Category Archives: Holy Name

Pentecost

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Holy Orthodoxy remembers Pentecost first of all as the descent of the Holy Spirit with tongues of fire, then as the revelation of the Holy Trinity, then as the Spirit-filled gathering of all in the Holy Eucharist, initiating hallowed communion in which all things were held in common for the Common Good (Acts 2: 42-47).   For desert seers, the revelation of… Read more »

Grace, without presumption

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Orthodox saints know themselves to be the worst of sinners, falling far short of glory, but they do not despair, because they trust in God’s grace to save them.  This antinomic paradox means they trust God without presumption, recognising their incapacity to save themselves without despair.  Faith in God’s grace to save them opens them to the light and glory of… Read more »

Philodoxy

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Holy Orthodoxy bears witness to right-glorification, but ‘philodoxy,’ love of glory, is rarely mentioned, because although vainglory, kenodoxy, loves glory, it does so in self-centred ways, whereas it is wisdom who loves glory in sound and wholesome ways.  Since love of glory is wisdom’s ultimate concern, ‘philodoxy’ does not only mean love of one’s own opinions but wisdom’s love of glory… Read more »

Gospel of Grace

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The Holy Gospel of grace is hidden with Christ in God in worlds of pride and vainglory, worlds that reject wisdom, but wisdom is revealed in realms of glory that humbly trust the Holy Name to save.  Indeed, there is no Gospel of Grace when religion is reduced to individual effort and struggle, when salvation lies in an inaccessible and hidden future…. Read more »

Pride’s Dilemma

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It is self-evident to pride that we must save ourselves by believing right things and doing things right, because being saved by grace is literally inconceivable.  Proud self-righteousness is a very anxious business because it is haunted by fear that it is in the wrong, anxious that pride puts it in the wrong by falling short of glory.  Pride lives very close to… Read more »

Pride and Grace

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When pride arose, Saint Silouan the Athonite was given self-condemnation to hell without despair, initiating Saint Sophrony the Hesychast into holy self-hatred with trust in the grace of the Name to save.  From the perspective of negative asceticism, wisdom appears to be pride and is condemned together with pride.  Whilst pride is arising, wisdom is indeed providentially hidden and so are… Read more »

Wisdom of Christ

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The wisdom of Christ holds everything together, including the paradox of time and the timeless.  Christ is divine-human, so his wisdom is uncreated yet also created, curing confusion whilst healing division.  Gathering what was scattered, wisdom discerns the glory of grace, integrating apparently exclusive opposites.  The story is dialectical when it discerns the unfolding of divine-human coherence in time, but paradoxical… Read more »

Prayer of Stillness

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The prayer of stillness anchored childhood and adolescence in a revelation of love and peace which was newly inspired, in the summer of 1965, by a meeting with Saint Sophrony the Hesychast, prior to a pilgrimage to Mount Athos, at the age of twenty, in the company of my father.  Saint Sophrony introduced me to the practice of Hesychast wisdom by communicating… Read more »

Saint Antony on Self-knowledge

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Saint Antony the Great, in his Letters from the desert, teaches that he who knows himself, in the Holy Spirit, knows God (Chitty, Letter 4 SLG  p 12), for to know oneself without confusion is to know God without division.  We are all members, one of another, in the Spirit, praying ‘Abba, Father,’ in Christ, because the Spirit proceeds from… Read more »

Way of the Name

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Christ’s way of the Name is ineffable, transcending all names and ways that are means to an end, liberating temporal incompleteness into timeless completeness.  The Spirit communicates the mysteries of Christ as quintessential truth, imparting glorification as wisdom’s timeless way of life.  Dazzling darkness opens heaven on earth, piercing the heart, communicating the incommunicable, revealing what was veiled without destroying the… Read more »