work/study by a committee of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA). I’m still wrestling with all its implications, myself, but thought I’d offer it here as an example of an Orthodox approach to questions and issues:
Sacraments and [...]
October 28, 2005 in Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Tags: Catholicism, Christianity, church history, conciliarism, conciliarity, contraception, deaconesses, divorce, Eastern Orthodoxy, economic justice, Fathers of the Church, first among equals, Liberal Catholicism, liberalism, liturgy, Orthodox Christianity, Orthodox mission, papacy, Patristics, pope, progressive, religion, Roman Catholic Church, Roman Catholicism, sobornost, social justice, spirituality, theology
(Polished and expanded a little on 18 January 2008.)
How can Orthodoxy possibly dovetail with liberal Roman Catholicism?
Collegiality and conciliarity; no Papal Infallibility. While the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople has some very supportive supporters, he’s really not supposed to be a worldwide ecclesiastical autocrat, merely “first among equals” among the bishops of the Orthodox Church, permanent [...]
By Matthew the Poor, ORTHODOX PRAYER LIFE:
In prayer, God’s personal will and ours meet. Christ’s will is sharply focused upon our own salvation, renewal, and rescue. Nothing can thwart Christ’s will for us except our failure to pray. All sick, blind, lame, and paralyzed who prayed and asked Christ to heal them are those whom [...]
…is the theology and spirituality of the Fathers and Mothers of the Eastern Church! We’re deprived of it in the West! So we have to dig it up on our own. Thank God for the internet!!!
