Archive for category New Nuggets
Archimandrite George: “… a mystical union of God and man in the Holy Spirit”
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Hesychasm - Jesus Prayer, New Nuggets, Theology on August 22, 2015
“A Christian is not a Christian simply because he is able to talk about God. He is a Christian because he is able to have experience of God. And just as, when you really love someone and converse with him, you feel his presence, and you enjoy his presence, so it happens in man’s communion with God: there exists not a simply external relationship, but a mystical union of God and man in the Holy Spirit.” ~ Archimandrite George (Kapsanis), Abbott of the Holy Monastery of St. Gregorios on Mount Athos
Hierotheos: Orthodox Psychotherapy
Posted by Dallas Wolf in New Nuggets, Theology on August 21, 2015
Metropolitan Hierotheos (Vlachos) – (1945- ) is a Greek Orthodox metropolitan and theologian. He graduated from the Theological School of the University of Thessaloniki and is one of the finest Patristic scholars living.
“The term “Orthodox Psychotherapy” does not refer to specific cases of people suffering from psychological problems of neurosis. Rather it refers to all people. According to Orthodox Tradition, after Adam’s fall man became ill; his “nous” was darkened and lost communion with God. Death entered into the person’s being and caused many anthropological, social, even ecological problems. In the tragedy of his fall man maintained the image of God within him but lost completely the likeness of Him, since his communion with God was disrupted. However the incarnation of Christ and the work of the Church aim at enabling the person to attain to the likeness of God, that is to reestablish communion with God. This passage way from a fallen state to divinization is called the healing of the person, because it is connected with his return from a state of being contrary to nature, to that of a state according to nature and above nature. By adhering to Orthodox therapeutic treatment as conceived by the Holy Fathers of the Church man can cope successfully with the thoughts (logismoi) and thus solve his problems completely and comprehensively.” ~ Met. Hierotheos Vlachos, from “Orthodox Psychotherapy – The Science of the Fathers”
C.S. Lewis: “Love is not affectionate feeling”
Posted by Dallas Wolf in New Nuggets on August 6, 2015
“Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person’s ultimate good as far as it can be obtained.”
– C.S. Lewis
Justin Popovich: “In truth there is only one freedom”
Posted by Dallas Wolf in New Nuggets on July 17, 2015
“In truth there is only one freedom – the holy freedom of Christ, whereby He freed us from sin, from evil, from the devil. It binds us to God. All other freedoms are illusory, false, that is to say, they are all, in fact, slavery.”
– Saint Justin Popovich
D.B. Hart: “For my money, if Origen was not a saint and church father, then no one has any claim to those titles.”
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Ekklesia and church, New Nuggets on May 13, 2015
David Bentley Hart (born 1965) an Eastern Orthodox scholar of religion, is a philosopher, writer, and cultural commentator. His books include The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss and That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell, Universal Salvation, and The New Testament – A Translation. He lives in South Bend, IN.
“East or West, all Christians are burdened with the absurdities of Christian imperial history. But any conception of orthodoxy that obliges one to grant the title of “saint” to a murderous thug like Justinian while denying it to a man as holy as Origen is obviously—indeed ludicrously—self-refuting. And one does not defend tradition well by making it appear not only atrociously unjust, but utterly ridiculous.”
D.B. Hart, from Saint Origen, First Things, October 2015.
“For my money, if Origen was not a saint and church father, then no one has any claim to those titles. And the contrary claims made by a brutish imbecile Emperor are of no consequence.”
D.B. Hart, from Eclectic Orthodoxy blog post, 11 May 2015.
D.B. Hart: “Wisdom is the recovery of innocence at the far end of experience”
Posted by Dallas Wolf in New Nuggets on May 13, 2015
David Bentley Hart (1965- ), is a contemporary American Eastern Othodox theologian and philosopher.
