Please enjoy this very interesting description of Eastern (Japanese) aesthetics by Byung-Chul Han (“The Copy is the Original“). I’d love to hear David Bentley Hart reflect on how this different aesthetic sensibility would express core Christian beliefs like the Trinity (Father as the ‘original’, the Logos as the ‘image’, etc.), Incarnation, etc. After reading this I wondered how beholden to a Western aesthetic palate Hart’s Beauty of the Infinite: An Aesthetics of Christian Truth might be. What sort of “aesthetics of Christian truth” would a thoroughly Eastern/Japanese aesthetic palate produce? Here’s just a sampling. You’ll have to digest the whole piece to appreciate my question: Is Christ the fangzhipin (仿製品) or fuzhipin (複製品) of God? In addition, which are we?

In 1956, an exhibition of masterpieces of Chinese art took place in the museum of Asian art in Paris, the Musée Cernuschi. It soon emerged that these pictures…

Glory to that Voice that became a body,
and to the lofty Word that became flesh.
Ears even heard Him, eyes saw Him,
hands even touched Him, the mouth ate Him.
Limbs and senses gave thanks to
the One Who came and revived all that is corporeal.
Mary bore a mute Babe
though in Him were hidden all our tongues.
Joseph carried Him, yet hidden in Him was
a silent nature older than everything.
The Lofty One became like a little child,
yet hidden in Him was a treasure of Wisdom that suffices for all.
He was lofty but he sucked Mary’s milk,
and from His blessings all creation drinks.
He is the Living Breast of living breath;
by His life the dead were suckled, and they revived.
Without the breath of air no one can live;
without the power of the Son no one can rise.
Upon the living…

Sermon on the Dormition

On this day of the Dormition of our Lady Theotokos I would like to speak primarily about her place in the history of salvation and just make a few minor references to this feast.  The character of my words will be primarily apologetic.  Why is that so?  Because we, as Orthodox Christians in the Americas, find ourselves in an atmosphere in which we are challenged.  The Church in America is a Church in dispersion from its roots.  We are a minority among those who call themselves Christians, and engulfed by a multitude of philosophies and religious systems at odds with our Faith.  Our Faith is challenged.  It is unfortunate, yet not undeniable, that challenges to the Orthodox Faith are occurring not only from without but also sadly from within the Church.  Why?

There are truths that we Orthodox acknowledge about Mary, the Birth-giver of God, which…