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Yes. Almost every single Orthodox and Catholic bishop, priest and layman for the past 1000+ years believed it mattered a lot. The idea that it doesn't matter is a recent ecumenist invention, drawn from the school of thought that says things along the lines of "meh, all Christianity is the same". It's not the same.

I recommend this book for an overview of Orthodox arguments against Catholic claims, and there are lists of differences between Orthodoxy and Catholicism that I could copy and paste for you, but the most important differences between Orthodoxy and Catholicism aren't as neat or as easily explained as "on issue X, the Orthodox believe Y and the Catholics believe Z".

Orthodoxy and Catholicism come with two different theological worldviews. It's not just that we don't give the same answers - we don't even ask the same questions. Issues that are major in Catholicism are seen as minor or irrelevant in Orthodoxy, and vice versa.

Western Christianity (Catholicism and Protestantism) largely revolves around the question: "What must I do to be saved?"

Eastern Christianity (including Orthodoxy) largely revolves around the question: "Who is Jesus Christ, and what is virtue?"

1) not at all :) Everyone is welcomed. Just make sure to go at a time when the parish priest is there to show you round.

2) There are many good ones in the side menu of this subreddit. For muslims i would also recommend "The Orthodox Church in the Arab world". An excellent resource that provides insight into the lives of those who lived in muslim dominated lands for centuries.

3) The Orthodox Study Bible. Based on KJV. The differences are in the footnotes i believe. Not in the text itself.

4) I think you are referring to the Didache. We like the works from the saints of the church. There are a myriad of those. You could start with the homilies of St John Chrysostom for example and go from there,.

I highly recommend that you read The Religion of the Apostles by Father Stephen De Young. It was published a few months ago and gives a fantastic summary of the continuity between the doctrines of Second Temple Judaism and 1st Century Christianity.

Ancient Israel did have religious views more similar to other ancient near eastern cultures than most modern Christians are aware of, but that doesn’t create any problems for our faith. Ancient Judaism (and Christianity) were monolatristic, rather than strictly monotheistic; the gods of the nations exist, but they are created beings who are not to be worshipped.

I’m not familiar with the specific claim about Yaweh replacing El, but my guess would be that it’s speculation that relies on the assumption that ancient Judaism must have had a succession myth like the ones in all the surrounding cultures (e.g Zeus overthrowing Chronos or Baal overthrowing Yam). There is no record of a Jewish succession myth, but there is a ton of speculation about Yahweh originally just being the god assigned to Israel and then overthrowing the previous most high god. Because there is no record of a succession myth, I feel perfectly comfortable rejecting the speculation and believing the Biblical account. Yahweh was always the most high God, and he wasn’t assigned to govern Israel; he created Israel for himself and chose not to assign it to the other gods.

Glad this question has come up. Anyone who doesn't understand how pressing this issue is needs to look at what happened to the Western Rite Catholics who joined the Malankara Orthodox Church in India in 1889.

This Western Rite community, initially around 100,000-strong and spread across the Indian subcontinent, has dwindled to a few thousand people now. All because of lack of proper pastoral care and neglect from the bishops of Malankara. Initially, Malankara prelates ordained an archbishop and several priests for the Western Rite community, but after 1-2 decades, they almost completely neglected this community. This neglect was a result of lack of vision from the Malankara prelates, on top of other reasons like internal conflicts within Malankara.

This is precisely why researchers have documented the history of this Western Rite of Malankara in the book "Western Rites of Malankara-Syriac Orthodox Churches" (https://www.amazon.com/Western-Rites-Syriac-Malankara-Orthodox-Churches/dp/1387803166) - when you read it, you will see how history is repeating itself.

To answer the question, rather than opening separate seminaries for them, a better solution is to reserve seats for them at the existing seminaries to make sure that younger priests (and bishops) rise from these communities. Mark my words, if this question isn't taken seriously, the Western Rites will be only skeletons in another 100 years.

> The sole reason you're the Ecumenical Patriarchate is because the previous highest-ranking Patriarch fell from Orthodoxy.

Actually, the title of "Ecumenical Patriarch" was given to (taken by) the Patriarch of Constantinople in the late 6th century, well before the schism. The reason was that the capital of the Roman (Byzantine) Empire at that time was Constantinople and, yes, it was controversial even then, because it was based on a political capital rather than apostolicity. And in, e.g. the Quinisext canons, Constantinople is given equal privileges to that of Rome. Basically, the argument over the EP has been going on a long time.

You seriously need to get off Reddit and talk to a priest about these things.

I might also suggest that you read Entering the Orthodox Church. In there Met. Hierotheos discusses theoria and the role it plays in faith. As another poster stated several weeks ago, the experience of the Apostles is yours to have as well.

You will not answer your problems through reason, and you aren't asked to have blind faith.

Got this book for my formerly Protestant hubby: Know the Faith: A Handbook for Orthodox Christians and Inquirers by Fr. Michael Shanbour.

It addresses common questions Protestants have about Orthodox dogma (Veneration of icons and saints, respect toward the Mother of God) in every chapter. Highly recommend!!

┏┓ ┃┃╱╲ In this ┃╱╱╲╲ house ╱╱╭╮╲╲ we love ▔▏┗┛▕▔ & appreciate ╱▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔╲ The Theotokos ╱╱┏┳┓╭╮┏┳┓ ╲╲ ▔▏┗┻┛┃┃┗┻┛▕▔

The Doctrine of the Theotokos in Gregorios Palamas

Stop slandering the author of the most complete introduction to Orthodoxy written in modern times and get vaccinated.

I think you should read something like <em>Primacy in the Church</em>, rather than a list of quotes handpicked by a redditor with an axe to grind.

