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The Orthodox Church is the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, founded by Jesus Christ and His apostles. It is organically and historically the same Church that came fully into being at Pentecost (Acts 2). Today, the Orthodox constitute the second largest Christian body in the…
In his letter to the Christian community in Colossae, St Paul makes a startling and, at first glance, troubling assertion. “Now I rejoice in [my] sufferings [endured] for your sake,” he declares, ” and I complete in my flesh what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of His Body, which is the Church” (Col 1:24). In what sense can the…
Torture evokes for most of us feelings of dread, anger and loathing, responses based at least in part on the fear that it could happen to us or to someone dear to us. Because of today’s headlines, the word “torture” itself calls up images of an Abu Ghraib prison, or the beheading of a Nick Berg, or the “necklacing” of some unnamed victim of Africa’s…
As we settle back into the “ordinary time” of our liturgical year, it’s important to recall the special value and importance of this season. “Ordinary” should be understood as a technical term, which refers to a specific period in our yearly celebration. In the conventional sense, there is nothing “ordinary” about it at all. From feasts dedicated to…
Jesus urged His disciples to open their eyes to the world around them and behold the hand of God. In the seasons of the year, in the gathering of storms, in the birds of the air and flowers of the field, signs are offered that reveal God’s presence and purpose. Those who have eyes that perceive deeper things can discover that divine presence in…
On March 20 of this year Pope John-Paul II addressed a gathering of physicians and theologians on the issue of care for patients in a chronic or persistent “vegetative state” (pVS). This is a condition, often referred to as “brain death,” brought on by severe damage to the cerebral hemispheres. It leaves the patient with no capacity for…
Fr John Breck On the eve of the Sunday of the Holy Myrrhbearing Women, the Matins service includes Christ’s resurrection appearances as they are recounted at the close of St Mark’s Gospel. If Biblical scholars are correct, these last verses, Mark 16:9-20, did not originally belong to the Gospel narrative. This series of appearances of the risen Lord…
The “living tradition” of Orthodox Christianity teaches us that nothing is fortuitous, nothing occurs by chance. God is present and acting at every moment and through all things, in order to guide human life and the whole of creation toward fulfillment of His will. This means that He takes upon Himself our struggles and pain, just as He bestows upon…
The other day we had one of our dogs “put down,” that is, euthanized. Actually he wasn’t even our dog. The neighbor had received him as a gift from his sister, had no interest in him, and neglected him completely, other than to toss a little food out to him in the evening. He was a beautiful animal, despite the matted hair, myriad ticks, and mud up…
His Eminence Archbishop Anastasios (Yannoulatos) arrived in Albania in 1991, to assume archpastoral duties in this impoverished country, which during the Communist period had been militantly atheistic. Since that date, under his guidance and through his prayer, the Orthodox Church in Albania has experienced what has rightly been proclaimed a…
Most students of the Bible today would consider “allegory” to be less than useful. In fact they would judge it to be a fanciful, even dangerous way to interpret passages of Scripture. By “allegory,” they understand basically what the editors of the Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary understood: “the expression by means of symbolic fictional figures and…
The Ecumenical Movement seems blocked in an impasse. From the movement’s beginnings early in the last century, Protestant and Orthodox Christians have made up the membership of the World Council of Churches, and to the present day bilateral dialogues have continued between various Protestant denominations and the canonical Orthodox churches. In…
The frescoed head is all that remains of an anonymous “Ascetic,” whose image was reproduced on a card a Catholic friend once gave me, to help guide me on my way toward Orthodoxy.
The reproduction includes a portion of the wall on which, I suppose, this saintly man’s entire body once appeared. It’s easy to imagine that wall as part of an ancient…
For some time now I have been appealing to various people to reopen the question of “the beginning of human life,” in order to base an Orthodox view of the status of the embryo on biological fact, that is, on the truth about how God creates human beings. However embryologists finally assess the issue, there is a moral line that should never be…
For many years Patriarch Ignatius IV of Antioch has been engaged in ecumenical dialogue, especially with the Roman Catholic Church and Islam. This past September, in a message delivered before a Roman Catholic and Orthodox audience and reported in the Service Orthodoxe de Presse (#282, Nov. 2003, 22-24), the Patriarch issued a call for “prophetic…
In this season of Christ’s Nativity, the title of Vigen Guroian’s fine collection of essays on ethical issues [Incarnate Love, University of Notre Dame Press, first ed. 1988] comes back to me with special poignancy. For the past several years I’ve spent a couple of weeks each spring in Romania, visiting theological faculties, monasteries and parish…
“God reveals Himself in the silence of the heart.” The early desert monks, followed by ascetic laborers of every generation, came to know this truth through their own, most personal experience.
We can acquire knowledge about God in many different ways, first of all through the Bible and the Liturgy. The question, however, is how we move from…
When we talk our usual Orthodox church language, a lot of people haven’t the vaguest idea what we’re talking about. This was brought home to me in a rather harsh way not long ago, when a lapsed Catholic monk visited our parish. He had heard reports of the beauty of Orthodox worship and the depths of Orthodox spiritual life, and he came to experience…
There is a persistent notion among ourselves as well as among others that we Orthodox don’t read the Bible, at least not outside of liturgical services. However accurate this may have been in past generations, it is gratifying to note that it is less and less the case today. Increasingly our parishes—perhaps especially but certainly not…
The little box of CDs wedged between the front seats of our car contains labels such as Mozart’s Piano Concertos 18 & 19, The Vigil service of the Kiev Monastery, Tomaso Albinoni’s Cantatas from Opus 4, and “The Best of the Beach Boys.” (“That’s Daddy,” my kids sigh, rolling their eyes toward heaven.)
When I’m tired or on a long trip, though, I…