by Phil Silouan Thompson I read on from the earliest Fathers into the third and fourth centuries — Irenaeus, Athanasius, Basil. Where was the break I was expecting? Where was the change from congregational democracy and unstructured charismatic worship, to liturgical, hierarchical religion? That change was nowhere to be found; instead, it looked more like […]
My Great Adventure in Search of the Truth
From Sister Matthaia Osswald This story tells how a Roman Catholic nun discovered the fullness of the Truth in the Orthodox Church… Childhood and adolescence. I was born in 1961 from Protestant parents, in a town in South Germany. We lived in a suburb which had earlier been a separate village and later was integrated […]
Moving East: Part One
by Philip Silouan Thompson Phil Thompson is the author of the Silouan blog, an excellent site for information. He is also a well known iconographer in North American Orthodoxy, and this, his story, was taken from his own website. “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the […]
Two Quechua Women from Bolivia Accept Orthodox Baptism
Here is a story of the good work of the martyred priest, Fr. Daniil Sysoyev. Immediately following Christmas services, in one of the Orthodox churches in the southern districts of Moscow, two women of the Quechua people of South America accepted Orthodox baptism. “We talked with them about the faith, and they read the Creed […]
The Himalayan Ascent To Christ
By Ryassophore Monk Adrian When we come to know God as Person, we begin to see His hand at work not only in the circumstances of our daily lives, but also in the events of our past which have led us to the present moment. We see how from partial truths He has led us […]