by Thom Rainer Smaller churches are poised to make a comeback. I’m serious. I see too many signs and indicators to believe otherwise. For certain, I know the bad news. The median size of a church has declined from around 100 to 70 in worship attendance in a decade. That means one-half of … [Read more...]
Do Clerical Dress and Monastic Habits Really Matter?
by Fr. Lawrence Farley I am a great fan of the BBC series “Call the Midwife”, which features a group of Anglican sisters working among the poor in a London neighbourhood as midwives. Their order is fictional, but is based upon the actual order and London experiences of the Community of St. … [Read more...]
13 Obstacles on the Way to Becoming a Priest
Ecclesiastical hierarchy plays a very important role in the life of the Church. The Church cannot exist or perform Her salvific ministry in the world without the hierarchy that traces its origins to the holy apostles and was laid out by the Lord Jesus Christ himself. That is why it is vital that … [Read more...]
Church Reading: What Makes This Ministry So Important?
Sometimes people say, "I am just a reader," as though this were a petty or insignificant ministry. However, when the reader (whether tonsured or not) begins chanting the selection from the Acts or the Epistles, he or she is performing an evangelical ministry that is absolutely essential to the … [Read more...]
Why Should Reading in the Orthodox Church be Unemotional?
By Fr. Andrew Chizhenko I remember the words of Alexander Griboyedov from his play “Woe from Wit”: “Read it not like an altar server, but with passion”. For centuries, that aphorism was the reason of sarcastic mockeries about church readings in intellectual circles. In fact, they do not … [Read more...]
How to Become a Reader
Question: "How does one become a Reader, and what does a Reader do?" We learn a great deal about what it means to be a Reader from the admonition that the bishop gives to a Reader after he is tonsured (i.e., made a Reader): "My son, the first degree in the Priesthood is that of Reader. It … [Read more...]
Abbot Tryphon: Narcissistic Clericalism
Narcissistic Clericalism August 17, 2018; Abbot Tryphon, The Morning Offering Clericalism shouldn’t have anything to do with Christianity The recent release of the findings of the District Attorney of Pennsylvania, have resurrected the memory of the failure of the hierarchs of … [Read more...]
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