Essays on prayer, the saints, the services of the Church, and the inner life.
October 28, 2026
Fifty years after Nicaea, the faith was still being argued in the bakeries. Here is how the Council of Constantinople finished the Creed, and where three words went missing.
Read more: The Second Ecumenical Council: Constantinople and the Holy Spirit
October 27, 2026
The forty-day fast before Christmas, from November 15 to December 24: why it is called St Philip’s Fast, how to keep it, and the feasts along the way.
October 27, 2026
A true story of emperors, bishops, exiles and arguments, and how the Church kept the faith through seven great councils.
October 25, 2026
Every Sunday you say a creed that was argued over, word by word, in the summer of 325. Here is what happened at Nicaea, and why one word mattered so much.
Read more: The First Ecumenical Council: Nicaea and the Creed We Still Say
October 15, 2026
Your parish priest is your pastor. Whether he is your spiritual father is a separate question, and it is one you are meant to answer deliberately.
October 10, 2026
A friend’s father died. Here is how the Orthodox Church walks with a body, a funeral, a grave, and the years after — and what is Church-wide, and what is old-country custom.
September 28, 2026
What we actually set aside, which days and seasons, and why the hardest part of Orthodox fasting is usually not the food.
September 24, 2026
Someone told you to come, or you read something that would not leave you alone, and now you are looking at a church with a dome and a schedule board that says Divine Liturgy, 9:30 a.m. and you are trying to decide whether to walk in. Walk in. That is the whole of the advice. […]
September 11, 2026
I’ve sat with that Last Judgment icon longer than I’ve admitted in polite company. Christ on the throne. The blessed on one side, the ones who spent their lives against Him on the other — even the ones who looked pious. And between them, coming out from the throne, a river of fire. I used […]
August 19, 2026
I was standing outside the other evening watching the light change over the mountains and found myself having a quiet argument with myself. Does the new day begin at sunrise? At midnight? Or… at sunset the evening before? Most of the modern world has settled the question for practical reasons. Clocks roll over at midnight […]
