By David Bentley Hart, October 2003 I wish, that is, to make a point not conspicuously different from Alasdair MacIntyre’s in the first chapter of his After Virtue: in the wake of a morality of the Good, ethics has become a kind of incoherent bricolage. As far as I can tell, homo nihilisticus may often be in several notable respects a far more amiable rogue than homo religiosus, exhibiting a far smaller propensity for breaking
Capable Flesh The tender flesh itself will be found one day —quite surprisingly— to be capable of receiving, and yes, full capable of embracing the searing energies of God. Go figure. Fear not. For even at its beginning the humble clay received God’s art, whereby one part became the eye, another the ear, and yet another this impetuous hand. Therefore, the flesh is not to be excluded from the wisdom and the power that now
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, August 26, 2015 And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. (Joh 3:19) I have a vivid memory within my childhood of a serious sin. I was probably around seven or eight and an object had captured both my eye and my young heart: a baseball glove. Its cost was probably less than ten
SSCORRE! Saint Sophia Cathedral Online Resources for our Religious Edification Topic of the Week – What Christians Are in This World “True Christians live in this world as travelers, pilgrims, and sojourners, and they look ever toward their heavenly homeland with faith and with the eyes of the soul, and they strive to reach it….” (From Journey to Heaven: Counsels of the Particular Duties of Every Christian, Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk) Adult/Family: “… We were created for the eternal by our Creator,
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, August 24, 2015 It is a commonplace that you “cannot put God in a box.” It is an affirmation of the transcendence of God and of the limits of human understanding. It is also a common rhetorical ploy to shut down a theological discussion. But, let’s think a little more about the box. I am deeply averse to statements that begin: “God cannot.” They are often little more than bad theological
By David Bentley Hart, October 2003 The only cult that can truly thrive in the aftermath of Christianity is a sordid service of the self, of the impulses of the will, of the nothingness that is all that the withdrawal of Christianity leaves behind. The only futures open to post-Christian culture are conscious nihilism, with its inevitable devotion to death, or the narcotic banality of the Last Men, which may be little better than death.
The Miracle of Saint Euphemia the All-Praised: The holy Great Martyr Euphemia (September 16) suffered martyrdom in the city of Chalcedon in the year 304, during the time of the persecution against Christians by the emperor Diocletian (284-305). One and a half centuries later, at a time when the Christian Church had become victorious within the Roman Empire, God deigned that Euphemia the All-Praised should again be a witness and confessor of the purity of
Nikitas was born in the land of the Goths and was a disciple of their God-bearing bishop, Theofilos, who took part in the 1st Ecumenical Synod in Nicaea in 325. When the leader of the Goths, Athanaric, began to persecute and torture Christians, Nikitas opposed him with boldness and denounced him as an inhumane idolater. He was immediately arrested and tortured cruelly. He not only withstood this, but confessed his faith in Christ with even greater
The Elevation of the Cross, celebrated on the fourteenth of September, commemorates the finding of Christ’s Cross by Saint Helen, the mother of the Emperor Constantine in the fourth century; and, after it was taken by the Persians, of its recovery by the Emperor Heraclius in the seventh century at which time it was “elevated” in the Church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem. From this latter event the “universal elevation” of the Cross was celebrated
When someone says 9-11 almost everyone in America will know that it refers to September 11, 2001, the day of the infamous attacks on the United States by 19 hijackers who flew two airline passenger jets into the World Trade Center in New York, one into the Pentagon near Washington DC, and one that crashed into a field near Shanksville Pennsylvania while it was undoubtedly bound for the Capitol or White House. 9-11 became a
© 2020 Saint Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral
