Other Faiths – Page 2 – Fr. Bill's Orthodox Blog

54. Orthodoxy and Other Faiths: Roman Catholicism, Part One – How We Began to Grow Apart

Posted on March 2, 2018October 20, 2023 by Fr. Bill

Here’s the humorous question with the obvious answer: “Is the Pope Catholic?” The Orthodox answer (to be uttered with a slight air of mystery in your voice) is ”Well… …?” Or sometimes we hear this from non-Orthodox folks: “You’re almost like the Catholics.” The proper Orthodox response (to be offered as humbly as possible) is […]

41. Orthodoxy and Other Faiths: Judaism, Part One

Posted on December 1, 2017October 23, 2023 by Fr. Bill

“At inter-religious conferences, at first you find Orthodox Christians, Roman Catholics and Protestants together ‘over here’ and Jews ‘over there’. But as we get down to the nitty-gritty of what religion and life are all about, you find Orthodox Christians and Jews together ‘over here’ and Roman Catholics and Protestants ‘over there’.” The preceding is […]

36. Protestant Reformation, Part 2 – Where Luther was right, Where he went wrong, and What it all led to

Posted on October 27, 2017October 23, 2023 by Fr. Bill

To my surprise, I am impressed with Martin Luther. He made big mistakes, as don’t we all? and he was headstrong, as aren’t we all sometimes? But I think his intentions were honorable, his heart was good, and much of what went wrong with the Protestant Reformation (which was a whole lot) was not Luther’s fault. […]

35. The Protestant Reformation, Part 1 – How Luther was right and why he went wrong: a case study in what happens when you turn away from the Church’s Tradition

Posted on October 20, 2017October 20, 2023 by Fr. Bill

OK, so it’s going to be very hard to find any icons to include in this article! This year Protestants celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. We Orthodox do not, of course, but may I be allowed to do a little analysis? What caused the Reformation Let’s start 2000 years ago. Saint Paul […]

32. Orthodoxy and Other Faiths, Part Two: Non-Monotheistic Faiths

Posted on September 29, 2017October 20, 2023 by Fr. Bill

A woman from our parish who taught comparative religion just stared at me, when I told her that in twenty minutes I was going to cover Atheism, Agnosticism, Primitive Religions, Hinduism and Buddhism. Little wonder. (I forgot to tell you that this series is based on talks I gave some years ago at Saint Nicholas, […]