Recommended Reading Spring 2009
A Palestinian Christian Cry for Reconciliation By Naim Stifan Ateek Orbis Books, 224 pp, $24 Fr. Naim Ateek has played a major role in promoting Palestinian nonviolent resistance. Rejecting the misuse...
View ArticleDear In Communion reader, June 2009
Dear In Communion reader, It always surprises me, for a journal of so modest a size, how much we manage to get into it. It’s a bit like Holland, small but densely populated. Walking home this morning,...
View ArticleDear In Communion reader
Dear In Communion reader, One of the topics discussed in this issue is how often we prefer justice, as humanly understood, to forgiveness and mercy. For Fr. Stephen Freeman, the matter isn’t an...
View ArticleThe Nativity of the Mother of God
The first great feast of the Liturgical year celebrates the nativity of the Blessed Virgin. It is appropriate that, during these first days of the new year, we should be brought into the presence of...
View ArticleSalt of the Earth
An Orthodox Christian approach to peacemaking by Jim Forest “You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except...
View ArticleAdam, Where Are You?
Reflections on Adam, Christ, and Us by Peter Bouteneff Many think about Adam and Eve from the perspective of debates about the age of the universe and the origin of human beings. The Church Fathers and...
View ArticleOn God and Justice
by Fr. Stephen Freeman There are many who imagine theologically that at some later point, a final judgment, God’s justice, will be manifest. In this manifestation of justice, the punishments of hell...
View ArticleNational Identity and the Search for Unity
by Archbishop Makarios of Kenya Despite many areas of progress, the past century has been the most brutal age in the history of humanity. What is most shocking about the many conflicts is that it is...
View ArticlePatristic reflections: Not an eye for an eye but love of enemies
You have heard that it was said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” But I say to you, Do not resist one who is evil. But if any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also;...
View ArticleNews: Fall 2009
Patriarch Kirill visits Ukraine A ten-day trip to Ukraine by Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church included visits to a monument to victims of the Stalin-era famine, a liturgy that drew...
View ArticleConversations by email: Fall 2009
These are extracts from recent postings to the OPF’s e-mail discussion list. If you are an OPF member and wish to take part, contact Mark Pearson or Jim Forest . Fervent supplication: Here is a...
View ArticleRecommended Reading: Fall 2009
Hidden Holiness by Michael Plekon University of Notre Dame Press, $25 A poem by Matthew Brown that introduces the first chapter to Fr. Michael’s text reveals a “bottom-up” approach to holiness, which...
View ArticleDear In Communion reader,
Dear In Communion reader, This first issue of the year 2010 makes a special link with St. Basil the Great, one of the towering figures of fourth-century Christianity, a saint who not only helped lay...
View ArticleForgiveness and healing
To forgive does not mean to forget what has happened, but to shoulder the weight of another person’s frailty or even another person’s evil. St. Paul says, “Learn to carry one another’s burdens.” These...
View ArticleLunch with Mother Maria
by Bev Cooke It’s time for lunch! Deacon Kevin grabs a sack of sandwiches. The rest of us grab the table and boxes of drinks, granola bars and fresh fruit, then truck them over to the tree on Harris...
View Article‘I Was in Need and You Helped Me’
By Fr. Justin Mathews God calls us to share in His love, a love which expresses itself in acts of compassion for all who are broken-hearted and in need. In doing this, we become God’s own hands. Such...
View ArticleOn Mercy and Justice
by St. Basil the Great (or a follower) The following text, often attributed to St. Basil the Great, is now regarded by some scholars as the work of one of Basil’s followers. This translation is the...
View ArticleGod Knows There’s Need
by Michael Taylor Susan Holman is a scholar of the social justice tradition in the early church. Her new book is God Knows There’s Need: Christian Responses to Poverty (Oxford University Press). She...
View ArticlePatriarch Pavle:A Saint Who Walked
by Danny Abbott Orthodox Christians lost a fearless bishop with the death November 15 of Patriarch Pavle, long-time leader of the Serbian Orthodox Church. A man of exceptional humility and a tireless...
View ArticlePeacemaking as Mission
by Jim Forest The Beatitudes include the words, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.” Christ himself bears witness to what peacemaking looks like. He sought out both...
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