“’Fasts and vigils, the study of Scripture, renouncing possessions and everything worldly are not in themselves perfection, as we have said; they are its tools. For perfection is not to be found in them; it is acquired through them. It is useless, therefore, to boast of our fasting, vigils, poverty, and reading of Scripture when […]
If reading alone, say first the following prayers: http://orthodoxfiles.wordpress.com/2013/03/31/order-for-reading-akathists-alone/ Kontakion 1 We glorify You, Heavenly Father, for You raise up sinners to sainthood in response to their repentance and from the boundless creativeness of Your compassionate and merciful ways. Whether we live in the depth of depravity or in the peace of prayer, You know […]
via Akathist to Saint Mary of Egypt and Saint Zosimos — Orthodox Christian Files
It’s been a hot week for science. Thanks to the Event Horizon Telescope, an algorithm created by 29-year old PhD graduate Katie Bouman, and a lot of hard work, humanity got its first photo of a black hole – M87 in the galaxy Messier 87, some 55 million light-years away. It wasn’t made with visible […]
via The science behind the awesome black hole photograph — Matthew Wright
A worthy blog to follow, as Scott is a convert to ROCOR, a fellow Russian Orthodox Christian, who is posting interesting articles in a host of languages.
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St. Romanos the Melodist (6th Century) wrote countless hymns, poems and prayers, some of which are still in use in the liturgical services and feasts of the Orthodox Church to this day. Here is a prayer he composed as part of a longer hymn for the feast of the Meeting of the Lord in the […]
via St Romanos: Prayer for the Meeting of the Lord — Fr. Ted’s Blog
Thanks to a combination of good genes, a pretty decent lifestyle, an iron will to keep pushing along no matter what challenges beset me, and good health (thanks be to God), I don’t plan on leaving this mortal coil for a long, long time but if I do, this would be the song I would request to be played at my funeral liturgy. Amen.
We haven’t seen such a clear sky in a while, but the winds have done a fine job today sweeping out the bad air.
Thanks to Fr. Ted for generously sharing his posts for this year’s Paschal and Bright Week services.
All of the 2018 posts related to Pascha and Bright Week have been gathered into one PDF and can be viewed at 2018 Pascha & Bright Week (PDF).
You can find PDF links for all of the blogs I posted for each of the past 10 years for Great Lent, Holy Week, Pascha and Bright Week at Fr. Ted’s PDFs.
This is an interesting take by Tom at An Open Orthodoxy blog on the Originator (God) and the copy (Logos/Christ).
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 (as transcendental as is our aesthetic appetite here in the West yet contrary in how it manages and propagates its values) 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…
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Thanks to Fr. Ted for this illuminating, if brief, history on icons as used by the Eastern Orthodox Church.
“Compared to metal and mosaic icons, the painted wooden icon is perhaps the longest lived subcategory of the Byzantine artistic medium of portable devotional icons. The earliest collection of wooden painted icons is found at St. Catherine Monastery in Sinai: some twenty-seven pieces dated to the sixth through seventh centuries. They are all painted in […]
via A Brief History of Icons — Fr. Ted’s Blog
