For many people, the fact that the Orthodox Church once had deaconesses, somewhere at sometime, is enough to justify having them again. After all, they say, we Orthodox believe in tradition, and deaconesses are part of the tradition. Are they … Continue reading
Remarks by Protodeacon Brian Patrick Mitchell At the St. Phoebe Center Conference on “Renewing the Male and Female Diaconate” Irvine, California October 7, 2017 Thanks, Helen [Theodoropoulos], for the introduction, and thanks also to AnnMarie Mecera and everyone else at … Continue reading
The textbooks say the Byzantine Empire was a theocratic autocracy uniting church and state under an all-powerful emperor believed by the Byzantines to be God’s viceroy and vicar. Nonsense, says Anthony Kaldellis, professor of classics at Ohio State University. The … Continue reading
More and more often, one hears one’s friends on the Right describe themselves as “anarchists.” “Christian anarchist,” says one. “Tory anarchist,” says another. “Anarcho-capitalist,” say quite a few. But the most daring increasingly call themselves “anarcho-monarchists”—inspired, I suspect, by J.R.R. … Continue reading
Most Americans, even most American Christians, celebrate Christmas much more than Easter, yet it is only Easter—Pascha—that makes sense of Christmas. The birth of Christ is only something to celebrate if you know the rest of the story. Consider the … Continue reading
Conflict makes people uncomfortable, so in mixed company, people watch what they say. Instead of speaking their minds on controversial issues, they trim their opinions to fit those around them—sometimes out of charity, sometimes out of prudence, but often out … Continue reading
Elsewhere I’ve written about a very unfortunate unintended consequence of anti-discrimination laws: They take away much of our freedom of association and with it much of our freedom of speech, because in mixed company, people must watch what they say. … Continue reading
Twenty years ago a friend of mine published a novel, and after reading it I thought, I can do better than that. So I started work on the kind of novel I like to read — an epic romance spanning … Continue reading
For more than a decade now, the United States has worked to promote democratic revolution in the Muslim world — overthrowing otherwise stable regimes to make way for democratic governments presumably better able to satisfy and thereby pacify the restless … Continue reading
If you’ve sung for long in a church choir, you’ve probably been told to make sure you pronounce all final consonants. You might also have been told to make sure your t’s don’t sound like d’s. You might even have … Continue reading