“I start from the conviction that many of the most important things we know are things we know before we can speak them; indeed, we know them—though with very little in the way of concepts to make them intelligible to us—even as children, and see them with the greatest immediacy when we look at them with the eyes of innocence. But, as they are hard to say, and as they are often so immediate to us that we cannot stand back from them objectively, we tend to put them out of mind as we grow older, and make ourselves oblivious to them, and try to silence the voice of knowledge that speaks within our own experiences of the world. Wisdom is the recovery of innocence at the far end of experience; it is the ability to translate some of that vision into words, however inadequate. There is a point, that is to say, where reason and revelation are one and the same.” ~ David Bentley Hart. from “The Experience of God”.
Anthony Bloom: “the Church must never speak from a position of strength”
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Ekklesia and church, New Nuggets on April 22, 2015
“It seems to me, and I am personally convinced, that the Church must never speak from a position of strength…It ought not to be one of the forces influencing this or that state. The Church ought to be, if you will, just as powerless as God himself, which does not coerce but which calls and unveils the beauty and the truth of things without imposing them. As soon as the Church begins to exercise power, it loses its most profound characteristic which is divine love [i.e.] the understanding of those it is called to save and not to smash…”
– Metropolitan Anthony Bloom
Dostoyevsky: “… And He will judge and will forgive all, …”
Posted by Dallas Wolf in New Nuggets, Universal Restoration (Apokatastasis) on March 29, 2015
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821 – 1881) – Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist, journalist, and philosopher.
“… And He will judge and will forgive all, the good and the evil, the wise and the meek… And when He has done with all of them, then He will summon us, ‘You too come forth,’ He will say, ‘Come forth, ye drunkards, come forth, ye weak ones, come forth, ye children of shame!’ And we shall all come forth without shame and shall stand before Him. And He will say unto us, ‘Ye are swine, made in the image of the Beast and with his mark; but come ye also!’ And the wise ones and those of understanding will say, ‘O Lord, why dost Thou receive these men?’ And He will say, ’This is why I receive them, O ye wise, this is why I receive them, O ye of understanding, that not one of them believed himself to be worthy of this.’ And He will hold out His hands to us and we shall fall down before Him… and we shall weep… and we shall understand all things! Then we shall understand all!… and all will understand, Katerina Ivanovna even… she will understand… Lord, Thy kingdom come!” And he sank down on the bench exhausted and helpless, looking at no one, apparently oblivious of his surroundings and plunged in deep thought. His words had created a certain impression; there was a moment of silence; but soon laughter and oaths were heard again.” ~ Marmeladov’s Vision from “Crime and Punishment”
“There is an end to the deadly tedium of the impersonal”
Posted by Dallas Wolf in New Nuggets on March 22, 2015
I AM THAT I AM. Yes, indeed, it is He Who is Being. He alone truly lives. Everything summoned from the abyss of non-being exists solely by His will. My individual life, down to the smallest detail, comes uniquely from Him. He fills the soul, binding her ever more intimately to Himself. Conscious contact with Him stamps a man for ever. Such a man will not now depart from the God of love Whom he has come to know. His mind is reborn. Hitherto he was inclined to see everywhere determined natural processes; now he begins to apprehend all things in the light of Person. Knowledge of the Personal God bears an intrinsically personal character. Like recognizes like. There is an end to the deadly tedium of the impersonal. The earth, the whole universe, proclaims Him: “heaven and earth praise him, the sea, and everything that moveth therein” (Ps. 69.34)…
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John of Kronstadt: ” the deceptive sweetness of sin separates us from the truly sweet life”
Posted by Dallas Wolf in New Nuggets on March 8, 2015
“All our attention must be centered on the parable of the Prodigal Son. We all see ourselves in it as in a mirror. In a few words the Lord, the knower of hearts, has shown in the person of one man how the deceptive sweetness of sin separates us from the truly sweet life according to God. He knows how the burden of sin on the soul and body, experienced by us, impels us by the action of divine grace to return, and how it actually does turn many again to God, to a virtuous life.”
– St. John of Kronstadt
First Thoughts 