Occasions of joy sometimes elicit occasions of sorrow. This is so because the world is fallen, shorn from the full beauty and majesty of God. The world however, is not without hope because of the promise of the restoration of all things through the work of the Son of God, Jesus Christ the Righteous. The fallen world can be made new. The promise of restoration was given … [Read more...] about Frederica: Annual Dormition Fast Prayer Vigil to End Abortion
Culture Wars
Orthodoxy in the USA: Its Historical Past and Present
Fr. Seraphim Rose (1934-1982), a convert to Orthodoxy and whose story mirrors that of many Americans looking for a way out of the superficiality that characterizes much of the American religious landscape, left writings that guide pilgrims even today. Fr. Seraphim was a child of the West who knew its riches along with its soul-destroying pitfalls and marshaled this knowledge … [Read more...] about Orthodoxy in the USA: Its Historical Past and Present
The End of Identity: Charles Williams, Sex Robots, and Hell
“What is hell?” Elder Zosima asks in Dosteovsky’s "The Brothers Karamazov." His answer draws from St Isaac the Syrian’s “Ascetic Homilies,” a book that Dostoevsky kept by his bedside: Hell is “the suffering of being no longer able to love.” And if the Christian understanding of sexuality places it within the mystery of … [Read more...] about The End of Identity: Charles Williams, Sex Robots, and Hell
The Unbearable Essentializing of Being: Metropolitan Kallistos Ware’s Sorrowful Joy of Sex
Sexual identities, in contrast to sexual practices or passions, are a relatively new concept. Only recently were passions taken to define people, i.e. seen as constituting an identity or essence, such as homosexual or heterosexual—an understanding that even many secular circles now scorn as untenable. It is, then, discouraging to see a highly respected Orthodox hierarch … [Read more...] about The Unbearable Essentializing of Being: Metropolitan Kallistos Ware’s Sorrowful Joy of Sex
An Open Letter to a “Gay-Rights” Advocate
Editors Note. This essay, written by Dr. David C. Ford, Professor of Church History at St. Tikhon's Seminary, responds to a homosexual activist who argues that the Orthodox moral tradition should be retooled to sanction homosexual behavior. The arguments, while unfamiliar to some Orthodox readers, are not new. They were first used against the Episcopal Church over four decades … [Read more...] about An Open Letter to a “Gay-Rights” Advocate