After church a few Sundays ago I found myself once again roaming around our little church library. I go up there from time to time to see what’s new. There’s never anything new. We’ve had the same books for years; I just like being in the presence of books, so alas, I roam. My typical…
Transitioning from Protestantism to the Orthodox Church a bit over a decade ago was for me a fairly seamless one. I was already well versed in the different theological positions and met the cultural surprises through research prior to my first visit to an actual church; however, I definitely got hung up on the Church’s…
Religion has earned a bad name. There was a time when the word simply referred to all things pertaining to a faith. Now it seems to refer exclusively to all the bad things pertaining to a faith. The ever popular “I’m spiritual, not religious” thinking cannot conceive of religion as anything but toxic, dangerous, or,…
The phrase “Physician, heal thyself” is recognized the world over as perhaps the single greatest put-down in recorded history aimed, of course, at Jesus Christ by his accusers during his passion on the cross. Christ performed many public healings so it must have seemed unbelievably ironic to those standing around that he was unable to…
I love New Year’s. There’s something about the calendar on my wall flipping over that gives me the feeling of a new beginning. It’s a completely made up new beginning, yet still completely real. Bono from U2 had it right when he said that “Nothing changes on New Year’s Day,” however, for me psychologically almost…
Many Christians today believe the practice of praying to the saints is as bizarre as it is blasphemous; at the very least something condemned in Scripture. However, it would shock many to know that prayers to the saints, in particular Mary, has always been a standard practice in the Christian faith. I only assume this…
So many Christians want to increase their faith, and why wouldn’t they? It seems only natural. But have they never read where Christ nearly rebuked his disciples for asking him to increase their faith? It’s the passage where he tells them that faith the size of a mustard seed is enough (small faith is enough),…
There is a “very specific quality that distinguishes [man from animal],” says Rousseau, “about which there can be no argument: the faculty of self-perfection.” A horse never strains to be a horse but every man strains to become something other than what he is. And while every person is in pursuit of perfection they never…
I’ve recently been enmeshed in reading mythology and folklore, a genre that has never interested me. I got the sudden urge to do so after a long period of reading the old classics of psychology: Freud, Jung, Rank, Frankl, Fromm, and others. Nearly all these guys were seriously versed in mythology which seemed to make…
The Road to Monasticism Shortly after the stoning of Stephen, the Early Church suffered immense persecution. From one emperor to the next and for nearly three centuries spanning from Nero to Trajan and from Decius to Diocletian, Christians were chased from one end of the empire to the other spilling blood at every turn. Life…
When one reads through the Bible and leaps from the last page of Malachi into the Gospel of Matthew, a stark change is noticed concerning the Jewish religion. One gets the feeling that a huge segment of the story has been left out – the part between the last Jewish prophet and the birth of…
Though Eucharistic language permeates the New Testament from start to finish, there are only a few passages which deal directly with the Last Supper. The specific treatments of the Last Supper are found in the three synoptic Gospels and in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. A compare and contrast study of the separate accounts…
Many people today are made to pass by a dry-erase board at work, hanging prominently where everyone is bound to see it many times a day, tracking their job performance month-to-month and keeping all employees in a constant game of mutual comparison. Unfortunately, this method of employee motivation works, works very well. And it cost…
There is a popular way of thinking about repentance for many Christians today which relegates repentance to a single, specific occurrence in the believer’s life: that of salvation. This idea is often tethered to the concept of salvation as a one-time event in which a person repents of his or her sin, “accepts Jesus as…
One of the doctrines that shocked me the most (if I can be so dramatic) early in my journey out of independent Evangelicalism and into Holy Orthodoxy was the doctrine of deification, or theosis. Once understood, though, the doctrine is only shocking insofar as one is taken by its beauty. Indeed, much of the beauty…
The following is taken from the Prologue of Ohrid, April 22. During the time of Patriarch John the Merciful, a young monk appeared, who, as soon as he arrived, compiled a list of all the prostitutes in Alexandria. The asceticism of this young monk was exceptional and unique. During the day he would offer himself…
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