Receive One Another

We live in times overwhelmed with images created by man, in a postmodern epoch where each person struggles to produce the most convincing image of himself and his idea, where people try to attract the most people they can through their self image in order to impress and to impose their “icon” (or artificial resemblance) or, better yet, their “idol,” on others (as St Andrew says : “αὐτείδωλον ἐγενόμην”, “I have become an idol to myself”; Canon of St. Andrew of Crete, Ode IV). It is an era which offers falsehood, delusion, and fantasy without transcending the antinomies and limitations of history.

Continue reading The Icon and the Kingdom of God: A Homily on the Sunday of Orthodoxy

    The twentieth-century’s tumultuous and disastrous legacy for matrimony continues into the twenty-first century: a skyrocketing divorce rate, shifting gender roles, changing legal definitions of what constitutes marriage, and a campaign for legally sanctioned same sex unions have exposed a fault line in American society that runs deeper than even those differences that are said to create the “battle of the sexes.” The fault line runs deep into the bedrock of society, forcing us to consider what underlying assumptions we choose to make the foundation for the most elementary family unit: husband and wife. The implications are profound. Families raise succeeding generations, modeling the behavior and values that will become the mores of the future. As the Church continues to recede as a presence that establishes the assumptions that define marriage, society is left to define these assumptions through legislation that amounts to little more than slipshod efforts to patch arbitrary answers over the emerging cracks.

Continue reading A Few Thoughts on Marriage: Love in the Western World and the Eastern Church

The following talk was given by His Grace Bishop Justin on September 6, 2009 at our annual Diocesan Days gathering in Jackson, CA. Bishop Justin was our guest speaker and concelebrant to both Bishop Maxim of Western America and Bishop Longin of the New Gracanica Diocese.

Continue reading Fishing for Souls – His Grace, Bishop Justin, of Timok, Serbia

What follows is a lecture delivered by His Grace Bishop Maxim on March 19, 2009 at Loyola Marymount University on the topic "Who do people say I am? True God and True Man: Chalcedon’s Christology in a Postmodern World." Bishop Maxim was the featured speaker along with His Eminence Archbishop Hovnan of the Armenian Church, Western Diocese. The symposium was sponsored by the Huffington Ecumenical Institute. For more information on the event, click here.

Continue reading For Discussion: The Theological, Historical and Cultural Significance of Chalcedon’s Christology

Click here to see a wonderful interview with His Grace Bishop Atanasije (Yevtich), in which he addresses some of the issues in the ongoing debate in Serbia about liturgical changes.

Interview with Bishop Atanasije (Yevtich) on the Liturgy and Liturgical Changes

His comments about being attached to books like Protestants reminded me of when I had the great blessing to visit him at his monastery in Tvrdos, Herzegovina. It was my first service as a deacon, and I was desperately clutching to my book, trying to figure out what was happening, since everything was in Serbian.

Every time he saw me, he would grab the book out of my hands and put it off to the side, telling me something to the effect that I should just be present and aware of the service and act from my heart. I remember thinking that that was a wonderful idea, and then sneaking off and finding my book.

With God’s help, I’m working toward his goal of liturgizing with the Spirit. But just what is the relationship between the letter (of the service books) and the Spirit? Comments?

– Fr. Gregory Edwards

According to a recent poll by the very reputable Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, Orthodox Christians make up only 0.6% of the population in the United States.

religions.pewforum.org/affiliations

This has to be significant in some way, especially when most Orthodox trace their roots to countries that are overwhelmingly Orthodox. Does it make a difference? Should it? How?