Category: Aesthetics

Christos Voskrese

This delightful youtube video was posted a year ago. One of our readers and occasional commenter, Dejan, (without a doubt my favorite Serb) provided the English translation. The words are from a poem by St. Nikolai Velimirovich who served for a time as the Rector of St. Tikhon’s Seminary – truly one of the great…

April 18, 2009
Why Does God Sing?

Why would God sing? The question may sound strange and yet it is said in Zephaniah (3:17), “He will rejoice over thee with singing.” I first noticed this verse when I was a very young Christian and have puzzled about it for nearly forty years. Equally puzzling to our modern way of thought is the…

March 17, 2009
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…

March 7, 2009
The Beatitudes – Sung by the Monks of Valaam Monastery

February 15, 2009
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…

February 5, 2009
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…

January 24, 2009
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…

January 22, 2009
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…

December 30, 2008
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…

December 28, 2008
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…

December 27, 2008

Father, When I first began to read the Gospels, my main focus was “when did this happen and how does…

Thanks Fr. Stephen and Dee. Fr. Stephen said: “I’ve spent years reading in Orthodox literature, history, thought, etc.,” What exactly?…

Matthew and Father, I’ve seen similar fears and ignorance concerning science (not referring to technology or math). Too few have…

I know a family that makes it impossible to care for each other. The level of selfishness is so high…

Matthew, Well, I suspect that I’m showing my age. When I think of the liberal arts, I have in mind…