By Fr. Vasile Tudora “They say—and I am willing to believe it—that it is difficult to know yourself—but it isn’t easy to paint yourself either.” Vincent van Gogh, letter to his brother, September 1889 The self-portrait genre has been around from the very beginning of art. It was used to identify the artist, when no photography existed, or to tell one’s story in a visual manner or to dive deep into one’s existential struggles. Some
“Ambassadors of the Faith: PROCLAIM HIS RESURRECTION” By Father Luke Melackrinos I want you to think about bottled water for a moment. Just a few short years ago we were all content to drink water from a sink. If back then we asked the question, “Would anyone pay for water?” I doubt anyone would have expected that in the year 2004 alone, U.S. Consumers spent an estimated 8 billion dollars on bottled water. Let me
Rudolph Otto in his book The Idea of the Holy says that when someone has an authentic experience of the Holy, they find themselves caught up in two opposite movements at the same time: the mysterium tremendum and the mysterium fascinosum, a scary mystery and a very alluring mystery. We both draw back from and are pulled forward into a kind of liminal space where we are not at home at all and yet totally
Father Alexander Schmemann was the dean of Saint Vladimir’s Seminary in Crestwood, New York, and the spiritual father, teacher, pastor, and friend of countless people not only in America but around the world. He died on December 13, 1983, the same day of the year as Saint Herman of Alaska. Father Alexander learned that he had cancer in the fall of 1982. He greeted the disease as the opportunity for Christian witness. As a person
The death of a loved one is excruciatingly painful, and it would seem wrong to ask moral questions about the appropriateness of someone’s grief, as if it were possible to hold our emotions in check at such horribly difficult times. It would appear cruel to imply to those in mourning that there is something wrong with them for feeling the way they do. Christianity holds that reason is a distinct faculty that gives guidance to
Fr. Maximos was fond of referring to a story of John Chrysostom, fourth-century patriarch of Constantinople who later was canonized as a major saint of the Church, both of the East and of the West. He was persecuted by the wife of the then emperor for being critical of her abuse of power and exploitation of the poor and weak. When John was warned by friends to stop his sermons against her on the ground
The Resurrection of Christ was a victory, not over his death only, but over death in general. “We celebrate the death of Death, the downfall of Hell, and the beginning of a life new and everlasting” [Easter Canon, 2nd song, 2nd Troparion]. In His Resurrection the whole of humanity, all human nature, is co-resurrected with Christ, ‘the human race is clothed in incorruption” [Sunday Matins], co-resurrected, not indeed in the sense that all are raised
When a man leaves on a journey, he must know where he is going. Thus with Lent. Above all, Lent is a spiritual journey and its destination is Easter, “the Feast of Feasts.” It is the preparation for the “fulfillment of Pascha, the true Revelation.” We must begin, therefore, by trying to understand this connection between Lent and Easter, for it reveals something very essential, very crucial about our Christian faith and life. Is it
So there has grown within the rich Christian tradition the idea of integrated knowledge, which assumes the necessity of reason, but in conjunction with the other faculties and senses, such as willpower, love, and the awareness of beauty. Integrated knowledge is knowledge in faith; it combines human nature in a personal movement of encounter and communion. By this communion the fullness of the godhead is communicated to human nature, reaching the very ground of the
Another New Year has dawned, and it is normal that we give extra thought to the new time frame. We all make the customary New Year’s resolutions, only to have them short-lived. To this there could only be one answer, and this was spoken by the Lord: “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Matthew 26:41) Our intentions may be honorable, but we so easily capitulate to the espoused routine of life, simply
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