When one claims to represent the Eastern Orthodox tradition, this implies that one is following a specific set of hermeneutical presuppositions of the common tradition. All Christian traditions share the same basic sources in the first millennium, so the definition of a theology as “Orthodox” is necessarily related to a specific point of view, to concrete presuppositions, when approaching this common tradition. One such widely recognized special feature of Orthodox theology is its frequent strong emphasis on the patristic heritage (up until the fifteenth century), which somehow marks its distinctive character as the formative factor of its identity.

How should Christians respond to situations of poverty and social injustice? Proponents of Latin American liberation theology and teachers of Eastern Orthodoxy typically frame their answers in very different ways.

Some years ago I was teaching a continuing education course at Providence College on the history of Christian responses to poverty. A fresh-hatched PhD, I could reflect at length on the early Church and a small collection of Cappadocian sermons. But when it came to subject matter after, say, the sixth century, I was at best a running half-step ahead of my students.

I come to you from the far north of Europe, from the shores of the Baltic that were until very recently “beyond the iron curtain,” in order to share some ideas with you on the theme: “The Orthodox Church facing up to its own challenges” in today’s world.

When Orthodox scholars get together, we rarely talk directly about the future. But occasionally the pressing needs of our time demand such a conversation. The near future is an exciting time for Orthodoxy: His All-Holiness the Ecumenical Patriarch has called a representative council of bishops to convene in Istanbul next spring, and many hope that this meeting will mark the beginning of a unified effort to address the manifold issues facing the Church in (post-)modernity. But the deliberations of a recent gathering of Orthodox scholars in New York, which discussed the Council’s agenda, suggest that this hope might remain unfulfilled.

Xenia Loutchenko interviewed by Christopher Stroop

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 for eternity. The only unquestionable thing is that the Gates of Hell will not overcome the eternal life of the Church. In the days of the Second Coming and the Last Judgment, it will be the same Church that was founded on the feast of Pentecost. Unfortunately, this fundamental hope of the Orthodox Christian does not eradicate all the difficulties and doubts related to the historical existence of our Church.

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. It is possible to read all the thick tomes interpreting every word, every comma of those who are considered the creators of those ideologies, teachers, and prophets of “the new world.”

There is an unshakable and almost unanimous opinion among contemporary Russian church architects that the development of Russian church architecture came to an end in 1917, after reaching its peak during the art nouveau era. It is a common belief that this development had stopped, firmly and “providentially,” and therefore that any further innovations should be discarded as suspicious. The “bright future” of church architecture was in its past. In fact, this retrospective utopianism indicates indifference and a lack of creativity.

I was born and have lived my entire life in Moscow. I have worked in publishing, including in the publishing house of the Russian Orthodox Church, and as a web developer.
It was four years ago, on a visit to (then-Ukrainian) Crimea, that I became seriously interested in photography. After reviewing my first collection—over 1,000 photos—I destroyed it without hesitation. Now I take street photos, character shots, portraits, and still lives.

Few theological reflections penned by Orthodox authors begin with a foreword contributed by His All Holiness, Bartholomew, Archbishop of Constantinople–New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch. The present book not only begins with such a foreword, but the reader is at once advised by His All Holiness: “It is with joy that we welcome and recommend For the Unity of All, by the Reverend Dr. John Panteleimon Manoussakis”. Such a glowing commendation for this little book (102 pages) allows the reader to immediately appreciate the old expression that big things often come in small packages.

Contemporary global Orthodoxy is in the process of confronting unprecedented challenges. The most formidable issues facing Church leaders are the relations between Church and state, the structures of the Church, the tension between conciliarity and authority, and seismic shifts in culture, to name a few. The autocephalous Orthodox Churches address these challenges in various ways, as pastors and theologians appeal to notions of consensus among the Fathers in the past as models.