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Holy Communion is not a right, something one receives on demand. If circumstances intervene and you cannot receive for whatever reason, it's not the end of the world. You keep living your faith and you try again.

If one is praying the prayer, if one is doing what one can to give that little bit to God, one obviously wants to be saved. But, of course, one also falls into sins. One's desire for God is inconstant. So, we pray that God save us despite our inconstant desire for Him, because though be be...

Let's not go from being preachy about politics to being preachy about Lent. How about this thread--18 pages of useless idle talk? :)

To say, "We recognize your baptism," what does this mean? To me, it's meaningless. It's some modern concept to make people feel better about themselves.

It's one night out of the year for the biggest feast ever.

"Nephilim" does not, theologically, fit for people who, frankly, are not nephilim. It is important not to try and fit things to our own way of thinking, but to conform our way of thinking to the thought and mind of the Church.

The Nephilim were still descendants of Adam, even if they were children of a weird demon-human union. As for it continuing to happen, I don't think that necessarily follows given that several things have changed since then--foremost being the Incarnation of Christ, but also the cataclysm of...

It just shows that there is a diversity of opinion.

Apparently, Khrushchev wanted to get power after Stalin, but he needed the support of the Ukrainian Soviet deputies. But he needed them to keep silent over his role in the artificial famine, so he signed over Crimea to Ukraine.

That is not at all accurate.

What does the OCA have to do with Ukraine?

The so-called Kiev Patriarchate is a schismatic body. The only canonical Orthodox church in Ukraine is the autonomous church under the Moscow Patriarchate. All the Orthodox world recognizes this, and the situation isn't going to change due to worldly politics.

Real fasting is not, I don't think--for most people, at least--about denying ourselves the bit of food and water we happen to need, but about denying ourselves the unnecessary food and water (and whatever else) that we may want, but is not essential. Eating due to need (and with some healthy...

With regard to Orthodox Facebook groups, I found more Orthodoxy in "Ask an Orthodox Hipster" than I did in "Ask an Orthodox Priest."

I think before worrying over it that you should join the group and read what is there and then weigh whether what is said there is Orthodox or not. To me "progressive" doesn't say anything.

The books that made it into the canon of Scripture were those that were, by and large, used and recognized universally as Scripture. There were other books which were treated as Scripture in certain localities, but not in others. For this reason, those were left out, even though there was not a...

God save you!

The saints are our friends and God's friends. They're also family. It's quite natural to love them and communicate with them. It's all well and good asking God oneself, but just as we pray together in church, so we seek the prayers of the saints to be joined to ours.

I think the stoning of the sinful woman in John 8, rather than a simple exercise of Mosaic law, was more telling of what disorder the society was in. It doesn't appear that stonings for adultery were, even in Moses' time, normative. And certainly after the Israelites settled down in the Promised...

The usual process for adult converts to Orthodoxy: Some period of inquiry where one both goes to services and reads about Orthodoxy A catechumenate, where one enters deeper, takes classes/has discussions with priest and/or catechist. (In the first centuries, catechumens were given instruction...