Tag: Orthodox Christianity

How Simple Should Christianity Be?

There is a tendency in our modern world to make things as simple as possible. We hide the complexities behind a keyboard (I don’t know how my computer works – or not very well) or we treat things that seem complex as unnecessary obfuscations. This same drive to simplify was very much alive in the…

August 26, 2009
What's the Point?

For a man who does not believe in God – nothing points to God. For a man who believes in God – everything points to God. So who’s right? There is almost no argument between these two experiences. For someone who does not believe in God my own contention that everything points to God is…

August 25, 2009
The Agent of Change

A continuation of the series on culture and the individual. As inhabitants of our modern culture, we find ourselves trapped in a world of “cause and effect.” It is a physical explanation of the universe that has, for all intents and purposes, become a universal metaphor, dominating religion and the most personal aspects of our…

August 23, 2009
Dostoevsky on the Individual

The following passage from The Brothers Karamazov is taken from one of the “Talks and Homilies” of the Elder Zossima – one of the key characters in the novel. His thoughts echo earlier articles here that contrast man as “individual” (isolation) to man as Person (brotherhood and communion). I plan to offer a series of thoughts…

August 22, 2009
The Mystery of Faith – Sacrament and Icon

Recent questions have been raised about the difference between icons and sacraments in the Orthodox Church. It is an easy place for confusion to occur – particularly when seen from the outside. The Church in the West, particularly the Roman Catholic Church, developed a carefully-worded and defined understanding of sacrament during the Middle Ages. This…

August 19, 2009
The Role of Icons

Icons are not about art. Icons are not about left-overs of Byzantine style. Icons are not about the idolatrous impulse within fallen humanity. Icons are about the very nature of our salvation. The history of Western theology, particularly the opposition to icons within the Protestant movement, has removed one of the most traditional components of…

August 18, 2009
Bad Icons

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into His likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:18). It is a teaching of the Fathers concerning the holy icons that we do not truly “see”…

August 17, 2009
The Face of God

Orthodox Christians mark August 16 as the Feast of the Icon “Not Made With Hands,” the miraculous face of Christ first left on a cloth sent to King Abgar of Edessa. The stories of the icon are swathed in the mists of history – but the image (or representations of it on icons) remain among…

August 16, 2009
The Last Battle

The Scriptures end with the description of a battle that is truly “apocalyptic” in its scale: all the forces of evil arrayed against all the forces of good. It is grand theater, having caught the imagination of countless generations (and even Hollywood). I do not know quite what to make of the description. That it…

August 14, 2009
The Inverted Pyramid

No greater image of prayer and the love of God has been given in our modern time than that of the Elder Sophrony’s Inverted Pyramid. The subject of such prayer has risen. I thought to share this as an effort to shed some light. Fr. Sophrony [Sakharov], in his book on St. Silouan, presents this…

August 13, 2009

Here’s my favorite from Georgia. There’s also an English version of it. It’s the Christ is risen from the dead……

Thanks so much Fr. Stephen. I will have a look around! 🙂

Matthew, Byzantine music is distinctly different from Western music. It certainly had its development. It’s worth noting that it continues…

Thanks so much Fr. Stephen for the comprehensive response about Byzantine art and culture. I really appreciate it. Can you…

Other Matthew, That was very much my own thought when I first ran across that statement from the Seventh Council.…