For us blog warriors

To a disciple who had quarreled with those around him, [Elder Nicodemus] said: “It is not good or Christian to lose time in discussions that lead to argument and disunity. He who is victorious in discussions is he who in the beginning seems to be conquered but to the end remains peacefully and lovingly disposed [...]

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When theology becomes ideology

… [T]he reading of history that you have taken on from Joseph Farrell, that I think constitutes an ideology, in fact resembles, theoretically and rhetorically, the ideology of those who gave fuel to the Bosnian war. It presents a discourse wherein the West is conceived to have fallen from divine grace, and the chief villain [...]

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Polemicism and Truth

“Someone who has actually tasted truth is not contentious for truth. Someone who is considered by people to be zealous for truth has not yet learnt what truth is really like; once he has truly learnt it, he will cease from zealousness on its behalf.” – Saint Isaac the Syrian
[Kephalaia IV.77; The Wisdom of Saint Isaac the Syrian, [...]

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More on Church Unity and Legitimate Variance

From Wei-Hsein Wan of Torn Notebook, chock full of brilliant quotes from great lights of the Church, both Eastern and Western, ancient and contemporary:
Church Unity and Legitimate Variance, Part II: Two Other Voices
For as, in the case of one and the same quantity of water, there is separated from it, not only the residue which is [...]

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Saint Basil on Unity and Legitimate Variance

Our friend Wei-Hsein Wan of Torn Notebook (formerly Bumi Dipijak) has posted a quote from Saint Basil the Great, with commentary, illustrating a certain broadness of mind about doctrinal matters, a legitimate variance and pluralism in theological expression, within a common dogmatic framework (the Nicene Creed, sans Filioque, quoted as such in Dominus Iesus 1):
At [...]

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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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What is Orthodox Theology?

“What almost always passes for ‘Orthodox theology’ among English-speaking Orthodox these days is actually just a branch of the larger Orthodox picture. Indeed, it tends sometimes to be rather sectarian.
The Orthodox Church is an ancient castle, as it were, of which only two or three rooms have been much in use since about 1920. These [...]

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“Humble and faithful witness to the undivided Church”

I do not deny that there are differences between the Churches, but I say that we must change our way of approaching them.  And the question of method is in the first place a psychological, or rather a spiritual problem.  For centuries there have been conversations between theologians, and they have done nothing except to harden their [...]

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Of Franks, Judeo-Masons, Nazi flying saucers, and the Giza Death Star

I don’t quite know what to say about this.  Just file it in the “Things that make you go hmmm” file, I suppose … but be sure to read the ensuing combox discussion.

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“Orthodoxy and Papism”

Once again, apologies for the lack of activity here. Lately I am finding it very hard to focus on blogging.
There’s a very interesting combox discussion going on over at The Continuum, an Anglo-Catholic blog. It’s in response to this essay, “Basic Points of Difference between the Orthodox Church and Papism”, by Metropolitan Hierotheos (Vlachos), Metropolitan [...]

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