A Servant of the Bridegroom

Photo Gallery: First Episcopal Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Hierarchs of North and Central America

2010-05-27T07:55:00.000-05:00

Here are photos of the assembled bishops. In the fourth photo, Bishop Basil's arm can be seen in the extreme foreground holding a prayer rope. Lord, Jesus Christ, have mercy on us!

http://photos.goarch.org/main.php?g2_itemId=3009

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Address of His Eminence ARCHBISHOP DEMETRIOS OF AMERICA, Chairman At the Episcopal Assembly of North and Central America -- Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America

2010-05-27T07:54:00.000-05:00

Here is the archbishop's address to his brother bishops, setting out the parameters and objectives of the current assembly:

http://edit.goarch.org/news/addressassembly/view

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Transfiguration

2009-08-05T05:12:00.002-05:00

August 6th, the anniversary of the Hiroshima Atom Bomb is commemorated. Each year some notice is given to this event. It marks a turning point in the history of mankind. We "harnessed the energy of the sun" as commentators like to point out. We used it in an act of unsurpassed violence and destruction against ourselves at the end of a global conflict that itself, like the century in which it ocurred, was unsurpassed in violence and destruction. We had already meted out similar pain and suffering -- witness the firestorm that had consumed Dresden, Germany, just a few months before Hiroshima -- but the Hiroshima bomb was of a different quality. It was proof of something. We believed it showed the superiority of a free society (the U.S.A.) to innovate and make rapid technological advances. We even, after such explosives proliferated among the superpowers of the late twentieth century, believed such technology was so supremely destructive that it could deter further violence. Now we live with the possibilty of "rogue states" and terrorists availing themselves of the same force, not to defend "civilization" from the ideologies of oppression and suppresion of human freedom, but to undermine the very civilization that concocted "the bomb." And this in the name of wisdom or righteousness or progress or some such religio-political ideals. Supreme force for supreme ends.

More than this, and much less well remarked upon, is a more supreme energy that was revealed many centuries ago, and whose "unleashing" is commemorated by the Orthodox Christians on the same day as the first use of the "atom bomb."

Jesus, it is said, took three of his closest followers, the disciples Simon Peter, James, and John, up the mountain called Tabor and there appeared before them "in glory," "in a bright cloud," pure light transcending all earthly light. The full radiance of the Father was there beyond what the three disciples could bear, and they fell to their faces undone by the vision.

Mt. Tabor from a distance.

Mankind, by sheer will-power and ingenuity, has not "harnessed" this radiance. It is a divine light and uncreated. It makes of the radiation from Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the many nuclear tests (not mentioning the uncontrolled "bomb" of the Chernobyl reactors), it makes of them mere shadow. Inversely to them, it is received and "controlled" by us not as a prior means to violence and destruction, but only after violence ...

After the Transfiguration, Jesus told his disciples how He would be handed over to sinful men to be crucified.

And the glory of the uncreated light of Tabor was restored to the disciples only after this crucifixion and the mysteries that proceeded from it: the burial of the Son of God, the resurrection on the third day, the ascension in glory, the session at the "right hand" of Power, and the Advent of Glory that is to come. After suffering the Cross, uncreated light became a property of every believer, a property even of the whole creation graced by the power of the divine and most humble, suffering love.

From war came the atomic light of destruction; from the crucifixion of love comes the union with the uncreated Light of Life. To Him be glory, honor and worship to all ages!

Patience under Pressure: Beginning the Dormition Fast

2009-07-31T09:16:00.003-05:00

"When the Holy Apostles confessed the Saviour to be the Son of God, He said, I must…suffer…and be killed. The work had ripened; it remained only to complete it through the death on the cross. The same thing occurs in the course of a Christian’s moral progress. While he is struggling with his passions, the enemy still hopes somehow to tempt him; but when passions have settled down and the enemy no longer has enough power to awaken them, he presents external temptations, all sorts of wrongful accusations, moreover, the most sensitive. He tries to plant the thought: “So what did you work and struggle for? No good will come of it for you.” But when the enemy thus prepares a war from without, the Lord sends down the spirit of patience to his struggler, thereby preparing a lively readiness in his heart for all sorts of suffering and hostility before the enemy can manage to stir up trouble. As the Lord said about Himself, I must suffer, spiritual strugglers also feel a sort of thirst for sorrows. And when the suffering and hostility come, they meet them with joy, and drink them in like a thirsting man drinks cooling water." -- St. Theophan the Recluse
And this from the Holy Apostle Paul's lesson to us for today, the Friday of the 8th Week after Pentecost.
... when you assemble as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you; and I partly believe it, for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized. (1 Corinthians 11:19)

And our gospel teacher today, Matthew the Holy Apostle and Evangelist, tells us this of Jesus
And Jesus answered, "O faithless and perverse generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him here to me." And Jesus rebuked him, and the demon came out of him, and the boy was cured instantly. (Matthew 17:18)
Strife, discord, demonic influence, accusations, war in the spirit, even war against the Spirit. Some call these things "enemies of salvation." Such they may be, but perhaps they are not always. After all, "whom the Lord loves He chastises." See how these antagonisms are not the enemy, but the elements the Enemy employs as weapons for his own purpose to turn our minds and hearts to attend to anything, good or bad, that is not directed toward our salvation in Jesus Christ. Seen this way, these sorrows are not our enemies, but simply the ground of this earthly life against which our faith is strengthened to endure. In the face of them, and by the grace of God, we believers remain impassive and assured of salvation in the Lord.

Listen again to what the holy bishop Theophan has said we gain in the midst of these difficulties: "the Lord sends down the spirit of patience to his struggler, thereby preparing a lively readiness in his heart for all sorts of suffering ..." and this "before the enemy can manage to stir up trouble" (emphasis mine).

Before, during, and after the afflictions we are with the Lord, and He with us. Only in the impassioned variability of our pride and will to self-aggrandizement, can we depart from the Holy Spirit's unwavering protection and grace that is given only to the humble.

And how we are protected by the Lord and His own patience with us! Even though, as St. Matthew has just taught us, we do test the Lord's patience by our perversity and infidelity toward His goodness. Yet our missteps and poor judgments and sins -- our very freedoms misused -- are allowed by the Lord, "so that those who are genuine among you may be recognized."

