‘The Filioque: A very basic introduction’

Dr Peter Gilbert, of De unione ecclesiarum (one of a few blogs by an Orthodox Christian I can bear to read) has just posted the text of a lecture he recently gave to the Youngstown, Ohio chapter of the Society of St John Chrysostom. Please leave any comments you have at Dr Gilbert’s blog.
I will [...]

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‘Orthodox Constructions of the West’

(Thanks to our good friend Evagrius for news of an upcoming academic conference organized by the Orthodox Christian Studies Program at Fordham University. Registration for the Conference will begin in February.)

Orthodox Constructions of the West
(The Solon and Marianna Patterson Triennial Conference for the Theological and Historical Examination of the Orthodox/Catholic Dialogue)
June 28-30, 2010
Concept [...]

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On Michael Cerularius

I am proud to feature this interesting article by Catholic friend of the blog and frequent commenter, Michaël de Verteuil –
Of the two Patriarchs of Constantinople most closely associated with the East-West schism, Michael Cerularius (Keroularios) is clearly the lesser figure in Orthodoxy. Unlike Photius, Michael was not a great scholar and was not declared [...]

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‘Not an Anthologist: John Bekkos as a Reader of the Fathers’

From my favorite Orthodox blog, Prof. Peter Gilbert’s De Unione Ecclesiarum –
I finally have some good news to report. Today I received an e-mail from the Managing Editor of the journal Communio, informing me that the Summer 2009 issue is now, at last, in print, and that they have decided to feature my article on [...]

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‘Schism and Communion’

By David J. Melling (1943-2004)
(Many thanks to De Unione Ecclesiarum for the text of this article.)
Early in his ministry as a Non-Juror Anglican priest, the saintly William Law published a sequence of “Letters to a Lady inclined to enter the Church of Rome.” (1732-3) His advice to the Lady was that she, like other laymembers [...]

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Will the “Third Rome” Reunite with the “First Rome”?

Recent Meeting Could Mark Turning Point
By Robert Moynihan
WASHINGTON, D.C., SEPT. 21, 2009 (Zenit.org)- Sometimes there are no fireworks. Turning points can pass in silence, almost unobserved.
It may be that way with the “Great Schism,” the most serious division in the history of the Church. The end of the schism may come more quickly and more [...]

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The Pope on Symeon the New Theologian

September 16, 2009
Dear brothers and sisters,
Today we pause to reflect on the figure of the Eastern monk Symeon the New Theologian, whose writings exercised a noteworthy influence on the theology and spirituality of the East, in particular, regarding the experience of mystical union with God.
Symeon the New Theologian was born in 949 in Galatia, in [...]

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Benedictine Hagiorites

The Benedictine Monastery of St Mary on Mount Athos
Dom Leo Bonsall
Eastern Churches Review 2:3 (1969), pp. 262-7 (footnotes omitted)
BENEDICTINE contacts with the Church of the East have been many and varied, but the foundation of the abbey of St Mary on Mount Athos and its continuing existence during a period when official relations between Rome [...]

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Fr Alvin Kimel on the “Twelve Differences”

Orrologion has posted the original text of the “Twelve Differences between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches” by Teófilo de Jesús along with excellent responses to each of the twelve points from Fr Alvin Kimel, of Pontifications* fame, who in his extended period of discernment after leaving the Episcopal Church studied the claims of both Roman [...]

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“Pop Byzantium” and “Teh West”

A friend forwarded me a couple of gems from a recently published text which purports to be “an Orthodox catechism for our times” and “a book with the big answers to the big questions every person asks themselves about faith, science and doubt” –
Western Christianity, in all its expressions (whether Catholic, Protestant or so-called Western [...]

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