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…
Continue readingTwo People Ministering the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
Contemporary Jewish-Orthodox Relations
Contemporary Jewish-Christian dialogue has been defined, by and large, by the post-Holocaust, Western, American/European setting in which it emerged and by the predominance of Catholics and (liberal) Protestants, who have been the primary Christian interlocutors. And Orthodox Christians? According to Sandrine Caneri: … the Orthodox at this time were simply not in any condition to…
Continue readingFrom Altar Calls to Theosis
What Orthodoxy Showed Me about a Life of Transformation
I did not grow up in a church that observed Lent, but I did grow up around altar calls. For me and my community, these deeply emotional and cathartic encounters at church were often the catalysts for the spiritual transformations I longed for in my youth. And while I’m not entirely against altar calls…
Continue readingThe Asbury Revival and Lent: An Orthodox Appreciation
On February 8, the students who gathered for a regular worship service at a chapel of Asbury University, a small Christian college in Wilmore, Kentucky, found themselves unable to leave at the service’s end. They continued to pray with their hands extended, making public confessions of repentance and praise, for hours. The nonstop service…
Continue readingShould the WCC Expel Patriarch Kirill?
The Christian world as a whole—and the Orthodox world, in particular—has been horrified by the invasion of Ukraine by the armed forces of Russia. It seems to be a distressingly indiscriminate campaign, in which thousands have been killed—young soldiers, men, women, and children—as well as hospitals, schools, homes, monasteries, churches destroyed, with millions of refugees…
Continue readingForeign Diplomats Assess the Vatican’s Ostpolitik
Image: iStock.com/PhotoBeto It was a great opportunity to express solidarity to Ukraine by taking part in a panel discussion at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv on July 1. Four ex-ambassadors to the Holy See—Ukrainian, Lithuanian, EU (originally from Poland), Georgian—were invited to speak about the history and contemporary challenges of the Vatican’s Ostpolitik. Ostpolitik…
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