Faith • Grief • History • Hope
Faith • Grief • History • Hope
What if the debate over church and state is older—and richer—than our modern political arguments suggest? Before we settle into today's slogans, perhaps we should return to eighteenth-century New England, where faithful Christians wrestled with conscience, covenant, liberty, and the Gospel itself. The questions they asked may be exactly the questions we still need to ask today.
As a Church leader, I must be clear. When political leaders speak of annihilation, claim divine sanction for violence, or dismiss the Church’s moral voice, they step outside the bounds of Church teaching and basic human decency.
As the spiritual leader of a local congregation, I spend much of my time reading and staying up to date on the latest trends in all things church. One of the most amazing things to me is this desire to…
This is a very sad day for the Church. The Servant of God, the Protopresbyter Thomas has fallen asleep. I met Fr. Tom many years ago, long before I was Orthodox, and he has been a great inspiration to me…
By Fr. Lawrence Farley I can, I think, count on the fingers of my one hand the number of times I have described myself as an Eastern Orthodox. Usually the preferred self-designation is simply “Orthodox,” but sometimes this provokes confusion,…
Each year, around the end of June, we start to dust off all of the supplies and things that will be needed for our Annual Romanian Festival. For about the last 89 years, St. Michael Romanian Orthodox Church in Southbridge,…
There really is no more sacred place in an Orthodox Church than the Altar where the Liturgical Services are celebrated. When a Church is built, the altar is consecrated by the bishop with holy oil and relics of the saints…
by Fr. Lawrence Farley Fr. John Peck, Author of the Orthodox Church of Tomorrow, has an excellent discussion on his blog about how we Christians can survive in this world we live in today. This essay by Fr. Farley is…
A week ago, the Orthodox world was trying to get used to the idea that a Metropolitan of a major Jurisdiction in the United States had resigned in a cloud of controversy. (I am not implying that he was involved…
Thanks to Facebook, I saw the graphic that is located at the top of this page. The research comes from the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate and it looks at how well religious groups in the United States are performing…