The Depth of Our Life in Christ Yesterday I was crucified with Him; today I am glorified with Him; yesterday I died with Him; today I am made alive with Him; yesterday I was buried with Him; today I rise with Him. Having prepared ourselves during Great Lent in accordance with our Orthodox Church’s prescribed custom of prayer, fasting, spiritual readings, partaking in the sacraments, and attending as many church services as possible, we arrived at Palm Sunday, being at the beginning of the Passion of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Hopefully we lived Holy Week with considerable contrition [...]

ATHEISM IN REVERSE In the previous issue of this periodical, we dealt with the development of Atheism, and the different ideological streams that were used to support its spread in the European landscape. In the beginning, the system of “Scholasticism” was set up ostensibly to help people find answers to the problems they had with their Faith, e.g. divine revelations, God’s grace, and other Christian teachings. The system appeared to support the existence of God, but without connection to the Church. The result was that history was distorted by “Relativism” (aligning teachings and dogmas to the concepts of the current [...]

  Atheism   Long before the Son of God was born as man, God spoke to Moses and told him, “You shall have no other gods before me” (Ex 20:3). And elsewhere he orders him to tell His people: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.” (Deut 6:4). God addressed these words to His own selected people. He had given them their own land, with Jerusalem to become their capital city and “The city of the great King” (Ps 47:3). Christ’s Incarnation established a new covenant which included those who in the past were not His people. [...]

The Three Steps of Spiritual Perfection   Many people believe that the purpose of religion is to prepare them for the life after death. Some Orthodox Christians believe that the Orthodox Faith has this exclusive purpose. They do not do much in this life, but they wait until they die, so when that time comes, they can go to Paradise, because when alive they were Orthodox Christians. Another group are quite active in this life – they pray regularly, ask the priests to offer supplication [paraklesis] or holy unction prayers, attend church frequently, etc, so that God may help them [...]

Western Mentality and Eastern Morality: Part II Around the time of Charlemagne, who was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 800AD, Western Europe was in a state of confusion and feudalism. Western Europe was going through the Middle Ages (also known as the Medieval period). During this period, war was the usual state among the countries of Europe, and this prevented any significant social, spiritual, scientific, or educational progress. As a result, the people remained largely illiterate and leading a mostly agrarian life. The Middle Ages are generally accepted to have lasted from the 5th to the 14th Century, and were [...]