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| 1. |  | |
The Rebirth of Orthodoxy: Signs of New Life in Christianity
| | <p> Thomas C. Oden notes a stark reversal in our time: as modern secular and political ideologies continue to wane, communities of traditional faith are flourishing now more than ever. In Christianity, this resurgence shows itself in widespread efforts to reclaim the classic spiritual practices: the close study of scripture, daily prayer, regular observance in a worshiping community, doctrinal integrity, and moral accountability. This rebirth is characterized by a return to orthodoxy that is gathering across denominational lines, rejecting the old partisan battle-lines of the past. </p> <p> This emerging and vibrant new orthodoxy is evident across the spectrum of Christian communities -- Evangelical, Mainline, Orthodox, and Catholic -- and is paralleled in Jewish communities as well. It is grounded in an acceptance of the historical consensus of scriptural interpretation, tempered by the openness to diversity contained in tradition itself, and enlivened by the freedom that comes from centered belief and practice. Its harbingers are neither the jaded power brokers and policy wonks of the old liberal Ecumenical establishment, nor their isolationist counterparts on the politically active fundamentalist right, but instead are lay believers emboldened by the rediscovery of ancient and relevant truths. </p> <p> Oden contends the challenges of the new millennium are less political than spiritual and moral. He sees the coming years as a pivotal period of opportunity, recovery, and rebuilding in which our faith heritage will regain relevance and power, despite its having been long disdained by media managers and the knowledge elites. <i>The Rebirth of Orthodoxy</i> is at once a description of a movement already underway, as well as a statement of its essential features. </p> | |
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Short Trip to the Edge: Where Earth Meets Heaven--A Pilgrimage
| | <P>While walking on the beach with his Labrador, poet and literature professor Scott Cairns ran headlong into his midlife crisis. A fairly common experience among men nearing the age of fifty, midlife crises are usually manifested in the form of sports cars and younger women; not so for this Baptist turned Eastern Orthodox. Cairns had a realization that as the advancement of his spiritual life was moving at a snail's pace, time was running out, and his crisis emerged in the form of a desperate need to seek out prayer. </P><P> Told with wit and exquisite prose, Slow Pilgrim is the story of Scott's spiritual journey to the mystical island of Mt. Athos. With twenty monasteries and thirteen sketes scattered across its sloping terrain, the Holy Mountain was the perfect place for Scott to seek out a prayer father and to discover the stillness of the true prayer life. His narrative takes the reader from a beach in Virginia to the most holy Orthodox monasteries in the world to a monastery in Arizona and back again as Scott struggles to find his prayer path. His story includes accounts of the relationships he forges with several different monks and priests along the way, as well as lifelong friendships he makes with other pilgrims.</P> | |
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Facing East: A Pilgrim's Journey into the Mysteries of Orthodoxy
| | <center><p>The Classic Story of a Family's Pilgrimage <br>into the Orthodox Church </p></center> <p>Veiled in the smoke of incense, the Eastern Orthodox Church has long been an enigma to the Western world. Yet, as Frederica Mathewes-Green discovered, it is a vital, living faith, rich in ritual beauty and steadfast in integrity. Utilizing the framework of the Orthodox calendar, Mathewes-Green chronicles a year in the life of her small Orthodox mission church, eloquently illustrating the joys and blessings an ancient faith can bring to the worshipers of today.</p> | |
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The Orthodox Church: New Edition
| | Since its first publication thirty years ago, Timothy Ware's book has become established throughout the English-speaking world as the standard introduction to the Orthodox Church. Orthodoxy continues to be a subject of enormous interest among Western Christians, and the author believes that an understanding of its standpoint is necessary before the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches can be reunited. He explains the Orthodox views on such widely ranging matters as ecumenical councils, sacraments, free will, purgatory, the papacy and the relation between the different Orthodox churches. | |
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The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition (Oxford Early Christian Studies)
| | Deification in the Greek patristic tradition was the fulfillment of the destiny for which humanity was created - not merely salvation from sin but entry into the fullness of the divine life of the Trinity. This book, the first on the subject for over sixty years, traces the history of deification from its birth as a second-century metaphor with biblical roots to its maturity as a doctrine central to the spiritual life of the Byzantine Church. Drawing attention to the richness and diversity of the patristic approaches from Irenaeus to Maximus the Confessor, Norman Russell offers a full discussion of the background and context of the doctrine, at the same time highlighting its distinctively Christian character. | |
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The Copts and the West, 1439-1822: The European Discovery of the Egyptian Church (Oxford-Warburg Studies)
| | In seventeenth-century Europe the Copts, or the Egyptian members of the Church of Alexandria, were widely believed to hold the key to an ancient wisdom and an ancient theology. Their language was thought to lead to the deciphering of the hieroglyphs and their Church to retain traces of early Christian practices as well as early Egyptian customs. This book, the first full-length study of the subject, discusses the attempts of Catholic missionaries to force the Church of Alexandria into union with the Church of Rome and the slow accumulation of knowledge of Coptic beliefs, undertaken by Catholics and Protestants. It ends with a survey of the study of the Coptic language in the West and of the uses to which it was put by Biblical scholars, antiquarians, theologians and Egyptologists. | |
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The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, Vol. 2: The Spirit of Eastern Christendom (600-1700)
