There was a certain crisis of the Eucharistic life in the Russian Orthodox Church during the Synodal era. People received communion only sporadically, on the day of their birthday and once in the Lent, and it was considered quite godly. The communion on every great Church feast and in the major fasts was thought to […]
The “Smoking Gun” of Non-Chalcedonian Christianity
September 12, 2019 By
by Fr. Alexander Webster The “smoking gun” regarding the non-Chalcedonians is their adamant refusal TODAY to accept the rejection of the “monothelete” heresy by the Sixth Ecumenical Council in AD 681. To his dying day, Pope Shenouda of the Coptic Orthodox Church and other hierarchs and theologians among the non-Chalcedonians still alive insist that the […]
On Moral Heresy
August 30, 2019 By
This deserves a wide readership – please share liberally on social media and email. by Fr. John Whiteford We have previously discussed Aristotle Papanikolaou’s strange notion that, unlike the dogmas of the Church, Orthodox Christian morality is open to dispute and change (see The Living Church 2.0). In the wake of a recent conference in Oxford […]
Septuagint Quotes in the New Testament
August 21, 2019 By
Yes, the proper understanding of Scripture is a game changer (as it should be). Of the multitude of Old Testament quotes in the New Testament, most of them came from the Septuagint (abbreviated LXX – the Greek translation of the Old Testament). This translation of the Old Testament is the oldest in existence, was widely […]
Did Christ quote from the Septuagint?
August 17, 2019 By
by Fr. John Whiteford From Fr. John Whiteford’s “Stump the Priest” series of blogposts. Question: “I have heard that Christ quoted the Septuagint. Is there a listing of these quotes?” It is a generally recognized fact that “the writers of the New Testament used almost exclusively the Greek Septuagint” (Timothy Michael Law, When God Spoke Greek: […]
Augustine: Infant Baptism Is The Apostolic And Universal Practice Of The Church
August 9, 2019 By
by St. Augustine of Hippo What the universal Church holds, not as instituted by councils but as something always held, is most correctly believed to have been handed down by apostolic authority. Since others respond for children, so that the celebration of the sacrament may be complete for them, it is certainly availing to them […]
Calvin Knew Infant Baptism Was Apostolic in Origin
August 9, 2019 By
The Orthodox knew it first, but that’s beside the point. It’s an Apostolic practice. Only the most historically naive or uninformed would doubt it. …But I reply, first of all, that infant baptism is not a recent introduction, nor are its origins traceable to the papal church. For I say that it has always been […]
Did the Ante-Nicene Church Baptize Children? Infants?
August 1, 2019 By
The question has been answered many times, but none so definitively as with Hippolytus. At the hour in which the cock crows, they shall first pray over the water. When they come to the water, the water shall be pure and flowing, that is, the water of a spring or a flowing body of water. […]
