Thread 24520206

What Orthodox literature have you been reading lately? Planning on attending Divine Liturgy on Sunday?

Recommended Literature—
>The Orthodox Study Bible
>The Philokalia
>The Way of a Pilgrim
>God’s Revelation to the Human Heart by Fr. Seraphim Rose
>Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future by Fr. Seraphim Rose
Search for all of them here: https://archive.org/
https://youtu.be/b5og4ibQVZs?si=TLOXfxoCCtT-jh0R

>>24520206 (OP)
>What Orthodox literature have you been reading lately?

"The Orthodox Church" and "The Orthodox Way" by Metropolitan Kallistos Ware (often recommended as excellent introductions to Orthodoxy)

>>24520213
what's up with the eastern orthodox and the sacred heart lol
https://x.com/redeemed_zoomer/status/1938648758893375974

>>24520206 (OP)
Nobody is going to be happy about some random chud walking into an ethnic eastern european/Greek immigrant church because he heard it was based or something. Leave them alone.

Instead, I recommend trying the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic church founded by Jesus Christ in the Great Commission whose bishops are the successors of the Apostles, and whose Supreme Pontiff is the successor of Saint Peter, upon whom Christ conferred His Church.

Bonus: You'll be saved!

>>24520237
>Nobody is going to be happy about some random chud walking into an ethnic eastern european/Greek immigrant church because he heard it was based or something. Leave them alone.
this is funny, some time ago I've read about how when the Bogus Ordo was introduced in some place in Africa, the local parish turned into a polish community one and the africans had to listen to the new mass being said in polish

>>24520206 (OP)
>The Way of a Pilgrim
Thank you for this recommendation, OP. I hadn't heard of this book until today. I've added it to my list.

>>24520313
Read it now, I’m not Orthodox, but have read it multiple times since I discovered it last year. It’s amazing.

I found this to be excellent, albeit a bit repetitive, but that's because it is showing how these ideas can be found throughout the Patristic tradition. Athonite Audio on YouTube and Spotify has it read, although not by a professional reader.

>>24520206 (OP)
Book recs:

St Maximos the Confessor
>On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ
>Disputations with Pyrrhus
St Paisios the Athonite
>Spritual Counsels vols. 1-4
St Porphyrios
>Wounded by Love
St Gregory Palamas
>The Triads

Not necessarily Orthodox but I'm reading The Rise of Christian Theology and the End of Ancient Metaphysics by Johannes Zachhuber. Very good read. Also reading the Orthodox Study Bible and St John Chrysostom's commentaries on Genesis

I don't know about this whole trinity thing anymore
Might become an arian idk

>>24520538
pic related is even greater imo, a quote from it showing that the church fathers weren't stupid or superstitious:

>Saint Gregory of Nyssa also admits brain disease as a possible cause of delirium: "As for cases of insanity, they do not come only from drunkenness, but, as the doctors say, after the cranial membrane has been affected, then of course the power of the judgment is influenced by the disease and the name of this disease comes precisely from the name of this membrane (phrenes), that is, phrenitis (dementia)"

This is excellent as a response to post-modernism, albeit DBH is a little unconventional in channeling Von Balthasar and Ferdinand Ulrich to some degree. Still, it's also on line with the Patristic tradition and maybe his best book.

>>24520929
I'm also reading this and it is excellent and much more accessible than Williams book on Eastern Christianity and more POMO thought, which I found distastefully continental lol.

>>24520237
I started going to an Antiochian Orthodox church because they set up a mission to attract new people in a town near me and they have newcomers classes and obviously a catechumenate too.

>>24520237
This is just a strawman. I'm not Orthodox but you're doing yourself a disservice by presenting them dishonestly. In America you might get ethnic clubs, true, but that's not the norm and most of the time the parish will just be happy to have you.

>>24520283
>Bogus Ordo
Dawg you gotta let it be. It's valid. God is truly present in the NO regardless of how trad the priest's vestments are or which language he speaks or which direction he faces. The TLM is nice and all but your salvation doesn't hinge on whether you attend it or a NO, so long as you are in fact attending Mass.

>>24520856
Don't do it anon, Arianism is pagan because it believes in the worship of created beings (that's also one of the main reasons why Mormonism and Jehovah's Witnesses are also pagan).

Yk when I was active here 2 years ago I don't recall Orthodoxy being this prevalent. Nice dude

>>24520220
I have never seen ny fellow Orthodox use the sacred heart. Weird catholic stuff. Disregard this guy

>>24520237
I am a convert who went to an all Greek church, half of it is old people also who speak mediocre English. Disregard this guy x2

>>24520237
>upon whom Christ conferred His Church.
This line is precisely why I can't recommend Catholicism to people. It identifies the Church as a possession that can be conferred, rather than the manifestation of the Holy Spirit through the faithful. Salvation is not the fiefdom of a single man, but the kingdom of God.
Papal Supremacy was a disaster for the Catholic Church, and it's not a surprise that the Popes devolved into earthly, feudal monarchs. Nor is it a surprise that the Protestant Reformation occurred as a reaction to the worldliness and sinfulness of the Catholic Church.

