Category: Mystical Theology
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Orthodoxy and the Christ-Haunted Culture of the South
One of my favorite priests in the Diocese of the South is Fr. Paul Yerger who serves Holy Resurrection Orthodox Church in Clinton, Mississippi. His gentle demeanor and kind words are what I have always associated with the South, though it is rarely witnessed today. I had a chance to visit with him this week…
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The Boundary of Death
This was posted originally last Spring. I have posted again for re-reading and for its assurance that Christ is the only guarantee of our dignity. Having spent two-and-a-half years as a Hospice Chaplain, I had opportunity to be present to over 200 deaths (that does not include the many I have witnessed in my years…
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Christ the Only Assurance of the Dignity of Man
I am in Miami attending the annual Diocesan Assembly for the South. This first evening was primarily time with with our Archbishop DMITRI, and my brother clergy in the Diocese. I have known His Eminence since around 1994 and have, on occasion, spent a extended periods with him. I have heard him speak at…
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The Unity of the Faith
It is said proverbially in Orthodoxy that “one who prays is a theologian and a theologian is one who prays.” This intends fully to say that an unlettered peasant may be a greater theologian than someone who holds many degrees and can offer page after page of published articles. There is only one reason this…
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The Fire of Pentecost in Orthodoxy
No one, of course, can describe the fire that fell on the Apostles at Holy Pentecost. At most we are told that the Spirit appeared “like tongues of flame lighting upon the heads of the Apostles.” Not much a description. Other times in Scripture we are told of a Pillar of Fire and of the…
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The Spirit, the Modern World, Pentecostalism and Orthodoxy
Part of the larger Christian context in which Orthodoxy lives today includes not only Catholics (of various sorts), Protestants (of even more sorts), but Pentecostals as well (of which there are quite a few sorts). Indeed, having come splashing onto the modern religious scene around 1900, Pentecostals have been by far the fastest growing of…
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The Life of the Spirit
The following paragraphs are from the chapter on “The Life of the Spirit” in Fr. Sophrony’s We Shall See Him As He Is. St. Silouan’s method is to place us before the general principle and then leave us to work out and diagnose our own case. To give a few examples: ‘One should eat only…
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The God Who Is Beautiful
Everything is beautiful in a person when he turns toward God, and everything is ugly when is is turned away from God. Fr. Pavel Florensky I come to the end of a day that has been filled with other activity and little time for writing. But in my reading at bedtime I came across the…
I listened to Bishop Alexander’s 2016 OCAMPR talk, Father, because I learned of him from you. It was really wonderful.…