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Travel Hiatus
Read more: Travel HiatusI will be traveling to England later today (July 24) where I will be speaking at a conference. I will be visiting the Monastery of St. John the Baptist in Essex (where the Elder Sophrony is buried) following the conference. The upshot of all of that is that I will be able to check the […]
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The Church is the Cross Through History
Read more: The Church is the Cross Through HistoryAn aspect of the contemporary religious scene could be called “comparative Christianity”: whose version of Christianity is better? In a consumer culture such comparisons are inevitable. Sometimes they are rooted in historical arguments (Protestant vs. Catholic, the details of the Great Schism, etc.). Often they are simply rooted in consumer perceptions (better program, better music, […]
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Saintless Christianity
Read more: Saintless ChristianityWhat would Christianity mean if there were no saints? To rephrase the question: What would be the meaning of the Christian gospel if there were no wonderworkers, no people who had been transfigured with the Divine Light, no clairvoyant prophets, no healers, no people who had raised the dead, no ascetics living alone in the […]
Asceticism, Fathers, Modernity, Orthodox Christianity, Saints, Secularism, The Church, Union with God
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The Long Defeat and the Cross
Read more: The Long Defeat and the CrossFew ideas contrast as starkly to our modern myths as Tolkien’s view of history as “the long defeat.” I have been very interested in the continuing comments that struggle with the perceived pessimism of such a phrase. I have refrained from commenting at length myself, for the very reason that I wanted to do so […]
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Tolkien’s Long Defeat
Read more: Tolkien’s Long Defeat“Actually I am a Christian,” Tolkien wrote of himself, “and indeed a Roman Catholic, so that I do not expect ‘history’ to be anything but a ‘long defeat’— though it contains (and in legend may contain more clearly and movingly) some samples or glimpses of final victory” (Letters 255). +++ History as a long defeat – […]
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Mere Morality
Read more: Mere MoralityWhat makes an action moral? I use the word to describe something done in an effort to conform to a rule, a law, or a principle. It is a matter of the will and a matter of effort. All societies require some form of moral behavior. If there were no such behavior, life would be […]
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The Struggle To Be Real
Read more: The Struggle To Be RealVery few modern Christians who read English are unfamiliar with the writings of CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien. Lewis’ expositions of Christian thought as well as his popular fiction (The Screwtape Letters, The Chronicles of Narnia, Out of the Silent Planet, etc.) have become modern classics. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings […]
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Orthodoxy Versus Christian Materialism
Read more: Orthodoxy Versus Christian MaterialismOver the years I find myself coming back to a number of ideas within the modern world that differ markedly from Orthodox thought. These are ideas that are imbedded so deep within our culture that they seem self-evident to most people. Many Orthodox believers hold to one or more of them, distorting their understanding of […]
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Alan – The Ascetic of Love was just reprinted. Here is the link to the publisher where you can order…
Esmee, thank you for the book recommendations. I had not heard of “The Sunflower” nor “The ascetic of love.” Sadly,…
Thank you so much for posting a link to this article, Father Stephen. I tried searching your name and Dostoevsky…
Thank you Fr. Stephen. Your comment is much appreciated. I will read the article.
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Thank you very much for that information Esmee!!