The Loss of Joy Among Christians
Why does the contemporary Christian confess the Resurrection, yet so rarely live its joy? A diagnosis of Liturgy, the Mysteries, the saints, and the return to Christ.
Category Patristic Orthodoxy
Essays on patristic discernment, living Tradition, spiritual authority, and the difference between Orthodox confession, ideology, and religious mythology.
Patristic Discernment
True Orthodoxy
Essays on patristic criteria, living Tradition, and the discernment between confession, ideology, and religious mythology.
Core Article
What Does “True Orthodoxy” Mean?
Four patristic criteria for judging tradition, authority, and spiritual fruit soberly.
The River-Fast with Water in Orthodoxy
On the so-called “water-only fast,” “fasting and repentance” retreats, the Church’s forgotten complete fast, and why Orthodox fasting does not work with the unlimited.
Why the Saints Condemned No One
The saints saw sin more clearly than we do, yet they did not make themselves judges of men. Non-condemnation is the beginning of inner peace and love of enemies.
The Life of Saint Andrew the Fool for Christ
Saint Andrew the Fool for Christ and the Orthodox tradition of holy folly: its scriptural and patristic ground, the discernment of true folly, and the transmission of his Life.
The Book of Revelation – Part 3: The Lamb and the Heavenly Liturgy
Part 3 of the Revelation series: the centre of the book is not the beast, but the Lamb and the heavenly Liturgy, where judgment and hope are revealed together.
Saint Cyril of Alexandria: The Seal of the Fathers and the Boundary Between Faith and Error
Saint Cyril of Alexandria defended the name Mother of God at Ephesus and showed the boundary between Orthodox faith and heresy.
Non-Commemoration After the Council of Crete: A Plain Explanation
After the Council of Crete, some faithful ceased commemorating their hierarch, appealing to Canon 15 of the First-Second Council. But that canon has an essential condition: the heresy must be preached openly and already condemned by the Church. Without this threshold, walling-off risks being not confession but division.
When a Priest Is Defrocked: The Two Paths of Response
An unjust defrocking is nothing new in the Church. The Saints knew it fully. What separates a confessor from a schismatic is not the injustice suffered, but the manner of the response — and the grounds of the rupture, not its appearances.
The Book of Revelation – Part 2: The Key to Reading It
St Andrew of Caesarea’s method and the golden rule of reading Revelation: its symbols are unfolded through Scripture and in the Church, not through the news of the day.
The Book of Revelation – Part 1: Why the Fathers Were Silent
Why Revelation is not read at the Divine Liturgy, and why the Fathers approached it with caution: canon, chiliasm, Chrysostom’s silence, and the patristic key.