The Apostles’ Fast: The Fast of Those Who Are Sent
The Apostles’ Fast is not merely an abstinence before a feast, but the fast of those who are sent — a preparation for the apostolic work of the whole Church.
All Saints’ Sunday: The Fruit of Pentecost
All Saints’ Sunday reveals the fruit of Pentecost: the Holy Spirit makes human beings holy, known and unknown, from every age and condition.
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.
Saint Xenia of Petersburg, the Fool for Christ
The life of Saint Xenia of Petersburg: widowhood, foolishness for Christ, the gift of foresight, and her living intercession at Smolensk Cemetery.
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 Life of Gleb (Herman) Podmoshensky: Between Zeal and Delusion
The life of Gleb (Herman) Podmoshensky, co-founder of Platina: zeal, fall, schism, and prelest through a patristic lens.
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.
Martha and Mary: Work and Stillness
The feast of Saints Martha and Mary, the sisters of Lazarus (June 4): their lives, who Saint Lazarus is, the patristic reading of the two sisters, and their liturgical veneration.
The Holy Martyrs of Niculitel: Confessing Christ and the Veneration of Holy Relics
The Holy Martyrs of Niculitel teach us how to confess Christ, why the Church venerates holy relics, and the courage to remain faithful in the world.
Ivan Kireevsky and the Mind That Prays
Ivan Kireevsky, the Russian critic and philosopher trained under Hegel and Schelling, who found at Optina Monastery the integrality of the mind and the living tradition of the Holy Fathers.