We have our own 'version' of the Rosary similar to yours. It's an old practice that was revived by St, Seraphim of Sarov. It's basically a fifteen decade rosary only using the Angelic Salutation. Here is a book for it; I bought it and while I don't regret that purchase I wouldn't buy it again if I lost it. It's typically done with a prayer rope instead of a rosary.

Also, merry Christmas!

I recommend reading the book "John Chrysostom and the Jews" (https://www.amazon.com/John-Chrysostom-Jews-Rhetoric-Reality/dp/1592449425) which goes into a lot of detail about Christian-Jewish relations and the nature of rhetoric and public dialogue in the times when these many of these things were written, focusing on St. John Chrysostom's writings on the Jews. I am a Jewish convert to Orthodoxy and found this to be a very pressing topic and this is probably the best resource I've found discussing it.

I would recommend The Orthodox Study Bible. At the very least use it for the Greek Old Testament.

Those are kooky fundamentalist views. We've simply never made a big deal of Revelation, we were suspicious of even having it in the canon.

A book I found useful for getting out of the dispensationalist mindset is this book by the Anglican (kindof) Bishop of Reddit [tagged the wrong user].

The tone can be a little informal at points, but it's written to help people open up to an alternative view, not as an exhaustive scholarly work.

Long story short, the Revelation was written in 90ish-AD to believers in 90-ish AD. It is as timelessly and endlessly applicable as any other teaching of the Scriptures, but it was not written to us. What arrogance on our part to assume such a thing.

Anyway, as a recovering Evangelical dispensationalist, I found it useful even if it's not EO doctrine.

Wrote my Master's thesis on the subject - look into <em>Partakers of Divine Nature</em> by Michael J. Christensen and <em>The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition</em> by Norman Russell. Both are compilations of papers from some of the top Patristic scholars that approach the doctrine from every angle. These are a great starting point that outline the primary texts that deal with theosis, including the Classics, Philo Judaeus, the Gnostics, and the Neo-Platonists.

According to the divine services of Pentecost, the Spirit proceeds from the Father and rests in the Son. This parallels the revelation of the Trinity (Theophany) at the baptism of the Lord in the Jordan. The Spirit becomes manifest through the Son (Gregory of Cyprus, Council of Blachernae) and thus through the Son the Spirit is sent to the world. Also see the paper on the theologian Fr. Dimitru Staniloae on the Filioque.

I think you should talk to the priest about catechism. It is the process where you learn about and adopt the Orthodox lifestyle from a catechist, which is usually a priest. Even if you were baptized as a baby you can still do this process, but it will be modified some by the priest according to your personal needs and understanding.

This has been my favorite book on catechism, it will explain these things more clearly.

There are in fact many fathers who wrote in Arabic from the 8th century on. In addition to Abu Qurrah, such as Sulayman al-Ghazzi, Abdallah ibn al-Fadl al-Antaki, Agathon al-Homsi, and many anonymous Orthodox works from this period in Arabic.

For a guide to this literature, take a look at 'The Orthodox Church in the Arab World 700-1700: An Anthology of Sources'- https://www.amazon.com/Orthodox-Church-Arab-World-700/dp/0875807011/

I was an atheist, sitting alone at Borders bookstore, and saw a book called Eastern Orthodox Christianity and decided to see what it was about. I had no idea such a Christian expression existed and was instantly captivated the more I learned.

It's not necessarily what I would recommend to an inquirer, but it served its purpose in my life.

I'd say what really pushed me over the edge was The Mystery of Faith by Abp Hilarion Alfeyev.

The Patriarchate of Jerusalem has a very unusual structure for an Orthodox church. It does not have real dioceses, but rather all bishops are essentially auxiliaries of the patriarch and, with the exception of their bishops in Jordan and Qatar, reside in Jerusalem. Membership in the Holy Synod is limited to members of the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulcher, though not limited to bishops- there's usually an couple archimandrites or even hierodeacons on the synod. With a very small number of historical exceptions, membership is limited to Greeks.

The Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulcher was formed as a sort of cartel to maintain Greek control (over and against the Latins first, but then also over and against the local Christians) over pilgrimage sites and their revenue stream. Eventually this expanded to include huge holdings in what's now Romania and the modern financial difficulties of the patriarchate date to when the newly-created Romanian state nationalized their holdings there (and freed their gipsy slaves).

A good academic article on how the Patriarchate worked in the late Ottoman period and under the British Mandate can be found here: https://www.academia.edu/29809783/The_Politics_of_church_land_administration_the_Orthodox_Patriarchate_of_Jerusalem_in_late_Ottoman_and_Mandatory_Palestine_1875_1948

If you want to read about it in extreme detail, the British government's report on the Patriarchate's holdings from 1921 can be found here: https://archive.org/details/reportofcommissi00palerich

"The Religion of the Apostles"

You think Met. Kallistos, a theologian who lived and studied all throughout its gradual conquest of, and dominance over, Orthodox theology, doesn't know what the neo-patristic synthesis is?

Of course acquiring the phronema of the fathers is a noble goal, but what are its fruits? In its worse forms, theology which is neither willing nor able to engage with Western theology, even in the very sources that those fathers used, like Gennadios Scholarios reading Bonaventure or Palamas rehabilitating Augustine. At least the theologians at the origin of the NPS had the good grace to try and talk to other Christians (Florovsky was a founder of the WCC), which would earn them anathemas on behalf of the current anti-ecumenical NPS supporters. The idea is good, but it has to engage honestly with other opinions, much like our Fathers did.

