Category: Aesthetics

Nostalgia for Paradise

Recent conversations have brought up the name of Dr. Alexander Kalomiros. Author of the River of Fire and other well known Orthodox writings, his work was no stranger to controversy. But his work also came from a wonderful heart. Here is a short offering from the small book, Nostalgia for Paradise. When the ascetical life…

February 15, 2014
Saving the Atonement

I am speaking this week in Mississippi, in a place where Orthodoxy is thriving, but not a place where you would expect to find it. The parish (a former Presbyterian facility) has a sign with variable letters, where a changing “message” can be displayed. It reads something like, “Father Stephen Freeman speaking Tuesday, Wednesday and…

February 5, 2014
Discerning the Mystery

Andrew Louth, writing in his book, Discerning the Mystery, says: If we look back to the Fathers, and the tradition, for inspiration as to the nature of theology, there is one thing we meet which must be paused over and discussed in some detail: and that is their use of allegory in interpreting the Scriptures. We…

January 31, 2014
The Angels Sing!

http://youtu.be/5qm5e8oXNaU A Serbian Christmas Song – lyrics by St. Nikolai Velimirovich Andjeli Pevaju Noć prekrasna i noć tija, nad pećinom zvezda sija, u pećini mati spi, nad Isusom andjel bdi. Andjeli pevaju, pastiri sviraju, andjeli pevaju mudraci javljaju: Što narodi čekaše, što proroci rekoše, evo sad se u svet javi, u svet javi i…

December 26, 2013
The Poetry of God

Whoever wants to become a Christian must first become a poet. – St. Pophyrios of Kavsokalyvia St. Porphyrios made this statement in the context of love and suffering: That’s what it is! You must suffer. You must love and suffer–suffer for the one you love. Love makes effort for the loved one. She runs all through…

November 29, 2013
Facing Up to God

I have been asked to write further on the “theology of the face.” It is surprisingly neglected in many parts of the Christian world – and though it is not often discussed within Orthodoxy – it is nevertheless deeply at the heart of Orthodox devotion. Nothing in the Old Testament more clearly reveals the personhood…

November 5, 2013
The Fullness

I am fascinated by what Holy Tradition does with the idea of “fullness” or “fulfillment.” The Church is described as the “fullness of Him that filleth all in all” (Ephesians 1:23). And it is not unusual for Orthodox Christians to express the meaning of Orthodoxy under the rubric of “fullness”: Orthodoxy is the fullness of the…

October 26, 2013
Get Out of Your Mind!

I am not certain at what point modern Christians began to believe that “spiritual” and “mental” were the same thing. I know that it is a commonplace to interpret John 4:24 (“God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth”) to mean that outward actions and locations are of no…

August 9, 2013
Reading the Real Bible and Notes on the Real Hell

This post began as a comment – a response to serious questions about the nature of hell (Is Hell Real?) and recent treatments of Scriptural literalism. I offer this edited version as a new post for the sake of those who don’t follow comments closely… Dear Reader, I want to state immediately that you should…

July 11, 2013
Truth and the End of All Things

This is a reposting for the sake of our present conversation… In the Gospel record of Christ’s trial before Pontius Pilate, we are told that Christ said He had come to bear witness to the Truth. Pilate, in what he must have thought was a clever response, says, “And what is Truth?” We know from…

July 5, 2013

I can only speak of God as I know Him in Christ crucified. Apart from that, the conversation becomes an…

Ook, That the earliest community of Christians in Jerusalem held all things in common was certainly a response to the…

Fr. Stephen wrote: “If you do this sort of thing for a good number of decades, and couple it with…

The focus of this blog is on spiritual aspects, but I would emphasize that aphesis (ἄφεσις) in Luke 4:18 translates…

I think the idea that we have no expectations of God is mythologizing our own virtue. We do expect that…