The Lord's rebuke in the gospel lesson is not only for the demons that have seized and tormented their victim. He also rebukes us, who protest we are merely "innocent bystanders", in the process of his "ekballistic ministry." It is, in a sense, this very rebuke of our own twisted wills and unfaithful hearts that brings the exorcism to effect. It is in humble acceptance of God's rightful opinion of us as perverse and unfaithful that we accede to His driving from our midst the parasite evil that is in this good, God-made world. We veritably require this chastisement on account of our own perverse misuse, individually as believers and collectively as a church, of "the glorious liberty of the sons of God."

This is why, in the midst of strife and discord, we are ALL called to heartfelt repentance, to renewed fear of God, to perduring faith, to supernatural hope and to sacrificial love. By our patient endurance and "thirst for sorrows" we will we gain our souls' salvation and bring peace and reconciliation to that which is sundered by so closely-clinging sin and the world of spiritual ignorance.

Let us therefore eagerly begin the coming "fast-before-the-feast" of the Death of the Most Holy Theotokos, the Mother of our Life; let us begin it with the sure expectation of the unexpected joy that comes to us in her who by the fulness of divine grace has borne in herself the Lord's own deathless death and glorious resurrection;

By each of us now taking up our Cross, we eagerly await and, if God so wills, we may earnestly acquire "a life translated to Life," ever present in and among us believers whenever and wherever we "assemble as a church."

By the prayers of the Theotokos, O Savior, save us!

[Your comments are most welcome.]

Words of Light from Metropolitan Jonah

2009-07-25T18:01:00.000-05:00

A recent attendee of the Antiochian Archdiocese Convention sent me this "palette cleanser" from our brethren in Atlanta.

His Beatitude Metropolitan Jonah presents a somewhat lengthy meditation on "Spiritual Maturity." Listen at your own risk!

http://atlantaorthodoxchurches.org/stjohn/sounds/2009_DOS_Keynote.mp3

Why the Clergy Meeting posts have been removed

2009-07-24T07:26:00.006-05:00

At the General Assembly of the Antiochian Convention in Palm Desert yesterday, His Eminence Metropolitan Philip said he was aware that information from our clergy meeting was made public on the internet. He then, unexpectedly said this is a good thing. This is how we should do things. We should conduct all of our affairs "under the sunlight."

Outside the General Assembly, one of the priests who was at the Clergy Meeting on Tuesday, approached me with his concerns: that the public sharing of information from a private meeting, to him, was an affront to that privacy and a kind of disrespect, even a betrayal of trust, toward our brothers among the clergy. He was unaware that I was one of the priests who through various means (email, blogs, telephone, spoken conversation, etc...) made some or all of the contents of that meeting known. I leveled with him though. I told him I did post a report for the purpose of informing my parishioners and family who are keen to know what is happening in their Archdiocese. However, I respect my brother's opinion. In fact, kissing his right hand, I share his opinion, myself.

The St. Raphael Clergy Brotherhood of the Diocese of Wichita, my own diocesan Clergy Brotherhood, knows very well the words of St. Silouan of Mt. Athos, "Grace proceeds from all that is good, but above all from brotherly love."

I posted the account precisely because of my love for my fathers and brothers in Christ. Now I have removed it for the same reason. This blog is not ocanews.org. It's not a "church news" site. There are probably enough of those at the moment.

So, to any priest or hierarch I have offended by my candor with regard to our recent Clergy Meeting, forgive. And may Christ our God be thus well pleased.

Please continue to pray for the accomplishment of God's will at the General Assembly of our beloved and God-protected Archdiocese. As His Eminence said when the Convention opened, "We are here to do God's work."

May it be blessed to God's greater glory.

AOANA Convention Day 2, Clergy Meeting with the Hierarchs 7/21/2009 Part Two

2009-07-22T12:20:00.002-05:00

Post removed by the author.

AOANA Convention Day 2, Clergy Meeting with the Hierarchs 7/21/2009 10:30 am to 1:00 p.m.

2009-07-21T17:11:00.001-05:00

Post removed by the author.

Notes from the 2009 Convention: Day 1, Monday, July 20th

2009-07-21T03:00:00.001-05:00

Post removed by the author.

Chambesy Conference decisions of June 6-12, 2009

2009-06-15T09:26:00.000-05:00

The Conference decided to create new episcopal assemblies in some regions of the world to order the question of the Diaspora, i.e. the Orthodox faithful installed in areas beyond the traditional boundaries of the local Orthodox Churches. The presidents of the Assemblies are bishops of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in the given region, and in their absence, the bishops in accordance with the order of the Diptichs of the Churches. All the bishops of the Orthodox Churches who exercise their pastoral ministry in the communities existing in each of these regions are members of these Assemblies. The Episcopal Assemblies are for the mission to manifest and promote the unity of the Orthodox Church, to exercise pastoral diakonia to the faithful of the region and to render to the world their common witness.

So,

SCOBA would be redone to look like the all-inclusive Ligonier gathering in 1994;
The Greek Metropolitan of New York would be the permanent president of the "assembly."

Not specified is whether the new "assembly" would constitute a kind of local synod or whether it would continue in the manner of SCOBA (the "Standing Conference of Canonical Orthodox Bishops in the Americas") as a coordinator of external ministries in consulation with all the various representatives of the traditional "mother" or "local" churches. It seems evident from the above that the hierarchs in conference in Chambesy do not recognize the existence in any ecclesiological sense of a "local" church in North America. This is nothing new. The one church in our hemisphere of the world that has any real claim to such status is the Orthodox Church in America, but its character as a self-governing local church has not been recognized by the Ecumenical Patriarchate and other "local" churches.

However, in the above arrangement, all of the bishops of the Orthodox Church in America would be participants in the new "assembly." While this would appear to raise the body of the OCA, through its individual bishops, to a more universally legitimate status, it also places the entire synod of the OCA (not to mention other local synods, Serbian Orthodox, Antiochian, the Romanian bishops of the Episcopate and Patriarchate, et al.) under the presidency of the first bishop of the Greek Archdiocese. In itself, I suppose there's nothing particularly troublesome or scandolous in that. It is only repulsive to Orthodox in North America in so far as the Greek Archdiocese currently doesn't seem to realize there ARE other Orthodox here. Perhaps if there were greater evidence from all sides of real love and interest in mutual benefit between the currently arranged cohesive units of the faithful (I don't care for the word "jurisdiction"; it describes nothing) -- i.e. the service of each toward all -- this proposed primacy of Istanbul via New York would be no troubling thing. But in the current climate it appears to most of us here, I believe, as mere subjugation.

