Free Republic

I take it to be axiomatic that there is no contradiction between good theology and good science. I take it as axiomatic that we do not choose between science and faith. The strange conflicts of the modern period have nurtured a sort of bifurcation (at all times and not just in our present trials). I have written regarding mental health issues any number of times, always encouraging people to include medical intervention among their therapies. We are not a “ghost in the machine” a “soul inhabiting a body.” Whatever we are, we are one thing. The separation of the soul...

Metropolitan Klimis of Peristeri sent a clear message in every direction at the Church of the Annunciation of the Theotokos in Peristeri and called on the faithful to “receive Holy Communion without fear.” The Metropolitan of Peristeri, who presided over the Service of the Rejoicings to the Theotokos (Chairetismoi ) on the first Friday of Great Lent, stressed that the Holy Communion was the body and blood of Christ and, therefore, it could not contract any disease.

“Final” is not a word you often hear in Christian teaching. Most Christians leave the final things until, well, the End. But this is not the language of the fathers nor of the Church. A good illustration can be found in the Orthodox service of Holy Baptism. During the blessing of the waters the priest prays: And grant to [this water] the grace of redemption, the blessing of Jordan. Make it the fountain of incorruption, the gift of sanctification, the remission of sins, the remedy of infirmities; the final destruction of demons, unassailable by hostile powers, filled with angelic might....

Orthodox Christianity and Islam are based on the same fundamental values, President Vladimir Putin said in an address to a religious conference in Kyrgyzstan. The conference, titled "Orthodoxy and Islam — Religions of Peace," aimed to promote interethnic and interreligious dialogue between Russia and Kyrgyzstan. "Islam and Orthodox Christianity, just like other world religions, are based on fundamental humanistic values that are of enduring importance — on mercy and love for one’s near, justice and respect for human beings," the state-run TASS news agency quoted Putin as saying Thursday. The address, which was read out to the conference by Russian...

The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart — and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. Solzhenitsyn’s statement that “even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained,” is, I think, the single most hopeful statement regarding humanity that I have ever encountered. It is, first, an axiom of Orthodox Christian belief. A notion of total depravity,...

Among the “difficult” sayings of Jesus is this: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Lk 14:26 Of course, the statement is so extreme that it is quickly recognized as an exaggeration. Jesus is not asking us to hate our family (or even in our own lives). And yet, the saying stands. It suggests one thing quite clearly: the love we have for God is not something we have along a continuum. It is...

The nation of Canada has been giving us a chilling vision of what it looks like when a western nation completely succumbs to the dangerous ideology of multiculturalism, the cultural Marxism that always inevitably restricts the rights of some to pave the way for the rights of others. There is no equality in multiculturalism. Christians have faced increasing adversity in Canada as of late, but new proposed legislation that would make it a crime to publicly express one’s faith is a chilling new low. In the proposed legislation, it would become illegal for Christians to make any public displays which...

Few things are as difficult in the modern world as fasting. It is not simply the action of changing our eating habits that we find problematic – it’s the whole concept of fasting and what it truly entails. It comes from another world. We understand dieting – changing how we eat in order to improve how we look or how we feel. But changing how we eat in order to know God or to rightly keep a feast of the Church – this is foreign. Our first question is often, “How does that work?” For we live in a culture...

The late Richard Neuhaus once recalled that in the 1970s it was widely expected among religious cognoscenti that United Methodism would be the first of America’s historically liberal Mainline Protestant denominations to abandon traditional Christian sexual ethics. After all, it was the largest and most Americanized of mainline churches, and it wasn’t protected by strong traditions of liturgy or ecclesiology. Its experiential theology often seemed muddled. When Neuhaus shared that recollection in 2005, the Episcopal Church and United Church of Christ had already surrendered. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Presbyterian Church (USA), and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)...

C.S. Lewis once discussed the question of how angels (and such things) could pass through a wall. His response was intriguing: he suggested that they could do so not because they were less substantial, but because they were more substantial. Just as a rock is more substantial than water or air, so, he posited, an angel (or such) is more substantial than our materiality. Of course, this is completely arguable and unprovable. But it is a useful image for thinking about another aspect of reality, that which the Church describes as “mystery.” Our tendency in thinking about anything we do...

Despite or, in some cases, because of the support it receives from the government and the new “anti-extremism” laws deployed against others, the Russian Orthodox Church is increasingly isolated from Russians in the North Caucasus and is losing many of them to Protestant groups who are also attracting some Muslims as well. Ruslan Gereyev, the director of the Center for Islamic Research on the North Caucasus, says that the major reason for Orthodoxy’s failure and Protestantism’s success is that “unlike Protestant and Muslim preachers, representatives of the Russian Orthodox church do not reach out to the population. Because they are...

