Back to square one? The Egyptian revolution of 25th of January 2011 completes its first year with a host of events and decisions that are rewriting the history of this 7000 year old country. Realistically, Egyptians are meeting this first anniversary with an unequivocal sense of frustration that will turn the 25th of January 2012 into a “second wave” of the revolution rather than a celebratory... 

We, with the whole of creation, are fallen. Along with the writers of the Old Testament, we can take that for granted. Scandal, corruption, violence, betrayal – that whole list – should not surprise us – not in ourselves, in others or in our surroundings. Our surprise and joy are found as we discover the Gospel faith that God meets us where we are, builds bridges over the walls we have constructed... 

Several days ago, my wife and I were having a “disagreement” on the subject of Christmas trees. I won’t bore you with the details, except to say that after several minutes of bickering, we came to realize that the source of our enmity lay in our differing understandings of what the phrase “Christmas tree” actually meant. By this I do not mean that we were fighting about the dictionary definition... 

The House of Tolerance Dr. Andrei Desnitsky“Europe needs to become our common brothel (lit. “house of tolerance”).” Thus was a statement of one of the leaders of the European Union translated into Russian. Of course, the original spoke of tolerance. One may, however, see something greater in this slip than simply a translator’s gaffe. It goes without saying that true tolerance of... 

In December 2010 an interview with Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev) conducted by Ivan Semenov on the subject of St. Nicholas was broadcast on the program “Church and World” on the “Russia 24” station. We offer below a translation of the transcript of the program. Metropolitan Hilarion: On December 19 the memory of one of the most venerated saints, St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, Archbishop of... 

Walk into any Christian bookstore in America and you will discover whole shelves of books about money: how to make money based on biblical principles, how to give money, how to save money, and how to invest money for the future. All these books are answering questions about money from a biblical viewpoint, but are these answers to the right questions? Are they even asking the right questions? If we... 

[Ancient Faith Radio; October 30, 2008] Why C. S. Lewis is So Irritating! Part 1 We’re back with another episode of “Why CS Lewis is So Irritating!”. And the reason that CS Lewis is so irritating, if you’re a writer, is that he already said everything. He could have left some stuff for me to come up with, but no, it’s all right there, and it’s beautiful, it’s elegant, it’s concise,... 

[Ancient Faith Radio, October 23, 2008] Frederica Mathewes-GreenToday’s podcast is going to be one that I expect will be a continuing topic here, “Why CS Lewis is just so irritating.” Why CS Lewis *is* just so irritating is because, he already said everything. And he said it better than I’ll ever say it. I find when I read him that I’m simultaneously just delighted and thrilled because he’s... 

Contemporary homosexual culture? How can we talk of such a thing? What do we mean? It is to these questions that we must turn at the beginning and then consider where the challenge to the Orthodox Church lies. I am sufficiently old – the ‘wrong’ side of 60, to be able to remember quite well a time when, in Britain, men who committed homosexual acts were deemed to be criminals and were sent to... 

Imagine you’re in an elevator and begin a conversation with a stranger. Somehow, you get on the topic of faith and religion, and you say you’re an Orthodox Christian. Like too many Americans, the stranger standing next to you has a perplexed look on his face, and asks, “What is the Orthodox Church? Are you Jewish? Are you even Christian? What type of Christianity are you?” Unfortunately, we...