Eastern Orthodox Christianity 2.0

I just found an intriguing ‘inside look’ in a public letter to his priests by then-Ruling Hierarch of the OCA’s Diocese of San Francisco and the West, Bishop TIKHON (Fitzgerald).  I can’t offer any more about it than His Grace does, though.

An Akathist (sometimes spelled Akafist or Acathistos, etc.) is a poetic or quasi-poetic devotional service dedicated to a Saint or God Himself, or themed around a Feast day, a need being prayed for, possibly other things.  It’s divided into stanzas, each of which is called an Ekos (Ikos, Oikos) or a Kontakion.  Several times during the [...]

Italy’s former Orthodoxy is attested by the ancient icons and Greek icon-style murals and mosaics to be found in many old Latin churches there to this day.  Rome itself has at least one icon said to have been painted by St. Luke the Evangelist (like a few in Orthodox hands, or rather, graced to Orthodox [...]

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 [...]

…from the original source follows, for interest’s sake (emphases and footnotes mine):

8.) What do you personally find the most challenging about Orthodoxy?

I keep finding that I have so much further to go. Well, to step back, the most challenging thing about Orthodoxy is that it dumps you right out at the place where it’s you [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

See Job 42:7-8 (NAB):
…the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “I am angry with you and with your two friends; for you have not spoken rightly concerning me, as has my servant Job. Now, therefore, take seven bullocks and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer up a holocaust for yourselves; and [...]

A newspaper column he wrote 40 years ago on the unlikely topic of life in outer space provides a remarkable precis of his life’s work.
“All Planets the Same:
Religion’s Response to Space Life V,”
Rev. John S. Romanides, PhD., The Boston Globe, April 8, 1965, page 18.
I can foresee no way in which the teachings of [...]

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 [...]

Yesterday was the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, the Apostles. The Gospel reading for Divine Liturgy was Peter’s confession at Caesarea Philippi, Matthew 16:13-19 (here, from the NAB).
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When Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”
14
They replied, “Some say [...]

From Anonymous, “To Become Orthodox You Have to Make a Paradigm Shift”:
[A]s the New Testament teaches, there is a real (ontic) unity of worshipers with Christ through their sharing His uncreated Life and Energies (Grace), in which His goodness and all that He has done for humanity’s sake is shared by His members. This is [...]