For more details on the anti-ecumenical trend following the neo-patristic movement, try this article: https://www.academia.edu/6182709/From_the_Return_to_the_Fathers_to_the_need_for_a_modern_Orthodox_Theology

St. John Chrysostom:

> Let no one fear death, for the Savior’s death has set us free. He that was held prisoner of it has annihilated it. By descending into Hell, He made Hell captive. He embittered it when it tasted of His flesh. And Isaiah, foretelling this, did cry: Hell, said he, was embittered, when it encountered Thee in the lower regions. It was embittered, for it was abolished. It was embittered, for it was mocked. It was embittered, for it was slain. It was embittered, for it was overthrown. It was embittered, for it was fettered in chains. It took a body, and met God face to face. It took earth, and encountered Heaven. It took that which was seen, and fell upon the unseen.

Also see The Last Temptation of Satan: Divine Deception in Greek Patristic Interpretations of the Passion Narrative.

You should not ask the internet for opinions on this type of thing. Read what Saints have to say to beginners about it, such as St. Ignatius Brianchaninov in On the Prayer of Jesus. Other than that, go talk to a priest.

Christ is risen! I will pray for you and your wife. It is horrible and tragic that your old Orthodox church treated you so poorly. I'm so sorry.

But God never gives up on anyone, you know. I think He is calling you back to the Orthodox Church. Perhaps you are called to the pastoral role but not in the way you think...

For now, I would definitely say that you shouldn't rush into anything. The Lord sometimes chooses to work slowly; give Him time to guide you. Say the Jesus prayer on your prayer rope. The anxiety and the voice telling you to not pray the Jesus prayer is definitely from the evil one. Why would God be opposed to such a simple prayer, which is almost directly copied from the Bible?

I'm also a big advocate of studying the Orthodox faith, so I always recommend this book: Know the Faith. It is written largely for a Protestant or Protestant-leaning audience, so I think it's perfect for you as a current Protestant who was formerly Orthodox.

Do not attempt to persuade your wife of anything as long as you yourself are not sure what to do next. Find out where God is leading you first.

I would recommend using this Orthodox Calendar app instead: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.miladin.orthcalapp

Not only does it do more, but it also works with different jurisdictions and both calendar types.

I humbly ask for prayers on behalf of my husband and I under the pseudonyms of Peter and Fevronia:

• My spouse’s postdoc is ending in two months and although jobs in his general field are abundant this economy, he hasn’t been able to properly put himself out there due to recent diagnosis of ankylosing spondylitis. We both fear that he will be without a job.

• I have been overwhelmed with grief due to many years infertility and pregnancy loss. Please pray for us to have a living child.

Someone posted a paper earlier about John Chrysostoms exegesis of Romans concerning works and justification.

https://www.academia.edu/35803114/Sola_gratia_Sola_fide_Law_Grace_Faith_and_Works_in_John_Chrysostoms_Commentary_on_Romans?auto=download

If you can get a hold of it, David Bradshaw has an essay that seems exactly like what you're looking for:

>One of the most intriguing aspects of Greek patristic thought about nature is the concept of the logoi of beings. The logoi are the Ȍinner essences” of things, the value and significance they have in the eyes of the Creator rather than in our faulty human estimation. The chapter's goal here is a modest one of understanding the concept of the logoi of beings itself. This chapter aims to identify the philosophical sources of this concept and in the process it wants to notice both some of its pitfalls as well as the promise it offers for Christian thought about nature. Where has the notion of logoi come from?

It's in Toward an Ecology of Transfiguration: Orthodox Christian Perspectives on Environment, Nature, and Creation by Fordham University Press, edited by John Chryssavgis and Bruce Foltz.

EDIT: Accessible on Academia.edu here.

Clarification of revealed truth and explication of ideas that logical follow from revealed truth. The guy who coined the term can probably explain it best.

I'm not sure if Orthodoxy rejects development of doctrine when the idea is properly understood, anyway.

The essay is "Augustine and the Orthodox: 'The West' in the East" by George Demacopoulos and Aristotle Papanikolaou. The first mention of Romanides is maybe halfway in, but the whole essay is worth a read in my opinion. If you don't want to buy Orthodox Readings of Augustine you could try to get it from a library or request a copy here.

You may think that, but have you also considered The Reception of Paul and of Pauline Theology in the Byzantine Period?

So, it's not exactly what you're looking for, as it's explicitly a Latin document, but <em>A Latin Defense of Mark of Ephesus at the Council of Ferrara-Florence (1438-1439)</em> by Fr. Christiaan Kappes was quite interesting.

"economia" as a basis is a modern invention.

EDIT: cf here, it is a late and controversial private opinion rather than the teaching of the church. EDIT: see https://www.academia.edu/3051372/The_19th_Canonical_Answer_of_Timothy_of_Alexandria_On_the_History_of_Sacramental_Oikonomia

I’d highly recommend the book Two Paths. As to connecting with a priest, ideally that would be someone local to you. If there’s more than one Orthodox Church around I’d recommend checking them all out to see which seems like a good fit. Usually you can get an email address for the priest from their website. Be patient and persistent. It can sometimes take a bit of perseverance to make contact. Alternatively, you can just show up to a services (Vespers on a Saturday night is usually quieter and less attended).

Instead of going for works of pop apologetics, which are by their nature biased and in their interest to be so, I would recommend you instead invest in probably the fairest and most exhaustive treatment of the papacy vis-à-vis the Orthodox, Prof. Ed Siecienski's "The Papacy and the Orthodox: Sources and History of a Debate." It is meticulously scholarly, thorough, and fair. (Siecienski happens to be a convert from Catholicism to Orthodoxy, but this is a work of historical scholarship, not of apologetics.)

My priest recommended Welcome to the Orthodox Church by Frederica Mathewes-Green and I found it a great intro to Orthodoxy.

