"It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us," the apostles declared at the conclusion of their council described in Acts 15. This apostolic council was only the first of many councils as Christians sought to discern the will of God in the midst of historic challenges. The faithful continued to struggle to express that apostolic faith in new words, new languages, new places, and new times. Many issues-the interaction of science and faith, divinity and humanity, the relationship between Church and State, how differing religious communities can learn to live together in common geographic areas and political systems-will still seem familiar and pertinent. This is the story of that struggle from the days of the New Testament up to the fall of the city of Constantinople (AD 1453). It is the story of the Christian community in the eastern Mediterranean which eventually became known as the Byzantine Empire. Each chapter examines the personalities and theology that were inextricably entwined at the heart of the conflicts, debates, and events that shaped the medieval world and the modern cultures of Greece, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe.

The icon of the Mother of God "Quick to Hear" is widely venerated throughout the Orthodox world; a copy of the icon--brought from Mount Athos to Russia in 1877--survived both a fire and the destruction of churches under communism to come to rest at the St. Alexander Nevsky Lavra in St. Petersburg. This book offers a short history of the icon's place in the Russian Orthodox Church and recounts some of the miracles associated with its veneration. Included here are stories of the help and consolation given to faithful from all walks of life, including farmers, merchants, homemakers, soldiers, dukes, duchesses, and the much loved St. Elizabeth the New Martyr.

The three Garima Gospels are the earliest surviving Ethiopian gospel books. They provide glimpses of lost late antique luxury gospel books and art of the fifth to seventh centuries, from the Aksumite kingdom of Ethiopia. This book reproduces all of the Garima illuminated pages for the first time, and presents extensive comparative material. It will be an essential resource for those studying late antique art and history, Ethiopia, eastern Christianity, New Testament textual criticism, and illuminated books. 316 colour illustrations. Preface and photographs by Michael Gevers. Like most gospel manuscripts, the Garima Gospels contain ornately decorated canon tables which function as concordances of the different versions of the same material in the gospels. Analysis of these tables of numbered parallel passages, devised by Eusebius of Caesarea, contributes significantly to our understanding of the early development of the canonical four gospel collection. The origins and meanings of the decorated frames, portraits of the evangelists, Alexandrian circular pavilion, and the unique image of the Jerusalem Temple are explored.

The catholic, or general, epistles of the "other apostles"-James, Peter, Jude and John-are sometimes overshadowed by the stirring theology of the great Apostle to the Gentiles, St. Paul. But these seven epistles are quiet gems of instruction, encouragement and exhortation for all believers. Written at various times and locations and to differing audiences, the general epistles nevertheless share some common themes: endurance under persecution, living out the Faith in a hostile society, discerning heresy by its fruits-namely, immorality and lack of love-and resisting it, holding fast to the apostolic faith. As Fr. Lawrence Farley deftly shows in this commentary, all these are timely themes from which believers today can richly profit.Working from a literal translation of the original Greek, this commentary examines the text section by section, explaining its meaning in everyday language. Written from an Eastern Orthodox and patristic perspective, it maintains a balance between the devotional and the exegetical, feeding both the heart and the mind.

Father Spyridon invites the reader to confront the reality of their own death. Through the ancient truths of the Orthodox Church he demonstrates how only when we have a true understanding of death can we begin to discover and live out the purpose of our existence. He dispels many modern myths concerning purgatory, the rapture, judgement, the soul, heaven and hell, angels and many more. Though deeply spiritual, Trampling Down Death By Death offers a pragmatic approach to the reality of our mortality.

Christianity and monasticism have long flourished along the Nile in Middle Egypt, the region stretching from al-Bahnasa (Oxyrhynchus) to Dayr al-Ganadla. The contributors to this volume, international specialists in Coptology from around the world, examine various aspects of Coptic civilization in Middle Egypt over the past two millennia. The studies explore Coptic art and archaeology, architecture, language and literature. The artistic heritage of monastic sites in the region is highlighted, attesting to their important legacies in the region.

From diverse international and multi-disciplinary perspectives, the contributors to this volume analyze the experiences, challenges and responses of Orthodox Churches to the foundational transformations associated with the dissolution of the USSR.

An exposition of Orthodox systematic theology, 'Gazing on God' is written from the point of view of the experience of the faithful, drawing on traditional icons and liturgy. By tracing the depth of some key Christian concepts -salvation, Logos, the Trinity- Andreas Andreopoulos provides a framework for the theology of experience. In the following chapters seven select icons are analyzed, in order to demonstrate the theological ideas and themes that may be revealed by studying Christianity through iconography. The analysis touches on topics such as time (the eternity of God, 'flat' liturgical time), space, the Church as the Body of Christ, and the Trinity. 'Gazing on God' offers to all Christian traditions a demonstration that, while our understanding of the development of Christian views and attitudes is guided by the history of theological ideas, Christianity includes from the beginning a strong dimension of meta-linguistic knowledge, which is expressed in its liturgy, as well as in its symbolism.

The category of the 'West' has played a particularly significant role in the modern Eastern Orthodox imagination. It has functioned as an absolute marker of difference from what is considered to be the essence of Orthodoxy, and, thus, ironically, has become a constitutive aspect of the modern Orthodox self. The essays collected in this volume examines the many factors that contributed to the 'Eastern' construction of the 'West' in order to understand why the 'West' is so important to the Eastern Christian's sense of self.

An icon (from the Greek word eikon, "image") is a wooden panel painting of a holy person or scene from Orthodox Christianity, the religion of the Byzantine Empire that is practiced today mainly in Greece and Russia. It was believed that these works acted as intermediaries between worshipers and the holy personages they depicted. Their pictorial language is stylized and primarily symbolic, rather than literal and narrative. Indeed, every attitude, pose, and colour depicted in an icon has a precise meaning, and their painters - usually monks - followed prescribed models from iconographic manuals. The goal of this book is to catalogue the vast heritage of images according to iconographic type and subject, from the most ancient at the Monastery of Saint Catherine in the Sinai to those from Greece, Constantinople, and Russia. Chapters focus on the role of icons in the Orthodox liturgy and on common iconic subjects, including the fathers and saints of the Eastern Church and the life of Jesus and his followers. As with other volumes in the "Guide to Imagery Series", this book includes a wealth of color illustrations in which details are called out for discussion. This is a new title in the popular Guide "To Imagery series", and includes 400 colour illustrations; and over 380 pages.