Pentecost 2010

Tongues of Fire,
Voices in the Spirit:

The Way of the Saint
Father Thomas Hopko: There are certain characteristics which belong to all saints, whoever they were and whenever they lived. Among these characteristics are the following ~

Mother Maria Skobtsova: Saint of the Open Door
Jim Forest: “No amount of thought will ever result in any greater formulation than the three words, ‘Love one another,’ so long as it is love to the end and without exceptions.”

Father Lev Gillet: The Monk in the City, a Pilgrim in many worlds
by Fr. Michael Plekon: Fr. Lev writes in "Orthodox Spirituality," 2nd. ed., (Crestwood NY: SVSP, 1978 ), pp. x-xi:
The whole teaching of the Latin Fathers may be found in the East,
just as the whole teaching of the Greek Fathers may be found in the West.
Rome has given St. Jerome to Palestine.
The East has given Cassian to the West and holds in special veneration that Roman of the Romans, Pope Gregory the Great.
St. Basil would have acknowledged St. Benedict of Nursia as his brother and heir.
St. Macrina would have found her sister in St Scholastica.
St. Alexis the "man of God," "the poor man under the stairs," has been succeeded by the wandering beggar, St. Benedict Labre.
St. Nicolas would have felt as very near to him the burning charity of St. Francis of Assisi and St. Vincent de Paul.
St. Seraphim of Sarov would have seen the desert blooming under Father Charles de Foucauld's feet, and would have called St. Thérèse of Lisieux "my joy."

gloria Dei vivens homo
vita autem hominis visio Dei

The Grandeur of Covenant Theology
Coming of age in the Gift of the Spirit, from agnostic to Evangelical to Presbyterian to Catholic

Pentecost, Babel, and the Ecumenical Imperative
continuing the journey in terms of the Oneness of the Church of Christ

"The day will come when our two Churches will fully converge"
The complete text of Bartholomew I, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople,
to the Synod of Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church,
delivered in the Sistine Chapel on Saturday, October 18, 2008

A Holy Alliance between Rome and Moscow Is Born
The common objective: the "new evangelization" of Europe. A delegation of the Russian Orthodox Church visits the Vatican, which publishes an anthology of the patriarch's writings.

The Role of the Bishop of Rome in the Communion of the Church in the First Millennium
2008:
Joint Coordinating Committee for the Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church.

Chalcedon Canon 28: Yesterday and Today
Very Rev. John H Erickson, St. Vladimir Seminary

Orthodox-Catholic Theological Dialogs

5th meeting 2008: Oriental Orthodox and Roman Catholic Theological Dialog

6th meeting 2009: Oriental Orthodox and Roman Catholic Theological Dialog

7th meeting 2010: Oriental Orthodox and Roman Catholic Theological Dialog

Photos and Report of the meetings in Lebanon 2010

Orthodox Divine Liturgy in the crypt of St. Peter’s Basilica followed by veneration of his relics
Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk celebrated the Divine Liturgy at the burial site of St. Peter in the crypt of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Concelebrating were Archbishops Kirill of Yaroslavl and Rostov and Feognost of Sergiev Posad.

Greek Orthodox Resources, St. Paul's in Irvine CA
Dialogue Among Christians: Orthodox Participation in the Ecumenical Movement

Unity, Division, Reunion -- in the light of Orthodox Ecclesiology
Alexander Schmemann,
Annual Conference of the Fellowship of S. Alban and St Sergius
at Abingdon, England in August 1950.

Florovsky on The catholicity of the Church
Archpriest George Florovsky: The theanthropic union and the Church. The inner quality of catholicity. The transfiguration of personality. The sacred and the historical. The inadequacy of the Vincentian canon. Freedom and Authority. The Church: her nature and task: The catholic mind. The new reality. The new creation. Historical antinomies.

Petros Vassiliadis: ECCLESIAL WITNESS
EUCHARISTIC THEOLOGY, THE CONSENSUS FIDELIUM, AND THE CONTRIBUTION OF THEOLOGY TO THE EUCHARISTIC THEOLOGY, THE CONSENSUS FIDELIUM, AND THE CONTRIBUTION OF THEOLOGY TO THE ECCLESIAL WITNESS

Toward Healing Church Schism: Overview and Psycho-theological Reflection
Fr. George Morelli: What Can We Do to Achieve Unity Between Catholics and Orthodox?

Catholic and Malankara Syrian Orthodox: Interchurch Marriages
First Trilateral Agreement on Interchurch Marriages
between the Catholic Church and the Malankara Syrian Orthodox Church

Catholic and Orthodox: CHURCHES in INDIA agree to share services
Dec 18 2009: THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, India (UCAN)
Catholic and Orthodox Churches have agreed to share priestly services and infrastructure in a major development in their often troubled 356-year-old history.

• As a first step, the Churches have agreed to share churches for Sunday Mass outside Kerala.
  
• Recent meetings between the two also explored the possibility of sharing cemeteries and the services of priests at funerals.
  

Zizioulas on the Ecclesia
Macrina's notes on Zizioulas'
"Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church."

gloria Dei vivens homo
vita autem hominis visio Dei

Many Lamps are Lightened from the One
Andrei Orlov and Alexander Golitzin on "Paradigms of the Transformational Vision in Macarian Homilies"

Symeon the New Theologian: On the Divine Light

Gregory of Nyssa: Luminous Darkness

Gregory Palamas: Knowledge, Prayer and Vision

Eschatology and final restoration (apokatastasis) in Origen, Gregory of Nyssa and Maximos the Confessor
Andreas Andreopoulos:
The restoration of all however, a valid possibility according to the Church, although not a doctrine, has a special place in the hopes of saints who pray for the redemption of their enemies, and it expresses our hope for the charity of God. Possibly the honorable silence expresses this hope, which in spite of the danger of determinism, becomes almost a certainty in this light:

If even one human being is able to forgive and pray for the salvation of the entire cosmos, wouldn't God's providence find a way to make it happen?

Await the New Jerusalem
Very Rev. John Breck:
...the new Jerusalem of the prophet's vision, the "heavenly Kingdom" that images glorified life in eternal communion with God. This is what we long for: to "return," paradoxically, to that place we have never yet truly known, but which we hold in our minds and hearts as the fulfillment of every hope, every longing.

Like Israel, our return in the grace and power of our Lord is promised to us not only for our own sakes, but for the sake of "the nations." As we declare in the Liturgy, our salvation and the fulfillment of our most urgent desire is accomplished "for the life of the world."

The prophet's voice addresses the Church just as it addressed the Jerusalem of old: "Arise, shine, for the glory of the Lord has risen upon you!" That glory, that radiant splendor, has shown out of the darkness of the tomb, to illumine for all peoples the pathway that leads toward the new Jerusalem, the heavenly city, whose light is the glory of God and whose lamp is the Lamb, slain and risen.

"May I not forget you, O Jerusalem!"

The Church in St. Maximus' Mystagogy
George Dion Dragas:

• The Church as the Eikon of God the Creator
• The Church as the Eikon of the World
• The Church as the Eikon of the Sensible World
• The Church as the Eikon of Man
• The Church as the Eikon of the Soul

The Bible as the Eikon of Man and the Church
The World, Man, and the Church