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Books > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity > Orthodox Churches
The Deceitful Onion Bulb. A Blessing to Smuggle. The Conjuror of
Rain. In this collection of stories as whimsical as their titles,
award-winning author Olesia Nikolaeva poignantly recounts life for
Christian believers in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia. In a manner
reminiscent of the bestselling Everyday SaintsEthese tales reveal a
common theme - the subtle, sometimes imperceptible movement of
Divine Providence at work in the lives of saints and sinners alike.
Her writings bring us to what the ancient Celts called "thin
places" where the boundaries of heaven and earth meet and the
sacred and the secular can no longer be distinguished.
"...for the last time the former rulers of their own home had
gathered to fervently pray, tearfully, and on bended knee,
imploring that the Lord help and intercede for them in all of their
sorrows and misfortunes." Thus the Archpriest Afanasy Belyaev
described the faith and piety of the Russian Imperial family, whom
he served as priest and confessor, on the occasion of the
Tsarevich's thirteenth birthday. These selected excerpts from the
chaplain's diary open a window into the souls of the now sainted
Royal Family and the struggles endured in their first five months
of confinement following the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II in
early 1917. Russian cultural historian Marilyn Pfeifer Swezey sets
the diary in its historical context and offers an epilogue to
complete the story of the Romanov's journey to martyrdom at the
hands of a Bolshevik firing squad in a Siberian basement. Also
included is a short life of Fr Afanasy and biographical information
regarding the various persons appearing in the work. This
anniversary edition has been copiously illustrated throughout with
color and black and white photos (some rarely or never published
before) as well as charts and maps.
Pavel Florensky--certainly the greatest Russian theologian of
the last century--is now recognized as one of Russia's greatest
polymaths. Known as the Russian Leonardo da Vinci, he became a
Russian Orthodox priest in 1911, while remaining deeply involved
with the cultural, artistic, and scientific developments of his
time. Arrested briefly by the Soviets in 1928, he returned to his
scholarly activities until 1933, when he was sentenced to ten years
of corrective labor in Siberia. There he continued his scientific
work and ministered to his fellow prisoners until his death four
years later. This volume is the first English translation of his
rich and fascinating defense of Russian Orthodox theology.
Originally published in 1914, the book is a series of twelve
letters to a "brother" or "friend," who may be understood
symbolically as Christ. Central to Florensky's work is an
exploration of the various meanings of Christian love, which is
viewed as a combination of "philia" (friendship) and "agape"
(universal love). Florensky is perhaps the first modern writer to
explore the so-called "same-sex unions," which, for him, are not
sexual in nature. He describes the ancient Christian rites of the
"adelphopoiesis" (brother-making), joining male friends in chaste
bonds of love. In addition, Florensky is one of the first thinkers
in the twentieth century to develop the idea of the Divine Sophia,
who has become one of the central concerns of feminist
theologians.
Arabic was among the first languages in which the Gospel was
preached. The Book of Acts mentions Arabs as being present at the
first Pentecost in Jerusalem, where they heard the Christian
message in their native tongue. Christian literature in Arabic is
at least 1,300 years old, the oldest surviving texts dating from
the 8th century. Pre-modern Arab Christian literature embraces such
diverse genres as Arabic translations of the Bible and the Church
Fathers, biblical commentaries, lives of the saints, theological
and polemical treatises, devotional poetry, philosophy, medicine,
and history. Yet in the Western historiography of Christianity, the
Arab Christian Middle East is treated only peripherally, if at all.
The first of its kind, this anthology makes accessible in English
representative selections from major Arab Christian works written
between the eighth and eigtheenth centuries. The translations are
idiomatic while preserving the character of the original. The
popular assumption is that in the wake of the Islamic conquests,
Christianity abandoned the Middle East to flourish elsewhere,
leaving its original heartland devoid of an indigenous Christian
presence. Until now, several of these important texts have remained
unpublished or unavailable in English. Translated by leading
scholars, these texts represent the major genres of Orthodox
literature in Arabic. Noble and Treiger provide an introduction
that helps form a comprehensive history of Christians within the
Muslim world. The collection marks an important contribution to the
history of medieval Christianity and the history of the medieval
Near East.
In this book, a revised, annotated, and expanded second edition of
Theologie dogmatique, edited in the French by Olivier Clement and
Michel Stavrou, readers encounter Lossky's classroom lectures on
dogmatic theology. Lossky confronts the great questions of
theology: How can we know God? How is the Creator related to his
creation? What is the vocation of human beings, created in God's
image? These questions are understood in light of the two great
mysteries of the faith: the Trinity and the incarnation of the Son
of God. In Lossky's articulation, these are not abstract theories,
but living and vivid realities. "Emphasizing the thought of the
Fathers, Lossky actualizes the latter in a creative fashion through
a critical reflection-namely on the theme of the person-attempting
through an approach that is faithful and free, to express the
elements of the ecclesial tradition in a contemporary language. In
the wake of the Fathers, Lossky linked dogma narrowly to the
spiritual life, rejecting the false and ruinous split between
spirituality and theology, hence this term 'mystical theology'"
(from the Introduction).
'Orthodoxy claims to be universal . . .' Since its first
publication fifty years ago, Timothy Ware's book has become
established throughout the English-speaking world as the standard
introduction to the Orthodox Church. Orthodoxy continues to be a
subject of enormous interest among western Christians, and the
author believes that an understanding of its standpoint is
necessary before the Roman Catholic and Protestant Churches can be
reunited. In this revised and updated edition he explains the
Orthodox views on such widely ranging matters as Ecumenical
Councils, Sacraments, Free Will, Purgatory, the Papacy and the
relation between the different Orthodox Churches.
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