Peter was meant to be the rock of the Church, not its king.

>>24522117
I have a hard time buying Orthobro criticisms of the Catholic Church as "worldly" when dozens of Orthodox churches are embroiled in political matters and have been for centuries. The Ecumenical Patriarchiate isn't even in full communion with all the national churches.

>>24521871
>It's valid.
I'm not a tradcath so idc about the disputes within your internal faith narrative, I'm only noticing as an outsider how souless that mass is and how it removes any aspect of universality which is ironically what you complain about the ethnic orthodox

>>24522296
>dozens of Orthodox churches are embroiled in political matters
There was a significant difference in degree, however. Catholics had Prince-Bishops and the Papal State. Rather than getting embroiled in worldly politics, the Catholics were major participants. None of the Patriarchs were independent feudal lords. For centuries, the Popes were independent feudal lords.

>The Ecumenical Patriarchiate isn't even in full communion with all the national churches.
The Patriarchates do break communion with each other, but it doesn't result in major doctrinal changes or long-term schisms. The Protestant Reformation resulted in people rejecting the apostolic tradition in favor of sola scripture. In other terms, the Catholic Church's excesses produced a permanent schism and the widespread acceptance of heresy.
I don't know how you can compare the two in good faith.

>>24522117
Yeah, the orthodox patriarchates would never get embroiled in earthly matters... except being pawns of secular rulers for the last 1000 years, particularly eastern rome and ruzzia, and even today literally HELPING ruzzia's illegal war attacking Ukraine by trying to act as a fifth column.

Meanwhile the Catholic Church is... performing missionary work and thriving.

>>24523186
>being pawns of secular rulers for the last 1000 years
That's how the Papacy was, until the Popes became secular rulers. They were directly involved in Italian politics until after Mussolini.
Again, I don't understand how you can make this argument in good faith without implicating the Catholic Church even more than the Orthodox.

>Meanwhile the Catholic Church is... performing missionary work and thriving.
The Orthodox do this too.

>>24523210
>until the Popes became secular rulers
How is this a bad thing?
>The Orthodox do this too.
ok I see you're not arguing in good faith if you're comparing Orthodox mission work to that of the Catholic Church

>>24523210
>Again, I don't understand how you can make this argument in good faith without implicating the Catholic Church even more than the Orthodox.
You're seriously saying that an independent Papacy making their own decisions politically and theologically is somehow more implicated than Churches which have both of these dictated to them by a secular power?

>>24523230
>How is this a bad thing?
The Popes waged multiple wars with other Christians for purely political purposes. Italy was riven for centuries by the conflict between the Guelphs and Ghibellines. It hollowed out the Papacy, and was one of the leading factors behind the Reformation.
How could it be good, under any understanding of Christianity, for religious authorities to balance a kingdom on Earth with the kingdom of God? It inevitably tempts them to choose early kingdoms and riches over spiritual riches.

>>24523245
Fair point. I think Dante is pretty good on this and Saint Gregory. Nevertheless, the move to wholly get the Church "out of politics," is also deeply flawed. As Aristotle says, politics is to the Good as metaphysics is to the True, it is the archetectonic science of practical reason. The Church cannot leave this behind without essentially denying man's higher telos as a spiritual being.

The Reformation move to carve out a private, secular space, and to internalize religion was itself motivated by a very specific theology: volanturism. Man became the image of a God that was sheer will. Nietzsche, Foucault, and Deleuze are as much inheritors of this theology as Hobbes, Locke, and Rawls. The univocity of being also looks large here. Denial of the Analogia Entis is what allows for the absolutization of finite human reason in the Enlightenment.

>>24523260
So Eastern thought, as Millbank allows, is very helpful here. See also:>>24520929


But, like Solovyov, I yearn for the day when the schism is ended. This, above all else, would mark the true move beyond modernity.

>>24523260
>>24523269
Another good book on this, although it is too polemical in favor of Catholicism in some ways. But in the American context, it makes more sense.

This was also good.

