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Archepiscopal Encyclical on the Feast of Christmas December 25, 2023 Unto the Most Reverend and Right Reverend Hierarchs, Pious Priests and Deacons, Monks and Nuns, Presidents and Members of the Parish Councils, Honorable Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, Members of Leadership 100, Day and Afternoon Schools, Philoptochos Societies, Youth, Greek Orthodox Organizations, and entirety of the Christ-loving Plenitude of the Sacred Archdiocese of America: Thus says the Lord: a rod shall come forth out of the root of Jesse, and a blossom shall rise from that root. (Prophecy of Isaiah 11:1) Beloved sisters and brothers in Christ, Christ is Born!...

One of the most distinctive doctrines in Orthodox theology is that of theosis – divinization – becoming “like God.” Those who inquire into the faith likely stumble across this teaching fairly early, and, no doubt, some are drawn to it. Of course, there are those who run away from it and fear that it is saying something that it isn’t. Perhaps the most attractive aspect of theosis is the unabashedly positive note that it places in the midst of salvation. Whereas many Western treatments of salvation major in “not going to hell,” theosis gives tangible content and a goal that...

George Weigel, in his most recent column ("Christmas, Jews and Christians"), takes up a theme near and dear to my heart:Eastern Christian theology has long stressed “theosis,” or divinization, as the goal of the Christian life. It can be a somewhat startling theme for western Christian ears, formed as we are by Augustine’s sense of the distance that original sin created between humanity and God. Yet if, as theologians East and West have long insisted, Christianity is not about our search for God (as so much pop-spirituality these days insists), but about God coming into history in search of us...

"The Cross of Christ on Calvary stands beside the path of that admirable commercium, of that wonderful self-communication of God to man, which also includes the call to man to share in the divine life by giving himself, and with himself the whole visible world, to God, and like an adopted son to become a sharer in the truth and love which is in God and proceeds from God. It is precisely besides the path of man's eternal election to the dignity of being an adopted child of God that there stands in history the Cross of Christ, the only-begotten...

Note: this is a continuation of the previous post under the same title in which the malady of anger and resentment was outlined, and Part 2 offers the first step in the healing process. This post is dedicated to the spirit of Great Lent and as an exposition of the Orthodox phronema (mindset) on theological issues. A talk delivered at the Annual Assembly of the Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Western America, St. George Serbian Orthodox Church, San Diego, California, February 28, 2003. Resentment and Forgiveness -- Part 2 by Hieromonk Damascene 4. Forgiveness Having looked at the malady of anger,...