The ‘I’ of the Holy Name ‘I AM,’ is wisdom and the ‘AM’ of the Name is glory, revealing their primordial union to be the completeness of hallowed communion, unconfused yet inseparable, indivisible yet ineffable. Glorification of the Name is hallowing joy to Orthodox seers, opening past and future to wisdom’s glory of timeless presence. The glory of the… Read more »
The reign of glory transcends the visible powers of this world, because it does not exist among conditioned appearances but is the unapparent ground of them all. Primordially present, the reign of glory is not subject to confusion or division, but without interruption underlies everything arising within its embrace. The Holy Name reveals the timeless awareness of presence that unveils… Read more »
God’s realm of the Name is free of confusion and division, so frees the heart from confusion and division by purification and illumination, sustaining glorification. Since, in God, there is no confusion, indivisible union is timelessly present, spontaneously purifying the heart. Freedom is valued not because there are regimes that poison and imprison those who resist oppression, but because God’s… Read more »
Prayer for peace in Ukraine is the Spirit’s unceasing prayer in Christ, glorifying the Father in the hearts of all who are crucified by war in the devastated cities, towns and villages of Ukraine, but also all who died there a century ago during the Russian Civil War, including countless Orthodox defending Ukraine from the red Russian armies of atheistic communism. The Spirit’s unceasing… Read more »
The Father glorifies the Son in the peace of the Holy Spirit, whilst the Spirit glorifies the Son in the peace of the Father and the Son glorifies the Father in the Spirit of ineffable peace. The Holy Trinity is peace on earth as in heaven, not to be confused with the Peace of Rome, the Pax Romanum, in any of… Read more »
The Word names the hallowing Name, revealing the glory of the Father, through the wisdom of the Son in the peace of the Holy Spirit, unveiling God’s blessed Reign in his Name. Hallowing the Name, Kiddush haShem, sanctifies saints who die to death before they die, rise from the dead to ascend in uncreated light, glorified by the uncreated grace of the… Read more »
Saint Silouan taught that love of enemies was the criterion of genuine Orthodoxy, revealing costly love that resists enemies who invade to destroy a neighbouring people accused of being a mythic enemy. But how does love remain faithful to Christ in the Spirit, restoring glory to the Father’s reign of the Name, so as not to return evil for evil? When an Orthodox… Read more »
Martyrs rise on winged chariot thrones, bearing witness to truth in a world that prefers lies it wants to be true, releasing totalitarian stealth back into costly truth. Christ is a haven of peace in the truth of his Name, stilling war by releasing error and terror. The Spirit never strays from the Truth of Christ, even when Orthodoxy is… Read more »
Awakening in the Spirit of Truth to the Father through Christ opens the heart to glorification of the Father in Christ, imparting glorification in the Spirit to the saints, without which discernment of the truth of glory is not yet revealed. Elders were once drawn from senior hierarchs as well as unordained monks, discerning the difference between glorification of God and… Read more »
Ivan Ilyin (1883-1954) said that evil begins where the person begins, inverting the vision of the person that inspired Saint Sophrony the Hesychast, turning Holy Orthodoxy into an ideological gnosticism serving totalitarian Russian nationalism. Ilyinism sharpened White Russian ideology into Slav Fascism, giving to Mussolini and Hitler the right-wing Hegelianism he thought they needed to oppose Bolshevism, justifying Russian totalitarianism. A century… Read more »