Orthodox Christianity

Keeping Students Connected to the Orthodox Church

AOCA | Fr. Kevin Scherer | Summer 2009

“Keeping Our College Students Connected to the Church” is a tagline for Orthodox Christian Fellowship (OCF). You’ll find it throughout our literature and even on our stationery. It says concisely what we believe to be our primary mission. I’ve spent hours thinking about it, talking about it, and wrestling with it. To be honest, I think it needs some unpacking, some clarification.

When I see the word “keeping,” I wonder whether some people unconsciously expect OCF to handcuff students to the church pew—because we know what’s best for them! The word “keeping” conveys the idea of preservation. The question is: What are we preserving? It’s helpful, I think, to reflect on the why, what, how, and who of keeping students connected to the Church. [Read more…]

Orthodox Christianity and Capitalism Revisited


AFR – The Illumined Heart | Kevin Allen | Jun 26, 2009

The previous podcast on this subject with Chris Banescu stimulated comments about whether we covered the bases on this issue fully or dispassionately enough. In this conversation, Fr John Whiteford, (ROCOR) priest and frequent conservative commentator and blogger, and Dr. Amir Azarvan, (ROCOR) layman, political science lecturer, and self-described “social democrat,” talk about poverty, the welfare state, whether alms-giving is spiritually effective if government mandated, and the best way to live out the Orthodox Christian life in the world.

Orthodox Christianity and Capitalism Revisited – 6/26/09 http://audio.ancientfaith.com/illuminedheart/ih_2009-06-26_pc.mp3|titles=Orthodox

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Cowards, Sorcerers and Murderers

OrthodoxyToday.org | John Kapsalis | May 2009

If any of us ever found ourselves in a situation where we witnessed a car accident, I’d like to think that we would all stop and help, no matter how inconvenient. Or if we had to intervene to save someone from being assaulted, surely we would get involved no matter what the cost to us. It would be the right thing to do. After all, if we didn’t we would be wracked not only by guilt but also by shame. Who could live with themselves as a coward in such circumstances?

Yet everyday most of us act like cowards. Not because we don’t stop to help someone in need, but rather because we stand idly by while millions of people die moment by moment without knowing that God loves them. We are cowards because there is family and friends who have no relationship with Jesus Christ and we casually spend endless hours and years talking about everything under the sun, except telling them about the treasures of knowing Christ. [Read more…]

On Enduring Scandals in Faith

OCANews.org | Fr. Josiah Trenham | May 1, 2009

“St. John Chrysostom wrote a penetrating treatise entitled On the Providence of God while he himself was in the midst of a crucible of personal suffering. He had been uncanonically deposed by a corrupt synod of bishops, and unjustly banished from his see in Constantinople by a weak Emperor whose wife despised Chrysostom for his honesty and pastoral forthrightness. He was separated from his altar and the liturgical services upon which he sustained his ascetical life. He was removed from the company of his closest friends, who themselves were being viciously persecuted by the new bishop who had been installed as Chrysostom’s successor. He was being physically abused by the imperial soldiers. He was terribly ill, burning with a fever. He was in constant danger of barbarian attack. He was ceaselessly slandered by shameless ecclesiastical opponents. He was being driven to the extreme corner of the Empire, distant from all the urban amenities he was accustomed to, and death was at his door. [Read more…]

Orthodox Christianity And Capitalism: Are They Compatible?


AFR – The Illumined Heart | Kevin Allen | Apr 17, 2009

Writer, attorney, and university professor Chris Banescu discusses the economic, moral and spiritual issues surrounding the “capitalist” economic model and whether it serves the best interests of Christians living the life of the Beatitudes, in this interview with Kevin Allen host of The Illumined Heart podcast on Ancient Faith Radio.

Orthodox Christianity And Capitalism: Are They Compatible? – 4/17/09 http://audio.ancientfaith.com/illuminedheart/ih_2009-04-17_pc.mp3|titles=Orthodox

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Fr. Johannes Jacobse: Paschal Message 2009

Christ Resurrection - Pascha Orthodoxby Fr. Johannes Jacobse –

Only the Gospel of Christ, the proclamation that Christ is risen from the dead, reveals that death is an enemy destroyed and exposes the nihilistic embrace of death as a lie. The grand schemes of the social engineers who are intoxicated by their own pride and contemptuous of what is good and true, will one day come to nothing. Babel will fall. But until it does, destruction and suffering prevail by their hands.

How does evil flourish? Edmund Burke answered the question this way: When good men do nothing. God enters the world through a word. The Gospel of Christ, when preached with authority and by the Spirit of God, tears down strong places. “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers in the heavenly places,” writes the Apostle Paul. Truth, spoken into the world of space and time, draws from and reveals Him who is True, and tears down the towers that men build to reach God. [Read more…]

The Scandal: Jesus Hangs on the Cross to Forgive Us of Sin

OrthodoxyToday.org | Fr. George Morelli | Mar 28, 2009

Is there any doubt that the Cross of Jesus Christ is a scandal, a shame and embarrassment to anyone who chooses not to respond to God’s grace? Look at Jesus from a Jewish perspective in the time of Christ. They were awaiting a messiah, the anointed one of God — a deliverer who would reign in glory with the power and adornment of a king.

But who was Jesus? He was the son of a carpenter who came from a place of no stature or notice — “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (Jn. 1:46). He was an itinerant, poor preacher and would be condemned as a criminal, scourged, buffeted, spat upon and be crucified in total ignominy. [Read more…]

Paschal Homily of St. John Chrysostom

Christ Resurrection - Christ is Risen
Christ Resurrection - Christ is Risen!
The Paschal Homily of St. John Chrysostom is read at the end of Orthros (Matins) at Pascha, the feast of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, universally throughout the Orthodox Church. It was composed sometime during his ministry in the late 4th or early 5th century.

“If anyone is devout and a lover of God, let him enjoy this beautiful and radiant festival. If anyone is a wise servant, let him, rejoicing, enter into the joy of his Lord. If anyone has wearied himself in fasting, let him now receive his recompense.”

If anyone has labored from the first hour, let him today receive his just reward. If anyone has come at the third hour, with thanksgiving let him keep the feast. If anyone has arrived at the sixth hour, let him have no misgivings; for he shall suffer no loss. If anyone has delayed until the ninth hour, let him draw near without hesitation. If anyone has arrived even at the eleventh hour, let him not fear on account of his delay. For the Master is gracious and receives the last, even as the first; he gives rest to him that comes at the eleventh hour, just as to him who has labored from the first. He has mercy upon the last and cares for the first; to the one he gives, and to the other he is gracious. He both honors the work and praises the intention. [Read more…]

One Word of Truth Outweighs the Whole World

Alexander Solzhenitsyn Word of TruthOrthodoxyToday.org | Fr. Johannes L. Jacobse | Mar. 28, 2009

When Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn gave his Nobel Lecture in 1970, he quoted this Russian proverb: “One word of truth outweighs the whole world.”

We know Solzhenitsyn’s story. In WWII Solzhenitsyn was a Soviet Army officer who was arrested and sentenced to eight years in the Gulags under Stalin. In prison Christ captures him. The encounter changes him, so much so that he clandestinely wrote the three volume “Gulag Archipelago” that laid bare the moral bankruptcy of Marxism. His work caused the collapse of the Marxist establishment in Western Europe and tilled the intellectual ground that led to the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union. [Read more…]