Tag: Will Cohen
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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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Dialogue, Church Teaching, and the German Orthodox Bishops’ Letter on Love, Sexuality, and Marriage
by Will Cohen In a 2015 address at the University of Munich, Metropolitan John Zizioulas observed that “[t]he agenda of Theology is set by history.” By “history” he meant the concerns and questions particular to a given age, as he underscores in adding, “This was known to the Fathers of the Church who were in […]
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Political Polarization and Christian Unity
by Will Cohen When politics is as toxic as it’s become today in North America, Church unity would seem more than ever to require quarantining the life of faith from current political and social questions. Broader society’s most polarizing issues do get taken up eagerly, it’s true, in Christian congregations (of whatever tradition) that lean […]
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The Orthodox “Diaspora”: Mother Churches, Mission, and the Future
by Rev. Dr. Radu Bordeianu, Will Cohen, Rev. Dr. Nicholas Denysenko, Brandon Gallaher, Rev. Dr. D. Oliver Herbel, and Kerry San Chirico Among the issues to be heard by the Orthodox Churches at the June 2016 Great and Holy Council in Crete is the situation of the Orthodox diaspora. The Council will be working with […]
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Orthodoxy and Ecumenism in View of the Upcoming Great and Holy Council
by Will Cohen Some members of the Orthodox Church, who regard ecumenism as a heresy, have been predictably critical of the preconciliar document “Relations of the Orthodox Church with the Rest of the Christian World” since it was approved by the Orthodox primates at Chambèsy in October 2015. In that document, the identification (¶1) of […]
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Trump and Humiliation
by Will Cohen A recurrent refrain in Donald Trump’s 2011 book Time to Get Tough is that America is being laughed at–by China, OPEC, Russia, Iran. Compared to their leaders ours are weak and stupid. Trump describes Barack Obama’s approach on geopolitical and economic issues as “embarrassing”. Obama is said to “grovel,” “kiss the feet” […]
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Trump and Transgression
by Will Cohen Although there are, as many commentators have observed, social and economic factors at play, a perhaps more significant key to understanding the popularity of Donald Trump’s campaign is its sheer transgressive quality. In this sense I would suggest that Trump’s campaign is a phenomenon entirely in keeping with an essential dynamic of […]
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Decision-Making in the Church
by Will Cohen (This essay was originally delivered as a public talk at the June 2015 Fordham/OTSA conference on the upcoming Great and Holy Council of the Orthodox Church. It was part of a panel on ecumenical relations.) For Orthodoxy’s ecumenical relations as for all ecumenical relations in the early 21st century, an important question is what means […]