Of categories

When intellectual and conventional categories replace ontological truth and revelation in Christian theology, then in the historical life of the Church, too, the problem of salvation is obscured by a shadow that torments mankind, that of a “law” which leads nowhere.Christos Yannaras

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On "Ecumenical dialogue"

…the cosmological dimension of the event of salvation and its ontological content is an area of little concern for the ‘ecumenical dialogues’ of our times. Christos Yannaras

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In preparation for Great Lent

Today is celebrated the memory of St. Theodora who after the death of her iconoclast husband restored the veneration of icons in 842. Of course this is where the feast we celebrate in two weeks, the Sunday of Orthodoxy, originates. Today’s commemorations also “happen” to coincide with the Sunday of the last judgment reminding us [...]

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Don’t fret “Byzantium” was egalitarian

Byzantine architecture, with its interpretation of the Church as the Trinitarian mode of existence, marks out a space which is concrete and yet without bounds, a space continually divided up which yet has its center everywhere. The eucharist is accomplished everywhere, in the place where each Christian is present, bearing in himself Christ and the [...]

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The fools for Christ

…seem to reject the Apostle Paul’s admonition to accept any personal deprivation and sacrifice in order to avoid scandalizing the faithful (1 Cor. 8:13). But what kind of scandal is St. Paul talking about? It is something that causes confusion in the realm of truth, and may thus deprive others of the possibility of participating [...]

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Delivered unto us

Holy Scripture, then, is not an objectified ’source’ of Christian truth and revelation, like the ‘theoretical’ texts which outline the impersonal and objective principles of an ideology. Nor are their two sources of objective authority, Scripture and Tradition, as Roman Catholic rationalism would have it. Prior to any written formulation, Christian faith and truth [...]

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So…you call that an ‘icon’ do you?

Even from the thirteenth century—a key point for our understanding of all subsequent religious and cultural developments in the West—we can no longer speak of ecclesial iconography in Europe, but only of religious painting. And this means that is the western Church artistic expression ceases to be a study and a manifestation of the [...]

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