Category: Church Life and Pastoral Care
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Eastern Orthodox Clergy: An At-Risk Population
by George Stavros | ქართული | Ελληνικά | Русский | Српски “I know how weak and puny my soul is. I know the magnitude of this ministry and the great difficulty of the work. More stormy billows vex the soul of the priest than the gales that trouble the sea.” (St. John Chrysostom, On the Priesthood) At […]
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Coronavirus and Communion
by Will Cohen | Ελληνικά | ру́сский | српски In a moment of unprecedented closings and cancellations, how should the Orthodox Church and her members faithfully navigate the risks and complexities of the COVID-19 pandemic? For many Orthodox jurisdictions and individuals, the pandemic is an opportunity to show a panicked world the extraordinary steadiness of […]
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Historical and Pastoral Responses to the Forty-Day Churching of Infants (Part Two)
by Rev. Dr. Stelyios Muksuris In the last segment, we examined the manuscript tradition that addressed the established practices of the churching rite within the Byzantine liturgical tradition. I now proceed to make my own suggestions for a uniform practice that is theologically sensible and pastorally sensitive. Theological Reflection and Practical Recommendations In accordance with […]
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A Historical and Pastoral Response to the Forty-Day Churching of Infants (Part One)
by Rev. Dr. Stelyios Muksuris The pre-baptismal rite of the forty-day churching of infants has raised manifold questions with regard to the manner of its execution by clergy. Supplementing such quandaries are issues regarding the gender of infants, the need to reassess and modify the language of certain prayers, and to include the father into […]
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Oikonomia for the Majority—Akriveia for the Minority
by John A. Heropoulos | ελληνικά One of the Orthodox Church’s greatest strengths is the pastoral care used to nurture the faithful. The authority to offer spiritual care is vested in the bishop and extended to the local community through the parish priest; the spiritual father of a particular flock. Through the sacrament of Holy […]
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Not a Cross to Bear
by Mariz Tadros On the 18th of May, 2019 G., a Coptic female nurse living in Sydney, Australia was suffocated by a plastic bag and stabbed seven times as she was leaving the hospital after completing her night shift. The murderer was her husband. Insider information suggested that on the 16th of May, a high-ranking […]
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Listening to LGBT+ Christians
by Tim Markatos “All models are wrong,” the saying goes among statisticians, “but some are useful.” The modern language of LGBTQ+ identity, while often unhelpfully obfuscating the boundaries between ontology, phenomenology, and epistemology, has been tremendously helpful in uniting and giving voice to people whose experience of sexual attraction and gender is at odds with […]
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Reconceiving Healthcare
by Chris Durante In the Orthodox Christian tradition, God is described as being the “Great Philanthropos,” and Jesus Christ, as a healer of body and soul, is described as the “Great Physician.” Being adopted by early Christians, the Hellenic idea of philanthropia, or being an “unconditional lover of humankind,” was used as a way of […]
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Clericalism and the Sexual Abuse Crisis
by Matthew Briel If we follow Augustine’s and John Henry Newman’s line of thought, the Church is fundamentally the body of Christ, with Christ as head and the faithful as the body. In Newman’s conception, the faithful consists of the entire Church, hierarchy and laity. The laity thus have an essential role to play in […]