Free Republic

Do we cooperate in our salvation? Do our efforts make a difference? These questions lie at the heart of a centuries-old religious debate in Christianity. Classically, the Protestant reformers said, “No,” to these questions, arguing that we are saved solely and utterly by God’s grace, His unmerited favor. The Catholic Church replied that “faith without works” is dead and that faith alone is insufficient. This debate, with various twists and turns, has continued down through the centuries of Christian culture. At one point, there were complaints of “cheap grace,” where the exaltation of pure grace over works led to a...

Should at any time we feel ourselves to be alone, or for the secular world to be so overwhelming and powerful as to render spiritual life redundant, we can reflect on the difficulties of our predecessors and be inspired by their cheerfulness and joy in the face of tremendous privations. As mentioned before, the mid 1920’s was a period of ferocious attacks upon the Church by the Bolsheviks, both clergy and laity. Many of the faithful were executed or imprisoned in the Gulag for extended periods on nonsensical charges. The Solovetsky Island concentration camp (Solovki for short), formerly a remote...

cruciThere is a death that leads to death and there is a death that leads to life. In them are hidden the meaning of all things. As we approach Pascha, I continue to marvel at St. John’s description of Christ in Revelation 13, as the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” It is a Death before death. This is the Death by which death will be trampled down. The warning given in Genesis to the man and the woman is clear regarding the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil: “In the day that...

Love the sinner as well! Do not fly away from the sinners, but go to them without fear. After all—whoever you may be—you are not much better than they are. Try to love the sinners; you will see that it is easier to love those whom you despise than those whom you envy. The old Zosim (from the “Brothers Karamazov”) said, “Brothers, don’t be afraid of the sins of a sinner; but love a sinner also—that is the record of love upon earth.” I know you love St. Peter and St. John, but could you love the sinner Zacchæeus? You...

The holy virtues are like Jacob’s ladder, and the unholy vices are like the chains that fell from the chief Apostle Peter. For the virtues, leading from one to another, bear him who chooses them up to Heaven; but the vices by their nature beget and stifle one another. And as we have just heard senseless anger calling remembrance of wrongs its own offspring, it is appropriate that we should now say something about this. Remembrance of wrongs is the consummation of anger, the keeper of sins, hatred of righteousness, ruin of virtues, poison of the soul, worm of the...

That the realities of the Old Testament are figures of those of the New is one of the principles of biblical theology. This science of the similitudes between the two Testaments is called typology. And here we would do well to remind ourselves of its foundation, for this is to be found in the Old Testament itself. At the time of the Captivity, the prophets announced to the people of Israel that in the future God would perform for their benefit deeds analogous to, and even greater than those He had performed in the past. So there would be a...

The promotion of unity is set forth by a pattern of unity when Jesus says as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be in Us. Accordingly, as the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father, so through the pattern of this unity all might be one in the Father and the Son. […] That the world may believe that Thou didst send Me (John 17:21). Thus the world is to believe that the Son has been sent by the Father because all who shall believe in Him will be...

I often have to hear how people say about our Church, “You know, I don’t go to your church and won’t go, because it’s like a train station there—who don’t you see there? It would be alright if they were good people, but they’re not! I met one of them. Do you know what sort of man he is? And that girl is not any better. I won’t even mention the rest. And they go to services, cross themselves and don’t even blush…” Why are there so many unfortunate, wretched, broken lives, strange and simply bad people in the Church,...

“That man might become God…” On its surface this statement simply sounds blasphemous. Interpreted in a wrong manner, it would be worse than blasphemous. When read correctly, however, it is the very essence of salvation itself. “To go to heaven…” from my childhood this phrase has been used as the goal of a Christian life. But, interpreted in its most common manner, it is only a Christianized version of paganism. The distinction between these two statements can be found in their treatment of the interior life. The first, “to become God,” suggests profound, even transcendent change within a person. The...

The brother of two of the 21 Coptic Christians murdered in Libya last week has thanked their killers for including the men's declaration of faith in the video they made of their beheadings. Speaking on a live prayer and worship programme on Christian channel SAT-7 ARABIC yesterday, Beshir Kamel said that he was proud of his brothers Bishoy Estafanos Kamel (25) and Samuel Estafanos Kamel (23) because they were "a badge of honour to Christianity". Harrowing scenes of the murders have been seen around the world. The last words of some of those killed were "Lord Jesus Christ". Beshir Kamel...

