Takis Tloupas, the artist-photographer best known for his work in Thessaly, visited Mount Athos in 1969. On his journey he captured the everyday life and faces of the monks, as well as the holy buildings. This record of his travels contains 115 photographs which offer historical testimony to the life of Mount Athos in 1969 and are of great value and interest to both the scholar and the general reader. 'on Mount Athos, Takis Tloupas worked with the zest of the artist and the piety of the pilgrim. He recorded photographically the architecture of the monasteries, this masterpiece of craft and faith. Concurrently, he penetrated kindly into the depths of the monk's soul' Kostas Balafas English and Greek bilingual edition. 115 b&w photographs.

Russian political history and Russian church history are tied together very tightly. One cannot properly understand the overall history of Russia without considering the role of the Orthodox Church in Russia. Cross and Kremlin uniquely surveys both the history and the contemporary situation of the Russian Orthodox Church. The first chapter gives a concise chronology from the tenth century through the present day. The following chapters highlight several important issues and aspects of Russian Orthodoxy -- church-state relations, theology, ecclesiastical structure, monasticism, spirituality, the relation of Russian Orthodoxy to the West, dissidence as a frequent phenomenon in Russian church history, and more.

Fourth-century church father Basil of Caesarea was an erudite Scripture commentator, an architect of Trinitarian theology, a founder of monasticism, and a metropolitan bishop. This introduction to Basil's thought surveys his theological, spiritual, and monastic writings, showing the importance of his work for contemporary theology and spirituality. It brings together various aspects of Basil's thought into a single whole and explores his uniqueness and creativity as a theologian. The volume engages specialized scholarship on Basil but makes his thought accessible to a wider audience. It is the third book in a series on the church fathers edited by Hans Boersma and Matthew Levering.

During Japan's Meiji period (1868-1912) of rapid Westernization, the propagation of Orthodox Christianity enjoyed remarkable success in this country. Under the leadership of Archbishop Nicholas (Kasatkin), Orthodoxy in Japan outstripped the growth of Protestantism and Roman Catholicism in terms of missionary-to-convert ratio. After Nicholas pioneers the study of the Japanese Orthodox Church after its initial boom, tracing the evolution of this community into the first independent indigenous East Asian Orthodox Christian body between 1912 and 1956. Set in the wider contexts of Russo-Japanese relations, Christianity in Japan, as well as Orthodox mission, this book shows the Japanese Orthodox case to be an intriguing exception in each of these three fields. It was a unique instance of an irreducibly Russo-Japanese community which survived the tumult of Russo-Japanese relations in the era of the World Wars. This group also defied the usual typologies of "foreign" (Protestant) and "native" (new religion) Japanese Christianity. Finally, it was the sole case of a new mission-originated local Orthodox Church emerging at the time when other similar initiatives disintegrated worldwide.

A critical study of how Iranian nationalism, itself largely influenced by Orientalist scholarship first undertaken by the European Orientalists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, has shaped modern conceptions of Iran and Iranian identity, as well as narratives of Iranian history, leading to the adoption of a broad nationalist construction of identity to suit Iranian political and ideological circumstances. This book argues that such a broad-brushed approach and the term "Iranian" could not have applied to the large multiethnic, multilingual, and multicultural populations in the vast territory of Iran over so many distinct historical periods.

According to Fr. Alexander Men (1935-1990), the Russian Orthodox priest and popular spiritual teacher who was publicly martyred in 1990 in the former USSR, prayer is "the flight of the heart toward God." This work, available for the first time in English, is a collection of his writings, lectures, and sermons on prayer. You will discover both ancient and modern wisdom, and you will see how one Eastern Orthodox priest taught his parishioners to pray.
"His simple but profound teaching on the absolute necessity of a prayer life could change the world. " Scott Cairns, Poet

Russian baptists and the Orthodox Church have had a difficult and, at times, dramatic relationship over the past century and a half. However, the purpose of this thesis is to examine certain internal connections between these two Christian bodies.

