Group items tagged

The liturgical rites of all the Eastern Orthodox Churches can be traced back to the original rite in use in Jerusalem prior to the Apostolic missionary activities to the Gentiles, and the subsequent persecutions that moved the Christian Church out of Judea and across the Mediterranean basin and beyond. The Apostles took with them the liturgical rite, developed as it was at the time. This became the basis of the Eucharistic service for the Church. The early Christian Church was not characterized by written rites that were carefully adhered to, but followed a highly regarded oral tradition of Eucharistic prayers.

In other words, grace is natural to man. The divine power is a part of man's NATURAL integrity. There is not a set of gifts given to "nature" and then another set of gifts given to "supernature". When our parents "fell from grace" there was not a fall into "nature" stripped of "supernature," rather it is something UNnatural (this means that there is no concept of 'natura pura' either actually or theoretically). The fall is a fall into dialectic. I cannot be a human person without grace. We stand within the Incarnation and understand this question and we can equally say with Michael Baius - against the Thomistic tradition on some conception of the "absolute gratuity of grace" without reference to the Incarnation - that given that God wills the mystery of His embodiment in Jesus Christ, God could not have created me other than I already am. The vision of God is natural to man, what God does in Redemption, He does in Creation. God intention in Creating was to will the mystery of His embodiment in Jesus Christ.

Forgiveness is one of the exclusive human qualities or attitudes, crucial to the basic make-up of the human person, especially when we speak in terms of the spiritual tradition of Christianity. Recent formulations define forgiveness as the opposite of resentfulness, rancor and hatred, entailing the relinquishment for justification and punishment. These issues, initially belonging to the ground of philosophical, theological or sociological speculation, appeared recently on the scene of psychological research and applications.

The Descent of Christ into Hades in Eastern and Western Theological TraditionsBy Bishop Hilarion (Alfeyev) - A lecture delivered at St Mary's Cathedral, Minneapolis, USA, on 5 November 2002

Fr. Michael Pleckon\nMichael Plekon is a priest of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA), is the associate priest at St. Gregory the Theologian Church, Wappingers Falls NY and is professor in the department of Sociology/Anthropology and the Program in Religion and Culture at Baruch College of the City University of New York, where he has taught since 1977.

On the language of the liturgy: the language of the Bible\nFr. Alexander Schmemann in The prayer of the church is always biblical - i.e., expressed in the language, images, and symbols of the Holy Scripture. If the Bible contains the Divine Revelation to man, it is also man's inspired response to that Revelation and thus the pattern and the content of man's prayer, praise, and adoration.

Juan Mateos, S. J.\nOriginally published in: John XXIII Lectures. Vol. I. 1965. Byzantine Christian Heritage. John XXIII Center For Eastern Christian Studies. Fordham University, New York (Bronx), N. Y. 1966.