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I figured it out. I've connected all the dots. 1. Around the 2nd Temple Period, the Apocryphal "Testament of Solomon" is circulated among Jewish and Jewish-Christian communities (probably Christian, because it identifies Christ as the Messiah) The "Testament of Solomon" tells the tale of how...

Consumerism, escapist outlets, and the promotion of hedonism by Capitalism have led to a complete collapse of religiosity and even basic social structures that we consider "human." We live in a society that increasingly supports an idea of individualism that is beyond just ideas such as the...

I don't know, but occasionally I can't help but think that human nature is inherently evil, and we live an existence that awards pagan conceptions of "good" and "evil." That is, to be good is to be pretty, romantic, rich, popular, sociable, strong, powerful, dominant. To be evil is to be weak...

My grandmother, who has Alzheimer's and who is in the hospital due to a recent injury (obviously, the worst possible time), needs prayers. Nobody can see her or visit her aside from phone calls. She's been deteriorating for a while, but it seems she is reaching the end of the line. My deceased...

It's a philosophical question, and it's hard to get across exactly what I mean by this, so I apologize if in my examples things become somewhat offensive, but it's something I sincerely struggle with. The fundamental Christian belief is that God loved the world so much that he gave his...

Archbishop Elpidophoros of America: OK for Non-Orthodox Christian Spouses to Receive Communion - The Pappas Post "Archbishop Elpidophoros of America, head of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, declared in a public forum that Christians who have been married in the Orthodox Church but...

Has anyone ever felt at angry at God due to the bureaucracy of Orthodoxy? I have been an inquirer into Orthodoxy for more than 2 and a half years, and I am not going to lie, I am spiteful and angry at my prior priest who was in charge at the time. I am still angry and spiteful notsomuch because...

I'm posting this on an Orthodox forum, with the intention of getting Orthodox answers, but anyone can post. Life is pain and suffering. It's a fallen world where we have to work for wages, we work to earn bread from laboring in dust. This world is filled with so many evils and so much tragedy...

"Silence" is a film by Martin Scorsese, and follows the lives of two Jesuit missionaries in Japan who are spreading Catholicism. The Japanese government begins persecuting the Catholics who are there, torturing them and wanting them to denounce Christ. The Catholics hold steadfast knowing that...

So, Christ says that the two greatest commandments are you shall Love the Lord with all your soul, all your might, all your heart, and the second is loving your neighbor as yourself. He also says that we should build our house on a Rock, and not on sand. To me, these two well known verses...

I need to confess something out in the open, something that has been bubbling within me for a while, and I need to just open up and be perfectly honest - I wonder how in the hell can God be Love, and how God can be anything else but a monster. So okay, God has allowed all these various...

Head of Phanar in Athos persuades monks to unite with Catholics

So, because our corporate overlords have suggested to us "Dr. Sleep," my interest is drawn back to one of my favorite movies - Stanley Kubrick's the Shining. Loosely based on the book (and I say loosely; Steven King absolutely hated the film as he felt it was nothing like his book), the Shining...

Due to how wonderful America's jurisdictional situation can be in the Eastern Orthodox Church, there exists three different jurisdictions in which Russian Orthodox Churches can exist under - ROCOR, OCA, and Moscow Patriarchal Parishes. As far as I can tell, ROCOR is under the direct ownership of...

So, historically, Orthodox governments have many a time tried to censor ideas, beliefs, and the persecution of people who hold onto these beliefs, which were at odds with the Orthodox Church. What comes to mind is the persecution of the non-Chalcedonians after Chalcedon in the Byzantine Empire...

I've rather stayed quiet on this, simply because I don't really like going into what's going on in my life on a web-forum, but I've moved into my new apartment (my primary source of debt, HOORAY FOR MORE DEBT!) and will attend orientation in a few days as the Semesters around the country begin...

I’ve kind of come to the conclusion of this political opinion, and I was wondering if anybody here could challenge this opinion, or if anybody would want to suggest a solution to these problems, especially in light of the growth of globalization. For one, while Marx was wrong on many things, I...

In 1986, Pope John Paul II organized the first world day of prayer, in which representatives from all the major religions of the world came together to all say a prayer for the purposes of peace. While many conservative and traditional Catholics at this time were perhaps scandalized at the...

There has been many points in the history of Roman Catholicism where individuals who were not of that faith were forced to convert or face death. The most notorious case that I know of affected the Serbian Orthodox during the reign of the Croatian Ustashe, the regime of Croatia that was an...

The Orthodox Church has historically issued anathemas from Bishops; and for those who don’t know, “anathema” means “cursed,” and has likely origins from Saint Paul when he said “if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach a gospel different than what we have preached to you, let him be...