For a proper, book-length argument against the papacy, I recommend this book: Two Paths: Orthodoxy &amp; Catholicism: Rome’s Claims of Papal Supremacy in the Light of Orthodox Christian Teaching. It is largely about the events of the first millennium and demonstrates how little power the Bishop of Rome had at the time.

I think the strongest argument against the papacy is that the early Christians simply did not act the way that modern Catholics act with regard to the Bishop of Rome. Practically everyone who had any disagreement with Rome in the first millennium ended up excommunicating the Pope (even if only for a few years). Can you imagine modern Catholic bishops excommunicating the Pope because they think he's wrong about something? The fact that this sort of thing happened all the time in the first millennium really proves that the Bishops of Rome were absolutely not regarded as the indispensable center of the Church.

This is very, very much a "ask your priest" question. You could also ask a monastic.

Most Orthodox writings on prayer that I have come across warn against using any visualizations in prayer, cautioning that it is a path to delusion. If you begin to mistake your own imaginations for spiritual experience then you harm yourself. Advanced practitioners of the Jesus prayer will sometimes write about visualizations, but they are far more experienced and discerning than anyone who is on Reddit. Such writings being available to the general population is a recent development in history so it is now possible to read about things that are beyond your current spiritual state, but be very wary of doing this.

On the Prayer of Jesus is a good guide to the Jesus prayer.

He has written a number of homilies, they are all amazing. I've been reading them over the past year and it's like eating honey.

This is the book that I am reading: https://www.amazon.com/Ascetical-Homilies-St-Isaac-Syrian/dp/B0062BZ1EG/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&amp;keywords=st+isaac+the+syrian&amp;qid=1610983089&amp;sr=8-1

I tried to find a digital copy of his work, but all translations lose a lot of meaning when I compare with this hard copy version.

The author of the article on Public Orthodoxy is not Orthodox anymore. After leaving the Orthodox Church he wrote a "meta-translation" of the Gospel of John that "treads a new path of interfaith experience by telescoping to the core of the Gospel through the non-theistic lens of Buddhism". (Here it is on Amazon.).

Because of this it does not violate Godwinopoulos' Law, so if this article could be un-removed that would be great.

Strictly speaking, you can’t have the sacrament of marriage without a priest in the Orthodox Church. Catholics have a different teaching, that the “ministers” of marriage are the husband and wife, with the priest standing in as a witness. This is why they allow deacons to officiate weddings.

Then again, in the words of Ian Malcolm, ”Life, uh…finds a way.”

The faction of Old Believers who had no priests at first believed in celibacy, but later tolerated de facto marriages and later in the 18th century defended a contractual view of the sacrament of marriage, based on the 16th century writings of Ukrainian theologians. These theologians were undoubtedly inspired by Western teachings on marriage.

In your scenario, what would probably happen is that people would enter into some kind of “natural” marriage which might involve some kind of prayer. God is merciful, he knows our situation, etc. so the thinking would probably go.

As it happens, last night I downloaded “<strong>The Liturgical Commemoration of Augustine in the Orthodox Church: An Ambiguous Lex Orandi for an Ambiguous Lex Credendi</strong>,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 52 (2008): 111-30.

Guess I'll read these two papers together!

Is he? https://www.chess.com/blog/Spektrowski/boris-spassky-2016-interview

>> Do you believe in God?

>There are two kinds of chess players - believers and atheists. Alekhine, Larsen, Korchnoi are among the latter... But I'm not as sure about Fischer - he was too ambivalent.

>>What group do you belong to?

>I call myself a "half-believer". Sometimes I'm a firm believer, sometimes I become an atheist. Do you know that joke about two chess players? Apostles Peter and Paul tell them, "Chess is a sin, so you don't get into heaven. But you can choose between socialist and capitalist hell." "Of course we choose socialist hell!" "Why?" "There's always a shortage of either firewood or cauldrons!"

This is a practice some hesychasts kept. If you're interested in learning more about it, I strongly recommend On the Prayer of Jesus. St. Ignatius Brianchaninov offers a brief survey of the practice of the Jesus Prayer though Church history, and then some practical guidance for laypeople, specifically laypeople without access to a spiritual father.

There’s a whole blog parody of DBH: David Bentley hunts the Shart. Parody-DBH reminds me of Ignatius J. Reilly.

With all due respect, I would suggest reading more into hesychasm generally and the Pauline ("semitic") roots of Orthodox mysticism. There is an excellent article by Fr. Maximos (Constas):

https://www.academia.edu/36489671/Paul_the_Hesychast_Gregory_Palamas_and_the_Pauline_Foundations_of_Hesychast_Theology_and_Spirituality

This is the most comprehensive paper I have read: Μaximus’ ‘Logical’ Ontology: An introduction and interpretative approach to Maximus the Confessor’ notion of the λόγοι

> One of Augustine's teachers taught him that the Holy Spirit is the Love between the Father and Son. I've always found that to be a very weird take on the Trinity although Augustine, Aquinas, C.S. Lewis, and many, many others like this formulation. When I first read this in Lewis, I thought he was whacked. When I got to college I discovered that this idea is the norm in both Protestantism and the Latin Church.

This concept is very important in Palamas' trinitarian theology as well. See this french paper or this one, in English.

Since we believe that the Father is the sole cause or principle in the Holy Trinity, there is no causal relationship between the Son and the Holy Spirit. However, there is an eternal relationship between the Son and the Spirit, in that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and rests in the Son, i.e. the Father is the eternal source, and the Son is the eternal destination. However, the Spirit, eternally resting in the Son, does not remain inert, but active, and thus the Son returns the Spirit (as energy) out of love to the Father. As St. Gregory Palamas writes: “The irradiation of the Spirit from the Son is nothing other than the response of the Son’s love to the loving initiative of the Father who causes the Spirit to proceed.” The great Romanian theologian, Fr. Dumitru Staniloae, synthesized the teaching of the Fathers to show the eternal relationship between the Father and the Son.

