theology Archives - Saint Sophia

The Eleventh Day of Christmas Advent. Saint Catherine of Alexandria

11/25/2025

~By His Eminence Metropolitan PANTELEIMON of Antinoes Saint Catherine of Alexandria, also known as Saint Catherine of the Wheel and The Great Martyr Saint Catherine (Greek ἡ Ἁγία Αἰκατερίνη ἡ Μεγαλομάρτυς) is a Christian saint and martyr. The Orthodox Church venerates her as a “great martyr“. St. Catherine was the daughter of Costus, a pagan governor of Alexandria. She announced to her parents that she would only marry someone who surpassed her in beauty, intelligence, wealth, and social status. This was an early foreshadowing of her eventual discovery of Christ. “His

The Fourth Day of Christmas Advent. The Significance of the Birth of Christ for the Human Race

11/18/2025

Every year, in an atmosphere of joy and delight, the Church celebrates the Birth of Christ, and sings wonderful hymns to God Who became incarnate and re-formed our degenerate human nature. Orthodox hymnography and theology emphasize the great anthropological significance of the divine incarnation: we have been saved from hopeless degradation and from the chaos of destructive hatred by the love of God, which took on flesh and bone within history through the person of

Theology of Events (Titus 3, 8-15)

09/25/2025

Archimandrite Varnavas Lambropoulos A superficial reading of the epistle for the 6th Sunday of Matthew gives the impression of dry moralism. The apostle twice repeats the exhortation to the faithful to learn to take the lead in the performance of good deeds, which he considers to be examples of spiritual productivity. And once he counsels them to avoid heretics ‘after one or two admonitions’. True or merely useful? The obvious question arises, one which is often

What to Do with What You Know

02/26/2024

Fr. Stephen Freeman, August 30, 2017 In a world driven by information, it is more than a little easy to mistake knowing something as important and good in and of itself. As such, the acquisition of spiritual information is something of a going industry. In a Russian novel written back in the 90’s, a woman intellectual encounters a monk who is restoring an ancient monastery in Georgia. During a conversation, she brings up a quote from St.

The Mythic Character of Reality

02/16/2024

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

The Twenty-Seventh Day of Christmas Advent: Descent is Ascent

12/11/2023

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, September 8, 2019 at St. Mary Orthodox Church There are a number of characteristics that mark Christian spirituality. One of them is this: The Christian path is a first a way of descent. Most other spiritual traditions are about making an ascent. To be sure, St. Paul writes about ascending “from glory to glory.” But first there must be a descent, for example, from the mind to

Speaking the Words of God

05/26/2023

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, May 4, 2017 Nothing is as difficult as true theology. Simply saying something correctly is beside the point. Correctness does not rise to the level of theology. Theology, rightly done, is a path towards union with God. It is absolutely more than an academic exercise. Theology is not the recitation of correct facts, it is the apprehension and statement of Beauty. Words have a divine origin, having preceded all of creation.

Being Saved – The Ontological Approach

08/22/2022

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, August 12, 2016 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

Three Things and the One Thing

08/30/2021

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, February 2, 2016 In a comment, I recently described three dominant concepts in our modern culture. They are so dominant that questioning them can actually be disconcerting. I have questioned them before and been hammered more than once as a result. But I am sure of my ground and offer these thoughts for however they may be of use. The ideas: We define ourselves and our world by the choices we

Christ and Nothing (Part VIII)

08/24/2020

By David Bentley Hart, October 2003 I am tempted to say, then, that the cross of Christ is not simply a sacrifice, but the place where two opposed understandings of sacrifice clashed. Christ’s whole life was a reconciling qurban: an approach to the Father, a real indwelling of God’s glory in the temple of Christ’s body, and an atonement made for a people enslaved to death. In pouring himself out in the form of a

Archive

The Eleventh Day of Christmas Advent. Saint Catherine of Alexandria

The Fourth Day of Christmas Advent. The Significance of the Birth of Christ for the Human Race

Theology of Events (Titus 3, 8-15)

What to Do with What You Know

The Mythic Character of Reality

The Twenty-Seventh Day of Christmas Advent: Descent is Ascent

Speaking the Words of God

Being Saved – The Ontological Approach

Three Things and the One Thing

Christ and Nothing (Part VIII)

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