"Let us love one another, that with one accord we may confess Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!"

"Sacramental Localism" and the Christian Revolution

2009-05-25T08:03:00.000-05:00

But we are all called to the Christian Revolution. That is why I think that we should pay attention to dogma and ascetical prayer, and give "improvement" and "renewal" a miss. I do not think that organizational restructuring and ecumenical experiments are all that rewarding. It is better to become literate in Scripture and Patristics, than to be conversant in talk-show discourse on diocesan and uber-diocesan tumult. It is better to love the people in your house and parish, your neighborhood, and to regard carefully the objects in God's Creation around you. It is better to imbibe of the Springs of Pentecost in your place without moving, in your attention without gazing away into the alternative universes of "what might have been if we were only more sincere."

From "The Second Terrace"

Wonderful thoughts.

2009-04-20T07:34:00.001-05:00

Fine meditations from Fr. Stephen in Tennessee.
(linked from Google Reader)

"Glory to God for All Things" blog.

Fr. Paul

Orthodox Prayers During Bright Week

2009-04-20T02:54:00.003-05:00

Thanks, Fr. Joseph of Orthodixie fame!

(Google "Orthodixie")

Sent to you via Google Reader

Orthodox Prayers During Bright Week

The following notes [an annual "tradition"] come courtesy of Fr Mark Mancuso of St Elizabeth the New-Martyr, Columbia, South Carolina.

Christ is Risen!

A few notes for Bright Week and the Paschal season.

• We greet one another during the entire Paschal season (which lasts 40 days) with the words: "Christ is risen!" and the response to the greeting is: "Indeed, He is risen!"

• During Bright Week, the Holy Doors and the Deacons' doors of the iconostasis remain open symbolizing the empty tomb of our Master and Savior: Christ is risen!

• During Bright Week, our prayers in church and at home are sung and not read as we sing all week the feast of the risen Christ: Christ is risen!

• During Bright Week, our morning and evening prayers are replaced by the singing of the short service of the Hours of Pascha (see your prayer books or see below): Christ is risen!

• During Bright Week, we do not read from the psalter at home or in church for the prophecies have been fulfilled: Christ is risen!

• During Bright Week, there is no fasting as we are at feast with the Bridegroom who processes forth from the tomb: Christ is risen!

• During the entire Paschal season there is no prostrating or kneeling permitted in church or at home for we stand with the resurrected Christ: Christ is risen!

• During the Paschal season we begin all of our prayers at home and in church by singing the troparion of Pascha: "Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life!"

• During the Paschal season and extending to Pentecost, we do not pray "O Heavenly King, the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth..." for the Comforter comes on Pentecost. Christ is risen!

• And most important of all: "A Pascha worthy of all honor has dawned for us. Pascha! Let us embrace each other joyously!...This is the day of resurrection. Let us be illumined by the feast. Let us embrace each other. Let us call 'Brother' even those who hate us, and forgive all by the resurrection, and so let us cry: Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life."

PASCHAL HOURS

PRIEST: Blessed is our God, always, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages

But a layman sayeth: Through the prayers of our holy fathers, O Lord Jesus Christ, our God, have mercy on us.

Amen. Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and on those in the tombs bestowing life. Thrice.

Then we chant:

Having beheld the resurrection of Christ, let us worship the holy Lord Jesus, the only Sinless One. We worship Thy cross, O Christ, and Thy holy Resurrection we hymn and glorify; for Thou art our God, and we know none other beside Thee, and we call upon Thy name. O come, all ye faithful, let us worship Christ's holy Resurrection, for behold, through the Cross joy hath come to all the world. Ever blessing the Lord, we hymn His Resurrection; for, having endured crucifixion, He hath destroyed death by death. Thrice.

The Hypakoe, eighth tone, once:

Forestalling the dawn, the women came with Mary, and found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre, and heard from the angel: why seek ye among the dead, as though He were a mortal, Him Who liveth in everlasting light? Behold the grave-clothes. Go quickly and proclaim to the world that the Lord is risen and hath slain death. For He is the Son of God Who saveth mankind.

The Kontakion, eighth tone, once:

Though Thou didst descend into the grave, O Immortal One, yet didst Thou destroy the power of hades. And didst arise as victor, O Christ God, calling to the myrrh-bearing women: Rejoice! And giving peace unto Thine apostles: Thou Who dost grant resurrection to the fallen.

And these Troparia, eighth tone, once:

In the grave bodily, but in hades with Thy soul as God: in Paradise with the thief, and on the throne with the Father and the Spirit wast Thou Who fillest all things, O Christ the Inexpressible.

Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.

How life-giving, how much more beautiful than Paradise, and truly more resplendent than any royal palace was Thy tomb shown to be, O Christ, the source of our resurrection.

Both now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

O sanctified and divine tabernacle of the Most High, rejoice! For through thee, O Theotokos, joy is given to them that cry: Blessed art thou among women, O all-spotless Lady.

Lord, have mercy. Forty times.

Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, both now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

More honourable than the Cherubim, and beyond compare more glorious than the Seraphim, who without corruption gavest birth to God the Word, the very Theotokos, thee do we magnify.

If a Priest Serve: In the name of the Lord, Father bless.

PRIEST: O Lord Jesus Christ our God, for the sake of the prayers of Thy most pure Mother, of our holy and God-bearing fathers, and of all the saints, have mercy on us.

If a Reader's service: O Lord bless.

Amen. Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and on those in the tombs bestowing life. (thrice) Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, both now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

If a Priest Serve: Father bless.

PRIEST: May Christ our true God, Who rose from the dead, and trampled down death by death and on those in the tombs bestowed life, through the intercessions of His most Pure Mother, and of all the saints have mercy on us and save us, for He is good and the Lover of mankind.

If a Reader's service: O Lord bless!

Baptismal and Eucharistic Identity as the people of God

2009-04-07T07:27:00.002-05:00

The rationale for the conciliar shape (of church governance) is neither balance of powers or democratic representation and procedure. The rationale is first and foremost our baptismal and eucharistic identity as the people of God.

... from the very shape of the eucharistic assembly, as Fr. Afanasiev showed, we recognize it is only mutual love that has primacy (vlast’ lyubvi), not law or rank. (The Church of the Holy Spirit, 255-276).

-- Fr. Michael Plekon, "A Hundred Years of a Conciliar Church," ocanews.org, 4/6/09

Primus INTER Pares, not Primus SUPER Pares

2009-04-06T07:27:00.003-05:00

Excerpts from the address

“Not So Among You” - Bishop Kallistos of Diokleia

How Christian is Our Understanding of Church Authority?