I dont know if these are official icons ?

http://www.asianews.it/files/img/size3/STALIN_(f)_1023_-_Icona.jpg

https://meduza.io/image/attachments/images/000/023/636/small/MpNpFKYd3AgClJwT_m7YyA.jpg

You can find some Y2AM t-shirts and mugs here:

https://teespring.com/stores/y2am

The trouble with merch is thats it's increasingly hard to source ethically prepared materials. Since American Apparel went under, for example, TeeSpring has identified some decent alternatives. That wasn't the case with hoodies, so we didn't make any. Sorry!

I just linked <em>A Latin Defense of Mark of Ephesus at the Council of Ferrara-Florence (1438-1439)</em> by Fr. Christiaan Kappes in another thread. It seems relevant here, too. Reproduced below is Fr. Kappes' conclusion.

> This lengthy study has brought us to infer that the story of the Council of Florence is far from told. At the forefront of my argument stands the awe-inspiring figure of Mark of Ephesus. I have sought to tell a purposefully positive story of Mark's sincerity, erudition, reasonability, and humanity during the council itself. Should my revision of the conciliar personality and mentality of the Ephesine prove acceptable to Orthodox and Roman Catholic scholars of goodwill, does it not behoove us to look into the lives, works, and authenticity of other "Greeks" and "Latins" of this pivotal period? We may just find that contemporary pride and obstinacy are often lurking behind our own refusal to know the true mind and heart of our "enemy." This only serves to blind us to the merits and benefit of theological dialogue and mutual understanding. For centuries so many have presumed the Ephesine to be at the heart of an antiecumenical theology serving the scandal of division among Christians. For my part, I see the Ephesine as a key to meaningful unity between East and West. Through studying his method and sources, Mark augurs an authentic modus vivendi between Latins and Greeks in service of full communion between sister churches. MY sincere hope is that Mark's zealous desire for unity and "one Christianity" will one day be fulfilled upon an authentic appreciation of his contributions to the unity of the churches.

If you're moderately techy, then download an app called Calibre which will let you make your PDF, .epub and .mobi files readable on Kindle, eBooks, and any other reader you like.

On the Amazon site, here's a link you can use to read your purchased Kindle content on the Web; the left-hand menu on that page will also lead you to options to mail documents to your Kindle account.

http://streema.com/tv/ This site is pretty good, though you'll have to look up the schedules for the station. Also, Telemundo and the Spanish language channels, as well as the Hispanic American culture as a whole, tends to be far more traditional and conservative.

I highly recommend this book investigating the papal claims using primarily Catholic sources.

I am Orthodox and I think you should become Orthodox. But having said that...

The Catholic Church is the largest organization of any kind in human history. It has more members, more employees, and more departments, subsidiaries and affiliated institutions than any other human organization. As such, it is also going to end up with more skeletons in its closet simply by random chance. The Church with the highest number of church-run schools is also going to be the one where some of those schools have mass graves.

Bigger countries have more criminals than smaller countries, and bigger Churches have more criminals than smaller Churches. It's simple statistics. So I don't think this is a good reason to become Orthodox...

...but it is a good reason to get interested in Orthodoxy, talk to a priest, find out about the arguments for Orthodoxy from books like this one, and then later join the Orthodox Church because you have concluded that this is the true Church of Christ.

Not kissing your priests hand isnt a huge faux pas don't worry about it, God knows what you're doing :-) In terms of becoming Orthodox I would suggest two things: 1) Visit the nearest Orthodox Church you can and attend the services there, ask your priest questions and see how things go 2) Would highly recommend (though it's not necessary mind) to do some reading on the Orthodox Church, there's resources in the sidebar for that and everyone here also gives solid recommendations too! If you wanted a short easy read just for starters, I'd perhaps recommend Edward Siecienski: https://smile.amazon.co.uk/dp/0190883278/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glt_fabc_9E6ZAXNTP9WW70HKHFJQ?_encoding=UTF8&amp;psc=1

That's nice of you to think of your pops.

This is relatively recent academic anthology translates a bunch of interesting historic Arab Orthodox works into English.

https://www.amazon.com/Orthodox-Church-Arab-World-700/dp/0875807011

In Way of a Pilgrim it takes Romans 8's language on how all of creation groans for the Savior and hopes in the revealing of the sons of God and refers to that as creation's unceasing prayer. At its essence everything God created is in state of unceasing prayer in accordance with what st Maximus the Confessor would call the natural will.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/088141249X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glt_fabc_6Y7AWTDFFYEQD8M277CK

The way of the Hesychast is to align what st Maximus called the gnomic will (choosing/discerning will) with this natural will innate to everything including our own bodies and souls. So Hesychasm is similar to what Zen Buddhist would call your orginal mind/face, its the state of non-doing where we exist as x through not our efforts but as His Activities.

Just remember that this orginal liberty is only a path and trajectory of theosis and our orginal way is blessed and transfigured by a type of learned spontaneity, but that is a different matter.

>The reason Jesus’s sacrifice saves us that He lived a perfect sinless life and then received God’s wrath anyway.

No, that idea is called Penal Substitutionary Atonement and it is absolutely not the Orthodox belief about how this works at all.

The Orthodox belief is that Jesus's sacrifice saves us because He was God. A perfectly sinless man or woman could not have replaced Him. The point is that Jesus was both God and man and the same time, which basically allowed Him to exploit a loophole in the rules of the universe to undo the Fall.

