~By Fr Stephen Freeman, March 19, 2023 Few things are as difficult in the modern world as fasting. It is not simply the action of changing our eating habits that we find problematic – it’s the whole concept of fasting and what it truly entails. It comes from another world. We understand dieting – changing how we eat in order to improve how we look or how we feel. But changing how we eat in order to know God
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, July 13, 2020 Popular New Age thought postulates that everyone has a “god within.” It’s a pleasant way of saying that we’re all special while making “god” to be rather banal. But there is a clear teaching of classical Christianity regarding Christ-within-us, and it is essential to the Orthodox way of life. We should not understand our relationship with God to be an “external” matter, as if we were one individual and God
By His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios, Geron of America Meditate on the History of Salvation Think of the Lenten period as a time of meditating on the history of salvation. Think about the creation of the universe and of Adam and Eve as the beginning of human life on earth. Think about the fall of Adam and the entrance of sin in humanity. We see in the hymnology of the liturgical book of Lent, the Triodion,
Conversations with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew by Olivier Clement Everything, the patriarch adds, centers on the concept of the “person.” According to Buddhism, the person does not exist. The Christian, however, affirms the existence of the person. But Orthodoxy does not identify the person with the individual, with the “individual substance of a rational nature,” as Boethius awkwardly stated in the Latin world. This would mean that the person is nothing more than a mask, which
Conversations with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew by Olivier Clement Behind the “New Age” movement one can also discern a rediscovery of India, and particularly of Buddhism. Many westerners today report that they find true serenity in Buddhism. They learn that there exists a dharma (to use the Sanskrit word), a path of salvation, a world order; one could even call it Wisdom, almost in the Biblical sense of the word. And this dharma, not unlike the
Knowing the commandments of the Lord, let this be our way of life: let us feed the hungry, let us give the thirsty drink, let us clothe the naked, let us welcome strangers, let us visit those in prison and the sick. Then the Judge of all the earth will say even to us, “Come, O blessed of My Father; inherit the Kingdom prepared for you.” (Doxastikon of the Lity, Vespers of Meatfare Sunday) ANOTHER
The heart of the Christian ascesis is the struggle with our unconscious motivations. If we do not recognize and confront the hidden influences of the emotional programs for happiness, the false self will adjust to any new situation in a short time and nothing is really changed. If we enter the service of the Church, the symbols of security, success, and power in the new milieu will soon become the new objects of our desires.
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