If you Google the term “Pharisees” you find the following: “The Pharisees were a Jewish social movement and school of thought in the Levant during the time of Second Temple Judaism”. That definition is historically true, but spirituality inadequate, for Pharisees were and are not confined to the Levant or to the time of Second Temple Judaism. They can be found almost anywhere, in all places and in all religions. Modern Orthodoxy is home to many of them, for Pharisaism remains a perennial spiritu...
Jun 25, 2025
It occurred to me recently that it is significant that the invisible enemy of our souls is called “the Evil One” in both the Lord’s Prayer and in such passages as 1 John 5:19. That is, our adversary is never named, but only referred to obliquely. He is also referred to as “the Adversary” from the Hebrew word for adversary “satan” (see e.g. the curse in Psalm 109:6 which reads “Appoint a wicked man over him and let a satan stand at his right hand”). This Hebrew word was transliterated into the Gr...
Jun 04, 2025
From the days of Moses when God made a covenant through him with Israel to come and dwell in their midst, Israel has offered sacrifice to Yahweh their God. The detailed instructions for offering sacrifices and for the shrine centre built to receive them are found in the Pentateuch. Originally this shrine was portable, meant to be disassembled and reassembled throughout Israel’s journeying. It was reassembled in Shiloh which then served as the liturgical and spiritual focal point of Israel’s wors...
May 07, 2025
Fr. Nicolaie shares the story of Tara, and the hope that comes when a broken heart is changed by God's healing touch.
Apr 30, 2025
In many Orthodox churches, baptisms are done privately and almost secretly: after the morning Divine Liturgy at which the entire church community was present had concluded and all the people had left, a few people remained behind—or perhaps, if they had not been at the Liturgy, came to church deliberately late to attend the private family baptism to which they had been invited. If Liturgy began at 9.30 am and concluded at 11.00 am and if the people had all dispersed after the post-Liturgy coffee...
Apr 30, 2025
A number of Evangelical inquirers have asked exactly what we Orthodox mean in our prayer describing the Theotokos as “the salvation of the Christian people”. They also wonder what we can mean when we pray that we “may obtain paradise through you, O Virgin Theotokos”. These queries are perhaps reinforced every Matins and Vespers which conclude with the priest saying, “Most holy Theotokos, save us!”
Mar 26, 2025
Hidden well away in the Greek of the genealogy with which St. Matthew opens his Gospel is a little theological secret—a secret which utterly vanishes in most English translations. Matthew begins his genealogy of Jesus by saying that “Abraham begot Isaac, and Isaac begot Jacob, and Jacob begot Judah and his brothers” and so on and on for about another forty names. The word here rendered “begot” is the Greek ἐγέννησεν/ egennesen, the active mood of the verb γεννάω/ gennao. After so many instances ...
Mar 19, 2025
had thought of entitling this piece “About UFOs”, but then quickly reconsidered, not wanting to blow all my credibility before anyone had begun reading it. This piece is an unabashed and unapologetic rip-off of a chapter in Rod Dreher’s new book Living in Wonder in which chapter he deals with UFO phenomena and its current significance. This chapter (along with a previous one dealing with the dangers of the occult and, come to that, the entire book) should be required reading by all seminarians a...
Feb 26, 2025
Much to my surprise, some time ago the Nicene Creed was trending online among the Southern Baptists, America’s largest Baptist organization. They were, apparently, debating whether or not that Creed should be added to their official statement of faith. This was a bit controversial since the Southern Baptists are well-known for their position that they have “no Creed but the Bible”. Though it is hard for me to work up any enthusiasm or interest in what our Southern Baptist friends do with their o...
Feb 05, 2025
Once when I was a new convert to Anglicanism (a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away) I asked my dear Anglican pastor why our Anglican Church no longer canonized any saints. I knew that the Roman Catholic Church continued to canonize saints and (had I only known it back then) the Orthodox Church continued to canonize saints, but the Anglican Church did not. What was the deal?
Jan 29, 2025
I have just finished reading a very 2002 interesting book The Case for Christ, written in Evangelical style by Lee Strobel. One of the chapters was about how Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah, for which Mr. Strobel interviewed Mr. Louis S. Lapides, a Jewish convert to the Christian faith who now has a B.A. in theology from Dallas Baptist University and an M. Div. and a Master of Theology from Talbot Theological Seminary and who is now senior pastor at Beth Ariel Fellows...
Jan 22, 2025
The whimsical title of this blog post is based on the 1969 book by David Reuben entitled Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask). I chose the title because although the Church has its own teaching about sexuality, many young Orthodox Christians are afraid to inquire diligently about it for fear the Church will give unwelcome advice. Which of course it will.
Jan 01, 2025
Recently I was re-reading a good but somewhat dated book about the episcopate, entitled The Apostolic Ministry, a collection of essays edited by Bishop Kenneth Kirk and published 1946. In one piece, written by Beatrice Hamilton Thompson on the “Post-Reformation Episcopate in England”, the author compared the state of the episcopate at the time Archbishop of Canterbury Matthew Parker (d. 1575) to that of the episcopate at the time of St. Cyprian of Carthage (d. 258).
Dec 03, 2024
Recently I have come across an anti-Orthodox polemic which rejects our veneration of icons on the grounds that venerating an image painted on a board of Christ, His Mother, or His saints is contrary to the practice of the apostles and of the earliest Church. The objection is stated with some sophistication, and is not the usual fundamentalist reference to the Mosaic Law’s proscription of carved statues used in worship (e.g. Exodus 20:4f). This more sophisticated objection acknowledges that there...
Oct 30, 2024
Recently a minor fracas in the narthex of our church was caused by (I kid you not) my long hair (see inset for a rear view of said hair). Since my hair steadfastly refuses to grow on the top of my head, you would think I could be cut a little slack for the bit that grows at the back, but apparently not.
