Orthodox Religion

For so many, the Christian faith is viewed as little more than a drug that enables the weak to escape reality. An opiate that helps its users to avoid facing the injustice of the world and making a stand against it. In short, the Christian faith is perceived to be a counter-revolutionary ideology that keeps people passive, infantile, and ineffectual. In contrast, Peter Rollins has crafted a series of parables that shatter this popular perception.

St. Marina was from Antioch, a young girl with a passion so fierce for the Love of Christ, she denied all that was offered her for a life of wealth and power and continued to seek only the love that Jesus gives. She was hideously and brutally tortured in ways no human could indure but the Lord, who works miracles, led her through it all, with his Grace.

Considered by many to be the final and crowning work of the patristic age, St John of Damascus’ On the Orthodox Faith addresses all the major areas of Christian belief: Trinitarian theology, Christology, soteriology, the sacraments, the veneration of icons, saints, relics, and much more.

It is precisely where we hurt most that the experience of the Orthodox Church has much to offer. The remedy is not a pep talk, or any simple admonitions to fight the good fight, cheer up, or think positively. Rather, the Orthodox method is to change the way we look at the human person (starting with ourselves). According to two thousand years of experience, Orthodoxy shows us how to "be transformed by the renewing of our mind" - a process that is aided by participation in the traditional ascetic practices and Mysteries of the Church.

From Catholic schoolgirl to punk rocker to emergent church planter, Angela Doll Carlson traveled a spiritual path that in many ways mirrors that of a whole generation. She takes us with her on a deep and revealing exploration of the forces that drove her toward Orthodoxy and the challenges that long kept her from fully entering in.

A dedicated group of Orthodox monks (who wish to remain anonymous) have created a fresh English translation of the Masoretic Hebrew text of the Psalter, corrected to the Septuagint. A frequently asked question: The Psalms aren't in numerical order in this Psalter. Why is that? Answer: That was done intentionally. This edition of the Psalter was created for prayer, at home or in church, rather than for reference. It's not just another Book of Psalms.

The modern world doesn't acknowledge but is nevertheless haunted by spirits—angels, demons, and saints. In our time, many yearn to break free of the prison of a flat, secular materialism, to see and to know reality as it truly is. What is this spiritual reality like? How do we engage with it well? How do we permeate everyday life with spiritual presence?

The Orthodox Christian tradition is filled with wisdom and guidance about the biblical path of salvation. Yet this guidance remains largely inaccessible to parents and often disconnected from the parenting challenges we face in our homes. Parenting Toward the Kingdom will help you make the connections between the spiritual life as we understand it in the Orthodox Church and the ongoing challenges of raising children.

How do we, as orthodox parents, keep our children in the church throughout their lives? It all begins with involving them in the life of the church from birth onward - in the parish and also at home. Blueprints for the Little Church provides practical ideas and encouragement - without judgment - for incorporating the primary practices of orthodox spirituality into your family life at every stage of its growth and throughout the church year.

Foreskin's Lament reveals Auslander's youth in a strict, socially isolated Orthodox community, and recounts his rebellion and efforts to make a new life apart from it. Auslander remembers his youthful attempt to win the "blessing bee" (the Orthodox version of a spelling bee), his exile to an Orthodox-style reform school in Israel after he's caught shoplifting Union Bay jeans from the mall, and his 14-mile hike to watch the New York Rangers play in Madison Square Garden without violating the Sabbath.

Nearly ten years in the making, this liturgical translation of the Psalter is the result of a collaborative effort between translators, editors, scholars, church musicians, and the communities of St Vladimir's Seminary and St Tikhon's Monastery. The goal for this project was to find translational register that was both accurate to the original and, at the same time, felt familiar within the liturgical context in which it would be read and sung.

To many in the West, Orthodoxy remains shrouded in mystery, an exotic and foreign religion that survived in the East following the Great Schism of 1054 that split the Christian world into two camps - Catholic and Orthodox. However, as the second largest Christian denomination, Orthodox Christianity is anything but foreign to the nearly 300 million worshipers who practice it. For them, Orthodoxy is a living, breathing reality; a way of being Christian ultimately rooted in the person of Jesus and the experience of the early church.

The tradition of the Church is consistent and has been passed on to us unchanged from the times of the apostles. It teaches that the avoidance of children is a lawless act and a deliberate resistance by man to the will of God. If, in this matter, even heterodox Churches have tried not to deviate from this tradition, all the more is faithful adherence incumbent upon us the Orthodox, the unbending custodians of the dogmatic and moral truths handed down to us from the beginning.

The classic work by Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, one of the modern-day sages of Jewish literature. This work is universally studied across all sectors of Jewish learning and is indisputably recognized as the foremost work in Jewish ethics and self-improvement. In the author's own words: "I have written this work not to teach men what they do not know, but to remind them of what they already know and is very evident to them, for you will find in most of my words only things which most people know, and concerning which they entertain no doubts."

For centuries the Ottoman Empire committed atrocities while swarming through Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Central Europe and others. Greece was also one of the barbarians' targets. Turks shed the blood of the innocent throughout all of Greece without any hesitation. Men, women, elderly even children were submitted to the horrifying torments of the barbaric Ottoman armies. One of these children was Constantine Morphis later named Ephraim. His innocence and his love for Christ led him through the most difficult times but also to triumph.

Ancient Faith has produced a fresh update and redesign of a book cherished by a generation of seekers. Written in an accessible manner for the average lay person, Orthodox Worship offers insights into the Orthodox liturgy. Early Christians preserved a continuity of worship from the Old Covenant to the New, employing elements from the Jewish Temple liturgy, the synagogue liturgy, and the rituals of the Jewish home.

Derech Hashem (The Way of God) is a philosophical text written in the early 1740s by Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto. It is considered one of the quintessential handbooks of Jewish thought. The text covers a vast gamut of philosophical topics in the vast spectrum of classical Judaism's outlook on the world. These topics include the purpose of creation, the Creator, human responsibility, the spiritual realms, providence, Israel and the nations, astrology, the human soul, theurgy, prophecy, the study of Torah, prayer, and the function of mitzvah observance.

In response to popular demand, Patrick Henry Reardon explores redemption and salvation through the lens of Scripture, patristics, and liturgics, as well as through history, philosophy, language, literature, and psychology. He brings all these perspectives together to show how the whole of Christ’s work—from Incarnation to Ascension—accomplishes the “at-one-ment” of God with man.

The Holy Psalter contains the Psalms and other scriptural Odes that are used throughout the Orthodox Church's liturgical life. It uses the Greek Septuagint ("LXX") Old Testament, the scripture used by the Apostles and the early Christians, and by the Orthodox Church today.

Abby Stein was raised in a Hasidic Jewish community in Brooklyn, isolated in a culture that lives according to the laws and practices of 18th century Eastern Europe, speaking only Yiddish and Hebrew and shunning modern life. Stein was born as the first son in a dynastic rabbinical family, poised to become a leader of the next generation of Hasidic Jews. But Abby felt certain at a young age that she was a girl. She orchestrated a personal exodus from ultra-Orthodox manhood to mainstream femininity - a radical choice that forced her to leave her home, her family, her way of life.