Bishop Kallistos of Diokleia

Delivered at the Orientale Lumen V Conference, June 2001

recently posted by the author to the St. Andrew House Forum.

The bishop is not a feudal overlord nor an elected parliamentary representative. The chief bishop, or “primate,” is neither dictator nor a constitutional monarch nor the chairman of a board of directors. To interpret ecclesial authority by such analogies is to overlook the Church’s uniqueness as a Kingdom not of this world. It is to forget Christ’s severe and specific warning “not so among you.”

And this:

Any truly Catholic and Orthodox view of authority has to take into account that the Holy Spirit is given, not just to patriarchs, popes, or bishops, but to the whole people of God. Here we have an important scriptural indication in John 15:15. There, Christ says that He does not call us slaves or servants, but He calls us friends. Then He goes on to indicate the difference between a slave and a friend. “A slave,” says our Lord, “does not know what his Master is doing.” He obeys blindly, from fear of punishment. “But,” says Christ to His Disciples, “I have made known to you the Father’s will and purpose.” So you are not slaves, you are friends.

That means we don’t obey blindly, but willingly. We don’t obey out of fear, but out of love. When Christ says that we are His friends, surely that means every baptized member of the Church – all of us are His friends. He doesn’t restrict His friendship only to the hierarchy. So, the Church is truly a society of friends. There’s no polarization, then, in the Church between the absolute ruler and passive subject. What we have in the Church is sisterhood, brotherhood, co-responsibility, communion, koinonia.

Some years ago, the Orthodox Patriarch Ignatius of Antioch made a statement of great importance – simple but profound. He said: “Communion is the highest authority in the Church.”

And also:

So often the laity correct the hierarchs.

Our Lord Jesus said: “when the Spirit of Truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth.” The “you” there doesn’t just mean the Pope of Rome, the Patriarch of Constantinople, the bishops, the professional theologians. “You” means every baptized and chrismated member of the Church.

If we are to have a right understanding of the collegiality of bishops, the meaning of “synod,” and of the place of primacy in the Church, we must never forget that the Holy Spirit is poured out on the total people of God. We must never forget the sensus fidelium, the general conscience of the Church.

As for the bishops:

Yet the bishops, when they so proclaim the truth, speak not to the uninitiated but to those who know, who have all knowledge, in Saint John’s word. So there is a reciprocal relationship between bishop and flock.

When the first Orthodox bishop to serve in North America was consecrated in Russia in 1840, Saint Innocent of Alaska, he said in his consecration sermon: “The bishop is at the same time the teacher and the disciple of his flock.” Russian slavophile theologian Alexis Khomiakov singled out that phrase as possessing particular significance – teacher and disciple.

So there isn’t within the Church just a one-way power structure. There is a mutuality, co-responsibility, communion. The truth enlarges through the communion between the bishop and the people. Communion is the highest authority in the Church.

And finally:

I would venture to say, as an Orthodox, that all bishops, including the Pope, are fundamentally and sacramentally equal. So if any is to be styled a primate, his status is to be understood as primus inter pares, the first among equals. “All authority has been given to Me,” the risen Christ says to us. “Lo, I am with you always.” The only final authority in the Church is Christ Himself, ever-present within her through the Holy Spirit and in the Eucharist. Christ alone, as head of the Church, is the source of all exousia, all power, and any proper exercise of it can only be in Him and through Him. The highest call of appeal in the Church, the ultimate criterion of the truth remains always the Son of God Himself, living mysteriously in the Church and leading her in the way of truth.
God’s continuing presence in the Church is not to be externalized or materialized. It cannot be identified, that is to say, with the letter of Scripture, or with a single person such as the Pope, or with the collective person of the episcopate gathered in council. All of these together with the sensus fidelium, the general conscience of the Church, have their part to play in the exercise of authority, yet none of them is to be taken in isolation from the rest or from the total life of Christ’s body.
“The eucharist is a continual miracle,” a great eucharistic priest, Saint John of Kronstadt, used to say. The same is true of the Church as a eucharistic organism – a continual miracle. In our ecclesial vision, we need constantly to return to what remains beyond all external criteria and all formal infallibility – what remains the central mystery of the Church’s nature. The Church is the miracle of God’s presence among humankind.

I will not deal with you directly. Those people in Damascus speak for Me.

2009-04-04T09:49:00.002-05:00

Fr. Fr. Patrick Reardon's Pastoral Ponderings 4/5/09 via Dean Calvert at the St. Andrew House Forum:

It was in this direct encounter that Saul requested specific directions for his life: "Lord, what do You want me to do?" (9:6; 22:10) But this request the Lord refused to grant. Instead, Saul was told, "Arise and go into Damascus, and there you will be told all things which are appointed for you to do" (9:10; 22:10).

I mention the Lord’s refusal here in connection with the "low ecclesiology"---rather popular these days---in which the believer is related to Jesus first, and to the Church second. Let me say that this is not what we find in the Acts of the Apostles.

In this passage Jesus asserts, in effect, "I refuse to say another word to you, Saul of Tarsus. Get yourself into Damascus and consult those people you were on your way to persecute. You humble your soul to the authority of My Church, because your ill treatment of those Christians was inflicted on Me. I will not deal with you directly. Those people in Damascus speak for Me." The tone and message of this text in Acts indicates, I submit, a "high ecclesiology," in which the believer is normally related to Jesus within the institutional context of His Church, later described by Paul as “the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15).

St. Augustine correctly perceived why the biblical God is "reluctant," as a general rule, to instruct men directly. It would betray, he said, man's corporate nature, which is also the condition of the Church. He wrote, "The state of our race would have been more seriously impaired, had God not chosen to use men as the ministers of His Word to other men." The very intent of that Word, he said, is to unite the hearers together in the one body of Jesus' Church, His temple. "Moreover," wrote Augustine, "love itself, which ties men together in the bond of unity, would have no means of pouring soul into soul, and, as it were, mingling them to one another, if men never learned anything from their fellow men" (De Doctrina Christiana, Preface, 6).

Those people in Damascus speak for Me, indeed.

Thank you, Fr. Patrick.

Times of Transition

2009-04-02T14:32:00.004-05:00

In today's lesson from the Holy Prophet Isaiah (Chapter 42) it is written:

"Behold, the former things have come to pass,
and new things I now declare; before they spring forth I tell you of
them."

