Bishop Tikhon (Zaitsev)
The largest and latest pilgrimage by Russian Christians to the holy sites of ancient Byzantium on the territory of modern Turkey has recently come to a close. A group of sixty pilgrims and clergymen from the Russian Orthodox Church visited the places so dear to the Orthodox heart, from Constantinople to Ephesus, travelling to the regions of Bithynia, Pontus, Lycia, Pamphylia, Cilicia, Cappadocia, Galatia, and Pisidia, sanctifying their path with united prayer, and Divine Services in half-ruined churches.
Not one country, not one civilization, not one religious group, not one Church has experienced what we have experienced—a grandiose renaissance of Orthodoxy.
Rating: 5.8|Votes: 12
The Iconoclasts, by repudiating all representations of God, failed to take full account of the Incarnation. They fell, as so many puritans have done, into a kind of dualism. Regarding matter as a defilement, they wanted a religion freed from all contact with what is material; for they thought that what is spiritual must be non-material. But this is to betray the Incarnation, by allowing no place to Christ’s humanity, to His body; it is to forget that man’s body as well as his soul must be saved and transfigured.
Nun Nectaria (McLees), Igumen Phillip (Ryabykh)
Today many people reply, “No way, the only permissible system is liberal democracy, which includes every possible view.” But this approach is both right and wrong. I think all Christians agree that people should be equally protected as to their rights and their dignity as human beings, and that there should not be any force or violence. In their community and personal life, people should have the opportunity to follow their chosen religion. But there is still a problem in this approach—the tendency to relativize religion, to say, “Everyone’s way is right, it doesn’t matter what religion they are.” This grows into a sort of indifference, a belief that religious values themselves are only relative.
Rating: 7.8|Votes: 4
We know that the conversion of the Emperor Constantine was effected by his long experience of watching how the Christians of his time maintained a high level of morality and conduct. The Roman Empire at that time was in crisis, and many contemporary writers spoke of the degradation of morals–not just bad behavior, but extremely serious corruption in society and in the state bureaucracy. Constantine put Christians into key posts, because he knew their virtue.
