Articles in English

Issues of dialogue with Roman Catholicism. In discussing issues of ecclesiology, the temptation is always great to manipulate concepts and doctrinal definitions, while avoiding a critical approach to their application in practice. It is easy, for example, for an Orthodox theologian to describe the ecclesiology of St. Ignatius of Antioch and to construct an apologetic argument in favor of the contemporary Orthodox position concerning Roman Primacy. But it is more difficult to analyze ecclesiastical institutions - as they developed in East and West - in their existential role of maintaining the faith, shepherding the faithful, and accomplishing the Church's mission in the world.

During their famous mission to "Great Moravia," the two brothers of Thessalonica, St Cyril (known also as Constantine "the Philosopher" before his tonsure as a monk) and St Methodius, were faced with strong opposition: the German clergy, who were competing for the souls of the Slavic converts, affirmed that scripture could be read only in three languages - Hebrew, Greek and Latin - and that translation into Slavic was inadmissible. So, the two Byzantine missionaries became involved in a controversy that anticipated the great debates of the Reformation period on the issue of whether scripture should be made available to the laity.

Paper read at the meeting of the theological commission of the Swiss Bishops' Conference in Basel, 24 January 2005

Delivered at the 22nd Annual Fr. Alexander Schmemann Memorial Lecture, Crestwood, New York, January 30, 2005

According to the Athens newspaper To Vima of 8 July 2004, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew responded to the "3rd Rome" theory of the Patriarch of Moscow (which had been brought up for discussion during the 8th International Assemblage of the Russian Orthodox Church).

According to the famous formula of Karl Barth, original sin brought division between man and God, man and man, and inside a man himself. In our times in the presence of the undeclared war of our civilization against nature, we should add at least one more division which exists: between man and creation. But in fact, the division and the permanent violence that it engenders seem to be at the very foundation of our everyday existence and we can find many forms of them.

Pastor, teacher, martyr - such was Fr. Alexander Men'. As always with such figures, our first impulse is to recount his biography to the point that biography becomes vita, to draw attention to the context in which he labored (in this case, the late Soviet period of Russian history), to recount the personal characteristics that make him not just memorable but ever-memorable.

This term gives expression to the Incarnation of the Word and the deification of man in terms of the wondrous maternity of the Virgin Mary.

"Age" relates to the biblical concept of time. Age can have a "spatial" sense in addition to the time meaning, but this aspect should not be exaggerated in translation.

It is widely taught that the engine of the Church years in the Orthodox catholic East is so-called cycle of Twelve Great Feasts, beginning with the Nativity of the Theotokos, September 8. But - if truth be told - this is simply a modern fiction.

The prayer of the church is always biblical - i.e., expressed in the language, images, and symbols of the Holy Scripture. If the Bible contains the Divine Revelation to man, it is also man's inspired response to that Revelation and thus the pattern and the content of man's prayer, praise, and adoration.

An Agreed Statement of the North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation. Saint Paul’s College, Washington, DC. October 25, 2003.

Written on the occasion of Protopresbyter N. Afanasieff’s book “The Ministry of the Laity in the Church” Orthodox Theological Institute, Paris 1955, 78 pp

In these few pages I shall continue my work, examining two concrete aspects of lay participation in the liturgy in the Greek East during the Late-Antique and Byzantine periods.

The discussion below took place in June 1990, between Archimandrite Victor (Mamontov), rector of St. Euphrosyne of Polotsk Church in Karsava, Latvia, and Hieromonk Zinon, a talented young iconographer of the Pskov-Caves Monastery. It is translated from an unpublished manuscript.

QUESTION: Archimandrite Robert, was it traditional in the ancient Church for liturgical prayers like the Eucharistic Anaphora to be recited aloud? If so, what happened to the ancient tradition? And what should we do today?

The temptations of monastic maximalism by the Econom of the Monastery of Saint John of Shanghai and San Francisco in Point Reyes, California (OCA).

Professor Sergey Sergeevich Averintsev, the outstanding Russian linguist, specialist in literary history and theory, translator and poet, passed away in Vienna on 21 February 2004.

We believe that the Scriptures constitute a coherent whole. They are at once divinely inspired and humanly expressed. They bear authoritative witness to God's revelation of Himself - in creation, in the Incarnation of the Word, and the whole history of salvation. And as such they express the word of God in human language.

Lecture delivered at the Kiev Theological Academy on September 20, 2002