Traditions – Journal

October 13, 2020March 12, 2021

Reflections on the Eucharist

By Fr. David McCready

Introduction

When Our Lord Jesus Christ established the mystery of the holy Eucharist, He took bread saying, ‘This is My Body,’ and then took the cup saying, ‘This is My Blood’ (Matthew 26, 26-28; Mark 14, 22-24; Luke 22, 19-20; 1 Corinthians 11, 22-25). For this reason, as well as on account of the Lord’s teaching in the discourse on the Bread of Life (John 6, 22-59), the church has from the very beginning confessed the eucharist ‘to be (εἶναι) the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, that flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father of His goodness raised.’[1] And this is what we confess today. As we say prior to Communion: ‘I believe, O Lord, and I confess … that Thou art truly the Christ … and that this is truly Thine own immaculate Body, and that this is truly Thine own precious Blood.’ Continue reading “Reflections on the Eucharist”

January 24, 2019

Original and Ancestral Sin: A Church Dividing Issue?

When asked about the topic of Original Sin, many Orthodox Christians will proudly claim the Orthodox Church does not believe in Original Sin. They explain they believe in “Ancestral Sin,” instead. Some even go so far as to call Original Sin, as understood by the Roman Catholic Church, “a heresy.” This, again, is a typical response from many Orthodox Christians, especially those who have a negative attitude towards anything “western.” But is this the official teaching of the Orthodox Church, and do all subscribe to that understanding? Has the Orthodox Church ever condemned or denied Original sin in favor of Ancestral Sin?

Continue reading “Original and Ancestral Sin: A Church Dividing Issue?”

January 10, 2019

Aquinas in the Orthodox Tradition

A talk given at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota on October 2, 2014. By Marcus Plested

I’m going to begin by taking you back in time to the 12th of December 1452, to Constantinople, and to the great Church of The Holy Wisdom, Hagia Sophia, in Constantinople. These were dark days for the Byzantine Empire. Little remained of the Byzantine Empire apart from the city of Constantinople itself, held in a strangle-hold by the Turks. It seemed inevitable that the city would fall, sooner or later, despite its great wall. For one thing, the Byzantines were lacking the men to man the wall, and in desperation, the emperor, the last emperor of Rome — (the Byzantines never called themselves Byzantines, you know; they were always Romans living in “New Rome” which is Constantinople) — the Byzantines were desperate for help, desperate for help even from the wicked West with all its theological errors, and in a sort of last-ditch attempt, on the 12th of December 1452 they formally proclaimed the union that had been established, at least at a formal level, between the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches at the Council of Ferrara-Florence (1438-39). There it was ratified officially. At the time it was only proclaimed in Constantinople until the end of 1452.

January 10, 2019

St. Gregory Palamas and Thomas Aquinas: Between East and West

A talk given at St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University Conference in Moscow on May 10, 2016. By Marcus Plested

My title is “St. Gregory Palamas and Thomas Aquinas between East and West.” The notion of East/West opposition, as you are doubtless aware, has been a prominent feature of Orthodox theology since at least the time of the Russian Slavophiles in the early-to-mid 19th century. With this overall paradigm of opposition, one of the distinctive feature of 20th century Orthodox theology in particular, especially in the Russian diaspora, has been the elevation of St. Gregory Palamas to the status of a kind of archetype of the Christian East to set against Thomas Aquinas understood as an archetype of the Christian West. In other words, Orthodox neo-Palamism has emerged as a conscious counterweight to Catholic neo-Thomism. So what I want to do in this paper, which is based on the research I did for my book on Orthodox Readings of Aquinas, is to not only trace the contours of this development but also to demonstrate its inadequacy and inaccuracy.

June 21, 2018

A Condensed History of the Orthodox Western Rite

Any history of the Western Rite movement of the Orthodox Church should properly begin with Saints Cyril and Methodius, who operated during the ninth century in Moravia and Dalmatia. With the blessing of Pope Adrian II, later confirmed by Pope John VIII, these saintly brothers offered the Roman Mass in the vernacular to the people they were evangelizing. When offering the Roman Liturgy, they employed what is sometimes called “The Liturgy of St Gregory,” whose liturgical forms were set by the 6^th century and codified by Pope St Gregory the Great (known as Dialogus). Continue reading “A Condensed History of the Orthodox Western Rite”

May 12, 2018May 16, 2018

A Brief Perspective on the Modes of Baptisms

The liturgical-sacramental experience of baptism is understood amongst a great deal of Christian denominations[1] to be a transformative experience of salvific reality, necessary for the Christian participant. Containing within itself a nearly universal recognition of importance amongst Christians, the liturgical form of baptism is often debated as to how one should receive this sacrament: weather by sprinkling, pouring, or immersion of water.

Continue reading “A Brief Perspective on the Modes of Baptisms”