I am breaking from my retreat to write with tears a tribute of honour and veneration to our newest martyrs, the 21 martyrs in Libya. These valiant men have offered themselves as a living sacrifice as a testimony before the whole world and all nations. But before all this they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name’s sake. This will be a time for you to bear testimony. Settle it therefore in your minds, not to meditate beforehand...

There is certainly nothing wrong with people trying to do the right thing and to be moral and upstanding citizens. The problem is that salvation and transfiguration are not a matter of morality. The publican and the prodigal were not moral people. They did all the wrong things, but yet they came to themselves, they discovered their hearts, and in so doing found the way, not just to moral goodness, but to holiness, to righteousness, and to feasting in the Father’s household. In the West, many speak about Lent as a period of struggle whose goal is for Christians to...

In any sustained discussion regarding the progress of liberal theology in the Orthodox Church, one sooner or later encounters magical thinking. Magical thinking is defined by Wikipedia (that modern oracle) as “the attribution of causal relationships between actions and events which cannot be justified by reason and observation”. In my experience, it often begins like this: someone (often a convert from a liberal Christian denomination, like the Episcopalians) warns that North American Orthodoxy is exhibiting the same signs of creeping liberalism as did their former liberal denomination, and suggests that this should be a source of concern for those who...

Those who engage in debates on a regular basis know that the argument itself can easily shape the points involved. This is another way of saying that some debates should be avoided entirely since merely getting involved in them can be the road to ruin. There are a number of Christian scholars (particularly among the Orthodox) who think that the classical debates between Christians and Muslims during the Middle Ages had just such disastrous results for Christian thinking. Now when engaging in religious debates it is all too easy to agree to things that might make for later problems. It...

Stockholm. Carl Bildt, Sweden’s Minister for Foreign Affairs and one of the architects of the EU Eastern policy, thinks Russia has changed for the worse in the past several years. While it demonstrated attachment to western values in the first decade after the Soviet Union fell apart and tried to impose them on its citizens, Russia’s current leadership takes a firm stand against the West, the Russian agency REX reported. In the words of Mr Bildt, Vladimir Putin demonstrates attachment not to world but to Eastern Orthodox values, which becomes clear from a Twitter post of his [Bildt’s]. ”The new...

By Douglas Cramer In 1945, a Paschal Liturgy like no other was performed. Just days after their liberation by the US military on April 29, 1945, hundreds of Orthodox Christian prisoners at the Dachau concentration camp gathered to celebrate the Resurrection service and to give thanks. The Dachau concentration camp was opened in 1933 in a former gunpowder factory. The first prisoners interred there were political opponents of Adolf Hitler, who had become German chancellor that same year. During the twelve years of the camp's existence, over 200,000 prisoners were brought there. The majority of prisoners at Dachau were Christians,...

Between 1944-1945, Communism took over the Christian country of Romania. An experiment of terror was performed on the young generation, on students from the age of eighteen to twenty five. Among those students was a man who is alive today after surviving sixteen years in the anti-human communist prison system. His name is Father George Calciu. After His release from prison, he was exiled to America in 1984. Below follows part of an interview by Nun Nina from this year. (1998) Nun Nina: This may be more difficult for you to talk about – I know a little bit about...

Official Christianity, of late years, has been having what is known as "a bad press." We are constantly assured that the churches are empty because preachers insist too much upon doctrine—"dull dogma," as people call it. The fact is the precise opposite. It is the neglect of dogma that makes for dullness. The Christian faith is the most exciting drama that ever staggered the imagination of man—and the dogma is the drama. That drama is summarised quite clearly in the creeds of the Church, and if we think it dull it is because we either have never really read those...

In 1991, 75% of Adjarians in Georgia were Muslims. Today, they have become 75% Orthodox Christians. How can these conversions be explained, which is apparently unique in the world? “What time do services begin at Saint Nicholas in Batumi on Sunday morning?” The question embarrasses the employee of the President Plaza, one of the largest institutions in the city, a seat of the Autonomous Republic of Adjara and the Iranian consulate. It is true that in the province of Georgia, washed by the Black Sea, the population speaks little English. All signs, such as signs in the streets, are in...

A man described by residents and police in an Aleutian Islands town as a known drug dealer was turned around at the local airport and run out of town by parents when he arrived from Anchorage Tuesday. Locals in the East Aleutians Borough community of Sand Point say the incident occurred at about 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, when a nightly PenAir flight arrived in town from Anchorage with the man on board. In a caption for a Facebook photo of the confrontation posted by resident Carmen Dushkin, she said the incident personifies opposition by locals to a continuing flow of drugs...