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The Christianization of a Pagan Holiday Myth

There is also the myth that Christians condemned the pagan festivities of October 31 by replacing it with All Hallows Eve, the day before the Feast of All Saints in the West. It is often recorded that in 601 AD Pope Gregory I issued a now famous edict to his missionaries concerning the native beliefs and customs of the peoples he hoped to convert. Rather than try to obliterate native peoples’ customs and beliefs, the

Pope Francis on Light vs. Luxury

By Rod Dreher, August 12, 2013, 12:24 PM:  I had not seen this comment from Pope Francis’s celebrated airplane press conference. The Pope was asked to comment on Eastern Christianity. He said something amazing. From the transcript: In the Orthodox Churches they have kept that pristine liturgy, so beautiful. We have lost a bit the sense of adoration. They keep, they praise God, they adore God, they sing, time doesn’t count. God is the center, and

Hope-Bridled Grief: Discovering in Gregory of Nyssa a Christian Discipline of Grief (Part I)

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

Sunday of Pascha: ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN!

Catechetical Sermon of St. John Chrysostom If any man be devout and love God, let him enjoy this fair and radiant triumphal feast. If any man be a wise servant, let him rejoicing enter into the joy of his Lord. If any have labored long in fasting, let him now receive his recompense. If any have wrought from the first hour, let him today receive his just reward. If any have come at the third