>>24523260
>Dante

Dante's Monarchia has proven to be an enigmatic contribution to the corpus of medieval political theory. Although typically held up as the quintessential statement of the principles of universal imperial authority, the tract does not conform to many of the standard conventions of medieval Latin defences of the supremacy of the Roman Empire, eschewing, for instance, the theme of translatio imperii. In this article, I examine Dante's critique of the Donation of Constantine and related topics in order to argue that, by his own logic, the legitimacy of a universal Roman Empire resides not with the German Holy Roman Emperor in the West but instead with the Byzantine Emperor. By conceiving of the Roman Empire in a way that undermines the possibility of its 'translation', and by rejecting the alienability of imperial authority at the heart of the Donation, Dante leads a careful reader to conclude that the true Empire has its home in Constantinople, not in Germany or elsewhere in Western Europe.
https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/theoria/62/143/th6214301.xml

>>24520206 (OP)
I haven't been reading the Bible as much as I should lately. Haven't been reading much at all. Going to confession tomorrow because I feel quite despondent

>>24520545
iirc, icons of the Father are a heresy.

>>24523541
Hmm, I really don't think that was his intent, since his focus is often more parochial, focused on Italy, and the ERE was crucially weakened by that point. Still, it might have made sense for him to argue if the East was in the position it was in the 700s or so.

It's interesting, despite being in many ways of course *the* Catholic epic, the Commedia at times has a quite Orthodox feel in its underlying message, and it leans away from Anselmian penalty substitution theology.

bump

>>24524073
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-orthodox-dante/

>>24523541
>>24524073
Dugin says the same thing in his untranslated work 'The Metaphysics of the Gospel', about how De Monarchia presents the Orthodox view of symphonia between Church and state and gives the Ghibelline party of german Hohenstaufens as example of "unconscious Orthodox Christianity".

>>24520206 (OP)
The bible

>>24520206 (OP)
>What Orthodox literature have you been reading lately? Planning on attending Divine Liturgy on Sunday?
"A Window into Orthodox Christianity" by Fr. Nicolas Kazarian (published April 2025): A concise history and overview of the Orthodox Church.

>>24520237
>And whose Supreme Pontiff
This is where you lose me

>>24520237
>One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic church
Indeed.

>>24520206 (OP)
>>/x/

>>24522117
>>24527800
It's very simple.
>And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

>>24529004
there are multiple petrine sees

>>24520298
>my claims
>chad

>your claims
>virgin
The power of Orthodox philosophy and God

>>24529004
Peter established the Church in Antioch before Rome

>>24529013
>there are multiple petrine sees
>>24529280
>Peter established the Church in Antioch before Rome
Both totally irrelevant - the Papal supremacy and descent from St. Peter isn't based on temporal precedence.

Firstly, we know he ultimately died in Rome as a martyr, making Rome the site of his final and most significant episcopal role.
Secondly, Cyprian spells it out explicitly:
>the Bishop of Rome is the direct heir of Peter, whereas the others are heirs only indirectly
>the Church of Rome is the root and matrix of the Catholic Church

I encourage you to visit your local Catholic Church and ask about RCIA where lots of common misconceptions like the ones you just demonstrated are usually cleared up. Anything else that isn't covered on the catechumenate, you can simply ask about.

>>24529506
This doesn't matter, the primacy of the Bishop of Rome is acknowledged by the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, but unfortunately while Rome remains in error and schism, Constantinople has to be considered primus inter pares

>>24529515
I will pray for you.

>>24529516
I don't like how praying for others is now used as a passive-agressive deflection and kind of gotcha to avoid presenting a sensible argument.
Your own bishops have acknowledged the Orthodox as being fully Christian. Now the only thing that remains to be done is an Ecumenical Council where erroneous doctrinal changes will hopefully be corrected with humility.

>>24529524
>I don't like how praying for others is now used as a passive-agressive deflection and kind of gotcha to avoid presenting a sensible argument.
You did precisely that, avoided presently a sensible argument and simply said "Rome is in error". The only thing left to do is ask the Lord to help you.

>>24529546
Don't keep deflecting, I'm specifically talking about how "I will pray for you" is a phrase so often used disingenuously and self-righteously by people who want the last word in internet arguments.
Please do pray for me, but in general, not about this ridiculous online quibble.

>>24529004
Where does this say Peter is the Vicar of Christ on earth? Peter got corrected by Paul FGS he wasn't declared infallible.

>>24529506
>I encourage you to visit your local Catholic Church and ask about RCIA where lots of common misconceptions like the ones you just demonstrated are usually cleared up.
and we can encourage you to see a jewish rabbi to show you that Jesus isn't the Messiah, same logic, just as how the jews were chosen Rome had the primacy but both of you guys apostated and now can't stop coping

Bumping. I saw a thread like this a couple (few?) years ago and took notes, dumping to share the love

