The Good in Suffering Far Outweighs the Bad By Keith Kettenring he night before my daughter left for college, a drunk driver rammed his truck into the wall of my church office destroying furniture, books, and other treasures. After Jenna and Rhonda drove away the next morning, I went to my bedroom and bawled like […]

By Thom Crowe Full Disclosure I’ve wanted to write a listicle about the Orthodox Church, my home within Christianity, for quite some time. But, as often happens, I got distracted and never finished it, until today. So what changed? I saw an article shared by my friend Heather about the 11 things someone loves about […]

An Orthodox Christian conscience is created by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ acting within us. It is difficult to form this conscience. But once a Christian acquires it, an alarm is sounded in his heart and mind whenever he comes close to improper actions, lack of charity toward others, false ideas, and deviations […]

Archpriest Andrei Lorgus explains the mechanism of how people acquire the habit of judging others. As a psychologist, he traces the development of children comparing themselves with their classmates to their complete separation from people who were close to them. The Lord says: “Judge not, lest ye be judged!” We all remember very well, of […]

Our Lord said, “The eye is the lamp of the body,” teaching that if your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be filled with darkness. He further emphasized how great that darkness will be. The first thing to understand is […]

An excerpt: I first saw Archimandrite John (Krestiankin) in 1982 when I visited Pechory Monastery. At the time he did not make a great impression on me: the benevolent old man in rather good physical condition (he was already seventy-two years old) was always running here and there, a bit fussed, even . . . […]

By Rod Dreher That’s my son Lucas, 11, spending an hour in church this morning reading the Psalms aloud. As I’ve mentioned, the Orthodox tradition is to read the Psalms straight through in an all-night vigil starting with the first service of Holy Saturday (which takes place on Good Friday night), until the Paschal liturgy […]

Where and when does the miracle occur? The ceremony, which awes the souls of Christians, takes place in the Church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem. The Holy Fire is the most renowned miracle in the world of Eastern Orthodoxy. It has taken place at the same time, in the same manner, in the same place […]

  Judith Alsop It was a beautiful Sunday morning in southern California, both inside and outside of St. Barnabas Christian Orthodox church. Sunday morning Divine Liturgy never fails to enrich my soul in some way, but, on this one particular Sunday, blessings flowed through several children in my line of sight, all the way through […]