Category: Orthodox Christianity
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Forgiveness – the Hardest Love of All
I cannot think that any of my readers is a stranger to forgiveness, either the need to be forgiven or the need to forgive. The need to forgive, according to the commandment of Christ, extends well beyond those who ask for our forgiveness: we are commanded to forgive our enemies – whom I presume would…
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Living in a Crowded Heaven
Now the powers of heaven do serve invisibly with us. Lo, the King of Glory Enters. Lo, The Mystical Sacrifice is upborne, fulfilled. From the Liturgy of the Pre-Sanctified Gifts There is an old joke in which some member of some religious group, dies and goes to heaven. He passes by various rooms and is…
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Psalm 50 (51) The Great Psalm of Repentance
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St. Ephrem on Ninevah and Sodom
The use of Scripture in many of the Orthodox Church Fathers puzzles many modern readers. We tend to see reading as something that can be done in two modes: literal or figurative.
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Great Lent – the Second Week
Great Lent began a week ago for the Orthodox. Interestingly the first week of Lent is the hardest week until Holy Week. There are services pretty much every evening and the rules for fasting are stricter. It’s as if you began a race with a sprint only to realize that there are many more laps…
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And Now a Word from St. Isaac the Syrian
Sometimes…while prayer remains for its part, the intellect is taken away from it as if into heaven, and tears fall like fountains of waters, involuntarily soaking the whole face. All this time such a person is serene, still and filled with a wonder-filled vision. Very often he will not be allowed even to pray: this…
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Augustinian Surprises
God is He Whom we know best in not knowing Him. – St. Augustine It is He about Whom we have no knowledge unless it be to know how we do not know Him. – St. Augustine Both quotes are from De ordine. Fr. Thomas Hopko is fond of saying that “We cannot know God…
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Vladimir Lossky on Faith
In St. Paul, knowledge of God writes itself into a personal relationship expressed in terms of reciprocity [exchange]: reciprocity with the object of theology (which, in reality, is a subject), reciprocity also with those to whom the theological word is addressed. At its best, it is communion: I know as I am known. Before the…
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Know God or No God
The task for Orthodox Christians throughout Great Lent and at all times is quite simple and straightforward: know God.
Dee, every time you write about what you saw, you bring forward another facet – tantalizingly small in most cases…