Originally published November 17, 2012 by Fr. John A. Peck How Dogmatic Iconography defends the doctrine of the Incarnation against ancient Gnosticism. Harold Bloom, in his book, The American Religion, rightly comes to the startling conclusion that America is a nation of Gnostics, believers in a pre-Christian tradition of individual divinity. The American propensity to be religious iconoclasts on the one hand, and cultural idolaters on the other is a stark and broken contrast with Incarnational Christianity. Despite protestations to the contrary, it is not the icon which is so offensive to Gnostics and iconoclasts, it is the message which the icon represents which cannot be … [Read more...]
How to Read an Orthodox Feast Day Calendar
An Orthodox feast day calendar is not merely a religious datebook. It is the Church’s way of teaching time to speak the Gospel. Day by day, the calendar sets before us Christ, His Mother, the saints, the martyrs, the fasts, and the saving events by which the world has been redeemed. It calls us out of a life governed only by appointments, entertainment, and anxiety, and into the life of the Kingdom. For someone new to Orthodoxy, the number of commemorations can seem overwhelming. For a lifelong Orthodox Christian, a calendar can become so familiar that it is easy to glance at it without praying. In both cases, the goal is the same: do not treat the feasts as information to collect. Receive … [Read more...]
Are These the End Times?
by Abbot Tryphon We dare not surrender to the temptation of despair, even if these are the End Times. The cultural and spiritual warfare that is taking place because of the pandemic, with the forced separation of mass numbers of people from their extended families, elders, parish communities, and fellow workers, has brought our world to a place not experienced in hundreds of years. Coupled with the polarization of the populous within the United States, and the mass apostasy from Christianity in the West, many Christians are now thinking we must be entering the period of the End Times. Yet when we consider the words of the Our Father, "Thy will be done, on earth as it is in … [Read more...]
Orthodox Deacons and Their Sacred Ministry
When you enter an Orthodox service, you may first notice the priest at the altar, and not the deacons. Yet Orthodox deacons give voice to much of the Church’s prayer: calling the faithful to peace, directing our attention to the Lord, censing the holy gifts and the people, and proclaiming the Gospel. Their ministry is neither decorative nor a lesser version of the priesthood. It is a distinct ordained service of Christ and His Church. The word deacon comes from the Greek word diakonos, meaning servant or minister. This name reaches back to the apostolic Church. In Acts 6, the Apostles set apart men of good reputation as deacons, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, to serve the practical … [Read more...]
The Earliest Hymn to the Virgin Mary
The earliest known hymn to the Virgin Mary is known as “Beneath thy compassion” (Greek: Ὑπὸ τὴν σὴν εὐσπλαγχνίαν). The earliest text of this hymn was found in a Christmas liturgy of the third century. It is written in Greek and dates to approximately at least 250 A.D. In 1917, the John Rylands Library in Manchester acquired a large panel of Egyptian papyrus including the 18 cm by 9.4 cm fragment shown at left, containing the text of this hymn in Greek. C.H. Roberts published this document in 1938. His colleague E. Lobel, with whom he collaborated in editing the Oxyrhynchus papyri, basing his arguments on paleographic analysis, argued that the text could not possibly be older than the third … [Read more...]
The Books will be Opened
by St Symeon the New Theologian God is truth and light, God’s judgement is nothing else than our coming into contact with truth and light. In the day of the Great Judgement all men will appear naked before this penetrating light of truth. The ‘books’ will be opened. What are these ‘books’? They are our hearts. Our hearts will be opened by the penetrating light of God, and what is in these hearts will be revealed. If in those hearts there is love for God, those hearts will rejoice in seeing God’s light. If, on the contrary, there is hatred for God in those hearts, these men will suffer by receiving on their opened hearts this penetrating light of truth which they detested all their life. … [Read more...]
The Ancient Western Way of Making the Sign of the Cross
The sign of the cross is a beautiful gesture which reminds the faithful of both the cross of salvation while invoking the Holy Trinity. The early Church Fathers attested to the use of the sign of the cross. Tertullian (d. 250) described the exceptional frequency of the sign of the cross being made: “In all our travels and movements, in all our coming in and going out, in putting on our shoes, at the bath, at the table, in lighting our candles, in lying down, in sitting down, whatever employment occupies us, we mark our foreheads with the sign of the cross” (De corona, 30). St. Cyril of Jerusalem (d. 386) in his Catechetical Lectures stated, “Let us then not be ashamed to confess … [Read more...]
Why Satan attacks Orthodox Christians
by Elder Sampson “One must always remember the difference between the emotional, the spiritual, and the physical: the life of the spirit, the life of the soul (that is, the senses and emotions, and the life of the body. This is exactly where there is so much confusion. By the way, the Western [Christan] denominations . . . all have precisely this confusion between the spirit and the soul. The mother can transmit to the child many wonderful qualities of character, of the soul, right? But not the qualities of the spirit: faith and love towards people which are given by the Holy Spirit. “Therefore [because Orthodoxy discerns the difference between the gifts of the Holy Spirit … [Read more...]
Bible Survey Lessons Orthodox Christians Need
Scripture can seem familiar while remaining unread in its true depth. Many Christians know beloved verses, memorable stories, and moral lessons from the Bible, yet still struggle to see how the Law, the Prophets, the Gospels, and the Apostolic writings belong to one revelation. Bible survey lessons Orthodox Christians need address that problem directly. They teach us to receive the Bible as the Church’s book: a unified witness to Jesus Christ, read in worship and interpreted within Holy Tradition. For an inquirer, this is often a turning point. The Orthodox Church does not place Scripture on one side and Tradition on the other, as if a Christian must choose between them. The same Holy … [Read more...]
Glorious Liberty
Hello my dear Campers. Today we celebrate freedom. Liberty! And it is not the absence of boundaries, but the capability to do what we should do, to do as we ought to do. Let us start with God. Christianity teaches that apart from Christ, human beings are naturally in a state of bondage—often physical, often psychological, but always spiritual. Through the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ our God, believers are liberated from several tyrannies. Bondage of Sin: Freedom from the ultimate power, grip, and control that destructive, sinful desires have over human behavior. The Penalty of the Law: Believers are freed from the spiritual condemnation and eternal punishment of God's … [Read more...]
- 1
- 2
- 3
- …
- 30
- Next Page »
