Articles Section
This section of our website has articles about Orthodoxy and our church. These articles are also currently subdivided into three categories:
- Orthodox Church, a collection of articles about the Orthodox Church. We hope the articles in this section will be helpful to both inquires of Orthodoxy, and to those who are members of the Church.
- Worship, a collection of articles about services, prayers, and worship of the Orthodox Church.
- Saints and Icons, a collection of articles about saints, their relics, or their icons. We hope to include articles, of special interest to our parish, on the saints who are depicted on our icons, or whose holy relics rest here. Articles on our feast day icons will be included here also.
Also see our Salvation History Section and our list of Videos.
Ecclesiological notes
- Details
- Parent Category: Articles Section
- Category: Orthodox Church
- Written by Fr. Alexander Schmemann
- Hits: 1734
Ecclesiological notes
By Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann
- One of the greatest "ecumenical" difficulties the Orthodox Church has is that her thought forms and "terms of reference" are different from those of the West. And, since the ecumenical movement was shaped primarily by Western theological presuppositions and antecedents, its Orthodox participants were, from the very beginning, forced to express their positions and points of view within a theological framework alien to, or at least different from, the Orthodox tradition. This is especially true of ecclesiology. The Orthodox East has not been challenged either by the politico-ecclesiological controversies typical of the Western Middle Ages or by the Reformation. It remained free, therefore, from the "polemical" and "definitional" ecclesiology which underlies the Western De Ecclesia, whether in its Roman Catholic or Protestant form, and which conditions to a great degree the ecumenical debate on the Church. In our own "sources"– the Fathers, the Councils, the Liturgy – we do not find any formal definition of the Church. This is not because of any lack of ecclesiological interest and consciousness, but because the Church (in the Orthodox approach to her) does not exist, and therefore cannot be defined, apart from the very content of her life. The Church, in other terms, is not an "essence" or "being" distinct, as such, from God, man, and the world, but is the very reality of Christ in us and us in Christ, a new mode of God's presence and action in His creation, of creation's life in God. She is God's gift and man's response and appropriation of this gift. She is union and unity, knowledge, communion and transfiguration. And, since apart from the "content" the "form" has no meaning (cf. the reluctance of Orthodox theologians to discuss problems of "validity"), Orthodox ecclesiology rather than precise definitions or forms, conditions and modalities, is an attempt to present an icon of the Church as life in Christ – an icon which to be adequate and true must draw on all aspects and not only on the institutional ones of the Church. For the Church is an institution, but she is also a mystery, and it is mystery that gives meaning and life to institution and is, therefore, the object of ecclesiology.
A Conversation on the Philokalia with Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware)
- Details
- Parent Category: Articles Section
- Category: Videos
- Written by Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware)
- Hits: 1754
Watch the video here.
ARCHPASTORAL LETTER FOR Holy PASCHA 2014
- Details
- Parent Category: Articles Section
- Category: Orthodox Church
- Written by Bishop Michael
- Hits: 1778
ARCHPASTORAL LETTER FOR
The Feast of the Glorious Resurrection : Holy PASCHA
Sunday, April 20 , 2014
Christ is Risen! Indeed He is Risen!
Dearly Beloved in our Resurrected Lord :
“Having beheld the Resurrection of Christ, let us worship the holy Lord Jesus ...”
Certainly one of the most beautiful prayers of our Church is the Paschal hymn, “Having Beheld the Resurrection.” One might rightly wonder, however, how we can offer this prayer ... how we can say that we have beheld the Resurrection, as though we have seen it, when in fact Christ rose from the dead two thousand years ago and , even then , without any human being actually having been an eye - witness?
The fact is that the Holy Spirit urges us to offer this prayer not only on Pascha but at every Liturgy. And , the words of the hymn urge us to speak the truth that the Resurrect ion of Christ takes place in everyone who believes, and not only once a year but at every moment when our Lord arises in us ... resplendent in beauty and shining with the brightness of incorruption and divinity.
The Calendar of the Orthodox Church
- Details
- Parent Category: Articles Section
- Category: Orthodox Church
- Written by Dr. Lewis J. Patsavos, Ph.D.
- Hits: 1771
The Calendar of the Orthodox Church
Dr. Lewis J. Patsavos, Ph.D.
1. Religious Calendar: History and Development
Within the Orthodox Church feast days and fast days are reckoned according to two distinct calendars, the Julian Calendar and the Gregorian Calendar. The first is attributed to the Roman Emperor Julius Caesar, whose name it bears. It was later corrected in the sixteenth century by Pope Gregory XIII due to the ever-increasing discrepancy between calendar time and calculated astronomical time. Thus the Gregorian Calendar came into being.
The Path to Orthodox Unity, October 27, 2013
- Details
- Parent Category: Articles Section
- Category: Videos
- Written by assembly of bishops
- Hits: 1790
Nearly 300 clergy and laity attended a pan-Orthodox forum on Sunday, October 27 to learn about the Assembly of Bishops, pose questions, and comment on the progress of Orthodox unity in America. Metropolitan Savas of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America and Bishop Peter of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia served as panelists, together with Protodeacon Peter Danilchick, member of the Assembly’s Secretariat.
More Articles...
Subcategories
-
Orthodox Church
Articles about the Orthodox Church
This section of our website, is a collection of articles about the Orthodox Church. We hope the articles in this section will be helpful to inquires of Orthodoxy, Catechumens, and to those who are members of the Church.
Good starting points would be:
- The Orthodox Church: An Introduction
- Meeting The Orthodox
- What is the Orthodox Church?
- Sources of Christian Doctrine
- A Pastoral Letter on the Occasion of the Third Christian Millennium (a re-telling of the Good News of God's love for us)
- Article Count:
- 94
-
Worship
Articles on services and prayers.
This section of our website has a collection a collection of articles about services, prayers, and worship of the Orthodox Church.
Good starting points would be:
- Article Count:
- 82
-
Saints and Icons
Articles on Saints and Icons
This section of our website, is a collection of articles about saints, their relics, or their icons. We hope to include articles, of special interest to our parish, on the saints who are depicted on our icons, or whose holy relics rest here. Articles on our feast day icons will be included here also.
Besides enhancing the beauty of our church, icons remind and instruct us in matters pertaining to the Christian faith. They can lift us up to the prototypes which they symbolize, to a higher level of thought and feeling, to help transform us and sanctify us. Icons can stimulate us to imitate the virtues of the holy personages depicted on them. They serve as a means of worship and veneration.Good starting points would be:
- Article Count:
- 59
-
Videos
Articles by Video
This part of our website is where we post videos for now. They may be moved into other categories on the website, whatever seems best.
(All the 7 questions 7 answers vedios are noiw in this category.)
- Article Count:
- 34
Articles