The God Who Brings Suffering

[Please note: Once again, these are words written to myself. They are not meant to be paradigmatic. They are simply an errant exploration of one man, and a sinner.]
There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and [...]

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Scripture and Tradition

From Fr. Georges Florovsky’s Scripture and Tradition:
II
This approach to the problem of Scripture and tradition is itself traditional. In fact, it was the approach of the ancient church. St. Irenaeus and St. Basil were appropriately quoted in the Russian Catechism. The problem of correct exegesis was a burning issue in the ancient church during the [...]

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Something Like a Phenomenology of Crisis and Prayer

Let me say up front that nothing written here is to be understood as paradigmatic. I am simply trying to describe, for my own clarity, these present experiences that are my own and no one else’s. If I speak in generic terms, it is because this is my academic training.
When one’s life is [...]

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The Ever-Virgin Mother of God

From Fr. Georges Florovsky’s The Ever-Virgin Mother of God:
The teaching about Virgin Mary
The whole dogmatic teaching about our Lady can be condensed into these two names of hers: the Mother of God (Theotokos) and the Ever-Virgin (aiparthenos). Both names have the formal authority of the Church Universal, an ecumenical authority indeed. The Virgin Birth is [...]

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Why Protestants Converting to Orthodoxy Are Not Doing the Same Thing as Protestants Practicing Private Interpretation

Doug Wilson, classical education advocate, writes about an evangelical convert to Orthodoxy:
I recently heard a very nice gentleman give his testimony about his pilgrimage from various forms of evangelical Protestantism to Eastern Orthodoxy. He was obviously sincere, intelligent, well-read, and spiritually hungry for God, but I was really concerned about the central hinge in his [...]

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A Few Remarks about Studying for Logic

[Note: I will be passing this out to my logic class this week. Our logic class meets on Monday nights, and our textbooks are Kelley's The Art of Reasoning, and the companion book of analytical readings by Hicks and Kelley.]
I had the benefit of a public school education that taught me how to learn [...]

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The Continuing Intercessions of St. John the Wonderworker

Yesterday I posted a large excerpt from a life of St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco on my blog, and linked to several posts describing instances of answers to St. John’s intercessions for me and my family beginning in spring 2004.
I have to confess of late that I have been very despairing of any [...]

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A Most Difficult and Challenging Prayer

A PRAYER IN TIME OF TROUBLE:
O God, our help and assistance, who art just and merciful, and who heareth the supplications of thy people; look down upon me, a miserable sinner, have mercy upon me, and deliver me from this trouble that besets me, for which, I know, I am deservedly suffering. I acknowledge and [...]

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A Treasure Trove of Orthodox Theology Online

From my friend Gabe, in an email, comes the site: Holy Trinity Orthodox School
Click on the button “Textbooks”–and enjoy the immense wealth.

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The Limits of the Church

More Fr. Georges Florovsky from The Limits of Church:
It is very difficult to give an exact and firm definition of a ’sect’ or ’schism’ (I distinguish the theological definition from the simple canonical description), since a sect in the Church is always something contradictory and unnatural, a paradox and an enigma. For the Church is [...]

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