Tell us, O Lord, of the new things that shall come to pass.

I Read it in the Solia!

2009-04-02T09:22:00.003-05:00

Apropos of the previous-but-one post on this blog, I came across this great article by Fr. Aris Metrakos on OrthodoxyToday.org. I first read it in the Romanian Episcopate's official publication, "Solia," some time ago.

Check it out, as they say!

Pastoral Encounters of the Weird Kind

More Considerations about Orthodoxy in the New World

2009-04-01T21:57:00.003-05:00

http://www.aoiusa.org/main/page.php?page_id=120

Met. PHILIP on American Orthodox Unity and Chalcedon 28

A Most Interesting Reflection on our Affairs in America

2009-04-01T21:16:00.004-05:00

E Pluribus Unum: One Church from Many

The author of the above suggests, "Eventually, it might be best to create fifty metropolitan sees, one in every state capital (sic), and comprising its own state synod."

A capital idea!

And more from the same author:

The Role of Metropolitan and Its Relationship within the Episcopate: A Reappraisal

Lord, have mercy.

2009-03-30T09:08:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, in the basement of at the very end of the parish coffee/social hour, as I endeavored to show hospitality to our visitors from Omaha, one of them blurted out something like, "You're no priest! You should have chosen a different profession." I pointed out we'd not yet been introduced. She retorted that she held me in such contempt that introductions were never going to be in order. I accepted this (with sadness) and began to walk away toward the door. At my back she spoke her name and informed no one in particular that her grandparents were founders of our parish church. Having heard her name, I turned back to her to make a proper welcome. She continued to speak in disparaging terms about me as a priest. I believe my response was something like, "God bless you." When she spoke out a third time about my incompetence, I announced to the ten or so people there gathered, "That's enough. Coffee hour is over, now. I'm not saying you have to go home, but you can't stay here." I then escorted the assembled company out the door. At the door one of my parishioners assured me of her love and respect for me and asked for my priestly blessing.

One thing's for sure, it's the fourth Sunday of Lent!

As I spent the day reflecting on (and recovering from) this strange encounter, I came to realize that I'm really not all that personally offended by the exchange. After all, it was directed at the priesthood, which is Christ's, rather than at my person. [Well, alright, to be fair, it was directed at my execution of the duties of that office, not at the office itself. But, nonetheless it could hardly be a personal attack considering I never met the woman before.]

And that having been said, I am once again amazed at the weird belligerence that seems to be so commonplace in our world, or at least in our parishes, today. Is the modern world so difficult that we have to savage one another? Or are we so alienated from our genuine human life on earth that we must behave like demons to one another? A puzzle to be sure.

But, as the prayer of St. Ephrem petitions, "Grant me to see my own sins and not to judge my brother."

Lord, Jesus, come quickly to help us, save us, and have mercy on us!

Americans are Infested with Freedom.

2009-03-24T07:02:00.001-05:00

Published by Scripps Howard News Service, February 23, 2005
Excerpts from "Calling for Orthodox unity, with diversity"
By TERRY MATTINGLY
Scripps Howard News Service

...So Metropolitan Philip, the Antiochian Orthodox archbishop of North America, was not surprised to be asked to make a few remarks at the final banquet of the 2004 Clergy-Laity Congress of the Greek Orthodox Church in New York City.

... Then he ventured into an ecclesiastical minefield, offering greetings from the 1000 Antiochian Orthodox delegates who, days earlier, had voted unanimously to approve what many Greek lay people have long demanded - a constitution granting them control of their own church in North America.

..."If I could sum up this new constitution, I would begin with the words, 'We the people,'... "

..."Americans are infested with freedom. We cannot ignore that our churches are in America and we are here to stay."

... But the clergy and laity must realize that their own children and grandchildren are Americans who need a faith that is stronger than old music, familiar foods, folk dancing and traces of an ancient language.
"I believe in Orthodox unity, with diversity," he stressed. "We will not melt into the Greek archdiocese and the Greeks will not melt into our archdiocese. ... But we must have a united synod that speaks to this country. We must speak to America, not as Arabs and Greeks and Russians and Romanians and Bulgarians. We need to speak with one Orthodox voice on the issues that affect our country and our country is America*."

So, what changed?

We laugh to keep from crying

2009-03-17T22:42:00.001-05:00

clipped from ocanews.org

First law of orthodynamics in America, unity is neither created nor destroyed, just transferred from one jurisdiction to another.

Cervantes wit on human nature

2009-03-17T22:41:00.001-05:00

clipped from www.google.com

Everyone is as God has made him, and oftentimes a great deal worse.
- Miguel de Cervantes

An American vision for Orthodoxy in the New World

2009-03-02T12:34:00.001-06:00

This is from the blog of Andrew Walsh:

RELIGION IN THE NEWS

Winter 2009, Vol. 11, No. 3

Scandalous Days in the OCA

... the activists at ocanews.org showed themselves to be true believers in the OCA’s “American” vision. They demanded institutional transparency, open accounts, servant leadership, and less emphasis on gaudy display. In September and October, the site lobbied hard against selecting a bishop tainted by the scandal as metropolitan, and even against a campaign orchestrated by the influential faculty at St. Vladimir’s Theological Seminary to elect a Russian Orthodox bishop serving in Austria, on the grounds that the OCA must have an American leader.

That’s what led to the election of Bishop Jonah Paffhausen, a man described in a headline in the Abilene, Texas Reporter-News as “a baby bishop in a hot seat.” Paffhausen is a shining example of a certain sort of American Orthodox in this time—an intellectual who converted in college because of theological reading.

Julia Duin of the Washington Times, the first secular reporter to produce a profile of Paffhausen (on December 1), quoted Father Steven Kostoff’s blog from the council where he elected to explain the dramatic choice: “The black hole of our scandal was sucking the life out of the OCA,” Kostoff wrote. “The election of an untainted candidate with a good reputation now seems like not only a brilliant and spontaneous response by an alert body, but the work of the Holy Spirit.”

Paffhausen himself explained the scandal this way: “A lot of it was growing pains, moving from an old-style centralized church into a 21st-century church conscious of itself as a nonprofit that has to abide by normal modes of operation.” Previously, “what the bishop wanted, the bishop could do without checks and balances.”

If that attitude sticks, this will be a new day in the 2,000-year-long history of Orthodoxy. But it is by no means clear that the rest of the Orthodox church—in the United States, let alone the rest of the world—is with the program.

