Category: Orthodox Christianity
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The Strange Case of Lazarus
St. John’s Gospel records the story of Christ’s raising Lazarus from the dead as the last action of Christ before His entry into Jerusalem. That setting has given rise to the feast of Lazarus Saturday in the Orthodox Church – a small Pascha before Holy Week. The three synoptic gospels make no mention of these…
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His Appearing in the Liturgy
Standing in the Church, listening to the choir or chanter sing while priest censes the icons, words swirl with the rising smoke and connections and associations multiply as words evoke images and images evoke thoughts: participation, coinherence, incarnation, mystery, timeless form and formless time, fullness and emptiness, fulfillment and… And then the thought comes, full-formed…
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St. Mary of Egypt
One of the most remarkable stories of the early Church, read each year in the 5th week of Lent during the Canon of St. Andrew, is the Story of St. Mary of Egypt. This Sunday is also dedicated to her on the Church Calendar. If you have not taken time or had opportunity to hear…
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Finding the God Within
Popular New Age thought postulates that everyone has a “god within.” It’s a pleasant way of saying that we’re all special while making “god” to be rather banal. But there is a clear teaching of classical Christianity regarding Christ within us, and it is essential to the Orthodox way of life. We should not understand…
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There Are No Opinions In This Article
There is a name for the Orthodox way of life: hesychia. In Greek, the word means “silence.” It could also be rendered “stillness,” or “quiet.” Far more than simply refraining from speech, it is the quiet of the heart, the stillness of the mind at rest in God, dwelling in peace. It is in this…
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Our Conciliar Salvation
I consider it both a strange mystery and a settled matter of the faith that God prefers not to do things alone. Repeatedly, He acts in a manner that involves the actions of others when it would seem, He could have acted alone. Why would God reveal His Word to the world through the agency…
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Orthodoxy and the Global Threat
The peculiar approach of Orthodoxy to the peoples of the nations is often a point of criticism. The so-called “national Churches” are seen as hotbeds of cultural intransigence and sources of division. The modern difficulties between Constantinople and Moscow echo the ancient rivalry of Constantinople and Alexandria (a primary source for the schism with the…
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The Fullness in Lent
This article keeps coming to mind as I celebrate the Liturgy of the Pre-Sanctified Gifts on these Lenten Wednesdays and Fridays. There is nothing to compare to them in the Christian liturgical world. It’s hard to thinking of fasting in the midst of such a feast. Orthodoxy has a number of “favorite” words – all…
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A Modern Lent
Few things are as difficult in the modern world as fasting. It is not simply the action of changing our eating habits that we find problematic – it’s the whole concept of fasting and what it truly entails. It comes from another world. We understand dieting – changing how we eat in order to improve…
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The Ecstasy of Knowing God
Consciousness is something of a constant in our lives (even when we sleep there is a level of consciousness). We do not think about it very often – since it is simply our awareness of the world outside (as well as the world inside). It is not what we are a ware of – it is…
Wow!