When the New York Times recently asked readers to tell them why they had left their religion behind some 7,000 readers responded (“Why Do People Lose Their Religion?” June 7, 2023). Clearly there is a lot of painful pent-up feeling about this. But an equally intriguing question is, “Why do people keep their religion?” This…
Continue readingMartyrdom without Miracles
The 9th-Century Church Controversy in Córdoba and Modern Orthodoxy
Between the years 850 and 859, something unexpected happened in Córdoba. Some forty-eight Christians were martyred. Contemporary church historians usually refer to them as “voluntary martyrs” because almost all of them, by their own will, presented themselves in front of the Muslim authorities and confessed themselves to be Christians, denouncing Islam and Mohammed as a…
Continue readingEconomists vs. F.M. Dostoyevsky
The Role of Christ’s Church in Crime and Punishment
It was Garry S. Becker who, in his seminal 1968 paper, introduced economics to the area of crime and punishment. Academic economists, who disagree among themselves about so many issues, concur about crime and punishment. Out of four main universally accepted motives of punishment (retribution, incapacitation, rehabilitation [i.e., resocialization], and deterrence), economists agree that deterrence…
Continue readingWizards, Prophets, and the Archbishops and Bishops of the Christian Church
In his 2018 book The Wizard and the Prophet, Charles C. Mann describes the work and approaches of two of the most important environmentalists of the 20th century: William Vogt and Norman Borlaug. Unfortunately, their “blueprints” are contradictory approaches to the problems of climate change. Mann categorizes those who follow Borlaug’s model of “techno-optimism” (that…
Continue readingThe Spirit of Christian Freedom
Remembering Archbishop Artemy
The spirit of Christian freedom is a gift that in post-Soviet Orthodoxy has not, alas, been embraced or appreciated by many. Soviet-educated people, deprived of their experience of inner freedom, mostly failed to discover Orthodoxy as a liberating experience. Rather the opposite, immersion in church life became a convenient substitute for Soviet ideology. The path…
Continue readingHumble Abuse and Responsibility
Some Reflections on the Situation Around the UOC
First, I would like to say two things. From 2009 to 2019, I was quite involved in the life of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC)—from singing and helping a priest-monk at a local parish near Kyiv to assisting the bishop during international trips to translating for international ecumenical guests at Lavra, the metropolia, and the…
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