The Orthodox Christian Network Blog

On Sunday, Sept 7, I am going on a journey across time and geography.  As you read this column, I ask your prayers as I make my way from Charleston to Newark to Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.  In July I received the most amazing gift: a two week pilgrimage to the Holy Land, led by the most well-known Orthodox Christian Bishop in the English-speaking world-His Eminence, Metropolitan Kallistos Ware.  We

"God is the Lord and has revealed Himself to us, blessed is He that comes in the Name of the Lord!"  This beautiful hymn, sung at the Orthodox matins service (and a conglomeration of different Psalms) is a significant, if not the most important, starting point for our conversations about God.  When we enter a theological discussion, we do not begin with a generic belief that there is "a"

  At every Divine Liturgy, the Priest (or the Deacon when there is one) elevates the chalice, and the celebrant exclaims, "Thine own of thine own, we offer unto thee, in behalf of all, and for all!"  These are remarkably powerful words which sum up the whole liturgy--indeed our whole life as it was designed to be.  In this moment we are offering to God not only the bread (including the hands that