The Reading of Scripture.

2009-01-26T07:25:00.006-06:00

'And seeing from afar a fig tree having leaves, He went to see if perhaps He would find something on it. When He came to it, He found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs.

'In response Jesus said to it, "Let no one eat fruit from you ever again." And His disciples heard it.

'Now in the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots.

'And Peter, remembering, said to Him, "Rabbi, look! The fig tree which You cursed has withered away."
'So Jesus answered and said to them, "Have faith in God.

'For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be removed and be cast into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.'

-- Mark 11:13-14; 20-23

Reading this passage this morning, I recalled hearing it from a man in New York almost twenty years ago. He applied it to himself and said he hoped this would not be his fate on the day of judgment, to be cursed by the Lord to fruitlessness.

This then put me in mind of how strange and wonderful is the Holy Scripture. Because it is a common treasure, reading it privately is still a most public thing. So may thoughts, memories, associations, etc... arise when considering the holy words.

I suppose that our "hermeneutical community" is therefore of great importance as we strive to understand and ingest the blessed words. Perhaps its a good thing to have a few saints and angels watching over us as we read. It keeps our minds on the things that are above, as the scripture says...

On Cultural Bias and Misperception

2008-08-07T16:32:00.001-05:00

There is a tendency in us all to follow the "mental map" we have drawn from past experience without any "reality testing" against what is before us in the moment. A friend of mine has pointed out repeatedly to me how the media, military, politicians, et al., when they consider life in the Balkans, and Serbia in particular, persist in repeating and reinforcing the same cultural misperceptions over and over again. While some call this "media bias" when they are talking about other things, like Republicans and Democrats, right wing/left wing domestic politics, my friend sees this as a more culturally encompassing bias that affects us all, not just the media.

As with Serbia, I see this same kind of "media bias" -- really a more widespread cultural/civilizational bias -- in many of the stories about places like Russia and the Middle East, as well. I'm sure, if I had more experience of China and South East Asia, I'd see it there too. It's like when a detective in real-life watches a detective show on TV. He's invariably disappointed by the lack of realism. The rest of us eat it up.

As Levi-Strauss (the literary critic, not the blue-jeans maker) would want to point out, there are some "deep structure" archetypes at work in our fallen psyches.

And look at what people in "the East" say about us, likewise. These deep archetypes also exist quite evidently in many Russian, Middle Eastern and Serbian views of America and "the West," too.

This is the mixed-blessing of being an adherent of Orthodoxy in North America, we have a somewhat privileged perspective into matters on each side and yet we are truly bound to no side. Witness the 1978 commencement speech Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (of thrice-blessed memory) delivered at Harvard. He spoke against the West as he had against the Soviet State. The result: nobody listened to him anymore.

The Lord Jesus quoted Ps. 110 (KJV) "The Lord said to my Lord ..." in answer to the Pharisees question about whether the Messiah was Son of David; and the Pharisees resolved not to question Him any more. And not only were they silent, but their silence proved fatal. They devised how they might put Jesus to death, since His teaching did not fit with the "mental map" of their righteous convictions. And Pilate asked, "What is Truth?" He wanted to know, but his question was wrongly phrased. Not "what" but "who."

The Lord, for His part, made no such renunciation of their being, and reminded His Roman judge that all power is "from above,"; and ultimately He said, even as He Himself was in the throes of dying on the Cross, "Father, forgive them."

His "culture" and "civilization" was that of the Heavenly Kingdom, it seems.

God grant us also such grace in the name of His longsuffering Son!

June 29th, Feast of the Leaders of the Holy Apostles, Peter and Paul

2008-06-28T23:19:00.005-05:00

Foremost of the Apostles, Peter and Paul, intercede with the merciful God, that He may grant our souls forgiveness of offenses!

Christ is risen, indeed!

2008-05-21T15:00:00.003-05:00

Having just finished another funeral, I have had yet another opportunity to reflect on the gift of immortality that is afforded us in the Resurrection of the Pre-Eternal Word of God made flesh. In another blog, "Glory to God for All Things," Fr. Stephen, the blog's author, points out rightly that the self-emptying (kenosis) of the Son of God in the Incarnation is not merely an historical event but that it is more globally an essential characteristic of the Second Person of the Trinity. That is to say that Son, being begotten of the Father before all ages, likewise eternally empties himself of his own personal subsistence -- "as I hear I judge, and my judgment is just, for I do not my own will, but the will of the Father who sent me," to paraphrase a couple passages of the Gospel according to St. John.

We heard this message both in the gospel for Mid-Pentecost at this morning's liturgy and in the gospel of the funeral. This is the crucified Christ, the image of the pre-Eternal Love of God, and it is this empty, crucified one who in Himself bears the fulness of God bodily. This is the mystery of the God-man, the Theanthropos (fr. Theos, God, and anthropos, human), risen and glorified and regnant and expected unto all eternity and an eternity of eternities. This is the Kingdom of Heaven, this is the Hope of all the Ages, this is the LORD Jesus Christ!

He is risen, indeed!

2008-05-14T15:30:00.001-05:00

Christ is risen!

Christ is Risen!

2008-05-05T21:26:00.002-05:00

How superabundantly gracious is the Lord Jesus Christ! He has given me a double-Pascha this year. The first one in common with the entire Church, bearing witness to the excruciating and life-giving death of the Lord Jesus, and the second one in a quite similar mystery with one of my dying parishioners. He fell asleep at the age of 91 years on Bright Thursday and was just laid to rest this morning, on the Monday of the Week of Thomas, the patron of our holy church-temple. May his memory be eternal!

Having been with him and his family during these holy days of the feast of his dying, it is only now that I have a moment to reflect and write these few notes here. Thanks be to God.

We need each other ... ?

2008-04-15T14:15:00.004-05:00

Patriarch Alexy of Moscow recently wrote a response to an open letter of 138 Muslim theologians. Here is an excerpt:

Unfortunately, I have to state that our religions do have enemies who would like to see Christians and Muslims clash, on the one hand, or to bring them to a false 'unity' based on religious and moral indifference, thus giving priority to purely secular concerns, on the other. Therefore we as religious leaders need each other, so that our faithful may preserve their identity in the changing world.

Taken from Europaica; see also the website of the Moscow Patriarchate.

