Over the past five or so decades, theology in the West has experienced a shift. In this shift, experience has become one of the main criteria for assessing what counts as true knowledge of God. It is not, however, just any kind of experience but the experience of the marginalized, which has taken on many forms…
Section: The mind of the Church
The Evolution of Mercy: The Epistle to the Hebrews and the Church’s Pastoral Experience
As a priest for over forty years, I have had the privilege of hearing probably several thousand confessions. Having been raised in the Orthodox Church, confession has also been part of my own life from the time I was a child…
A Maximian and Universalist Understanding of Identity
“God loves you and created you for a purpose.” Many of us might see such a phrase as a trite response when someone is suffering from any sort of identity crisis. But perhaps there is a deeper reason why such a saying does not really strike us as meaningful: Deep down, we do not actually[…..]
Orthodox Identity: Insights into Tradition in the Writings of Sergii Bulgakov and Georges Florovsky
How the Church understands itself, and how it manifests itself is inseparably bound to tradition. Tradition is the “way of existence”– the τρόπος ὐπάρξεως—by which the Church identifies itself. Tradition is the rudder that steers the Church through the often turbulent and challenging waters of social and cultural change. Tradition provides the foundation upon which[…..]
One’s Own ‘Homecoming Festival’: The Topos of Eschatology in the Work of Mikhail Bakhtin
The formal focus of Mikhail Bakhtin’s critical work is the realist novel, and this proves an excellent horizon in which to examine the forms of lived existence which comprise tradition…
Origen of Alexandria and Conscience
The Church’s first serious, and arguably greatest, exegete of Scripture who could claim a solid philosophical education was Origen of Alexandria (185–254). His theory of exegesis approached the Scripture more as of a body of oracular literature than as the product of any coherent historical evolution of traditions.
On Syneidēsis and Error in Orthodoxy
The term syneidēsis, “conscience,” appears more than twenty times in the New Testament, mostly in First Corinthians, but also in other Pauline epistles including Romans, Second Corinthians, First and Second Timothy, and Titus. Although Paul brought syneidēsis into the Christian lexicon, Luke also used it in his Acts, as did Peter and the writer of[…..]
Conscience in the Age of Hyperpluralism
American capitalism venerates choice as the sacred vessel of consumerism. The message is that endless acquisition is the path to happiness and, implicitly, that if we could only choose the right object, experience, or partner, we would (at last) be perfectly happy and fulfilled. This reasoning, is seems to me, now extends to what I[…..]
Liberty of Conscience and Conciliarity
The Russian emigration of the 1920s, which followed in the wake of the Russian Revolution, gave rise to numerous Orthodox communities in Western Europe and North America. In an effort to serve the spiritual needs of these communities, the bishops-in-exile at times made decisions that were not followed by all. This inevitably led to divisions.
The Problem of Conscience
Conscience is personal and unique. Prior to my birth, my conscience never existed. It is mine and it is me: who I am, what I think and feel, how I act, what I say and do. At the same time my conscience is part of my consciousness and my consciousness is part of the consciousness[…..]