After the Fall, all humans who died went to Sheol (Hades), the realm of the dead, the place of separation from God, sometimes improperly called "Hell" (I say "improperly" because this was a different place from the Hell that we might go to now). So Jesus, being a man, also went to Sheol when He died. But He was also God at the same time. So God went to Sheol. God went to the place without God. To use a modern metaphor, you could say this "crashed the operating system of the universe and made it reboot". Sheol was destroyed and all the souls trapped there were released.

St. Athanasius of Alexandria explains it better in his book, On the Incarnation. But the central point is this: We are saved because a man who was also God died. Not just because a sinless man died.

The Orthodox Way and The Orthodox Church by Bishop Kallistos Ware are great first books.

I was raised as a Protestant as well and left the church to pursue more Eastern thought. It looks like we both (correctly) identified that the West’s version of Christianity isn’t complete. It wasn’t until after I had learned enough about Hinduism that I realized Christianity properly understood and practiced is also an Eastern religion. Once I started thinking about Christianity in an Eastern context (unlearning Westernism is a life-long battle), and realizing that true spirituality and mysticism and Christianity are all intertwined, I knew that Orthodoxy was the truth I was looking for.

That said, I always recommend Common Ground: Eastern Christianity for the American Christian. Also Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy is good for finding a basis of comparison, which can sometimes helpful.

Fr. Lawrence Farley's book In the Beginning addresses this exact issue.

My personal solution to the problem - which is based on pure speculation and nothing else - is this: The events in the Garden of Eden took place billions of years ago, on another planet. When Adam and Eve fell, they were not only "cast out" in spatial terms, but also in temporal terms. They were thrown into the far future to witness the consequences of their sin as billions of years of death.

This is pure speculation so take it with a huge grain of salt, but it maintains the traditional theology of Christianity while also making the consequences of Adam's sin far more monstrous than we normally imagine. Billions of years of death.

Evolution, then, would be absolutely real, and also a type of cosmic horror.

The points about the liturgies are discussed in Becoming Orthodox. This book is the story of a group of Protestant pastors who were seeking to emulate the early church and they initially decided it was a "spontaneous" form of worship. They ran their churches like this and found that it doesn't work; they all ended up developing liturgy of some form. You can see this in Protestant churches today, they aren't spontaneous at all. It is usually something like opening statement, 3 songs, multimedia video, scripture reading, sermon, communion, altar call, 1 song, benediction.

What strikes me about the differences in worship style is how Protestant worship looks nothing like Jewish temple worship, while Orthodox worship looks like Jewish temple worship completed by the work of Christ. In the Torah God was very prescriptive when He told the Jews how to worship so I find the claim that we should now spontaneously decide how to worship to be very dubious. It doesn't even hold up under sola scriptura unless you entirely throw away Jewish temple worship.

The pastors in that book decided together to intensely research the early church and to emulate it as closely as possible, and they ended up becoming every close to Orthodoxy and eventually formed the Evangelical Orthodox Church before finally being admitted into the Church of Antioch.

Not sure where you're looking, but there are plenty of Bibles available in the original Koine Greek. This is the standard edition used by New Testament scholars. It's available in several different formats if you just search "Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece".

I love it. I like the format for undistracted reading. The thick paper helps make it easier to read than the typical thin Bible paper. Amazon has the cloth over board version for $99. Not a bad price for 6 volumes.

https://www.amazon.com/Readers-Bible-Cloth-Permanent-Slipcase/dp/1433553473

Here is an Amazon link. It looks like they've added an eBook option since the last time I looked at it, so that is exciting!

> Now, what I would find fascinating is a book examining, in depth, the sort of daily practice changes that Orthodox underwent during the Ottoman era

This may fit the bill? I haven't read it yet. It is on the syllabus for the Antiochian House of Studies program (distance course that results in certification or MA in applied Orthodox theology). It looks excellent and probably answers the questions you pose. I have 2-3 books to read before I pick this up, but I'm excited for it.

Edit: Fixed URL (long form Amazon link)

Here is a link to the New Testament on Amazon. It is a new translation based on the Patriarchal Text of 1904. The Orthodox Study Bible is a totally different project.

There is precious little on the internet about whether the Old Testament is in the works or not.

The Lives of the Pillars of Orthodoxy

That book goes through the lives of SS. Photios, Palamas, and Mark of Ephesus - all three were Orthodox Saints who had direct and indirect interactions with "the West" as major parts of their hagiography. It's a large book (640 pages), so, there's a ton of information about the East/West differences, Schism, etc. Also, that book has a section just about the Schism itself which ties it all together, nicely. I highly recommend a read if you can find a copy or get it cheap.

Here's the description of the book on Amazon:

The lives, struggles, works, and miracles of SS. Photios, Patriarch of Constantinople, Gregory Palamas, Archbishop of Thessalonike, and Mark Evgenikos, Metropolitan of Ephesus. Also included are chapters on the history of the Filioque, Causes for Anti-Union Feelings Among the Byzantines, Events Leading to the Schism of 1054, The Fall of Constantinople in 1453, and Brief Orthodox Replies to the Innovations of the Papacy.

My priest used The Faith by Clark Carlton as a catechism. It's very good, as is the aforementioned books by Kallistos Ware. It lays out our beliefs and our practices well for a newcomer.

If you are interested, it is here on Amazon, where I am surprised at it's price (my parish bookstore had it for twenty dollars). If you are serious, PM me and I would be willing to loan you my copy.

You have come to the start of the path to the Truth. It's a hard one, but very rich and fulfilling. May God bless you on your journey!

I endorse all of these (St. Nicholas Cabasilas is my patron!) and will add Sr. Vassa Larin's Divine Liturgy video course. Fr. Schmemann has many books on the subject. Probably the best one on the Divine Liturgy in particular is The Eucharist: Sacrament of the Kingdom.

