From the daily archives:

Friday, December 25, 2009

On Standing in Church

December 25, 2009

By the Very Rev. John Ealy It is always difficult in these relativistic times, when the only heresy is to speak of heresy, to present the Orthodox teaching about the completeness of our faith. It comes across often as arrogance when in fact we do not mean that we are anything special at all, we ...

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Christmas Tree.. Pagan???

December 25, 2009

In Defence of the Christmas Tree By Father Daniel Daly Several years ago during the Christmas season, a religious program on television caught my attention. The program featured a discussion on the dangers of cults, especially to young people. I found myself agreeing with the panelists as they warned young people about the hazards of ...

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“What an Altar denotes?

December 25, 2009

What is performed in the Altar? How do we relate the present day Altar to the Old times? ” 1. The altar was a place of sacrifice 2. The cross is a place of sacrifice 3. A blood sacrifice was required, the New Testament, our blood atonement is Jesus instead of animals A.. The altar ...

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Eastern rite lures Western seekers

December 25, 2009

WASHINGTON, Aug. 1 (UPI) — If you stand on the shores of Lake Michigan and watch a man with a long gray mane and beard labor on sailing boats, don’t automatically assume that he’s an aging flower child. He may just be Father Luke, an orthodox cleric, trying to make ends meet. Luke, 58, could ...

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I’ve discovered that there is more to my faith than just me and Jesus

December 25, 2009

My name is Simon Scionka and my wife Ira and I have been at Holy Theophany Orthodox Church since December of 2003… My wife Ira is from Russia and due to her god-fearing babushka, she was baptized in secret as a baby during the communist regime. Ira grew up in the Orthodox faith. My coming ...

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The Tregarthen Family

December 25, 2009

Our conversion to Orthodoxy began in about 1997, when my wife met Tristram Englehardt, Jr. at a conference… He was there because of his position in the Department of Philosophy at Baylor. Tris is also a surgeon and a member of the medical school faculty at Baylor. In addition to all that, he is a ...

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Seminarian Kerry (Kirill) Williams

December 25, 2009

My name is Kerry Williams and I am 32 years old. On the day of the Ss. Peter and Paul Feast (Old Calendar), I was Baptized and Chrismated into the Orthodox Church on Spruce Island in Alaska… Because this took place at the home of St. Herman, it brought with it a perspective of what ...

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Becoming Orthodox—A Journey From Good to Better

December 25, 2009

The church has always been the center of the life that Carolyn and I have lived. We were both raised in nominally Christian homes but rejected the church in our teen years… After flirting with godlessness, we both became Christian in our 20’s at one of Seattle’s growing mega-churches. We met at a single’s bible ...

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The Kemper Family

December 25, 2009

Don, Jacque and Ron’s beginnings into Orthodox Christianity started 38 years ago when we first discovered Christ… Don & Jacque Kemper We were living in Reno, Nevada and through our neighbors we began going to an Evangelical Free Church. It was a great Bible teaching church, very small but with 5 gifted Bible teachers, one ...

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Protestant Church Worker goes “East”

December 25, 2009

I never would have imagined that I would be Eastern Orthodox. Like many Christians in America, I didn’t know much about Eastern Orthodoxy for most of my life… Jeff & Patti Morrison Even as a history major, Orthodoxy was taught in a very limited fashion. I knew there were Catholics—I was baptized in that church, ...

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American “convert” to Orthodox Christianity.

December 25, 2009

Very Reverend Father Silas Ruark Fr Silas is an American “convert” to Orthodox Christianity. His youth and adult years were lived in the religious context of Evangelical Protestantism (Southern Baptist and Evangelical Free Church of America), where he and his wife Gabrielle worked as Youth Directors and Sunday School teachers, and he as a Deacon. ...

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