When this seminal essay was published in 1926, it ignited discussion about freedom of conscience in Orthodox life. It remains a key point of reference for nearly all Orthodox thinkers wrestling with this issue. The essay was originally written in the context of a sharp disagreement in the émigré Russian Church that led on the[…..]
Section: From The Archives
Cantor Maximus
One does not listen to Bach. One participates in the music, one sings it (if only silently), one lets it sing within oneself. Because his music is inseparable from prayer, it is a music that prays and causes one to pray.
Everyone, Let Us Prepare the Council Together (Part 2)
IV. Towards an Efficacious Council on Specific Points The council should devote itself to resolving two major problems, the solutions of which cannot be delayed: one internal to Orthodoxy, that of the Diaspora; the other concerning the relations between Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian Orthodox.
Talks on The Beatitudes
Father Alexander Schmemann’s Radio Liberty talks represent a unique body of contemporary catechetical work. He gave these weekly homilies almost every Sunday from March of 1953 until his death in 1983. From the United States he was addressing listeners on the other side of the world, in a country governed by militant atheism.
Talks on the Beatitudes: Blessed Are the Meek and Blessed Are Those Who Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness
The Beatitudes, as we have already discussed in previous talks, constitute the very core of Christ’s teaching about man and his life, and therefore the core of Christian morality. To understand them means to enter into the inner world of Christian faith, and that is precisely what the official anti-religious propaganda refuses to do, consciously[…..]
Present and Future of the Church
No matter what kinds of hardships and torments the Church endures throughout her history, for Orthodox Christians the fundamental promise of the Church stays unchanged—the Gates of Hell will not overcome her. We can question the survival of our homeland, we can even believe that no country, no society, no way of life is marked[…..]
Talks on the Beatitudes: Blessed Are the Merciful; Blessed Are the Pure in Heart
We live in the era of ideologies which in their attempt to be all-encompassing exist in continuous strife, and this strife fills the world with fear and hatred. We live in the world from which mercy and charity are exiled, and that is perhaps the most frightening thing about it, the sign of its dehumanization.[…..]
Talks on the Beatitudes: “Blessed Are the Peacemakers”; “Blessed Are Those Who Are Persecuted for Righteousness’ Sake”
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (Matt. 5:9)—thus says the seventh Beatitude. What does it express, what does it point to in the teaching about being human that is given to us in the Sermon on the Mount? First of all—what is peacemaking?
Faith and Responsibility
Translated by Fr. Alvian Smirensky This essay, written in 1954, was inspired by the controversy surrounding the death in 1953 in New York of Russian socialist and revolutionary Vladimir Mikhailovich Zenzinov. Zenzinov had been involved in the Revolution of 1905 and was later an official in Alexander Kerensky’s provisional government, but opposed the October 1917[…..]
The Eucharist of Boris Pasternak
Pasternak died—and in spite of all the clamor of modernity, in spite of all the news about global events, the world became quiet and empty for a moment. This din drowned his voice, he took no part in these events. But, as he said in one of his poems, “a miracle is a miracle.” And[…..]
Mother Maria Skobtsova (1891-1945)
Avant-garde poet in the sophisticated intellectual milieu of Saint Petersburg, member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party in Russia, twice married and divorced, mother of three children, later a devoted nun of the Russian Church in exile, and finally a member of the resistance in occupied France who was deported to the Ravensbrück concentration camp, where[…..]
The Truth of Orthodoxy
The Christian world does not know Orthodoxy well. It knows only the external and, for the most part, negative features of the Orthodox Church, while her inner spiritual treasures remain unknown. For a long time Orthodoxy was locked inside itself; it did not have a spirit of evangelism and did not reveal itself to the[…..]
Interview with Olivier Clément: Orthodoxy and the Mystery of the Person
There is only one life. But since we are not separated from anyone, we can have a privileged connection with one or another deceased human person with whom we are “one.” We can “remember” what happened to that person.
Everyone, Let Us Prepare the Council Together
In the Orthodox Church, the unifying dynamism sparked by Athenagoras I reached its peak at the Chambésy conference in June 1968. Since then, we have witnessed the ebb of this dynamism and the reappearance—indeed, the aggravation—of fault lines which he had temporarily covered or sought to heal.