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ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! The Third Wednesday of Pascha: The Lord’s Resurrection

Published by Pemptousia Partnership on June 16, 2020 George Mantzarides, Professor Emeritus of the Theological School of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Saint Sophrony, from Essex, said that the greatest sin these days is that people have sunk into despair and no longer believe in the resurrection. In the pre-Christian era, and later in the world outside Christianity, there was widespread belief in the immortality of the soul. But even this belief has been abandoned in our own

Singing the Lord’s Song

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, July 27, 2020  In my first parish as an Anglican priest, I approached my first Midnight Mass with eager anticipation. I was trained “High Church,” with a very traditional liturgical emphasis – but I was serving in a “Low Church” parish. I was the first priest in their history to wear Eucharistic vestments as a normal practice. But it was common, even in Low Church areas, for the Midnight Mass to

The Mythic Character of Reality

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, February 14, 2019  The friendship between CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien is well-known, as is Tolkien’s role in bringing Lewis to Christ. Less well-known (unless you dig a bit further) is Tolkien’s role in bringing Lewis out of a rigid and flat understanding of the world and into the rich possibilities afforded by “myth.” Without this conversion, Lewis would likely not have become a Christian, and certainly would not have authored

Care for the Soul

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, November 10, 2017 This article first appeared in 2015. It seems very apropos to our present moment. Glory to God for all things. I do not understand Zombies. When I was a child, Zombie movies were virtually non-existent. The word referred to something like a Golem in Jewish thought – a creature without a soul. It is properly a frightening thing – for that which we think of as the soul,

What is ‘remembrance of death’ and what does it mean for us?

Published by Pemptousia Partnership on January 14, 2022 Archimandrite Georgios Kapsanis, Abbot of the Holy Monastery of Gregoriou † Remembrance of death (memento mori) helps us to overcome our former self because it brings humility into our soul. When we forget death, we suffer from the illusion that we’re going to be on earth forever, and this increases our arrogance, our greed, our carnality and our propensity for exploiting other people. Remembrance of death gives us a sense

The Eleventh Day of Christmas Advent. Feast of the Holy Great Martyr and Most Wise Katherine of Alexandria

November 25 Katherine was the daughter of Cestus, a wealthy patrician of Alexandria, the capital of Egypt and metropolis of the arts and sciences. She was widely admired not only for her noble birth but also for the exceeding beauty and intelligence that God had given her. Taught by the best masters and most illustrious philosophers, she learnt while still a girl to follow complex lines of argument and obtained a perfect understanding of the

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! Bright Tuesday: The Resurrection of Christ is the Quintessence of the Divine Revelation

Published by Pemptousia Partnership, May 12, 2016 The author offers thoughts on the Resurrection with a look at current and ancient views on faith, death, and belief in immortality.  The Resurrection is forgotten in this day and age. Even the immortality of the soul is ignored. It’s typical that scientists who concern themselves with the human soul don’t usually treat it as an ontological feature of a person, but more as a biological function. People

The Second Monday of Great Lent: Get Real for Lent

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, February 24, 2018  According to St. Basil, God is the “only truly Existing.” Our own existence is a gift from God who is our Creator. None of us has “self-existing” life. We exist because God sustains us in existence – in Him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28). Sin is the rejection of this gift of God – a movement away from true existence. +++ Much of our attention in the

God by The Numbers

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, November 11, 2015  Math is very strange stuff. A serious question within the community of science and math is whether math is an invention or a discovery. Is it something that we have just made up out of our head, or is it something we observed and discovered (because it is already there)? This might sound like a silly thing to wonder about, but it is indeed most serious. The ancients

Care for the Soul

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, November 8, 2015  I do not understand Zombies. When I was a child, Zombie movies were virtually non-existent. The word referred to something like a Golem in Jewish thought – a creature without a soul. It is properly a frightening thing – for that which we think of as the soul, is also the seat of compassion and kindness. A creature without a soul would be driven by something other –