September 26, 2018 How to Explain that the Veneration of the Cross Is not Idolatry? Question: How would you answer a Protestant who considered our veneration of the Cross (bowing down before it and kissing it) to be idolatry? …
September 25, 2018 Why Do Some People Leave the Orthodox Church? As a priest, I am always concerned about why people leave the Orthodox Faith. Over the years, I have noticed that the problem may…
September 21, 2018 The Meaning of Spiritual Life and Spiritual Direction What is “Spiritual Life”? Spiritual life is nothing other than “life in Christ.” In the words of a contemporary Orthodox lay theologian, spirituality…
September 21, 2018 “Why Is Theotokos Honored More than All Saints?” and Other Most Common Questions about the Mother of God People who do not go to church have been perplexed by the veneration of the Most Holy Mother of God for centuries. Many of…
September 19, 2018 The Origin of the Jesus Prayer and What the Scripture Says about It Question: When Jesus was asked how we are to pray, he gave the “Our Father” prayer, and said nothing about the “Jesus Prayer.” Some…
September 18, 2018 How and What for to Become a Reader? Question: “How does one become a Reader, and what does a Reader do?” Answer: We learn a great deal about what it means to be…
September 18, 2018 Do We Really Need so Many Rituals in the Church? Compared to the contemporary worship of most Protestant churches and post-Vatican II Roman Catholic churches, the worship of the Orthodox Church seems overly-formal, complicated,…
September 17, 2018 Why Is the Church New Year Celebrated on September 1 (14)? The Orthodox calendar is rich for mysteries. There are apparently simple and even trivial things, we do not even think about. For example, we…
September 17, 2018 A Convert Problem that Orthodoxy in America Faces Today The Orthodox Church in the United States has problems. One of the problems the Orthodox Church currently suffers in this country is a lack…
September 14, 2018 How to Mark Our Time on Earth: the Ecclesiastical New Year in the Orthodox Church Have you ever noticed the ways we mark the passage of time in our lives? Since my “day job” is in a university, I…
September 13, 2018 Why Russian Orthodox Priests Don’t Wear Wedding Rings? Wedding rings have a very long history. For instance, they are mentioned in Genesis, the first book of the Old Testament, “And Pharaoh said…
September 11, 2018 The “Black” Orthodoxy: St. Moses the Black and Other Black Saints in Orthodox History On September 10, the Orthodox Church commemorated a unique saint – St. Moses the Black. Although the saint was from Ethiopia, which is located…
