by Reader Peter Jackson My wife, Styliana, grew up in a family of non-denominational Protestant missionaries. When she was five, she and her family moved to Colombia, where they began working as missionaries among the Kogi Indians. Her childhood years were spent divided between living in a mud and thatch hut, washing clothes in a river…
On first acquaintance, Werner Meyer-Hellige did not appear to be a likely candidate for conversion. Born in 1889 into a privileged family, he left a career in the German military in 1921, when he inherited his father’s firm of A.I. Eisfeld, a successful establishment that manufactured pyrotechnical supplies and explosives. It was located on a…
To describe my path to Orthodox Christianity not only reveals a philosophical/theological change, but a painful dislocation in terms of custom, language, and social contacts. Now, after years of wandering in the desert, I give glory to God for bringing me into the Promised Land, among His chosen people. I was born of an unwed…
Ideas have consequences. So, of course, do actions. We must always be aware of this, because even the simplest of our actions can have a profound effect on someone. A gentleman sitting across the table from me at a business dinner made the sign of the Cross before eating. This used to be a universal Christian gesture,…
Priest Janis Kalnins As an Orthodox priest, I am often asked the question, “How is it that you, a Latvian, were drawn to embrace such a non-traditional Faith? After all, Latvians are predominantly either Lutheran or Roman Catholic.” It grieves me that so many people have a narrow, nationalist understanding of Orthodoxy. In my reply…
What are the things which bring a person to Orthodoxy? First and always there is, of course, the grace of God. But there are also those who come in order to escape something –viz., modernism and renovationism in today’s Christian sects. Some come for aesthetic reasons–because the Liturgy, temples, vestments, etc., appeal to their artistic…
(From a lecture delivered at the St. Herman Winter Pilgrimage, Feb. 1984) A modern Russian novel may seem to be a rather strange choice as a topic for a lecture to a group of English-speaking Orthodox-especially on the eve of Great Lent. This particular book is a work of some 550 pages written in rather…