Orthodoxy is a book by G. K. Chesterton that has become a classic of Christian apologetics. Chesterton considered this book a companion to his other work, Heretics. In the book's preface Chesterton states the purpose is to "attempt an explanation, not of whether the Christian faith can be believed, but of how he personally has come to believe it." In it, Chesterton presents an original view of Christian religion. He sees it as the answer to natural human needs, the "answer to a riddle" in his own words, and not simply as an arbitrary truth received from somewhere outside the boundaries of human experience (wikipedia.org).

The four volumes of the Christian Living Series are the fruit of a catechism class that the late bishop Youanis used to teach to university students who came to Cairo from other states to study. The Chapters of these volumes have been a hand book for many Christians who are pursuing their spiritual path and a source of direction to many over the last fifty years, now we present it to you in the English language. This volume explains some of the Christian concepts that are often misunderstood. Chapters include: Humility, Pride, Dignity, the Narrow gate, and the Life of submission.

"For anyone wanting to understand an extraordinary and important episode in the modern history of Christianity, Tom Dykstra's excellent account, which is both meticulous and highly readable, should be an indispensable starting-point. It brings alive a passionate argument over the holiness of the Name of God which shook the Tsarist and Balkan world on the eve of the first world war. Better than any other chronicler of the tragedy that came to a head in the main monastic stronghold of the Christian East, he combines a clear view of the theological stakes with a keen sense of the politics, both secular and ecclesiastical, which determined the outcome. Dykstra also manages to situate the Imperial Russian quarrel over sacred names in the broader sweep of the history of monotheism." - Bruce Clark, Writer on religion and public policy, The Economist, www.economist.com

Being interested in both Orthodox spirituality and post-Roman history, I cast about for a volume presenting all that is known to us about one of the most famous and influential figures of the 5th century, Saint Germanus, Bishop of Auxerre: and finding none, have dared distill into one booklet the works of those scholars who have cast light upon one aspect or other of St Germanus life and works.

St Martin the Bishop of Tours is a saint from France from the 5th century A.D. He was a solider in the Roman army till he was attracted to the monastic life. He was later ordained a priest then a bishop of the city of Tours. The Coptic Church celebrates his feast on the 14th of Hatour. All Time Heroes from all Times, is a series that we plan to publish for a long time. This series presents the lives of some of the church saints and heroes of faith from the time of Jesus till today. Some of these books will be printed others will only be available in Kindle format.

This volume contains the Syriac Life of Mar Pinhas, a purported martyr under the Sasanian Empire. This edition contains the Syriac text (first published in 1894 by Paul Bedjan), an English translation, explanatory annotations, and Addai Scher's Arabic version of the story.

With an estimated 250 million adherents, the Orthodox Church is the second largest Christian body in the world. This absorbing account of the essential elements of Eastern Orthodox thought deals with the Trinity, Christ, sin, humanity and creation as well as praying, icons, the sacraments and liturgy.

The fame of the martyr St. Phokas, first bishop of Sinope (on the Black Sea) and patron of seafarers, had spread to many parts of the Christian world by the fifth and sixth centuries. Although the Acts of his martyrdom under Trajan were composed in Greek, the earliest witness to them is the Syriac translation which is edited and translated here from two early manuscripts.

In The Doctrine of God Dolf te Velde examines the interaction of method and content in three historically important accounts of the doctrine of God. Does the method of a systematic theology affect the belief content expressed by it? Can substantial insights be detected that have a regulative function for the method of a doctrine of God? This two-way connection of method and content is investigated in three phases of Reformed theology. The first seeks to discover inner dynamics of Reformed scholastic theology. The second part treats Karl Barth's doctrine of God as a contrast model for scholasticism, understood in the framework of Barth's theological method. The third part offers a first published comprehensive description and analysis of the so-called Utrecht School. The closing chapter draws some lines for developing a Reformed doctrine of God in the 21st century.

This edition of Mar Jacob of Sarug's (d. 521) homily on Partaking in the Holy Mysteries is one of Jacob's memre on the sacraments. In this homily, Jacob is shocked that some of his congregants are leaving the service early, before the eucharist has been celebrated. He emphasizes the importance of the liturgical celebrations for a Christian life in a message still applicable today. The volume constitutes a fascicle of The Metrical Homilies of Mar Jacob of Sarug, which, when complete, will contain the original Syriac text of Jacob's surviving sermons, fully vocalized, alongside an annotated English translation.