“Thoughts in Christ”

In Croatia I was handed a cookie wrapped in cellophane with a printed paper that sealed the opening. On the paper the name of the cookie: PAPRENJAK, with the explanation: “Foreign invaders and aggressors enter our land. They come after our honey and leave us the pepper. We are pepper to the enemy but honey among ourselves.” I reach for the cookie…

If today seekers are out searching for Jesus Christ, where shall they go to find Him? Many who are lost among the plethora of competing places of worship are turned off by them all. They want to wade through the words of those promoting a brand of Christianity that does not satisfy the deep waters of the soul. Like Andrew and John, they know what…

In my first year of seminary I discovered volumes of a Russian Orthodox layman, Nicolai Berdyaev in the shelves of our library. I devoured them because I found him addressing so many spiritual questions that were on my own mind. He had a way of getting to the core of so many problems that any serious Christian—indeed, every moral human…

It appears to be a contradiction—Jesus first tells us that He came for judgment, and later in the same gospel He said that He did not come to judge to world but to save it. How can He judge without judging, or not judge and yet judge? Even earlier in John 5:22 we read: “The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son.” Compound all…

Most if not all of the holy fathers of our faith have been translated into English; however, it takes several more stages of effort in order to squeeze the sweet nectar of their meaning into the juice of modern Christian understanding. This great spiritual genius, St. Maximos the Confessor, has to be interpreted from his time to ours and from…

This is what’s happening in our world at present, starting in our America blessed by God of which we so proudly sing, and passing like an invisible tsunami covering the entire world in a bath of economic disaster. The economic system “So perfect that no one will need to be good” made millions dream of an unending cornucopia of funds. People could…

What does it mean, to “appear in glory”? Will not your face shine with the light of that glory, so that your personality will come out and express itself by the radiance of your face? Consider the fact that those who should have recognized the Lord Jesus instantaneously following the crucifixion, burial and resurrection were not able to do so. Mary…

The definition of a doctor who is actively at work as a healer is termed a “practicing” physician. Practicing, as opposed to “retired.” We could borrow the term for all Christians. None of us is ever retired, not even after death. The church fathers never cease reminding us that the wisdom of God is never complete in us, because by nature God is who…

Traditions develop rapidly, and the protest against Roe vs. Wade right to abortions has become an annual tradition in the nation’s capitol where Orthodox Christian leaders and people join with like-minded opponents of that ignoble Congressional decision to rally and to protest against legal abortions, praying that it be overturned but, alas, so far…

Returning home on a long flight, I could not help but watch the TV monitor two rows ahead of me. My volume was shut off; however, my eyes were raised to the program intended to keep children from boredom. The main figure was a roly-poly panda. The entire world is entranced by their innocent beauty, but this animal was punched about by a variety of…

An axiom of preaching—never speak on a subject that you do not understand. I’ve always tried to keep to that admonition. Almost. Thanks be to the glorious Lord, I’ve never known the experience of abandonment. And yet I’ve felt its sharp pangs through the lives of others. If we wonder at the lengths many adopted persons go in order to find their…

The first American-born bishop of the Orthodox Church in America, Benjamin of Pittsburgh, created the first bilingual Orthodox service book in both Russian and English. I still own the copy that my grandfather gave me as a child. It contained morning and evening prayers, the Divine Liturgy, and certain verses of the special feast day hymns. There…

The word rejoice comes to the ear of my mind sung in the prayer form called “Akathist.” I conjure up many times in a variety of churches I was blessed to share the joyful tribute of praise to Sweetest Jesus, to the Mother of God, to the Holy Trinity, or to one of the saints. A common phrase: “Rejoice, O our joy,” is an invitation to remind ourselves…

What do you live for? What would you die for? The answer for the holy apostle Paul is a name: Jesus Christ. To know Christ was the consummate passion of St. Paul’s life. It would appear to be a truism that all Christians share with him—but how many of us would dare make that affirmation? Put another way: What does it mean to know Jesus Christ?…

The high expectations that St. Paul has for us are shown in the potential for spiritual development that he insists we must reach. What is he asking from us—that we should have a mind like that of Jesus? Put our thoughts into the thoughts of the Son of God? It takes a saint in the state of grace to propose that the Holy Spirit is at work within us…

Contemporary challenges to traditional Orthodox Christian funeral and burial rules and customs cause problems for us priests. Nowadays people ask to be cremated; the Church forbids that way of disposing human remains. We argue: That defies the Church’s teachings; and we hear that the Roman Catholic Church now permits cremation, as though that…

With the election of a new Metropolitan, we are making a new start on our journey to spearheading the future Orthodox Christian Patriarchate of N. America. You may yourselves draw the parallel in timing with the election of a new President of the United States of America. Like Mr. Obama, we are energized with hope, optimism and change. He has the…

If you are like me, you spend so much of your life explaining and describing Orthodox Christianity. Yes, we are Orthodox; no, we’re not Jewish. Yes, Christians, but neither Roman Catholic nor Protestant. So we explain through tradition, from 33 A.D. Or we try to tell of the divisions after Constantine into East and West, but we notice a glaze in the…

How many times have we sung that awesome mystical song? How beautiful and poignant is the image. I can smell incense just as I write it. Always with the censer we chant it at every funeral and requiem. And what comfort it brings. It announces the end of life’s journey, or to continue the sea image, life’s voyage. The key term “haven” has a double…

He was biking and stopped to peer into an empty church. It’s England, and it often happens that churches become obsolete. Yet he does stop and wonders about what it was used for, why it is empty and who may have gained any benefit from it. Americans in general are not yet so empty of spiritual searching, heading off in all sorts of directions to…