To my mind, this is an interesting "third way." It seems in our American discussions of Christianity and Islam we talk either about "tolerance" on the left-wing of politics, which plays to a secularizing philosophy of man's place in the universe, or we speak of "clash of civilizations," which plays to a fundamentalist mindset of religious domineering, an "us v. them" attitude. If we take the Moscow Patriarch rightly, I believe, we can perhaps see this point of view: while there are irreconcilable differences in the fundamental aims and actions of each religion, there is common cause between them on the level of religious liberty. If I recall, there is something about this very liberty written in the Constitution of the United States, ...

The danger, of course, is that one or both religions will not actually value such liberty as a foundational principle, but will avail itself of the growth and development such liberty affords until such time as it may dominate other religions. This strain is historically present in both Christianity and Islam, the temptation to force the submission of the infidel.

I leave it to others to argue about who, Christianity or Islam, has done more "forcing" through the ages ...

Nonetheless, the notion that the leadership of Islam and Christianity may find common cause in defending each religion's believers against both unbelief and radicalism, does give some food for thought, doesn't it?

No one has a problem with the presence of words in the Church

2008-04-14T22:44:00.003-05:00

... it is so frustrating to try and explain icons. No one has an argument with the presence of words in the Church - the icons do the same things words do - only with color and in the language of silence. I can enter the Church, remain in silence and yet see (and hear!) something other than the incessant chatter of my own mind. The icons speak with the texture of the Kingdom - opening windows and doors that transcend every height and depth, things present and things to come.

-- Fr. Stephen of "Glory to God for All Things"

http://fatherstephen.wordpress.com/2008/04/13/the-texture-of-life/

Amen.

A Prisoner of Thy Love

2008-04-08T20:23:00.003-05:00

During each Divine Liturgy I celebrate I say a private prayer just before I receive the Holy Gifts, a prayer that is ascribed to St. John of Damascus (+ 749). In the preamble of this prayer is the phrase, "I am a prisoner of Thy Love."

Today I was given the gift of visiting a prison for the first time. This prison is a minimum security facility. In fact, I was told that it was once a monastery over a century ago! So it was that another priest and I came as "chaplain volunteers" and, at the request of a catechumen and the sole Orthodox inmate of the prison, prayed the prayers of the Third and Sixth Hours. In Lent these prayers of the Hours are considerably longer than at other times of the year. But this was a great blessing, since the content of our faith and form of our worship were so evident.

There were half a dozen or so other inmates present from Protestant and Orthodox backgrounds. We visitors found ourselves, therefore, in a discussion about the differences between Orthodoxy and everything else, and answering questions about calling Mary "Birthgiver of God" (emphasis on OF GOD), and questions about veneration of icons.

Most interesting, though, was the explanation of the monastic life as a kind of voluntary incarceration for the glory of God. This was grasped well by the prisoners, I think, all of whom gave me the impression of being earnest believers (in whatever tradition) in the Lord Jesus Christ. When we spoke of Great Lent and asceticism in general there was a shared "uh-huh" of understanding when one of us priests said, "When we come to the end of our human power, only there do we encounter true Divine Power."

And so we believers are each and all truly "prisoners" when we follow Him on the Way of the Cross, the way of utter, extreme, and humble love.

2008-04-02T09:16:00.000-05:00

Here is a photo taken at Sihastria monastery in Moldova last summer. Pictured are Archimandrite Simeon (?) on the right, Priest-monk Ioannichie (Yo-ahn-NEE-kee-ye) Balan (+11/20/2008: Memory Eternal!), Priest Tudor Ciocan (Cho-KAHN) in the foreground, and my unworthiness on the left of the photo. We had just concluded the celebration of the sacrament of the Healing Oil (Holy Unction) for the servant of God, our brother in the Spirit, Ioannichie. We are in the cell where he dwelt in monastacism for over sixty years. He told us (during our visit in 2005) that he had crafted the door of the cell himself as his first obedience in the monastery. I am not sure, but I believe I recall him telling us that when he died he would be carried from the cell on that same door.

Fr. Ioannichie is remembered chiefly as a scholar of Romanian monasticism, having written extensively about the history of monasteries in Moldova and throughout Romania, about the universal Orthodox pracitice of Hesychasm, or the Prayer of the Heart, (which made it's revival in Moldova with St. Paisius Velichkovsky of Neamts and spread from there to his Russian disciples in Valaamo Monastery and from there with St. Herman to Alaska and the New World), and about the life of Fr. Cleopa Ilie, past Starets (abbot) of Sihastria and modern Romanian spiritual elder.

May God rest his soul in peace and grant to us a life long enough for our repentance, through the prayers of our holy fathers.

Monday of the Week of the Cross

2008-03-31T22:31:00.003-05:00

God broke my refrigerator.

In this week of stricter fasting, I have received the unaccounted grace of having to eat fresh fruits and vegetables, only. Our fridge has been shut down to defrost for twenty four hours and then to undergo an as yet unspecified repair over an as yet unspecified duration. Well, the Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

In the meanwhile, I've finished my taxes, at least the first draft. I'll make a close review after a couple days to be sure I've not missed any major deductions, especially on the State forms.

Clergy taxes, in a laudable effort to maintain the proper distance between church and state, wind up being almost impenetrably criss-crossed with computations and convolutions. Well, after twelve years of experience, I've gotten the process down to about eight hours. These computer thingies really help, too. My first year as a cleric, I believe I spent an entire week completing my donation to the treasury of Uncle Sam. I must say learning to keep up with my records and receipts last year was a great help. Having the pitter-patter of two little exemptions around the house isn't so bad, either. All in all it was relatively painless this year, thanks be to God. I've always resented how this civic duty seems to be a distraction to the "Kingdom focus" of the Great Fast. Of course, I know that to be a false opposition. The Lord Himself advises us to "render unto Caesar that which is Caesars and unto God that which is God's." so taxes are very ascetical from that point of view.

In any case, I am grateful the effort was mostly do-able on my Monday, "reading day."

Sunday of the Adoration of the Precious and Life-giving Cross

2008-03-30T22:07:00.000-05:00

Yesterday's retreat was edifying, to be sure. About twenty to thirty gathered in a Greek Orthodox Church across the street from Augustana College in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. As I walked from where I parked my car to the door of the church, I saw the sign for the college and remembered my high school classmate's brother who attended Augustana in the Eighties. This put me in mind of the connections and crossed-paths that can sometimes make up the weave of our life stories... like the fact that the priest at the Greek church in Sioux Falls was an acquaintance of mine in St. Paul during my own college years there. Small world, as they say.

