Today, is suspended upon the Cross, He Who suspended the Earth upon the waters. A crown of thorns crowns Him, Who is the King of the angels. He, Who wrapped the Heavens in clouds, is clothed with the purple of mockery. He, Who freed Adam in the Jordan, received buffetings. He was transfixed with nails, […]

  On this day the Church remembers Our Lord’s institution of the Sacrament of His Body and Blood. The Liturgy is that of St. Basil’s, which is used on all the Sundays of Lent as well. It is one of the most complete statements of the faith, despite its brevity (compared to Catechism or a book). […]

“Are we really going to do this?” Those were the words I greeted by dear wife with upon waking in our hotel room on February 15, 1998. We were in Columbia, SC, for the purpose of being received into the Orthodox Church by Father Peter Smith (then Rector of Holy Apostles in Columbia). Along with […]

I will quickly confess that I am not a philosopher. I am not trained in the subject and always struggled in the few doctoral classes that were in the area of “Philosophical Theology.” Thus, this will not be a philosophical response that settles matters for believers viz. atheism, or settles matters viz. Orthodox Christianity for […]

This Friday and Saturday the Orthodox Church focuses its liturgical attention on the ancient hymn known as the Akathist, the “the hymn we sing unseated, i.e., Akathismos” (what hymn would you sing while seated methinks?). St. Romanos the Melodist was the author of the first Akathist, written in honor of the Theotokos (“Birthgiver of God”). […]

I have written previously of boundaries and their essential nature in our spiritual lives. This can be described by the boundaries we experience within ourselves (certain ones must be maintained) or the boundaries we experience in an Orthodox Temple (such boundaries serve to teach us about ourselves and the Truth of our relationship with Christ). […]

My maternal grandparents’ home had an array of popular religious art: Jesus knocking at the door (as discussed in the previous post’s comments), the guardian angel and the children, prayer in the garden of gethsemane. They were country Baptists, and yet religious art (I suppose some would call it kitsch) was an important part of […]

Metropolitan Anthony Bloom, in his little classic, Beginning to Pray, focuses first on the absence of God rather than His presence – which is helpful for me since that’s starting where I have to start (as do almost all of us). He grounds this in God’s personhood and His freedom. God is not some object […]

In writing about the Iconostasis in the previous post, I wrote of “boundaries,” and how the definitions that exist in the Church reflect even greater realities. I believe those realities are two-fold. The first reality is to be found within ourselves. Fearfully and wonderfully made, created in the image of God, there is a spiritual […]