With over 400 participants, representing 45 countries, the second mega-conference of the International Orthodox Theological Association (IOTA) was the largest gathering of Orthodox scholars in modern times, surpassing the first mega-conference held in 2019 in Iaşi, Romania. The conference concluded on Sunday, January 15, 2023, in Volos, Greece with a hierarchical liturgy and a pilgrimage…
Continue readingThinking Out Loud: In Response to the OCA’s Curbing of Intellectual Freedom
by Very Rev. Dr. Isaac Skidmore I would like to respond to the Statement on Same-sex Relationships and Sexual Identity, issued by the Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America during the recent All-American Assembly in Baltimore in July. I believe it will be evident I have concerns about the statement’s curtailment of…
Continue readingTrue Man: Kallistos of Oxford as Orthodoxy’s First Universal Teacher of the Global Age
by Brandon Gallaher | български | ελληνικά | Română | Русский | Српски “Meeting him I sensed immediately a quality of authenticity,of integrity, of completeness; here I felt was a true man.He was marked by a serenity, by a transparent and luminous joy”(Kallistos Ware, “Mount Athos Today” [1976]) A Moment of Pan-Orthodox Unity In a…
Continue readingFreedom from Fear
Response to the Statement of the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in America
“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” (1 John 4:18) In our inaugural editorial in 2015, we stated: “The Wheel is a journal for the intelligent and constructive articulation of the Christian Gospel…
Continue readingMethod and Consequence in the Study of U.S. Orthodoxy
by Robert Saler Much of the recent controversy about Sarah Riccardi-Swartz’s book Between Heaven and Russia (as well as the National Public Radio piece that highlighted her work along with that of other scholars investigating the influence of far-right currents within U.S. Orthodoxy) has exhibited some confusion about the epistemology of social science disciplines. Sarah’s…
Continue readingFreedom of Speech in the Church
The Serbian Test Case
by Milan Vukomanović | български | Ελληνικά | Română | Русский | Српски When, in March 2020, Serbian Patriarch Irinej officially sanctioned Dr. Vukašin Milićević, a priest and assistant professor of the Faculty of Orthodox Theology (FOT) at the University of Belgrade, it became clear that the recent interference of higher clergy of the Serbian…
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