— A follow up to a recent post “The Stance of St Iakovos of Euboea on the Reception of Converts and the Baptism of the Heterodox”.

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“Many have commented: “How is it that the Africans, being only recently baptized, can maintain such an intensity and exactness in their Orthodoxy, while many of us in parishes in Greece, America and elsewhere are much more lax?” The answer, I believe,...

The Kollyvades Fathers and St. Hilarion (Troitsky)

We now come to one of the most crucial time periods and to perhaps the most important patristic interpretation as to the identity and boundaries of the Body of Christ, especially as it pertains to the present challenge to the Church posed by contemporary, syncretistic ecumenism.

In Lesson 7 we will look at the teachings of the so-called...

We will narrow our examination at this point in order to properly focus and benefit from those theological and historical signposts which are more relevant and beneficial for us in our time.

To this end we have chosen to focus on the other two great “pillars of Orthodoxy,” besides St. Photios the Great (see Lesson 5), namely, St. Gregory Palamas and St. Mark of Ephesus, before we move on, next...

The Church in the post-Iconoclast age and pre-schism period, in the Eighth Oecumenical Council under St. Photios the Great and at the end of the first millennium and the eve of the Great Schism and beyond.

The fifth lesson of our 10 week course, "Orthodox Ecclesiology: The One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church and the Pan-Heresy of Syncretistic Ecumenism" will also look at the 1st-2nd Council...

We will begin the lesson by briefly looking at some aspects of St. Augustine’s stance vis-a-vis the Donatists and also St. Hypatios’ reaction to Nestorius, but we will move on to cover aspects of the readings for week 4: The Church in St. Maximus the Confessor’s theology, the condemnation of Pope Honorius, the Church in St. John of Damascus and the 1st and 95th canons of Trullo, as well as St. Tarasius’...

In this third lesson of ten in our course on Orthodox Ecclesiology we will focus on the important canons of St. Basil the Great with regard to ecclesiastical exactitude and economy, with St. Augustine's treatise Against the Donatists On Baptism, and how the Church Fathers countered the heresy of Nestorius, and more.

5:39 General Introduction

9:12 Prayers and Troparion

10:50...