Category: Orthodox Christianity
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The Ministry of Blogging
I have come to understand very well that blogging, at many of its best points, is a ministry. Like most ministry, it carries certain limitations. It is not a sacrament of the Church. I trust that when, as a priest, I administer the Body and Blood of Christ, His perfection is everything and I need be…
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Perfectly Ideal
I am not a friend of philosophical answers – primarily because I think they run the risk of being nothing more than ideas. The same holds true for problems – philosophical problems are often just that – philosophical and little more. For a variety of reasons, God seems to be an easy subject for philosophical…
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A Particular Love
I wrote recently of the genius of both Solzhenitsyn (who is pictured here lying at rest in Christ) and Dostoesvsky – that both refuse to genralize about the nature of the human struggle, but bring the entire struggle for salvation down to the existential level, to the level of the human heart and its encounter…
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A Momentary Lull
I ask patience of readers for my lack of activity for the last 2 days. I am recovering from a virus and hope to be well enough for work by tomorrow. Your prayers are appreciated. A good feast to all (Transfiguration). What a blessed event as Peter, James and John saw the manifestation of the…
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Solzhenitsyn and Where the Battle Begins
A short but insightful quote from Solzhenitsyn. It came to him during his time in the Gulag: …. It was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through…
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Solzhenitsyn – The Harvard Address
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, addressing an assembly at Harvard University in June of 1978, offered profound insights on the West and the future of our society. His thoughts were anchored in a vision of man that was profoundly Christian, transcending the limits established in present societies. He issued a call for a deeper pursuit that can only…
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Solzhenitsyn Has Died – Memory Eternal!
One of the most spiritually significant events in my life was first reading Alexandr Solzhenitsyn. It was not his fiction that first fell into my hands, but a collection of essays, From Under the Rubble. He was, at the time, in the international spotlight as he struggled to maintain his witness to the Truth while…
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Drawing Lessons from the Maccabees
I offered yesterday the text of the martyrdom of the holy Seven Maccabees, who refused the violate the commandments of God and suffer death instead. The most amazing character in the story of these great Old Testament martyrs, is their teacher, Eleazar. He was offered an interesting option regarding his martyrdom. The issue that the…
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The Seven Holy Maccabbees
August 1 is the Feast of the Precious and Life-Giving Wood of the Cross, but also the feast of the martyrdom of the Seven Maccabees. Since Protestant Christians do not include the books of First and Second Maccabees in their canon, they will be unfamiliar with this historically accurate and Godly tale of the courage…
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The Absence of Beauty
We can say without hesitation that God is the ultimate author of Beauty, and what we know and love of beauty is an echo or stronger of our desire for the Beautiful God. It becomes a major problem of sin, largely unrecognized, when beauty begins to recede from the consciousness of people, or something tawdry…
Couldn’t You save us without being crucified ? I could, but I would show my power. I want to show…