Fr. John A. Peck serves at St. George Orthodox Church in Prescott, AZ and is already well known as the administrator of the “Preachers Institute” and “Journey to Orthodoxy” websites. Recently he launched a site called “Good Guys Wear Black,” which aims to provide a resource for men discerning their vocation to the priesthood. Fr. John was kind enough to answer some questions I had about this new effort.
Father, how did this whole thing get started?
The same things that brought about my other working websites – I had a need as a priest, and nothing to fill that need. [Read more…]
by Deacon Keith Fournier –
‘Sacred Scripture and Holy Tradition emphasize the sacred dignity of the human person and God’s purpose in creating, to confer his blessings upon him. In today’s society, we have witnessed many attacks on human life, especially in its most vulnerable stages. As our heavenly patrons, Ss. Peter and Andrew were one as brothers and Apostles of the Lord, we too are united as brothers, as we affirm the sacred dignity and value of every human life.’ (From the Common Declaration) …
I am one of a growing number of people calling Pope Benedict XVI the “Pope of Christian Unity”. In his first Papal message he proclaimed, “Nourished and sustained by the Eucharist, Catholics cannot but feel encouraged to strive for the full unity for which Christ expressed so ardent a hope in the Upper Room. [Read more…]
Christ in our midst! Since 1998, upon the blessing of Father Stephan Meholick, Rector of St. Nicholas Orthodox Church in San Anselmo, California, I have tried to create an awareness of the once self-evident essential role of bell-ringing in Orthodox worship as prescribed by the Church’s typikon.
Consequently, I have facilitated the selection, purchase, importation, installation, and implementation of traditional Orthodox Church bells here in the U.S. and also in Canada. This work has been rendered as a project of Expanding Edge LLC, under the trade name of Blagovest Bells. Our Blagovest Bells are ringing now in more than 100 churches across North America.
As the result of the current US economy downturn, our churches are experiencing serious financial difficulties, which results in a decreasing number of bell orders. Because of that, Blagovest Bells (http://russianbells.com/) recently hasn’t been generating enough revenue to take care of my family, so I have to restructure my occupation. [Read more…]
Christ the Bridegroom is the central figure in the parable of the ten Virgins (Matthew 25: 1-13); Christ is the divine Bridegroom of the Church as described in the Book of Isaiah (chapter 54), as well as the primary image of Bridegroom Matins.
The title is suggestive of His divine presence and watchfulness (“Behold the Bridegroom comes in the middle of the night…”) during Holy Week and His selfless love for His Bride, the Church.
The Troparion
Behold the Bridegroom comes at midnight, and blessed is the servant whom he shall find watching, and unworthy is the servant whom he shall find heedless.
Beware, therefore, oh my soul. Do not be weighed down with sleep, lest you be given up to death, and lest you be shut out of the kingdom.
But rouse yourself, crying, Holy, Holy, Holy are Thou our God.
Through the Theotokos, have mercy on us. [Read more…]
from OrthodoxyToday –
The following represent the teaching of the Orthodox Church from the [early] second century through the fifth century…. Note that penalties, when they are given, are neither civil nor criminal, but ecclesiastical and pastoral (excommunication for the purpose of inducing repentance). Also note that the these quotes deal with both surgical and chemically induced abortion, both pre- and post-quickening.
From the Letter to Diognetus:
(speaking of what distinguishes Christians from pagans) “They marry, as do all others; they beget children but they do not destroy their offspring” (literally, “cast away fetuses”).
From the Didache:
“You shall not slay the child by abortions.”
From the Letter of Barnabus:
“You shall not destroy your conceptions before they are brought forth; nor kill them after they are born.”
From St. Clement:
“Those who use abortifacients commit homicide.” [Read more…]
I came to Orthodoxy in 2006, a broken man. I had been a devoutly observant and convinced Roman Catholic for years, but had my faith shattered in large part by what I had learned as a reporter covering the sex abuse scandal. It had been my assumption that my theological convictions would protect the core of my faith through any trial, but the knowledge I struggled with wore down my ability to believe in the ecclesial truth claims of the Roman church (I wrote in detail about that drama here). For my wife and me, Protestantism was not an option, given what we knew about church history, and given our convictions about sacramental theology. That left Orthodoxy as the only safe harbor from the tempest that threatened to capsize our Christianity.