The Roman Catholic Liturgy of the Hours is a completely different text from the Orthodox Liturgy of the Hours, although it is similar in some respects, such as having times of prayer throughout the day. However, the prayers themselves are different.

They are also used differently. The Catholic Liturgy of the Hours has been somewhat abbreviated and can be used at home by individuals. The Orthodox Liturgy of the Hours is typically used only in monasteries and parishes by those who have access to the numerous hymn books required.

At home, Orthodox typically pray a morning and evening (and sometimes midday) prayer rule. You can find typical Orthodox morning and evening prayers in a prayer book such as the Jordanville Prayer Book.

If you are interested in a general introduction to prayer from an Orthodox perspective, I highly recommend Beginning to Pray by Met. Anthony Bloom.

edit: Also, the "Liturgy of the Hours" (aka "Divine Office") is not to be confused with the "Divine Liturgy," which is what we call the Roman "Mass," i.e. the service in which the sacrament of the Eucharist is performed.

Another recommendation is A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy.

The view of original sin is that it is not a property. It is a state, that is to say activity, that express non-existence. This state is a part of human nature, it is the disposition to prefer something other than participation in God and as result use that expression of that state as replacing the state of participation in God. Gregory of Nyssa points out the paradoxical project as a whole in trying to get around participating in God is paradoxical because it means that something is participating in nothing and not participating in God.It is rather an inadequacy of a state of being.It is not a piece of "anti-God" that contaminates us, that to say it is not an essence or property relation. This means that is an activity of things. This means it only exists the moment it is done and is expression of somethings activity. Due to this state an agent can not participate fully in God and complete its relationship to it. This involves certain dispositions of action that further express the inadequacy of a state of being. Vladimir Lossky has a good write up in his Orthodox Theology: An Introduction and connects it directly t the biblical account. I attached a google book link to it.

https://books.google.com/books?id=xL1Vn_LLJ3sC&amp;pg=PA81&amp;dq=vladmir+lossky+on+original+sin&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=vOY7VcXOCo7moATH24GwAg&amp;ved=0CGkQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&amp;q=vladmir%20lossky%20on%20original%20sin&amp;f=false

You might be interested in this paper, which explores the reception of the Augustinian idea of the Holy Spirit as love, through first St. Gregory Palamas, then Fr. Dumitru Staniloae. It argues that this notion successfully addresses the concern that some Catholics and Orthodox have had about there being no eternal relation between the Son and the Spirit.

Here's a good article on the sinlessness of Christ and the relation to Pope Shenouda's point (credit to /u/diakonos_ioannis who posted it a while back) in the Eastern Orthodox perspective:

&quot;The Sinlessness of Jesus. A Theological Exploration in the Light of Trinitarian Theology&quot;

Check out the section on Natural Theology in The Reception of St. Paul and Pauline Theology in the Byzantine Period:

>Human reason is not the “cause” of one’s “knowing” God, for true knowledge of God, which is not simply an intellectual apprehension of God’s existence, is an understanding of His mode of existence, of what He is actively doing in the world, which can only come about through revelation and the grace of the Spirit.

I don't think you are required to be an academic to have access. You should be able to download it without being logged in. Try this link.

That was a good read, but for a more scholarly and nuanced view, please see Imageless Prayer and Imagistic Meditation in Orthodox Christianity by Augustine Casiday. The article is mainly about St. Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain, one of the editors of the Philokalia, though Fr. Sergei Sveshnikov criticizes him for Western influence. St. Nicodemus adapted Western works of spirituality such as The Spiritual Combat of Lorenzo Scupoli (which we Orthodox know as Unseen Warfare) and even the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola. It is interesting to see how St. Nicodemus engages with these Western texts.

The soul after death undergoes the particular judgment (which according to certain writers involves the aerial toll-houses), after which the soul experiences an intermediate state before the final judgment, a foretaste of paradise or hades. We do not believe in “soul sleep” because the soul remains conscious after death even without a body. Before the final judgment, people can be released from hades through the prayers and good works of the Orthodox faithful, because some sins can be forgiven after death. As to how this compares with the Latin doctrine of Purgatory, it seems that the Latin doctrine is so sparse it can accommodate many views, though I think it goes against the traditional concept of Purgatory as post-mortem suffering in order to expiate one’s sins.

For more information read:

&quot;To Sleep, Perchance to Dream&quot;: The Middle State of Souls in Patristic and Byzantine Literature

Ferrara-Florence on Purgatory and the Forgiveness of Sins

Orthodox Christians believe that the Church is “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone” (Eph. 2:20). St. Peter is the Rock in a derivative sense because of his confession of faith at Caesarea Philippi. This is why some of the Fathers say that the Rock is Peter, others his confession, and others Christ. However, when Peter tried to hinder Christ from going to His crucifixion, Jesus said to him “Get behind me, Satan!” Though the bishops of Rome inherited St. Peter’s ministry, their possession of any Petrine “charism” is dependent on their orthodoxy. Thus St. Symeon of Thessalonike writes:

> We should not contradict the Latins when they say that the Bishop of Rome is the first. This primacy is not harmful to the Church. But only let them show that he is true to the faith of Peter and his successors; then let him have all the privileges of Peter, let him be first, the head of all and the supreme hierarch. Only let him be faithful to the Orthodoxy of Sylvester and Agathon, Leo, Liberius, Martin and Gregory, then we too shall call him apostolic father and the first among hierarchs; then we will be under his authority not only as under Peter, but the very Saviour Himself.

Although Orthodox affirm the primacy of the Apostolic See, as rooted in the 34th Apostolic Canon, we reject completely Papal Supremacy as defined by the First Vatican Council.

