Norm of faith as norm of life
May 24, 2010 by Fr. Johannes Jacobse · 8 Comments
This essay is outstanding. It represents the quality of thought that should be coming from all Orthodox Churches; the words that speak to the foundational questions of culture as I wrote yesterday. Frankly, the Orthodox in America are capable of contributions of this depth and importance. I have my doubts however, that Constantinople will ever [...]
Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk: Culture is at risk of becoming anti-culture without the Church
March 10, 2010 by Fr. Johannes Jacobse · 2 Comments
Brilliant! Met. Hilarion’s warning deals with what Nietzsche called the “transvaluation of values” — what his dark prophesy warned would happen in the West because “God is Dead,” by which he meant that Western culture was entering into a period where it functioned within the cultural structures shaped by Christianity but without concrete, existential communion [...]
Fr. Chad Hatfield: The Manhattan Declaration
February 17, 2010 by Fr. Johannes Jacobse · 2 Comments
Ancient Faith Radio Fr. Chad Hatfield, discusses The Manhattan Declaration, “a call of Christian conscience” that he helped produce, and defends Orthodox participation in such cultural manifestos. Listen here: [Audio clip: view full post to listen]
Albert Mohler: Vanishing Christianity — A Lesson from the Presbyterians
February 11, 2010 by Fr. Johannes Jacobse · 14 Comments
AlbertMohler.com “Liberal Protestantism, in its determined policy of accommodation with the secular world, has succeeded in making itself dispensable.” That was the judgment of Thomas C. Reeves in The Empty Church: The Suicide of Liberal Protestantism, published in 1996. Fast-forward another fourteen years and it becomes increasingly clear that liberal Protestantism continues its suicide — [...]
Patriarch Kirill & Pope Benedict: A Tale of Two Leaders for a new Missionary Age
February 11, 2010 by Fr. Johannes Jacobse · 33 Comments
I’ve been asked to become an Orthodox columnist on Catholic.org and accepted. Below is my first essay. Regular readers will notice ideas we discussed on the AOI Observer. +++++++++++++++++ Catholic Online (www.catholic.org) NAPLES, FL. (Catholic Online) – Over four decades ago Pope John Paul II said that the restoration of the Russian Orthodox Church was [...]
Archbishop Hilarion: The Church has been granted the Primate required by our troubled time
January 29, 2010 by Fr. Johannes Jacobse · 1 Comment
Compare the vision expressed below with recurring missteps like Orphangate, the uncritical embrace of global warming activism, assertions of ethnic supremacy (Hellenism uber alles?), the flattering of politicians, and the like and ask yourself: –Who really gets it? –Who has the better grasp of the crisis in Western culture? –Who really comprehends that any resolution [...]
Russian Orthodox Church opens seminary in France
January 6, 2010 by Fr. Johannes Jacobse · Leave a Comment
H/T: Byzantine, TX The Russian Orthodox Church has opened its first seminary outside the former Soviet Union – in a small French town outside Paris. The institution is starting modestly but has big ambitions: to serve Russia’s growing diaspora and foster closer ties between Eastern and Western Christian churches. It is a bitterly cold afternoon, [...]
‘Europe, spiritual homeland’
December 12, 2009 by John Couretas · 13 Comments
In “For Rome and Moscow, It’s Spring Again,” Sandro Magister on Chiesa looks at the book, in Italian and Russian, presented to Pope Benedict recently by Archbishop Hilarion of Volokolamsk. It is a collection of the main speeches of Benedict, as cardinal and pope, on European culture made over the past ten years. The title [...]
A Catholic-Orthodox Union?
September 19, 2009 by John Couretas · 1 Comment
We should all be extremely cautious about the recent comments about a Catholic-Orthodox union (Fr. Peter-Michael Preble has already raised important questions about these reports). Outside of the obvious and thorny theological questions – on both sides – that would arise, is there any way such a union could take place without first convening an [...]
The god Called Earth
April 29, 2009 by Fr. Johannes Jacobse · Leave a Comment
Couples who refuse to have children in order to protect the environment, says Steve Robinson, “reject religion and dogma, (yet) their devotion to the earth is indeed a religious devotion very similar to the ancient pagans.” In fact, the “eco-fundamentalists has a version of the prosperity gospel… we ‘serve the earth god,’ name it and [...]
Bishop Savas to head GOA Office of Church and Society
February 28, 2009 by John Couretas · 6 Comments
Greek Orthodox Archbishop Demetrios announced yesterday that Bishop Savas of Troas, most recently the chancellor of the archdiocese, has been named director of the Office of Church and Society. The bishop will be charged with developing “programs and ministries that promote a creative Orthodox Christian engagement with contemporary societal and cultural realities.” Readers of this [...]
ACLU Wants to Sink Navy Prayers
July 25, 2008 by John Couretas · 2 Comments
The American Civil Liberties Union is threatening legal action against the U.S. Naval Academy unless it discontinues a tradition — believed to date back to the college’s founding in 1845 — of mealtime prayer, the Baltimore Sun reports. “The government should not be in the business of compelling religious observance, particularly in military academies, where [...]
“On the Advantages of Dying Young”
April 20, 2008 by Fr. Johannes Jacobse · Leave a Comment
Jonathan David Price, editor of “The Clarion Review” (published by AOI) wrote the essay “On the Advantages of Dying Young “, that was recently published in First Principles (“the home of American intellectual conservatism”). Price writes: There is so much talk about the advantages of long life nowadays that when confronted with “tragic” young deaths [...]
Obama’s “Evangelical” Appeal
February 28, 2008 by Fr. Johannes Jacobse · Leave a Comment
The appeal of Barak Obama, who, as far as I can tell, has no discernible ideas, puzzles some culture watchers and worries some even more (see Spengler over at the Asia Times for example). Fr. John Chagnon offers “One Possible Clue” on his blog “The Traveling Priest Chronicles.” Obama’s appeal, Fr. John suggests, might be [...]
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