by Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon

Senior Editor of Touchstone Magazine, and archpriest of All Saints Orthodox Church in Chicago, IL, Fr. Patrick is, perhaps, the most erudite writer in the Orthodox Church in North America today. This article, one of his Pastoral Ponderings, was published by Orthodoxtoday.org.

One of the stories that have proved troubling to students of Holy Scripture over the years is the account of Uzzah, who stretched forth his hand to steady the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark, we recall, was being carried by ox cart in order to be installed at David’s projected new shrine at Jerusalem. Some obstacle, however, perhaps a bump in the road, caused the oxen to lurch, nearly upsetting the cart and putting the Ark in danger. Read more

by Fr. George Morelli

What to Do When One’s “Truth” Does Not Match the “Others’” Truth

““Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Every one who is of the truth hears my voice.””  (Jn 18: 37)

“If silence is more necessary even during conversation about good matters, how much more so in matters that are indifferent?” –St. John of Gaza

How many times have we found ourselves confronting someone who has a completely different viewpoint about something than ours? The different perception can be about a variety of matters, from the sacred to the mundane. Different perceptions of what is true can occur between spouses, parents, children, friends, parishioners, Christians and non-Christians. Read more

By St. John Chrysostom

Christ is Risen! Indeed, He is Risen!

St. John was the Archbishop of Constantinople during the fourth century. He was fearless when denouncing sin in high places, and was a prolific writer, and bold preacher, unafraid to hit the topical issues of the day squarely between the eyes with all the subtlety of a ball peen hammer.

His last words were “Glory to God for all things!”

How does one prove that Christ is God?

We should not try to answer this question by using the argument of the creation of heaven and earth, because the unbeliever will not accept it. If we tell him that He raised the dead, healed the blind, expelled demons, he still will not agree. If we tell him that He promised us resurrection from the dead, the kingdom of heaven, and ineffable goods, not only he will not agree, but also he will laugh at us. Read more

by Fr. John Romanides

As a little change up from the normal Lenten fare, we thought was time for something completely different!

It was reported in November 2009 that the Vatican has called in experts to study the possibility of extraterrestrial alien life and its implication for the Catholic Church. The Director of the Vatican Observatory commented that the discovery of possible alien life would have “many philosophical and theological implications” for Catholics.

In 1965 Fr. John Romanides offered a valuable resource on this topic for a series run by the Boston Globe in which he gives the unique Orthodox perspective. Originally printed in the Boston Globe on April 8, 1965 (page 18), the full text of this reprinted article is below.

All Planets the Same: Religion’s Response to Space Life V

I can foresee no way in which the teachings of the Orthodox Christian tradition could be affected by the discovery of intelligent beings on another planet. Some of my colleagues feel that even a discussion of the consequences of such a possibility is in itself a waste of time for serious theology and borders on the fringes of foolishness.

I am tempted to agree with them for several reasons.

As I understand the problem, the discovery of intelligent life on another planet would raise questions concerning traditional Roman Catholic and Protestant teachings regarding creation, the fall, man as the image of God, redemption and Biblical inerrancy.

First one should point out that in contrast to the traditions deriving from Latin Christianity, Greek Christianity never had a fundamentalist or literalist understanding of Biblical inspiration and was never committed to the inerrancy of scripture in matters concerning the structure of the universe and life in it. In this regard some modern attempts at de-mything the Bible are interesting and at times amusing. Read more

by Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon

Senior Editor of Touchstone Magazine, and archpriest of All Saints Orthodox Church in Chicago, IL, Fr. Patrick is, perhaps, the most erudite writer in the Orthodox Church in North America today. This article, one of his Pastoral Ponderings, was published by Orthodoxtoday.org.

Among the biblical concepts supporting St. Paul’s theology of atonement, one of the most important, surely, is that of expiation. What does the Apostle mean when he writes,

“God set forth [Jesus Christ] as the expiatory in His blood” (Romans 3:25)?

Although this is the only time St. Paul uses the noun hilasterion, I believe that the full context of his epistles, along with the Old Testament substratum on which they depend, provides the correct and adequate meaning of that term. Read more

by Kevin Allen

As the award winning host of the radio program “The Illumined Heart,” Kevin Allen is also convert to the Orthodox Christian faith from Hinduism, and an eloquent speaker and apologist for his Christian faith. His podcast can be heard on Ancient Faith Radio.  This first article appeared on Orthodoxytoday.org, and carefully explains the importance not only of reaching those in Eastern religions for Christ, but also how not to do it.

I recently had a conversation with a dear Eastern Orthodox priest, whose twenty six year old son had left home the day before to live indefinitely at a Buddhist monastery. He was heart broken. His son was not a stranger to Eastern Orthodoxy or to its monastic tradition, having even spent two months on the holy mountain of Mt. Athos.

His son’s journey is not an isolated event. Eastern religious traditions are a growing and competing force in American religious life. Read more

Implications for Orthodox Psycho-Theology

by Fr. George Morelli

In this essay, Fr. Morelli masterfully expresses the depth of Incarnational theology – the teaching of Orthodox Christianity about God, man, and spiritual reality – and the dangers of departing, even apparently,  from its foundational truth. We are approaching the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, the feast of the Incarnation, making this essay essential reading, in my opinion, among preachers in this day and age.

This essay was taken, and reprinted with permission, from Orthodoxytoday.org.

Be sober, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Pt 5:8).

The names we use for ourselves, for others, and for God shape our thought and influence our understanding of God’s revelation to us. A fundamental link between God and mankind “is concentrated in the use of the Name, in the ‘invocation of the Name.’ The Name is the preeminent word, the proper, exclusive word which is much more than a concept: it carries something of the presence, of the person” (Bobrinskoy, 1999). Paul Evdokimov (1998) makes this meaning even clearer. In recounting Jesus’ visit to the country of the Gerasenes where He met a man with an unclean spirit, St. Mark records Jesus’ words:

“What is your name?” (Mk 5:9). Read more

The Orthodox Church suffers from an abysmal lack of cogent apologetic material. Interestingly, thanks to blogging, I believe this will change soon. Someone like you or me will get so tired of not having the kind of printed material we need, that we’ll just make it ourselves, and in the day of print-on-demand publishers (see here for examples of my own books, published at Lulu.com), well – it won’t be long.

In the meantime, we stand at a wonderful threshold. Blogging makes it possible for us to address apologetic points one at a time, and at any pace, or any depth, we wish to.

Let me give you a simple example, one that I’m sure you have used yourself from time to time. Read more

A continuation of last week’s Pastoral Pondering on Apologetics,  for Sunday, June 21 2009.

I have suggested that the discipline of apologetics, the reasoned defense of the Christian faith, is sometimes troublesome to the pursuit of theology. It seems to me that the history of soteriology, the theology of salvation, manifests a singular case in point.

When it starts from apologetics, soteriology is somewhat compelled to commence outside itself, to begin with the state of not-being-saved. Apologetics obliges soteriology to inquire, “From what are we saved?” The answer, of course, is “sin.” Read more