| | <DIV>The line that separated Eastern Christendom from Western on the medieval map is similar to the "iron curtain" of recent times. Linguistic barriers, political divisions, and liturgical differences combined to isolate the two cultures from each other. Except for such episodes as the schism between East and West or the Crusades, the development of non-Western Christendom has been largely ignored by church historians. In <i>The Spirit of Eastern Christendom</i>, Jaroslav Pelikan explains the divisions between Eastern and Western Christendom, and identifies and describes the development of the distinctive forms taken by Christian doctrine in its Greek, Syriac, and early Slavic expression. <BR><BR>"It is a pleasure to salute this masterpiece of exposition. . . . The book flows like a great river, slipping easily past landscapes of the utmost diversitythe great Christological controversies of the seventh century, the debate on icons in the eighth and ninth, attitudes to Jews, to Muslims, to the dualistic heresies of the high Middle Ages, to the post-Reformation churches of Western Europe. . . . His book succeeds in being a study of the Eastern Christian religion as a whole."Peter Brown and Sabine MacCormack, <i>New York Review of Books</i> <BR><BR>"The second volume of Professor Pelikan's monumental work on The Christian Tradition is the most comprehensive historical treatment of Eastern Christian thought from 600 to 1700, written in recent years. . . . Pelikan's reinterpretation is a major scholarly and ecumenical event."John Meyendorff <BR><BR>"Displays the same mastery of ancient and modern theological literature, the same penetrating analytical clarity and balanced presentation of conflicting contentions, that made its predecessor such an intellectual treat."<i>Virgina Quarterly Review <BR><BR></i></DIV> | |
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| 9. |  | |
Living Icons: Persons of Faith in the Eastern Church
| | Living Icons presents an intimate portrait of holiness as exemplified in the lives and thoughts of ten people of faith in the Eastern Orthodox Church. In this inspiring volume, Michael P. Plekon introduces readers to a diverse and unusual group of men and women who strove to put the Gospel of Christ into action in their lives. The "living icons" Plekon describes were, among other things, priests, theologians, writers, and caregivers to the homeless and poor. One was an artist who became the greatest icon painter in this century; another was assassinated for his teachings in post-Soviet Russia. These remarkable people of faith lived through times of great suffering: forced emigration, the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War. Many of them were criticized, if not condemned, by ecclesiastical opponents and authorities. yet each demonstrate a unique pattern for holiness, illustrating that the path to sainthood is open to all. With the fall of state socialism, Eastern Orthodox churches and monasteries are being reopened and receiving renewed interest from believers and nonbelievers alike. Plekon calls to our attention people like Saint Seraphim of Sarov (1759-1832), a monk, mystic, counselor, healer, and visionary; Father Alexander Man (1935-1990), a Russian whose writings after Glasnost ultimately led to his tragic assassination; Mother Maria Skobtsova (1891-1945), a painter, poet, and political activist who was killed in a concentration camp for hiding her Jewish neighbors; and Father Lev Gillet (1893-1980), one of the twentieth century's greatest spiritual teachers. Living Icons, which includes a foreword by Lawrence S. Cunningham, brings to life the beautiful, and often unfamiliar, spirituality of the Eastern Orthodox Church through some of its most remarkable members. It shows with simplicity and clarity that Christ and the Gospel are often manifested in extraordinary ways in the lives of ordinary people. | |
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| 10. | ![]() | |
Hidden Holiness
| | In <i>Hidden Holiness</i>, Michael Plekon challenges us to examine the concept of holiness. He argues that both Orthodox and Catholic churches understand saints to be individuals whose lives and deeds are unusual, extraordinary, or miraculous. Such a requirement for sainthood undermines, in his view, one of the basic messages of Christianity: that all people are called to holiness. <BR> Instead of focusing on the ecclesiastical process of recognizing saints, Plekon explores a more ordinary and less noticeable "hidden" holiness, one founded on the calling of all to be prophets and priests and witnesses to the Gospel. As Rowan Williams has insisted, people of faith need to find God's work in <i>their</i> culture and daily lives. With that in mind, Plekon identifies a fascinatingly diverse group of faithful who exemplify an everyday sanctity, as well as the tools they have used to enact their faith. A generous and expansive treatment of the holy life, accessibly written for all readers, Plekon's book is sure to inspire us to recognize and celebrate the holiness hidden in the ordinary lives of those around us. <BR> "Father Michael Plekon pushes a boundary here. Our usual understanding of those who are saints involves something heroic, something extraordinary--and it allows us to put too comfortable a distance between ourselves and those we consider saints. We are able to look away from the Lord's demand that we are to be holy, as God is. By focusing on the manifest holiness of a number of people who did not demonstrate such extraordinary heroism, people whose lives nevertheless give witness to the transforming power of the gospel, he challenges all of us to become what our baptism calls us to be." --<b>John Garvey, author of <i>Seeds of the Word: Orthodox Thinking on Other Religions</i></b> <BR> "Recent years have seen a great resurgence of interest in the saints--not as legendary heroes or heavenly patrons, but as spiritual companions and models of faithfulness. Michael Plekon writes with compassion and insight about a number of those models. But his great contribution is to highlight a new style of holiness, hidden in the ordinary duties and challenges of everyday life. A profound, ecumenically rich reflection on the meaning of sainthood in our time." --<b>Robert Ellsberg, author of <i>All Saints</i></b> <BR> "In <i>Hidden Holiness</i>, Michael Plekon writes about the ways holiness and grace are everywhere, not just located inside church buildings. He writes of people living out their faith. I loved this book and recommend it to anyone who wants a relationship with divinity that is creative and ongoing, a religion deeply embodied and unconfined by doctrine and rules." --<b>Darcey Steinke, author of <i>Easter Everywhere: A Memoir</i> and <i>Jesus Saves</i></b> | |
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