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Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth
Read more: Rightly Dividing the Word of TruthNothing has greater importance in the Christian life than the place of Holy Scripture. On this, Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant can agree. Even if one places emphasis on the role of Holy Tradition, they still have to admit that the most prominent manifestation of Holy Tradition in the Church are the Scriptures themselves. But, of […]
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“Save Me Whether I Want It Or Not” – Justification and the Orthodox
Read more: “Save Me Whether I Want It Or Not” – Justification and the OrthodoxOne of my favorite prayers (from the “Morning Prayers” which is not one of the services, but one of many variations of private prayers used by Orthodox Christians) is to Our Lord Jesus Christ, and is quite clear on justification – at least in a way that should quieten any critics of Orthodoxy who think […]
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Prayer to My Guardian Angel and Some Other Thoughts
Read more: Prayer to My Guardian Angel and Some Other ThoughtsFor an update and additional comments on this article see angels. O Holy Angel, who stand by my wretched soul and my passionate life: do not abandon me, a sinner, neither depart from me because of my lack of self-control. Leave no room for the evil demon to gain control of me through the violence […]
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Solzhenitsyn on Sitting Down
Read more: Solzhenitsyn on Sitting DownIn Twilight I well remember the very widespread custom, back in the South, of “twilighting.” Carried over from before the Revolution, it might have also been fortified by the meager, perilous years of the Civil War. Yet this practice had come about much earlier. Was it born of the months-long warmness of the Southern dusk? […]
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The Loneliness of Modern Man
Read more: The Loneliness of Modern ManIn the Benedictine tradition, a monk makes four vows: poverty, chastity, obedience and stability. Most people are familiar with the first three but not with the fourth. In classical Benedictine practice it meant that a monk stayed put: he did not move from monastery to monastery. It was not a new idea. Before Benedict had […]
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A Visual Journey into Orthodoxy
Read more: A Visual Journey into Orthodoxy
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God’s Justice and the Fathers
Read more: God’s Justice and the FathersI am grateful for the responses yesterday that were posted on my article Once and For All, and particularly Ephrem’s passages from the Fathers on justice. I have certainly been among the Orthodox writers, speakers, etc., in America who have given short shrift to forensic (legal) imagery when thinking about God and how we understand […]
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A Personal Note of Thanks
Read more: A Personal Note of ThanksFor a couple of years I was an occasional poster on Pontifications, the Blog created and maintained by my dear friend, Fr. Al Kimel, and it was he who suggested that I create my own. It was a friendly suggestion. Yesterday, after a little more than two months, we passed 50,000 views, which is far […]
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Once and For All?
Read more: Once and For All?I have been puzzling some lately about the doctrine of Justification, particularly as understood by some Protestants. I am not the theologian that my good friend, Fr. Al Kimel, over at Pontifications is, nor am I versed in late medieval scholarship, which is what early Protestant doctrine requires. My puzzle is perhaps a bit more […]
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The God of the Waters
Read more: The God of the WatersI stood in the rain this afternoon, with twenty or thirty of the faithful as we blessed the waters of the Clinch River at Melton Hill Marina. It’s the same place that is pictured in the snow with the blessing of the waters on a few blogs down. Today the water was everywhere. In the […]
David, I have never had a experience of God that became the basis of faith. I’ve had a variety of…