“The Norman Yoke”

I recently discovered the excellent BBC4 radio programme, “In Our Time” with Melvin Bragg. The April 10th episode, “The Norman Yoke”, was particularly interesting to me, since I’ve always been a bit skeptical of some Orthodox accounts of the religious significance of the “Norman Invasion” of 1066: that this event marks some sort of transition [...]

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The Young Fogey on Orthodoxy

If you haven’t already, please check out the Young Fogey’s recently updated introductory pages on Eastern Orthodox Christianity:

Introduction: About Eastern Orthodoxy
The Orthodox Tradition: Saving Medicine for the Whole Church
Explaining Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism to each other

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Saving Ecumenism From Itself

By Avery Cardinal Dulles, SJ
Copyright (c) 2007 First Things (December 2007).

The Oberlin conference on The Nature of the Unity We Seek, which met fifty years ago, in September 1957, marked an important stage in the ecumenical movement. For the first time, the churches in North America in large numbers committed themselves to the quest for [...]

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Eastern Iconology 101 for Western Christians

I just happened upon this interesting old post from the blog Disputations.

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Bishop Hilarion: Orthodox and Catholic Churches are allies

Sofia, Bulgaria, Apr 24, 2008 / 02:02 am (CNA) - Bishop Hilarion, the Russian Orthodox Bishop of Vienna and Austria, has said in an interview that the Orthodox and Catholic Churches are allies who could form a strategic alliance to defend Christian values, Interfax reports. He also criticized many Protestants for having a [...]

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Great and Holy Week

Posting will be sparse to non-existent. A blessed Holy Week and Pascha to Orthodox readers, and a blessed remainder of Eastertide to Western Christian readers.

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Bishop Hilarion’s clarification

In response to the earlier post “Bishop Hilarion: God’s Mercy is immeasurable”, His Grace, Hilarion (Alfeyev), Russian Orthodox Bishop of Vienna, posted the following clarification in the combox:
Friends, I came across your blog by accident. Thank you for your interest in what I said in Rome. However, I must state that what some of you [...]

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Spe salvi facti sumus?

How many Roman Catholics (and Western Christians in general) honestly recognize in these comments their own Faith in the Risen Lord Jesus, their hope in the Resurrection of the body, and their personal experience of Easter/Pascha, the Queen of Feasts? Please be as honest and as charitable as possible in your answer.
(Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholics, please sit [...]

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Cabasilas: Bridge between East and West?

Here’s a fascinating scholarly article on the XIV century Byzantine theologian Nicholas Cabasilas (author of The Life in Christ and a Commentary on the Divine Liturgy) as a synthesizer of Greek and Latin theological traditions.
Many scholars have noticed Cabasilas’ dependence not only on the Greek patristic tradition and Gregory Palamas in particular but also on Latin [...]

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Archbishop Elias Zoghby’s Vision of Christian Unity

By Father James K. Graham
From Sophia (Journal of the Melkite Catholic Eparchy of Newton), Winter 2008 (pp. 26-28).
[Emphasis added]
The works of the recently-reposed Archbishop Elias Zoghby, former Patriarchal Vicar in Egupt and Sudan, and retired Metropolitan of Baalbek, especially the essays collected in A Voice from the Byzantine East and Tous Schismatiques?, provide a vision [...]

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