In truth, I had longed for Orthodoxy for some time, for the same reasons I, as a young man, found my way into the Catholic Church. It seemed to me a rock of stability in a turbulent sea of relativism and modernism overtaking Western Christianity. [Read more…]
by Fr. Mark Hodges –
This week, U.S. Attorney General Holder announced Obama’s decision not to uphold the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which was passed by a bipartisan overwhelming majority and signed by Bill Clinton in 1996. Significantly, the Attorney General described anti-sodomy beliefs as “animus,” which means “vehement emnity,” “hatred” or “ill will.”
This echoes Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s anti-Christian view, stated in a Supreme Court decision upholding the ejection a Christian legal group for not allowing open homosexuals in leadership positions, that “Condemnation of same-sex intimacy is, in fact, a condemnation of gay people,” and “Our (Supreme Court) decisions decline to distinguish between status and conduct.” (By this reasoning, if you don’t support gluttony, you “condemn” overweight people.)
The ACLU has hailed the Obama Administration’s decision as “the tipping point in the gay rights movement.” Indeed, it may be. It is certainly yet another turn toward moral insanity, as the Fathers and Mothers of the Church predicted, when the world calls evil “good” and good “evil.” [Read more…]
by Fr. Johannes Jacobse –
Why such outrage over the Philadelphia abortionist? What moral difference is there between severing the spinal cord of a newborn with a pair of scissors and dismembering a baby with a scalpel a few moments before its birth? There isn’t any.
Yet the outcry over the brutality indicates that the fiction of viability may be lifting, and not a moment too soon. Viability, the idea that an unborn child has value only when it can live outside the womb, is a concept that the ignorant still believe has scientific credibility. It’s a rhetorical pretense that helps us avoid what we don’t want to see.
The cold hand of the malefactor reveals that the brutality outside the womb occurs inside it too. It’s not so easy to pretend anymore that a difference exists because we see one but not the other. Josef Mengele at least maintained the pretense that he was serving science. This butcher wouldn’t even do that. His staff kept their lunches in the same refrigerator where they stored left-over fetal parts.
Should we be shocked that the abortionist treated the newly born like a piece of pork? Why? How is it any different than how he treats the unborn? [Read more…]
The Orthodox Church is like St John the Baptist crying out in the wilderness, or Jesus baptizing by the Jordan. We, like them, preach a message of repentance and the remission of sins in the new desert, the decadent culture of the modern West, mired in the chaos of moral collapse.
The Orthodox Church’s message is a message of hope, of healing, of the transformation of one’s life, of the realization of the divine potential in each human being. Yet, this message requires not only acceptance, but a voluntary cooperation by those who accept this message. The Church demands a serious discipline of all who would be members, all who would follow this straight and narrow difficult path that leads to salvation. It is a way that demands that we be crucified to the world and its desires, dead to the flesh and its demands, so that we can be focused solely on God.
The culture of this world cries out for “justice.” It demands vengeance, and it despises the forgiveness of God. It cries out for bread in the wilderness; and when it is not satisfied with bread, it demands meat. It ignores the radiant Presence of God, and laments the fleshpots of Egypt. Nothing can satisfy its endless lusts for money, sex and power. In terror it refuses to even stand in silence and contemplate the abyss of death, ever trying to distract itself from the ultimate annihilation it so boldly preaches. This complete denial of death thus leads it to the kind of decadence that has overtaken us: greed, hedonism and licentiousness, which have led to gender confusion, depersonalization, and the loss of value of human life. A culture of hedonism leads only to the narcissism of a solitary individual, enslaved by his/her lusts, using others for the gratification of the passions. [Read more…]
by Deacon Keith Fournier –
Christ the Bridegroom is the central figure in the parable of the ten Virgins (Matthew 25: 1-13); Christ is the divine Bridegroom of the Church as described in the Book of Isaiah (chapter 54), as well as the primary image of Bridegroom Matins.
