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by St. Basil the Great from the blog, Lord I Have Cried Unto Thee. Another patristic witness of the sentiment and wisdom behind the words of Abba Xanthios. "A Dog is better than I because he loves and does not judge." So I just recently referred a friend to St. Basil the Great's Hexaemeron - his fourth-century commentary on the six-day creation of the world found in the book of Genesis - and I started re-reading and came across … [Read more...]
Though Bishop N.T. Wright is not Orthodox (he's the Anglican Bishop of Durham), he explains very well the Orthodox/New Testament teaching on hell. This was originally entitled "N.T. Wright and the Orthodox View of Hell." This is only 3 minutes long, but a very nice treatment of a contentious topic - at least, contentious since the middle ages and the publication of Dante's Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradisio. The 'tiered' understanding of the … [Read more...]
by Fr. Paul Jannakos Anyone the least bit familiar with the Orthodox Church knows that repetition is a key feature of its worship. We do things over and over again, and then, we do it yet again - one more time. As we find in the Little Litany, “Again and again in peace, let us pray to the Lord.” For many Americans, this seems excessively pedantic, if not outright silly. As one protestant visitor to my Church asked, “Why do you people … [Read more...]
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by Doulos This comes to us from the Semantron blog. Enjoy! Christianity makes no sense. At least not rationally, and this is a problem for a large population of the world. The concept of a sort of “meta-person” who exists and has the ability to create, control and interact with creation can be a difficult concept for some, but the idea that that person could then die, and that be a good thing, complicates it exponentially. In a letter to … [Read more...]
by St. John of Kronstadt Our righteous father John of Kronstadt was an archpriest of the Russian Orthodox Church. Born in 1829, from 1855, he served as a priest in St. Andrew’s cathedral in Kronstadt. Here, he greatly committed himself to charity, especially for those who were remote from the church, and traveled extensively throughout the Russian empire. He was already greatly venerated at the time he died. His feast days are … [Read more...]
by St. John Chrysostom This is perhaps the greatest sermon ever written. It is read in every Orthodox Church in the world, every year at the Paschal Vigil, during the Matins of Pascha. 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 … [Read more...]
by St. Benedict of Nursia Brothers, divine Scripture calls to us saying: "Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled, and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted" (Luke 14:11; 18:14). In saying this, therefore, it shows us that every exaltation is a kind of pride, which the Prophet indicates he has shunned, saying, "Lord, my heart is not exalted; my eyes are not lifted up and I have not walked in the ways of the great nor gone after marvels … [Read more...]
Our thanks to John Sanidopoulos for his blog, Mystagogy, from which this post was taken, who continues to provide a wealth of excellent articles on the Orthodox faith. “Whosoever, therefore, shall confess Me before men, him will I confess before My Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I deny before My Father which is in heaven” (Matt. 10:32-33). The term synodikon is applied to an official … [Read more...]
By St. John Moschos We encountered Abba John the Persian at the Lavra of Monidia and he told us this about Gregory the Great, the most blessed Bishop of Rome: "I went to Rome to pray at the tombs of the most blessed Apostles, Peter and Paul. One day as I was standing in the city-centre I saw that Pope Gregory was going to pass by. I had it in mind to prostrate myself before him. The attendants of the pope began saying to me, one by one, … [Read more...]
Below is a small portion from Patriarch Kirill's report presented before an assembly of rectors of Russian Orthodox theological schools. See the full report here. We constantly speak about obedience in our theological schools. But does not this mask a desire to obtain totally obedient and intimidated individuals incapable of speaking up before authorities under any circumstances? Do we not, along with obedience, inoculate them to act … [Read more...]
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