The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church by Vladimir Lossky.
On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ
Deification of Man
On the Unity of Christ
The Triads
Ladder of Divine Ascent
On the Acquisition of the Holy Spirit
The Path to Salvation
On the Spiritual life
Philiokalia on prayer of the heart
Way of the Pilgrim
St athanasius On the incarnation
Eusebius Church History
On the holy spirit St basil
Desert Fathers
St John of Damascus
Mystic theology PD
https://www.ancientfaith.com/specials/hopko_lectures/the_sermon_on_the_mount_part_1
I’ve read like half of these and also read a lot of western stuff. Hopko lectures were really good for getting me into orthodoxy. I can’t listen to podcasts so I found the transcripts very helpful. Athanasius and Basil are very foundational. I read Mystic Theology but got more out of Celestial Hierarchy (but Combat Rock is my favorite Clash album so don’t trust my taste). Acquisition of the Holy Spirit is short and sweet, good read, but I like St Teresa better. Ladder of Divine Ascent is really good. I liked John of Damascus on icons but it’s not like necessary, I work with AI/synthetic data so I liked it as contrast to my day to day which is more like a crappy Borges story.
Lord of Spirits podcast is fun, I read the transcripts from the first batch of episodes.
I go to an Antiochian church, lots of converts but also still lots of Syrian and other families. Very welcoming.

He's controversial but I really like DBH
His lectures and books are always interesting and eloquent

if you want to join my server, we have a theology channel: https://discord.gg/Jjmy69DF

>>24520206 (OP)
https://www.orthodoxethos.com/reading-list

>>24523274
Amazing book
>>24523269
Yes. I sympathize w Solovyov too
>>24520929
Ferdinand Ulrich and Balthasaar are on a far superior level

Is ChatGPT right about this?

>>24532808
Byzantium was just a continuation of the Roman Empire so it's even longer.

Is being Roman Catholic nonsensical from a pascal's wager standpoint? Not bait, let me explain
>Orthodoxy states that Catholics are outside of the Church entirely and that salvation is, in theory, only found within the Orthodox Church, not with the "incomplete" sacraments of RC
>Roman Catholicism states that Orthodox Christians have fully valid sacraments and are considered valid Christians just like Catholics
So according to Catholics, Orthodox are saved, but according to Orthodox, Catholics might not be.

>>24532808
>longest centralized Christian state
pic related, 754 - now (1,271 years)
>but it is a microstate
So was late Byzantium

>>24531560
bump

>>24523051
apples and oranges. Bishops stepped up to the plate as secular rulers because the post roman west was a post-apocalyptic society. Eastern Bishops cowed to numberless sinful emperors and treated them like secular Gods. No one comes out looking good in the affair.

I mean, my God, Constantine murdered his wife and his own son, and this is the man convoking your great ecumenical council? It's disgusting.

That said, I believe that man takes a while to get better, both in part and as a whole... so I'm not putting that out there to diss anyone too harshly.

>>24520206 (OP)
temptation of st anthony

how much of the akkadian corpus is literature vs. stuff like records?

>>24529524
Yeah its pretty gross and Evangelical-coded. Saying you will pray for someone should only ever be said with the utmost sincerity. It's difficult to imagine an early Christian saying it the way its said today. This age really is nothing.

>>24536575
I can only hope to one day attain the level of sincerity in my faith that early Christians had. But most of the time, my prayers feel mechanical and my church attendance feels performative. I tell myself that feelings are unimportant since the heart deceives, that Christ is at our side always and no matter what, but it would be nice to feel the His presence nonetheless

>>24537475
What is this?

there's an anon who said to find him in the trad cath general once i was finished with my book, he said he was tired of reading 3rd world literature pandering to colonial and slavery tropes, are you still interested in reading such a book, there's a lot about god in it

>want to become orthodox
>there's only one rocor church that's about an hour and a half away from me
>the rest are kinda pozzed constantinople or greek orthodox
>they either meet too infrequently or they're so ethnic the services aren't even in english

just don't know what to do. I've been telling myself to go to a service to the rocor church for like two years and I haven't gone once. I don't know why I'm so lazy when it comes to it

>>24538236
I know this feel brother. I'm going through the same issues.

Bump

>>24538236
>>the rest are kinda pozzed constantinople or greek orthodox
Don't politicize the Church, the sacraments are valid. Go wherever you feel more at home

>>24538236
You're not joining for the right reasons if being "pozzed" is a concern of yours. What the fuck is wrong with you?

>>24538236
see
>>24520237
>Nobody is going to be happy about some random chud walking into an ethnic eastern european/Greek immigrant church because he heard it was based or something. Leave them alone.

>>24539807
>>24540055
The ones that are local to me meet too infrequently, I don't know how I'm supposed to be a catechumen if they barely meet. Seems like they don't take it seriously and yeah I'm not going to a Romanian orthodox church if I'm the only non-Romanian there. What am I supposed to do?

Setting aside the issues with the constantinople patriarchate, I've heard bad things about the patriarch trying to become a pope or something. Greek orthodoxy also seems to be a lot more influenced by western liberalism also.