As the people shared their reflections and questions at the retreat, I was put in mind of how much sorrow and struggle there is in each of our lives. My friend Warren, proprietor of an independent bookstore, has a a bookmark he gives out with each purchase that reads, "Be kind; for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle." Everyone you meet is grieving a great sorrow, too, it sometimes seems. Everyone who is honest, anyway. The Church Fathers call this grieving something like "blessed mourning" and recommend it to all of us who are of the race of Adam.

I had some more of that during the Diving Liturgy this morning, too. Our second priest, Sava, read the Gospel lesson and preached a rich and thoughtful homily on the Cross as sign of our proximity to Jesus, the Savior. He noted the image in the works of St. Dorotheus of Gaza wherein Christ is at the hub of a great wheel and all our lives are spokes. As we draw near to Jesus we also draw near to each other and that means inevitably we can "rub each other the wrong way." Fr. Sava spoke about thankfulness to God for this "crucifixion friction" [my words, not his], since by it we are polished and purified. As the prayer of Sunday Orthros (the Morning Resurrection Service) reminds us, "through the Cross joy has come into the world." I love how "joy" and "Cross" are juxtaposed in that sentence.

Our new choir director was also working this morning to keep his nerves in check and stay on task with his service in the Liturgy. He made mistakes, but as my dear bishop once told me, "We're not here to pass a test. We're here to glorify God." He accepted his mistakes humbly (rather like the repentant thief on the cross) and, by God's grace, I refrained from embarrassing or embittering him about them, and so perhaps the missteps were to God's glory.

My role chiefly this morning was to bear the Cross in the procession. I carried it high, enthroned on a brass platter in an upright holder and festooned with red and white flowers surrounding the Cross and three beeswax tapers burning behind it. As I walked beneath that joyous and festive burden, the faithful bowed down and honored the symbol of their salvation. I saw that they themselves are the flowers that have grown up where the Cross was planted. And I was grateful to near bursting, so I smiled involuntarily under that Cross. It came to me that this is my main work in the midst of God's people: to bear the Cross that they may flourish.

This is not complicated nor is it technically difficult. The "difficult people" in my life are difficult to me only in proportion to my unwillingness to bear the Cross. In fact, the major existential difficulty for me is in my own reticence to be such a cross-bearer. It is not in the personalities and frictions that come with life in the parish, or in any family, community, or organization on earth.

Saturday before the Sunday of the Cross

2008-03-29T08:51:00.000-05:00

Saturdays are days of rest, the seventh day, when the Lord rested from all His works (according to the narrative at the beginning of the book of Genesis) and most especially when He, the unique and unreapeatable incarnation of the pre-eternal Word of God, the crucified God-man, Jesus, rested in the new tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. On the annual commemoration of this blessed sleep of the Savior, Great and Holy Saturday (4/26 this year) we hear the ancient French hymn, "Let all mortal flesh keep silent and in fear and trembling stand; ponder nothing earthly minded ..." A sabbath, indeed.

On this Saturday, I have the joy of travelling to another Orthodox parish in a nearby city to hear a retreat given by a priest who was a great help to me in my younger years. He will be speaking on the topic of the Precious and Life-giving Cross. I will be resting on his every word. May it be blessed!

The Precious Cross. That word, "precious," has really changed in common usage. It used to connote treasure and value, now it means frail and prissy. I think Gollum got it right in The Lord of the Rings, although the object of value for him was an abominable thing. Nonetheless, whatever we come to worship becomes "our precious." Hmm, I smell a homily around here somewhere ...

Well, consider this for the middle of Great Lent, from the newly minted "Orthodox Study Bible (Thomas Nelson, 2008), under the heading Continue to Persevere:

But recall the former days in which, after you were illuminated, you endured a great struggle with sufferings: partly while you were made a spectacle both by reproaches and tribulations, and partly while you became companions of those who were so treated: ...

Therefore, do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward. for you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise: For yet a little while, and He who is coming will come and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith; but if anyone draws back, my soul has no pleasure in him. -- Hebrews 10:32ff.

A Servant of the Bridegroom

Photo Gallery: First Episcopal Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Hierarchs of North and Central America

Address of His Eminence ARCHBISHOP DEMETRIOS OF AMERICA, Chairman At the Episcopal Assembly of North and Central America -- Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America

Transfiguration

Patience under Pressure: Beginning the Dormition Fast

Words of Light from Metropolitan Jonah

Why the Clergy Meeting posts have been removed

AOANA Convention Day 2, Clergy Meeting with the Hierarchs 7/21/2009 Part Two

AOANA Convention Day 2, Clergy Meeting with the Hierarchs 7/21/2009 10:30 am to 1:00 p.m.

Notes from the 2009 Convention: Day 1, Monday, July 20th

Chambesy Conference decisions of June 6-12, 2009

"Sacramental Localism" and the Christian Revolution

Wonderful thoughts.

Orthodox Prayers During Bright Week

Sent to you via Google Reader

Orthodox Prayers During Bright Week

Baptismal and Eucharistic Identity as the people of God

Primus INTER Pares, not Primus SUPER Pares

“Not So Among You” - Bishop Kallistos of DiokleiaHow Christian is Our Understanding of Church Authority?Bishop Kallistos of Diokleia

Delivered at the Orientale Lumen V Conference, June 2001

I will not deal with you directly. Those people in Damascus speak for Me.

Those people in Damascus speak for Me, indeed.

Thank you, Fr. Patrick.

Times of Transition

I Read it in the Solia!

More Considerations about Orthodoxy in the New World

A Most Interesting Reflection on our Affairs in America

The Role of Metropolitan and Its Relationship within the Episcopate: A Reappraisal

Lord, have mercy.

Americans are Infested with Freedom.

We laugh to keep from crying

Cervantes wit on human nature

An American vision for Orthodoxy in the New World

The Reading of Scripture.

On Cultural Bias and Misperception

June 29th, Feast of the Leaders of the Holy Apostles, Peter and Paul

Christ is risen, indeed!

Christ is Risen!

We need each other ... ?

No one has a problem with the presence of *words* in the Church

A Prisoner of Thy Love

Monday of the Week of the Cross

Sunday of the Adoration of the Precious and Life-giving Cross

Saturday before the Sunday of the Cross

“Not So Among You” - Bishop Kallistos of Diokleia

How Christian is Our Understanding of Church Authority?

Bishop Kallistos of Diokleia

No one has a problem with the presence of words in the Church