Category: Christian Practice
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The Gift of Tears
by Matt Kappadakunnel In my last article in Public Orthodoxy, I shared a reflection on the Jesus Prayer. An important facet of the prayer—one that I often overlook or speed past—is acknowledging in humility and truth before God that I am a sinner. We are often afraid to acknowledge our fallen areas and our need […]
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The Jesus Prayer and the Way of This Pilgrim
by Matt Kappadakunnel | Русский As an Eastern Catholic, I find tremendous solidarity with Orthodox Christians. One of these areas of commonality is our love for the Jesus Prayer. I discovered the Jesus Prayer in an unlikely place and from an unlikely source. In 2010, during my first year of the Jesuit Novitiate, I borrowed […]
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Two Kinds of Risk in the Church
by Fr. Richard René | български | ქართული | ελληνικά | Română | Русский | Српски By now, it would almost be commonplace to observe that the COVID pandemic has created (or perhaps, rather, it has apocalyptically exposed) a cultural rift within the contemporary Orthodox Christian community. As a pastor, I have experienced this division […]
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Night Vigil for Insomniacs
by Matt Kappadakunnel | български | ქართული | Ελληνικά | Русский | Српски The stress of 2020 through the present has caused many, including myself, to lose sleep. I cannot count the number of nights I have laid awake for more than an hour, and I often don’t fall back asleep until minutes before my […]
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Some of My Best Friends Are Heretics
by Paul Ladouceur | Ελληνικά | српски Orthodox pride themselves on belonging to the “one, holy, catholic and apostolic church” founded by Jesus Christ—and with good reason. Orthodox point to the loftiness of Orthodox theology, the beauty and solemnity of its liturgy, its mystical spirituality, the holiness of its saints, and the transcendentalism of its […]
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The Value of Nothing: Lessons from COVID-19 on Silence and Stillness
by Rev. Dr. John Chryssavgis | ελληνικά | ру́сский I’ve always admired the early monks and nuns of the desert literature. Not because they discovered ways of escaping the reality of paying taxes. Not only because their words were inspirational and their prayer transformative. And not primarily because they withstood the power of the empire […]
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The Presence of Christ in our Homes on Holy Week and Pascha
by Rev. Dr. Nicholas Denysenko | ελληνικά | Română | ру́сский When COVID-19 first arrived on the scene as a nuisance, and not a pandemic, the Churches responded by making slight alterations to the rite of receiving communion. Catholic and Protestant Churches instructed people to refrain from partaking of the cup, and the people exchanged […]