For more on St. Symeon’s views, see St. Symeon of Thessalonica and the Question of the Primacy of the Pope.

http://www.abebooks.com/book-search/title/the-doctrine-of-christ-a-layman's-handbook/author/bishop-dmitri/ there, maybe?

if for whatever reason you can't get it online, pm me your address, and I'll mail my copy to you

https://www.chess.com/article/view/religion-and-chess here's some chess site with list of religious bans. For whole stories, i will let you to do research yourself. But in short, chess was medieval fortnite.

Depending on how much time you'll have, this series of lectures on Orthodox Church History is pretty good (content-wise, the sound quality is a little wonky). The last three lectures are a stand-alone "Christology Workshop," if you're interested in that specifically and/or don't have time for the rest of it.

If nothing else, you could try http://www.worldcat.org/title/mois-chez-les-hommes-reportage/oclc/459256538

and see if you can get it locally or through library loan.

Also, two copies here:

https://www.abebooks.com/book-search/title/a-month-among-the-men/author/choisy-maryse/

Yeah - he's great! Aside from his more famous works, I've enjoyed his fun essays in Tremendous Trifles. I'd highly recommend the essays "A Piece of Chalk" and "What I Found in My pocket" for any Chesterton lovers out there who want a light read.

I am a former Protestant myself, and I get where you are coming from. There is a book that's going to be a tough read but one that I think might cut to the heart of your question. I would lend you my copy, but its all dog earred, scribbled on, and I has all my notes.

https://www.amazon.com/Dancing-Alone-Quest-Orthodox-Religion/dp/0917651367

• Fair warning, this was written by Frank Shaffer, and I am not recommending it to you as a means to convert you. Frank Schaffer has had a storied history and seems to have had a crisis of faith as of late. Also the book is a punch you in the mouth kind of read, but his insight into the intertwined relationship of protestant ideology and our current state is extremely revealing.

There is "Building an Orthodox Marriage" by Bishop John Abdallah of Antioch if you want a more recent work. Bishop John was actually gracious enough to mail me a copy when he found out I was engaged. https://www.amazon.com/Building-Orthodox-Marriage-Practical-Commentary/dp/0881415936

The Sacrament of Love by Paul Evdokimov. link

Love, Sexuality, and the Sacrament of Marriage by John Chryssavgis link

I don't think you need to learn anything special before starting the prayer. The prayer is often repeated multiple times a day and in a row. Don't worry about any techniques or anything, just pray when you feel like you need to and focus on other things when you don't.

Also no worries about sounding repetitive, it doesn't bother me :)

This book is a good short guide to the prayer. You might also read On the Prayer of Jesus if you are looking for something more in depth.

Get some of these to put with your books. You'll have to experiment to figure out how many to use & how frequently to replace them. Or do some googling, maybe someone else has already documented what they've found works best. In any case, then you can be obedient and protect your books.

So I bought it, haven't read it, and of course doesn't fit your definition of being the standard, but Acquiring the Mind of Christ might be something to look into, I'm eager to read it after I finish Religion of the Apostles (which, frankly, could be a dope children's book).

This is the Orthodox Study Bible. It was based on earlier English translations (mainly the NKJV) that were edited in places where they disagreed with the standard Orthodox Bible. So it's not perfect, but it's the best full Orthodox Bible available in English.

On the other hand, for the New Testament - not the entire Bible, just the New Testament - there is a better Orthodox translation available. You really should start reading with the New Testament anyway, not the Old, so I suggest buying this one first.

The best way to read the Bible is to start with the New Testament (minus the Book of Revelation; that will make no sense without extensive study), then read the Old Testament, then read the New Testament again.

The reason to do it this way is because the NT contains the core message of Christianity, so you need to read it first in order to get the main points first. The OT is important background information, so read that second. Then read the NT again because you will understand more of it after you've gone through the background information.

Literally the entire Christian experience😅

Here, some people who spent their lives dealing with those:

https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Ante-Nicene-Post-Nicene-Fathers-Collection-ebook/dp/B00KYBSUUM/

The Orthodox Way by Bishop Kallistos Ware.

It is a beautiful icon. Since you are drawn to it, I would encourage you to spend an hour to read a short book by St. John of Damascus entitled &quot;On the Divine Images&quot; written to defend the practice of iconography in the time of the iconoclasts("icon smashers").

Why? It was written to explain why icons are important to Orthodox theology and in doing so it expresses a very poetic and concise statement of faith itself. Here's an excerpt:

> “Of old, God the incorporeal and uncircumscribed was never depicted. Now, however, when God is seen clothed in flesh, and conversing with men, I make an image of the God whom I see. I do not worship matter, I worship the God of matter, who became matter for my sake, and deigned to inhabit matter, who worked out my salvation through matter. I will not cease from honoring that matter which works my salvation.”

As beautiful and helpful as a holy icon is, keep in mind that you yourself—being in the image and likeness of God—are equally an icon showing forth the beauty and grace of the creator of beauty and grace.

It is dangerous to our own intellectual affirmations to pursue truth, for truth is a person—Christ, the eternal Logos. You may find that He likewise beckons you to move beyond complacency and toward Him, whatever path that may take. I have found that this mutual pursuit has made my life both more complicated and much more fulfilling.

Blessings to you on your journey.

I got you this one, and purchased one for myself. A friend once gifted me one in the thin style, and though I have since lost it, it has been my most favorite prayer rope I ever had.

Amazon gives an arrival estimate between February 14th and March 14th, so you will, unfortunately have to be a little bit patient. It seemed that somebody else already got you The Orthodox Way, so I hope these items together will help you grow in the faith. PM when you get it, if you please! (:

You can find it online for free: http://www.myriobiblos.gr/texts/english/photios_mystagogy.html

Or you can order it from Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/Mystagogy-Holy-Spirit-Fathers-church/dp/091658688X