Reformation Archives - Page 2 of 2

The Twenty-Sixth Day of Great Lent. The Ladder of Divine Ascent and Moral Improvement

04/05/2019

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, April 11, 2016 The Fourth Sunday of Great Lent in the Orthodox Church, is dedicated to St. John Climacus, the author of the ancient work, The Ladder of Divine Ascent. It is a classic work describing “steps” within the life of the struggling ascetic. There is an icon associated with this work, picturing monastics climbing the rungs of a ladder to heaven, battling demons who are trying to pull them off. However,

The Nineteenth Day of Great Lent. Good News – Your Debt is Being Cancelled

03/29/2019

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, April 27, 2016 Recent conversations on the blog have bounced around the imagery of debt in the Scriptures. Contemporary Protestant thought often likes to express the notion of a “sin debt.” The idea runs that God’s righteousness and justice have proper demands. When we fail to keep the commandments, we create a debt for which God’s justice demands payment. Christ’s innocent self-offering on the Cross is seen as the payment for

The Twenty-Second Day of Christmas Advent. The Feast Day of Saint Nicholas of Myra

12/06/2018

The Feast Day of Saint Nicholas of Myra AS WE WAIT FOR GOD TO BECOME INCARNATE, we look to the whole body of Christ, past and present, for models of embodied faith. The commemoration of saints has been a part of Christian worship since the second century. Today we remember Saint Nicholas, who was the Bishop of Myra in the province of Lycia during the fourth century. Very little is known about his life, but

Bones, Bodies and Belief

10/31/2017

By Father Stephen Freeman And Elisha died, and they buried him. And the bands of the Moabites invaded the land at the coming in of the year. And it came to pass, as they were burying a man, that, behold, they spied a band of men; and they cast the man into the sepulchre of Elisha: and when the man was let down, and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood up on

Saintless Christianity

08/29/2017

By Father Stephen Freeman What would Christianity mean if there were no saints? To rephrase the question: What would be the meaning of the Christian gospel if there were no wonderworkers, no people who had been transfigured with the Divine Light, no clairvoyant prophets, no healers, no people who had raised the dead, no ascetics living alone in the deserts for years on end, no beacons of radical, all-forgiving love? What would be the meaning

We Will Not Make the World a Better Place

06/30/2017

By Father Stephen Freeman I have written previously about various aspects of the “Modern Project.” It is the world we live in. Its ideas and assumptions enter our thoughts with no critical inspection or hesitancy. We are modern. However, the gospel is not modern and many ideas of Modernity are contrary to the gospel. It is necessary, therefore, as a simple matter of discernment to question and examine the assumptions of our world. And do not

Human Beings and the Cosmos (Part X): The Great Divorce

09/25/2015

By the Middle Ages, however, with the rise of humanism and rationalism, there were already the beginnings of a breach between Christianity and a self-sufficient humanity. In Byzantium, and spreading into Franciscan Italy, there was an attempt, supported by a theology of the transfiguration of the body and the earth, to transfigure the renaissance, to divinize humanism. But this last phase of Byzantine culture, which seemed so promising, was swamped by Asian influence, while Western

The Fall of Constantinople, May 29, 1453

05/29/2015

THE CAPTIVE CHURCH, by Aristeides Papadakis, Ph.D. In general, the fall of Constantinople in 1453 was a great misfortune for Christianity. For Eastern Christendom it was nothing less than an unqualified disaster. As a result of the Ottoman conquest, the entire Orthodox communion of the Balkans and the Near East was suddenly isolated from the West. For the next four hundred years it would instead be confined within a hostile Islamic world, with which it had little in common religiously or culturally. Orthodox Russia alone escaped this fate. It is this geographical and intellectual

Archive

The Twenty-Sixth Day of Great Lent. The Ladder of Divine Ascent and Moral Improvement

The Nineteenth Day of Great Lent. Good News – Your Debt is Being Cancelled

The Twenty-Second Day of Christmas Advent. The Feast Day of Saint Nicholas of Myra

Bones, Bodies and Belief

Saintless Christianity

Human Beings and the Cosmos (Part X): The Great Divorce

The Fall of Constantinople, May 29, 1453

Categories

Archives

View Our Live Stream Services

Keep In Touch

Stewardship Application

Daily Meditations

Worship Schedule

Light a Virtual Candle

Text-to-Give in 2 easy steps!

1) Text 202-899-7801 to include your donation amount

2) Follow the link to complete the one-time registration