Glory to God For All Things

Category: Aesthetics

  • The Sunday of Orthodoxy

    The first Sunday of Great Lent is always observed as the “Sunday of Orthodoxy” in our Churches. It marks both the return of the icons to the Churches following the end of the Iconoclast Controversy, but also as a summation of all the Holy Teachings of the faith which Orthodoxy holds and for which many…

  • The Beatitudes – Sung by the Monks of Valaam Monastery

  • Dreams and Reality – Prayers by the Lake XXXI

    The following poem is from St. Nikolai’s  (Velimirovich) Prayers by the Lake. The only true Reality is God and only in Him do we find ourselves to be real. +++ You pour out light over the darkness, Lord, and colors and shapes emerge. You bend Your face over the abyss, whose name is Nothingness, and…

  • Icons and Scripture

    The great summary statement of theology at the Seventh Ecumenical Council is succinct: Icons do with color what Scripture does with words. The first time I read this, I was a graduate student at Duke University, studying Systematic Theology. I wound up writing my thesis on the “Icon as Theology.” What was new for me…

  • The Smashing of Images

    I have a quote on the sidebar from an earlier posting. It is about the need we have for proper images and the danger inherent in “image smashing” or “iconoclasm.” We have to renounce iconoclasm. In so doing, we inherently set ourselves against certain forces within modernity. The truth is eschatological, that is, it lies…

  • Brighter Than Any Royal Chamber

    At the end of the Great Entrance, when the priest places the Holy Gifts on the altar, there are several verses which he repeats quietly. They are all deeply meaningful to me, but one has been on my heart much of late: “Bearing life and more fruitful than paradise, brighter than any royal chamber: Thy…

  • What We Do Not See

    One of the most striking features of the Gospels is the frequent response of the Disciples after the resurrection of Christ: doubt. I have always been sympathetic to the doubts and hesitations that afflicted their lives during the ministry of Christ. The disciples are almost endearing in their inability to grasp what Christ is all…

  • Russian Art – Mikhail Nesterov (1862-1942)

    Nesterov is one of my favorite artists. His work has a marvelous Russian quality with an almost pre-raphaelite technique. His rendering of a couple of icon subjects are perhaps the only things that do not work for me. But you see some of his art posted here from time to time. This youtube is a…

  • Angels Sing

      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 objavi:…

  • Prayers By the Lake – St. Nikolai of Zicha

    C Accept the sacrifice of my words, my Father — accept the babbling of a penitent child, my Father! Correct my words with Your truth, and accept them on the footstool of Your feet.  Cense my sacrifice with the fragrant incense of a saint’s prayer and do not reject it, O Triradiate Master of worlds.…

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