It is now well over a year since Vladimir Putin's Russia passed 'anti-missionary' laws and more than 180 cases have since been brought. Activities ranging from prayer meetings in homes, posting worship times on a religious website and praying in the presence of other citizens have been interpreted as 'missionary activity' with Christians making up the vast majority of the law's victims. One case is that of Donald Ossewaarde, an American Baptist preacher living in Oryol, who was expelled for hosting a church meeting in his house. Having lost appeals throughout the Russian judiciary system, Ossewaarde's case is now with...

Despite the opening of more churches and official and media support for Christianity in Russia in recent years, the share of Russians attending Christmas services was less than two percent of the Russian population – a decline by more than half over the last eight years. Russian officials and hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church routinely claim that 80 percent of more of the Russian people identify as Orthodox Christians, and polls show that almost that many acknowledge that they do, although they indicate that they only attend church and follow its rituals from time to time. This year, the...

On December 1, Vladimir Putin addressed the Bishops’ Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow. His remarks on the Orthodox Church’s historical and contemporary value to Russian society illustrate his utilitarian view of the church as a conduit of the Kremlin tasked with maintaining “stability and unity.” Putin’s view is at odds with that of Patriarch Kirill, who criticized the state’s influence on the church in remarks delivered later that day. The differences in opinion between President Putin and Patriarch Kirill shed light on broader cleavages in Russian society over the future relationship between church and state, which the...

The Moscow Patriarchate’s chief ecumenical officer praised a non-sectarian class in religions in Russia’s schools and called for the course’s extension beyond fourth grade. “If our children do not know religious teachings, they can involuntarily become an easy prey for terrorists,” Metropolitan Hilarion, the chairman of the Department of External Church Relations, said in an interview with Ekaterina Gracheva of the television station Russia-24. “We must always remember that terrorism cannot be motivated by religion,” he continued, though “there are people who cover their criminal acts with religious rhetoric.” After stating that Orthodox children should learn about Islam, and Muslim...

"Anyone who grew up with the Eastern Orthodox Church (in my case, the Greek Orthodox Church in New York) will get a good laugh at Vladimir Putin pretending to be a Christian during his first Easter as Russian ruler..." "The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) has been, since its reconstitution during WWII, an instrument of the state. The best illustration of this is probably the 1949 “Greetings from the clergy and laity of the Russian Orthodox Church to the leader of the nations of the USSR, the Generalissimus Joseph Stalin on his 70th birthday.” It states, in part: "Witnessing at every...

"It is common knowledge that the advent of Bolshevism in 1917 was devastating for devout believers in the former tsarist empire." "Less well known is the fact that the October Revolution interrupted a reform movement that could have taken the Russian Orthodox Church in a new direction, and that it subsequently caused splintering from which the Church still has not recovered." "Under the tsars, the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) served as an important pillar of the autocratic system. Just how subservient the church was to the state remains a matter of debate. Some historians, such as Gregory Freeze and Scott...

A Boise State University professor recently learned what happens when you challenge left-wing social narratives on college campuses. Scott Yenor, a tenured professor, has been under siege on campus after publishing articles with The Heritage Foundation and The Daily Signal about feminism and the transgender movement. In those articles, Yenor explained the similarity in philosophy between the early feminists and modern transgender movement and how they aim at undermining traditional family values. He wrote in a Daily Signal article on Aug. 2:

Earlier this week, Russian media reported a Vladivostok court handing down a 30,000-ruble ($495) fine to the Salvation Army christian organization for incorrectly marking bibles the organization was distributing. In addition to the fine, the court ordered the books' destruction – 36 Russian-language Bibles and four English-language ones among them. It is the first precedent of implementing the “Yarovaya legislation” and its harsher regulations for missionaries. “Essentially, the organization was punished for illegal missionary – not terrorist or extremist – activity by destruction of the Bible,” a spokeswoman for the Moscow Patriarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church Xenia Chernega told...

LADIVOSTOK, November 20. /TASS/. Orthodoxy has been playing a major role in Russia’s life throughout the entire history of Russia, so it would not be an exaggeration to say that Orthodoxy and Russia are inseparable, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in the film Patriarch shown on the Rossiya-1 television channel on Sunday to mark the 70th birth anniversary of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia. "Orthodoxy and Russia are inseparable. And throughout our entire history, Orthodoxy has been playing a major role in the life of our state and our nation," the president said. "Our moral values rest on...