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The Mathetian Option (Part Two)
This is the second part of this article. Click HERE for Part One. Mathetes explains to his interlocutor that Christians are to the world what the soul is to the body. They are dispersed throughout the world, and their presence of love towards the world is to its benefit, even if the world hates Christians…
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The Mathetian Option (Part One)
The God of the Scriptures is a very specific sort of deity. He is the architect who created and fashioned all things in a logical and orderly sequence. While he does not permanently expel chaos from the cosmos, he makes clear that disorder is not good but a distortion of goodness and a movement towards…
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The New Sergianism
Ever since Constantine saw the Cross appear in the sky prior to the Battle for the Milvan Bridge (AD 312), the relationship between the Church and the state has been a precarious one. In contrast to the romantic image of Holy Byzantium or Rus oft envisaged by eager young converts to Orthodoxy, Father Alexander Schmemann…
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Remembering Matthew: On the Death of a Man
March 1 marked the seventh anniversary of the untimely death of my dear friend, Fr. Matthew Baker—a true scholar and a gentleman. As he’s been on my mind as of late, I post here the reflection I wrote after his repose. This was originally published on the Ancient Faith blog of Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick…
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The Wonder of It All
It’s 7530 Annus Mundi, according to the calendar adopted by Roman Christendom (otherwise known as the Byzantine Empire). Every method of measuring time must have a starting point—a year zero—and for Eastern Christians it was the year in which the world was created, calculated using the historical markers and lifespans documented in the Septuagint. Today,…
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Wrestling with God
I remember the first time I was approached by an evangelist, hoping to save my soul. I was waiting to enter a concert venue, one of many impetuous young men standing in line. Yet he approached me alone, perhaps sensing my discomfort with his preaching. He couldn’t have known that at age ten I had…
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Forging an Identity
As Christmas Eve approaches, the usual pundits have appeared claiming that our holy day is nothing more than a repackaged pagan bacchanalia. Such assertions are, of course, easily dismissed by those willing to do a little research. But what’s more intriguing is the growing desire to rehabilitate paganism in the first place. Some want to…
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Reading Salvation
A new holiday tradition has taken root in the Orthodox world in recent years (who said we Orthodox never change?). Every year, on December 6 (and 19) there emerge countless memes of St. Nicholas punching the heretic Arius. For some, this is just a bit of mirth. For others, it is evidence that truth trumps…
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Walking the Tightrope of Faith
We live in an age of extremes. Our social, political, and religious landscape is marked by exaggeration and polarization. And though we Christians are enjoined to live in the world yet not be of it, we are so easily drawn towards one side or the other. We are unable to find the via media that…
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Cleanse Us of Our Secret Sins
Many a joke has been made about Jewish or Roman Catholic guilt, as though these two religions have the market cornered when it comes to that nagging sense one gets when shame is suppressed. But if we are honest with ourselves, all modern peoples—Orthodox Christians included—wrestle with feelings of guilt. We recognize, at least subliminally,…
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