I probably don't remember nearly as much from science class as I should. But one lesson from junior high sticks with me. You probably remember this lesson, as well. The teacher took a few rocks of different sizes, placed them in a bucket, and asked what would happen if she turned the bucket upside down. Of course, the rocks would fall out. That’s gravity. But then - you know what comes next - she put the rocks in the bucket and began to spin the bucket around, arm at full ext

At an Orthodox wedding we read St Paul’s words of instruction, specifically to husbands regarding their wives: "Husbands love your wives as Christ loves the church and gave himself for her." (Eph 5.25) As a rule one of the first things we have to ask ourselves when reading or hearing the New Testament is if what we are hearing has some background in the Old Testament. Almost always it does, and that certainly is the case here. If we go back to the very beginning of the story

St Ignatius Brianchaninov was one of the great Russian spiritual writers of the nineteenth century. Giving up a promising career as a military officer to become a monk, he was soon put over monastery in St Petersburg where he served and also wrote many of the works for which he would become known. His wonderful book The Arena is a classic and can be read by almost any Orthodox Christian with great profit. The following excerpts on living according to the Gospel commandments a

We are all familiar, at least in general, with the Ten Commandments: Thou shalt not steal, kill, lie, etc. But I wonder how many of us recall the rather startling statement that the Lord makes almost at the beginning of the commandments: "I am a jealous God." What in the world can this mean? We think of jealousy as something ugly and even sinful, so how can we attribute it to God? Or, even worse, how can God attribute it to himself? To understand this statement we have to hea

In keeping with the theme of this past week’s Orthodoxy 101 class I thought I might share some words with you from one of the great theologians of the 20th c., Fr George Florovsky. The following are excerpts his essays, “The Function of Tradition in the Ancient Church”, and “The Catholicity of he Church”. -Fr John Tradition was in the Early Church, first of all, an hermeneutical principle and method. Scripture could be rightly and fully assessed and understood only in the lig