Tweaking the texts

…if a textbook of dogmatic theology contains views different from those found in liturgical texts, it is the textbook, not the liturgical texts, that need correction. Bishop Hilarion (Alfeyev)

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In the beginning was the Word

Listen, you deaf men who say that the Son is the work and creation of God the Father: understand what name the Evangelist has given to the Son of God. He called Him Word. But you name Him work and creation. He is Word, not work or creation. Blessed Theophylact Technorati: Blessed Theophylact Word theology [...]

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Speaking of state capitals

…the concept of Providence, i.e. of the perennial concern of the Creator with the destiny of His Creation, was actually reduced to something utterly sentimental and subjective. Fr. Georges Florovsky

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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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Followup: The Ark of salvation

…the Catholic Filioque, that naïve product of excessive piety and half-baked theology Fr. Pavel Florensky

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The Ark of salvation

Considering all the hubbub concerning the Pope and the recent “revelation” of the Papal claims I thought it opportune to present the recent (that is, in the Orthodox time frame) encyclicals (1848 and 1895) of the patriarch of Constantinople. May this be education to those outside of the Orthodox Church of her timeless beliefs and [...]

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Outward resemblances

All that can be said in regard to the platonism of the Fathers, and especially in regard to the dependence of the author of the Areopagitica on the neo-platonist philosophers, is limited to outward resemblances which do not go to the root of their teaching, and relate only to a vocabulary which was common to [...]

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Theology

…means the word of God. Theology is therefore all or nothing. The whole of nature and of super-nature and subternature is all theology…If the whole of nature is not theology, then theology is nothing or nature is nothing. If the whole of nature does not speak about God, who will believe Isaiah or St. Paul…If [...]

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In the name of man

The first truth of Orthodoxy is that man does not exist for the sake of man, but for the sake of God or, more fully, for the sake of the God-man. Therefore, we stay with the God-man in the name of man. In Him alone is an understanding of man’s being possible; in Him alone [...]

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The simple monks

But monks in the monastery are practical people; they condensed the whole theology into the practice of prayer.Fr. Roman Braga

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"Validity" of inspired texts

What is important is the Church’s judgment on the contents of the work and the use which she has made of it. Does not the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews say in quoting a psalm of David: ‘But one in a certain place testified…’? thus showing to what extent the question of authorship [...]

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Putting the mind to the Cross

The dogma of the Trinity is a cross for human ways of thought. The apophatic ascent is a mounting of calvary. This is the reason why no philosophical speculation has ever succeeded in rising to the mystery of the Holy Trinity. This is the reason why the human spirit was able to receive the full [...]

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The existence of God…

… God does not belong to the class of existing things: not that He has no existence, but that He is above all existing things, nay even above existence itself. For if all forms of knowledge have to do with what exists, assuredly that which is above knowledge must certainly be also above essence (υπερ [...]

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