Father Bill's Orthodox Blog – Orthodoxy from the Third Coast
A Variety of Topics: Saints, Seasons, Society, the Moral Life, plus Travels mostly to Greece, and more, by Father Bill Olnhausen
Personal note to a reader who has been writing to me: Forgive me. I’ve lost your last letter and your address. Please send it again. Christ is risen! Truly He is risen! I did not write this teaching about War and Peace to be relevant to our current war with Iran – […]
Read More »This story has always captivated me, for reasons I can’t explain. The Monastery of Saint Savas (Mar Sabas) in the Palestinian West Bank down below Jerusalem is one of the oldest continually functioning monasteries in the world. In the late Fourth Century monks from Mar Sabas spent much of Lent alone in the desert. A […]
Read More »The theme for this Fourth Sunday of Lent is Saint John Climacos (of “the Ladder”) so called because of his book The Ladder of Divine Ascent, one of the most popular books in the ancient world. More about him in a bit. A Wandering Introduction to the Ladder of Saint John Climacos Two stories: 1 […]
Read More »Lest we forget: The Third Sunday of Great Lent It’s Mid-Lent. A good time to review your Lenten Rule. Is it too easy to be challenging? Too difficult to be kept? Say a prayer and adjust it, if need be. Great Lent Does the Holy Orthodox Church ever change? Actually, yes. But not […]
Read More »But before we begin: 1 The husband of one of our readers wrote this Haiku (a Japanese form of poetry) after the ICE murder of Alex Pretti, which I think is worth sharing: They shot him 10 times. It was 10 degrees outside. That is such cold blood. 2 Valentine’s Day is tomorrow. When […]
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