ἀνθρώποισι πᾶσι μέτεστι γινώσκειν ἑωυτοὺς καὶ σωφρονεῖν.
by John Brady
The roster of 20th-century saints includes some who lived very public lives, such as Russia’s Royal Martyrs, and not a few who strove to live “hid with Christ in God.” Saint Silouan of Mount Athos might have passed without a worldly trace if God had not sent Archimandrite Sophrony to record his life for our benefit. Continue reading “Mother Gavrilia: “A Holocaust to His Love” – The Ascetic of Love”
By Franklin Billerbeck
How we view, think about, and understand the Church is referred to as ecclesiology. While this may seem like an abstract area best left to academic theologians in seminaries, it is not. It is an area of vital concern to every Christian. Continue reading “Ecclesiology: What is It? Why is It Important?”
By Archmandrite George, Abbott of the Holy Monastery of Saint Gregory at Mount Athos
In the Orthodox Church of Christ, man can achieve theosis because the Grace of God, according to the teaching of the Holy Bible and of the Church Fathers, is uncreated. God is not only essence, as the Westerners believe, but also energy. If God was only essence, we would not be able to join, to commune with Him, because the essence of God is awe-inspiring and inaccessible to man, according to “You can not see My face; for there shall no man see Me, and live” (Ex. 33:20). Continue reading “Theosis (deification) is possible through the uncreated energies of God”
Our entire life is preoccupied with the spiritual law. This is the reason why we have withdrawn from the world and have forsaken family life, which itself is not something sinful. We have abandoned these in order to express our love towards the Lord in a unique way, obeying the first commandment precisely. Having been called by the Lord, we have followed Him in order to obey this commandment. We withdrew from society and denied our family to follow the proper, or rather the undisturbed way, preoccupying ourselves with inwardness and paying attention to the meanings of things. Continue reading “The purification of the Heart”
“Religion”* as an ideological system
When we say that “Orthodoxy is not a religion* in the usual sense of the word”, we are clearly implying that the term “religion” is not used in the Bible.
When we speak of “religion”, we mean an organized, world-theory system. In other words, we associate it with a group of people who have a specific IDEOLOGY, which they promote. And it is precisely this element that we reject in Orthodoxy. Because Orthodoxy IS NOT an ideological system. It IS NOT a philosophy, OR a theoretical fabrication. Orthodoxy is a PRACTICAL psychotherapeutic method.
Furthermore, Orthodoxy IS NOT a man-made fabrication, or an organization by people. It is a God-human institution, and the Body of Christ. Continue reading “The use of the word “religion””
The greatest problem of Western Christianity – and of many Orthodox also – is that they have ‘religionized’ Christianity and have turned the Church into a religion. In this way, they cultivated fundamentalisms, hatreds, divisions, a magical perception and relationship with God, also a competitive disposition of one towards another, a self-centered view of life, a utilitarian and self-benefiting perception of society, an imaginary interpretation of everything, the sentimental approach to living and generally the opinion that the others comprise –and are- a threat to our existence.
Thus, in these circumstances, the brightly-lit Christmas trees, the sentimental melodies, the moral-building analyses, all criminally conceal existential nakedness and make man a tragic being. Continue reading “The Illness of religion”
Novo Scriptorium 