Plain answers about the Orthodox faith

Every claim here is traceable. Where something is a later tradition, it says so. Where a well-loved detail could not be verified, it is not used — the same rule that governs the books.

Visiting a church

• Your First Orthodox Liturgy: What Is Happening in the Room?

  You are not expected to know when to bow. You are expected to be welcome.

  4 min read

Worship

• Why Orthodox Worship Refuses to Hurry

  The Divine Liturgy is not trying to get us back to the rest of our day. It is trying to show us what the day is for.

  4 min read

• What an Icon Is—and What It Is Not

  An icon is not a religious photograph. It is also not a small painted god.

  3 min read

• Why Is Communion Not Open to Everyone?

  The chalice is not closed because Orthodox Christians believe they are better. It is guarded because the Church believes the Eucharist is truly what she says it is.

  4 min read

Prayer

• A Prayer Short Enough for a Wandering Mind

  The Jesus Prayer is small enough to carry anywhere and deep enough that nobody reaches its end.

  4 min read

• Why Orthodox Christians Ask the Saints to Pray

  The saints do not stand between Christ and His people. They stand in Christ, among His people.

  4 min read

Practice

• Fasting Is Not a Diet

  Changing the food while leaving the appetite in charge is not much of a fast.

  4 min read

• Why Confess Where Another Person Can Hear You?

  Sin prefers privacy. Not the privacy of prayer, but the privacy in which it gets to choose its own name.

  4 min read

• Why Orthodox Christians Make the Sign of the Cross

  Before the mind finishes explaining the faith, the hand has already confessed it.

  3 min read

Doctrine

• Why Orthodox Christians Call Mary “The Theotokos”

  The title sounds as though it is making an enormous claim about Mary. It is making an even larger claim about her Son.

  4 min read

• Salvation Is More Than a Verdict

  Christ did not come merely to improve our legal position. He came to make the dead alive.

  4 min read

Scripture and Tradition

• The Bible Did Not Arrive Without a Church

  The New Testament was written inside the Church, received by the Church, and read aloud by the Church before anyone carried it as one bound volume.

  3 min read

• Why the Church Fathers Still Matter

  Christianity did not disappear after the last page of Acts and reappear when we arrived to interpret it.

  4 min read

Getting it right

• When a Beautiful Christian Story Is Not True

  A story does not become harmless merely because the lesson attached to it is good.

  4 min read

A note. These articles explain what the Orthodox Church teaches and why. They are not spiritual direction. Anything touching your own rule of prayer, fasting or confession belongs with your priest or spiritual father, who knows you and your circumstances.

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