Category: EOC

  • Apostolic Succession of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem

    List of Patriarchs of Jeusalem

  • Attitude in Apologetics

    Fr Paul Truenbach talks about proper attitude in apologetics.

  • Explaining the Gospel

    Father Stephen DeYoung Explains the Gospel to Gavin Ortlund The Nicene Creed Biblical Correlation

  • Those outside the Church

    Fr Stephen DeYoung explains to Gavin Ortlund how the Orthodox Church views those outside the Faith

  • What is the Church?

    Stephen DeYoung explains to Gavin Ortlund what the Church is

  • The Eucharist Explained

    Fr Jonathan Ivanoff explains the Eucharist to Pastor Tommy

  • Liturgical Worship in the Early Church

    Fr Jonathan Ivanoff explains Liturgical Worship to Pastor Tommy

  • Pork?

    From grok The question of whether early Christians ate pork (or followed Jewish dietary laws prohibiting it, as in Leviticus 11:7–8 and Deuteronomy 14:8) has a nuanced answer based on the New Testament and historical evidence from the apostolic era.Key Biblical Developments Practice in the Early Church In summary, while the very earliest Jewish followers…

  • Men’s Book Club

    Our Men’s group finished Fr Andrews Stephen’s book on St Ignatius of Antioch. Ignatius of Antioch (/ɪɡˈneɪʃəs/; Ancient Greek: Ἰγνάτιος Ἀντιοχείας, romanized: Ignátios Antiokheías; died c. 108/140), also known as Ignatius Theophorus (Ἰγνάτιος ὁ Θεοφόρος, Ignátios ho Theophóros, ‘the God-bearing’), was an early Christian writer and Patriarch of Antioch. While en route to Rome, where he met his martyrdom, Ignatius wrote a series of letters. This correspondence forms a central…

  • Saint Theophan the Recluse

    My Patron Saint is Theophan the Recluse. I was looking for a patron saint and went down a particular path. My first name, Douglas has various meanings but one of the common ones is “dark, moody waters.” There are no Orthodox saints with the name Douglas. I tried finding a Celtic Orthodox Saint with a…

  • Dying in Baptism

    The Apostle Paul teaches this explicitly in Romans 6:3-11: “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore, we were buried with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we…

  • Dying to Join

    From Inquirer to Newly Illumined You are already convinced enough in your mind that you want to become Orthodox, but it seems like the Church/Priest are not quite sure about you. What’s up with that? Inquirer Phase A lot of Inquirers have already engaged with books like Ware’s book or one of the Evangelical Orthodox…

  • Gnostic Christianity

    The early Christian church (what became the Orthodox tradition, before the East-West schism) did oppose Gnostic groups and their teachings, labeling them as heretical. They worked to suppress Gnostic writings, and later—after Christianity gained imperial support in the 4th century—some texts were indeed banned, confiscated, and destroyed (including burning in certain cases). But the idea…

  • Neophyte in the Orthodox Church

    In the Eastern Orthodox Church, the term “neophyte” (from the Greek neophytoi, meaning “newly planted”) refers to a newly baptized and chrismated (confirmed) Christian — someone who has recently been received into the full life of the Church through the sacraments of initiation.Unlike the Roman Catholic tradition, which has a more formalized “neophyte year” (a…

  • Incense in the Church

    Yes, prior to the Reformation, the Christian Church (both in the East and West) consistently interpreted Malachi 1:11 as a literal prophecy fulfilled in Christian worship — specifically, the use of literal incense alongside the “pure offering” understood as the Eucharistic sacrifice. This understanding appears very early and remains uniform across the patristic period (roughly…

  • Perpetual Virginity of Mary

    In Eastern Orthodox theology, the perpetual virginity of Mary (that she remained a virgin before, during, and after the birth of Christ, often called “Ever-Virgin” or Aeiparthenos) is a firmly held dogma, rooted in apostolic tradition, the Church Fathers, liturgical texts, and early Christian writings like the Protoevangelium of James. The question of Joseph accepting…

  • Orthodox Calendar(s)

    There’s a weird claim out there. Excuse you actually Holy Orthodoxy and its insistence on a calendar that is literally wrong comes from St. Mehmed II, Pillar of Orthodoxy and Equal to the Apostles (pbuh) The Reality There is zero historical evidence that Mehmed II ever issued any decree, spoke, or intervened regarding the Julian…

  • Intercession of the Saints

    No early Church Father (typically defined as writers from the 1st to 5th centuries, especially ante-Nicene and Nicene eras) explicitly denied or rejected the intercession of departed saints in a clear, systematic way — that is, no major patristic figure wrote a treatise or statement outright condemning the belief that saints in heaven can pray…

  • Orthodoxy and Forgiveness

    The Eastern Orthodox Church does not generally teach unilateral forgiveness in the sense of always requiring or mandating complete, unconditional forgiveness of others without any regard to repentance — but the teaching strongly emphasizes forgiving everyone from the heart as a personal spiritual necessity, even (and especially) when the offender shows no repentance. This is…

  • Did Calvin teach unilateral forgiveness?

    John Calvin did not teach unilateral forgiveness (i.e., a completely one-sided, unconditional granting of full relational pardon and reconciliation without any regard to the offender’s response or repentance). Calvin’s teaching on forgiveness aligns closely with the biblical pattern: Christians are commanded to maintain an attitude of love, forbear love, and readiness to forgive even toward…

  • Early Life Abuse

    (Part 1 Therapy for the soul) Most of the saints had very Godly mothers so this doesn’t apply as much to them as it does to us regular folks.. Orthodox Christian “therapy for the soul” (as described in the Patristic tradition and especially in Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos’s Orthodox Psychotherapy) does involve dealing with the deep…

  • Therapy for the soul

    Orthodox Christian “therapy for the soul” (often called Orthodox psychotherapy or the science of spiritual medicine) refers to the entire ancient tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church as a healing system for the human soul, mind, and body, wounded by the Fall, sin, passions, and death. This understanding is most famously articulated in the modern…

  • Prayers for the Dead

    Prayers for the dead were a Jewish practice in the Second Temple period, before the time of Jesus Christ (who lived circa 4 BCE–30 CE). The clearest evidence comes from 2 Maccabees 12:38–46, a Jewish text composed around 124 BCE during the Hellenistic era. In this account, Judas Maccabeus and his men discover that fallen…

  • Two Branches

    The post-crucifixion history of the separation between followers of Jesus (early Christians) and non-following Jews was a gradual process, not a single event. Modern scholars describe it as the “parting of the ways,” spanning from the 1st to the 4th century CE, with Christianity emerging as a distinct, predominantly Gentile religion while Judaism evolved into…