[July 19, 2013. If you want to follow the conversation in order and read all the comments, here is the original post that Rod put on his blog; and here’s the link if you’d just like to read only what I said (the original post and followup responses).] There were…
[These remarks were transcribed from an audio recording of a Q & A period following a talk by Fr. Tom Hopko, Dean Emeritus of St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Seminary in NY, at a conference for Eastern Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, at the Sheptytsky Institute in Ottawa, Ontario, July 2008] Moderator of…
[July 27, 2013] This was an email to my friend Rod Dreher, which he posted on his blog at The American Conservative. It drew many comments, and my response to them is here as well. After further conversation with Rod I understood better what I was trying to say. (In…
Never seen a Pixar movie before? Monsters, Inc. (2001) is a good place to start. It’s a buddy movie, about Sully and his best friend, Mike. Sully, voiced by John Goodman, is a gentle giant, and Mike, voiced by Billy Crystal, is a short, round guy with overflowing self-confidence. It hardly matters that Sully is eight feet tall and has blue and purple fur, and Mike is basically an eyeball on legs.
This version of the Akathist Hymn is my translation, from my book “Mary as the Eastern Christians Knew Her.” (Note: this is a paperback version of a book published a few years ago in hardback as “The Lost Gospel of Mary.” We decided to change the title, since the “Lost Gospel” meme has passed.)The main thing I wanted to do was to provide footnotes for all the verses from Scripture and other references St. Romanos makes, since just singing it in church it goes by so quickly. It is a beautiful hymn, very profound, and makes a good text for study and prayer.St. Romanos, author of the Akathist Hymn, was born in Beirut in 475 AD.
[March 12, 2013] The sexual revolution is going to reverse itself; in fact, the process is about to begin. Sex between women and men is going to move away from the promiscuity of the last several decades, and back to commitment-first in relationships. (I’m talking about heterosexual promiscuity, now, not…
My daughter-in-law Jocelyn got creative with these Christmas cookies. (She’s a great photographer, too.)
She also made an astonishing discovery—if you X-ray a snowman cookie, you see…ribs.
[Dec. 17, 2012] Surprisingly enough, we received a Christmas card from the Islamic Education Center in Potomac, MD. I’m impressed; what a kind and peace-making gesture.
Here are the images that go with my Ancient Faith Radio podcast, a recording of a speech about the history of icons.1. The baptistry from the church at Dura Europas, Syria, from about 245 AD.
When the protesters were sentenced last week for their performance in Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow, a friend asked me why Orthodox Christians were so upset about what they’d done. For him, this was clearly a political protest. It was aimed at a too-close entwining of church and state, so it took place in a church. What’s the big deal?
But, in practice, there’s a difference.
