Author: Fr. Johannes Jacobse

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FOCUS — Fellowship Of Orthodox Christians United to Serve


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Announcing a brand new humanitarian social service agency in the United States by the Orthodox Church.

FOCUS NORTH AMERICA
Listen to a podcast by Fr. Justin Matthews:

 

From Fr. Justin Matthews, Executive Director and CEO of Focus:

The dream of an Orthodox Christian social action agency entirely dedicated to reaching out to help our neighbors here at home has long been in the making. It is a dream whose time has certainly come.

I need not mention extensively the desperate reality many are facing in our country and even in some of our parishes. One in fifty children in the US are homeless, evicted families are living in tents, millions are jobless, and even more feel hopeless. It is for this reason that I make this appeal to you, the faithful, to support this new ministry. Continue reading

Eastern Christian New Media Awards nominations open!


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Eastern Christian New Media Awards

Nominations are open at the Eastern Christian New Media Awards! New participants can be nominated until June 1st. The field has been expanded by two categories and this year there will be prizes!

As with last year, the field is broadened and strengthened by getting the word out. Please mention this site to friends, post referrals on your blogs, and mention it in your podcasts.

On Enduring Scandals in Faith


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This is an excerpt from a lecture given by Fr. Josiah Trenham at a Men’s Retreat in Victoria, Kansas on March 14, 2009.

HT: Orthodox News

St. John Chrysostom

St. John Chrysostom


St. John Chrysostom wrote a penetrating treatise entitled On the Providence of God while he himself was in the midst of a crucible of personal suffering. He had been uncanonically deposed by a corrupt synod of bishops, and unjustly banished from his see in Constantinople by a weak Emperor whose wife despised Chrysostom for his honesty and pastoral forthrightness. He was separated from his altar and the liturgical services upon which he sustained his ascetical life. He was removed from the company of his closest friends, who themselves were being viciously persecuted by the new bishop who had been installed as Chrysostom’s successor. He was being physically abused by the imperial soldiers. He was terribly ill, burning with a fever. He was in constant danger of barbarian attack. He was ceaselessly slandered by shameless ecclesiastical opponents. He was being driven to the extreme corner of the Empire, distant from all the urban amenities he was accustomed to, and death was at his door.

 

In this condition our Holy Father John Chrysostom wrote his treatise On the Providence of God to encourage his flock to trust in God, and without doubt to believe in His sovereign providence governing all events. He taught his flock that not only do the trials of this life not scandalize those who are believers and well-disposed spiritually, but are actually useful to them, writing: Continue reading

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Did you know?


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HT: Second Hand Smoke

Keep the Human in Humane


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Wesley J. Smith

Wesley J. Smith

Wesley Smith, occasional commentator on AOI blog published the is article on To the Source. Visit Smith’s blog Second Hand Smoke.

When Aldous Huxley wrote his prophetic 1932 novel Brave New World, he envisioned a dystopian future in which mankind would become, in the words of bioethicist Leon Kass, “so dehumanized that he doesn’t even realize what has been lost.”

Huxley believed we would evolve into a society steeped in radical hedonism—where drugs would be used to erase every negative emotion and promiscuity would be not just the norm, but the expected. He also saw our future as becoming profoundly utilitarian and eugenic, depicted in his novel by genetically engineered babies being decanted through a cloning-type process rather than being born, a society without families, without the old and sick—who are done away with rather than being cared for—and without real purpose other than experiencing transitory pleasure. It is a world in which human life has been objectified and thereby made less than human.

Looking around, can there be any doubt of Huxley’s prescience across the board? Continue reading


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