Oct 16, 2024
Thousands of years ago when I was a teenager and a brand-new Christian, I happened to read an article by S.G.F. Brandon about Jesus being a Zealot, in which he questioned much if not most of the Gospel portrait of Jesus and suggested that the Gospels (particularly that of Mark) constituted a whitewash of Jesus, eliminating His Zealotry from the Gospel picture to make Him and His movement more acceptable in Roman eyes. It was, of course, a precis of his 1967 book Jesus and the Zealots which creat...
Oct 09, 2024
It has been suggested to me that in many (most?) Evangelical circles one becomes a Christian “by accepting the finished work of Christ”—i.e. by believing and accepting as true that on the cross Jesus paid the full price due our sin and by saying a prayer acknowledging this.
Oct 02, 2024
I am sometimes asked if an Orthodox Christian can have an assurance that he or she will be saved. The question usually comes from my converts from Evangelicalism. They were previously taught that when one is saved, one is given the assurance that they are saved and this assurance offers a real and constant source of comfort. They ask me, “Were we misled? Can an Orthodox Christian have the same assurance of salvation?”
Sep 18, 2024
A story is told of the final temptation of Christ. Satan had been trying to tempt Jesus to sin, to compromise, to abandon His divine mission (see Matthew 4:1-11 and Luke 4:1-13), and according to this story, Satan tried one last time to deflect Jesus from His goal. Jesus had been arrested, interrogated, condemned by the Sanhedrin, brought before Pilate, again condemned, mocked and flogged. He carried His cross along the way from the Roman praetorium to the place of execution and was nailed to th...
Aug 28, 2024
In this final episode on this topic, I would like to conclude my extended look at a Reformed view of predestination. There are certain aspects of it that fly in the face of much Biblical teaching.
Aug 21, 2024
In my last episode, I examined Paul’s words in Romans 9 and their bearing upon the classic Reformed teaching about predestination—i.e. the notion that before the creation of the world God had already chosen some to be saved and some to be damned, and that these choices were based solely upon His sovereign will, and that furthermore, our human choices to accept or reject Christ were simply the outworking of God’s primordial decisions. Those whom He chose to be saved He would draw to Himself so th...
Aug 14, 2024
In his book Reflections on the Psalms, C. S. Lewis wrote a chapter on praising which began with him saying that “It is possible (and it is to be hoped) that this chapter will be unnecessary for most people”. In the same spirit, I hope that this and subsequent episodes on the topic of predestination will be unnecessary for most people.
Jul 31, 2024
All of the words of the Saviour are important, even the words spoken that were strictly rhetorical. One such utterance is found in the story of the sinful woman, told in Luke 7:36f.
Jul 24, 2024
Protestant critics of Orthodoxy fault us for many things, but one of the foremost of their objections is our devotion to Mary, the Mother of Jesus. Hostility to Roman Catholicism is built into Protestant DNA, so anything in Orthodoxy that resembles something in Roman Catholicism will be subject to criticism, including such more or less innocuous things like clergy wearing cassocks and calling themselves “Father”. Our Orthodox devotion to Mary (whom we call “the Theotokos”) often heads the list o...
Jul 10, 2024
I have recently come across the teaching that Orthodox Christians should not pray for non-Orthodox. I cannot cite the details of who-where-when, so perhaps I am misunderstanding what is being said. But the concern to differentiate Orthodox from non-Orthodox in our intercessory prayers is real enough: I have been in one Orthodox Church where the list in the narthex on which one could write names to be prayed for in the Litany of Fervent Supplication has separate columns for Orthodox and non-Ortho...
Jul 03, 2024
The method by which the Orthodox Church receives converts is a very controversial topic, and one which has provoked much online discussion. Should a convert be received by baptism, by chrismation alone, or perhaps simply after a recantation of previously-held errors? All three methods have been used in the past. And which groups should be received in which ways? Should the Oriental Orthodox (such as Copts and Armenians) be received in the same way as Pentecostals? What about Roman Catholics? The...
Jun 26, 2024
The feast of the Ascension is a feast of comfort and consolation for the people of God. But it can for some people represent a stumbling block. Looking at the ascension of Christ as it is narrated in Scriptures, does the Church then really believe that accepting the Ascension also involves accepting a literal three-storey universe?
Jun 19, 2024
Many people will (hopefully) identify the above quote as coming from the speech of Polonius in Act 1, Scene 3 of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. It was part of the fatherly talk he gave to his son Laertes before the boy moved away to university. It is now often quoted as a bit of perennial wisdom for life (it was written by Shakespeare, after all). It is not as often known that it was part of a speech that Shakespeare meant to be recognized as almost meaninglessly platitudinous, a kind of Elizabethan “bla...
Jun 12, 2024
I recently spoke with a dear friend who dolefully reported that a distant family member had left his very traditional Protestant church (with its stress on doctrine and Reformed worship) for a group called “The Bridge”. The name of the group reminded me of similar names of such new churches, such as “Connect”, and “Relate”—i.e. the names were intended to highlight their emphasis on relationships. So much for “St. James Anglican Cathedral”, or “Ferndale Baptist Church”, or even “Living Waters Pen...
May 22, 2024
Thousands of years ago when I was an Evangelical Protestant in the Anglican Church, I never prayed to the saints or asked for their intercession. It was made quite clear to me by those around me that obedient Christians never did that and that prayer to the saints (especially to Mary) was idolatry of the worst sort and consequently provoked the ire of the Most High. Catholics, of course, prayed to Mary and the saints, but real Christians didn’t. Even when I got out more and grew a bit and realiz...
May 15, 2024
