CAN ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY SPEAK TO EASTERN RELIGIONS?

I recently had a conversation with a dear Eastern Orthodox priest, whose twenty six year old son had left home the day before to live indefinitely at a Buddhist monastery. He was heart broken. His son was not a stranger to Eastern Orthodoxy or to its monastic tradition, having even spent two months on the […]

WE AND THE SPIRITS OF THE DEPARTED

Christians have a very serious relationship with our dead ones. We often speak to them and we continuously talk to God about them. To be more precise, for us, these who have left their body are not dead but alive (metaphorically we call them “sleeping” and this is the way we regard them, as living, […]

OF COURSE WE SHALL BE RESURRECTED!

Without a doubt, the most intimate desire of the heart – and yet the greatest scandal of the mind – is the confession of our Faith, that states: “I anticipate the resurrection of the dead”. Our life is not eliminated by the gravedigger’s shovel. It is not demarcated by the solemn cypress-tree that stands by […]

PILGRIMAGE TO ANCIENT MONASTERIES

On Wednesday, August 17, 2011, His All-Holiness visited several historic ruins of ancient monasteries and churches in the Trabzon region, many of which are perched upon the steep mountain slopes. He was accompanied by Archbishop Demetrios of America, Metropolitans Barnabas of Neapolis and Pavlos of Drama, and Bishop Andonios of Phasiane, along with clergy and […]

MOUNT TABOR AS THE LOCATION OF CHRIST’S TRANSFIGURATION

  Prolegomena   The Transfiguration of Christ, in the New Testament, is an event traditionally understood as the revelation of the glory of Jesus Christ as the Son of God. Described in Matthew 17, Mark 9, and Luke 9, it occurs when Jesus takes his disciples Peter, James, and John to a “high mountain” (traditionally, […]