Saints, Seasons, Society, Sins, plus Travels mostly to Greece and who knows what next? by Father Bill Olnhausen
A Visit to Saint Nicholas When Clement Clarke Moore (an Episcopalian clergyman who should have known better) wrote his charming and bizarre poem, “A Visit from Saint Nicholas”, he never explained why he turned our holy saint into a Norse myth. When we draw near to Saint Nicholas day, I’ll write an article or three about the […]
Read More »It’s time for another travelog. This was my longest trip since 1985. Then I left as an an unhappy Anglican and came back from Greece nearly ready to be Orthodox. (See Blog Post 2.) This time I left as a happy Orthodox and returned as a happy Orthodox. It was a wonderful trip. All the people […]
Read More »The Early Life of Saint Athanasios Athanasios was born in the last decade of the third century in Alexandria Egypt, then the cultural and intellectual center of the empire. Raised as a Christian, as a boy he lived through the Great Persecution. When he was a young adult, Constantine became emperor, and Christianity became the […]
Read More »Let me say again that throughout this four-part series I draw often on the book The Fathers of the Eastern Church by Robert Payne. The Council begins. This First Ecumenical Council, the First Council of Nicaea, was not held in secret. We have five accounts of it. The Council was held in a great marble hall above […]
Read More »Why have I titled this post “The Fathers” of the First Ecumenical Council? Because the Orthodox Church, in her personal approach to everything, titles her commemorations not after events but after the people in them. I like that. The Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council dealt with many matters: the date of Pascha (why does this […]
Read More »