In the beginning God says, “Let us make humanity in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves” (Genesis 1:26). The use of the plural pronoun here seems to be an amazing, deep time intuition of what Christians would later call the Trinity—the revelation of the nature of God as community, as relationship itself, a Mystery of perfect giving and perfect receiving, both within God and outside of God. The Body of Christ is another metaphor for
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, August 13, 2008 On August 15, the Orthodox Church (new calendar) commemorates the Dormition (falling asleep) of the Most Holy Mother of God. The feast is considered to be one of the 12 Great Feasts of the year and thus an integral part of the proclamation of gospel of Jesus Christ. Many who are not familiar with Orthodoxy, or its manner of understanding saints, easily see feast days and the veneration
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, August 12, 2011 Orthodox Christians (New Calendar) are currently observing a two-week fast in preparation for the Feast of the Dormition, a day which marks the death (“falling asleep”) of the Mother of God. For those for whom such feasts are foreign, it is easy to misunderstand what the Orthodox are about – and to assume that this is simply a feast to Mary because we like that sort of thing.
By Abbot Tryphon, October 10, 2019 If you are to win the battle, focus only on your own sins When we take our eyes off our own sins we focus only on the sins of the other. As we allow their sins get our attention, we fail to struggle with the passions that keep us from the wholeness that God intended, and we move ever closer to the abyss of our own fall. Ignoring our
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, July 10, 2015 Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. (2Co 3:17) Though many speak of the “free will” of human beings, this is largely a misnomer, or misapplication of the phrase. The choosing that we experience is not the same thing as the will. It is the product of a fracturing of the will and a manifestation of a fundamental
By Father Stephen Freeman, May 24, 2019 I cannot begin to count the number of times I wished there were a simple, felicitous word for “ontological.” I dislike writing theology with words that have to be explained – that is, words whose meanings are not immediately obvious. But, alas, I have found no substitute and will, therefore, beg my reader’s indulgence for dragging such a word into our conversations. From the earliest times in the
By Abbot Tryphon, April 14, 2020 We must receive the closure of our churches with a peaceful heart I remember hearing, early on in my monastic life, of a holy elder who lived as a hermit, far from any group of other monks, and deprived of the chance to participate in the celebration of the Divine Liturgy. Hearing of this, I thought to myself, how could such a man survive without the Holy Body and
The heart, in the Orthodox tradition, does not only have a natural operation, as a mere pump that circulates blood. In Orthodox patristic tradition the heart is the center of our self-awareness. Saint Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain (+1809) calls the heart a natural and supernatural center, wherein resides “noetic” memory. Tapping into this noetic memory is manifested as the “incessant prayer” of the Holy Spirit inside the heart. Humankind’s mishandling of the memory of
By Fr. Maximos (Constas) There have been times when I was in line to receive Communion, and some of the most horrible, dark, even blasphemous thoughts came into my mind. Is that me? Why would I think such things, that I’d never thought before in my life, when my entire self is concentrated on receiving Communion? It breaks my heart even to know that I had such thoughts. I feel so bad that I have
At the Mystical Supper in the Upper Room Jesus gave a dramatically new meaning to the food and drink of the sacred meal. He identified Himself with the bread and wine: “Take, eat; this is my Body. Drink of it all of you; for this is my Blood of the New Covenant” (Matthew 26:26-28). Food had always sustained the earthly existence of everyone, but in the Eucharist the Lord gave us a distinctively unique human
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