“On the Antichrist & the End of the World”

November 13, 2024

By St. John Maximovitch

The Sunday of the Fearful Court

Today we are in the Week of the dreadful Judgment and it is natural to talk about the dreadful Judgment and the signs of the end of the world. No one knows that day except God the Father, but the signs of its approach are given in the Gospel and in the Apocalypse of the Holy Apostle John the Theologian. Revelation speaks of the events of the end of the world and the dreaded Judgment especially in symbols and guessing, but the Holy Fathers interpreted it and there is an authentic tradition of the Church that speaks to us of the signs of the end of the world and the Last Judgment.

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“On The Human Soul” – Fr. Theodoros Giannakopolous

November 11, 2024

I believe this was the second installment of Fr. Theodoros’ “Orthodoxy as Therapy” lecture series. You can access the recording of the lecture here, and you can access the full index of lectures here.

In this installment, Fr. Theodoros explores the distinctly Orthodox concept of the nous, and the five aspects of the soul (logical, temperamental, etc.). In stark contrast to Western juridical understandings of salvation where the believer is in some way made good enough to go to Heaven (be it through the system of merits in the Latin church, or the effect of sola fide in the Protestant groups), Orthodox soteriology is the recovery of the state of communion of God’s grace (His uncreated energies) which man lost as a result of the Fall. It is the complete restoration of human anthropology, which is why the inspired St. Paul refers to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as “the new Adam” (cf. Hebrews 2:5-9). This is typified for us by the Lord Himself on Mt. Tabor (Matt. 17:1-9) where we see what we truly were intended to be: radiant and grace-filled with the uncreated energies of God. In Orthodoxy, the person being saved goes through three stages: purification, illumination, and deification (or theosis). “God became man so that man might become god,” so the ancient saying attributed to Sts. Gregory and Athanasius goes.

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