by John Sanidopoulos Every Christmas season, the usual myths are hauled out and distributed for popular consumption. You know them. We’ve all heard or read them. That Christmas celebrations were stolen from the Romans The Christmas tree is a pagan hangover That other gods had virgin births That Yule and the mistletoe are all about […]
Why Love Cannot Exist Without Humility
November 12, 2018 By
By Fr. Stephen Powley “Take up the sword of humility and meekness, hold it always in your hand, and mercilessly cut off the head of our chief foe.” This incredible man of God, St. Theophan the Recluse (+1891), passed on many wonderful writings for us. Here are just a few on Humility and Love. Each […]
Church Canons: a Beginner’s Guide
October 16, 2018 By
What canons are there in the Church? What do they govern? Do canons restrict people’s freedom or do they help people to exercise their freedom? Why do those hair-splitting formalities even exist in the Church? Is it impossible to get saved without them? FOMA Magazine asked Archpriest Demetrius Pashkov, who is a professor in the Department of World and Russian […]
Why Did Jesus Have To Die?
September 3, 2018 By
by C. S. Lewis We are told that Christ was killed for us, that His death has washed out our sins, and that by dying He disabled death itself. That is the formula. That is Christianity. That is what has to be believed. Any theories we build up as to how Christ’s death did all […]
The Education of Children
August 20, 2018 By
A Sermon by St. Sebastian Dabovi? SAN FRANCISCO, 1899 We desire to tell you of some thing, which is of the utmost importance. We find it necessary, unfortunately, to repeat in a measure what has been told you several times. We speak plainly, without a flourish of words, because we feel our responsibility before God […]
On the Error of Nature Worshipers
July 12, 2018 By
by St. Nikolai Velimirovich Thus then we Christians understand the earth, the sun and the stars as the symbols of spiritual reality and in no way as the reality itself. Pagans of all ages, however, have mistaken those luminous bodies of the firmament for (spiritual) reality. As soon as they took them for (spiritual) reality […]
On the Essence and Energies of God
July 5, 2018 By
by St. Basil the Great “It is by His energies that we say we know our God; we do not assert that we can come near to the essence itself, for His energeia descend to us, but His essence remains unapproachable.” (St. Basil’s Epistle 234 (ad Amphilochium), P.G., XXXII, 869 AB. Cf. ) […]
Caveat Emptor: Ware’s ‘The Orthodox Church’
June 5, 2018 By
This is a short post on changes in the book “The Orthodox Church” by Kallistos Timothy Ware regarding the Orthodox teaching about contraception. Natural family planning is acceptable, because it simply involves abstinence from sex during times when fertility is likely. Such is the teaching of the Church of Greece as expressed in her encyclical […]
