Is Liturgy Magic? A Response to Peter Leithart’s Puritan Sacramentalism

I must admit that it always bugs me a bit when someone tells me what I believe, especially when I do not actually believe it. And so the bug in my bonnet buzzed again a bit when I read Peter Leithart’s latest musings on liturgy over at First Things. In this piece, Leithart lets the Orthodox, Roman Catholics and other “high church”ā€¦

On Leithart’s Puritans and the Purity of Sacraments

Introduction In a recent article atĀ First Things, Peter Leithart laments the ā€œhigh-churchismā€ of non-Protestant celebrations of the Eucharist. For Leithart, the essential difference between ā€œhighā€ and ā€œlowā€ liturgies is that of the preparatory ritesā€”not necessarily the external ornaments of incense, bells, and vestments. Beyond mere simplicity, the Protestant or ā€œPuritanā€ sacramentalism was one that eschewed excessive and unnecessary foreplay: The low-church Reformersā€¦

Church History and Same-Sex Marriage

Relevant to several recent postings here on same-sex marriage is this May 2012 piece from the Roads From Emmaus weblog. It is mainly a clearinghouse of links to other resources on the position of same-sex marriage in the history of Christianity. It has been slightly edited for this publication. There have been several postings online in the past few days of variousā€¦

The Doctrine of Transubstantiation in the Orthodox Church

Does the Orthodox Church believe in “transubstantiation” (Ī¼ĪµĻ„ĪæĻ…ĻƒĪÆĻ‰ĻƒĪ¹Ļ‚ in Greek) with regards to the Eucharist? Or is that only used in the Latin (Roman Catholic) church? There’s certainly a lot of confusion and conflicting information out there, so let’s take a closer look. As a long-time blogger, I can vouch for the necessity of extending grace towards a writer when they areā€¦

Sacrament and Culture: Why Protestants Don’t Redeem the Time

The new group weblog Orthodox Arts Journal recently published a piece by Nicholas Kotar with a rather ambitious title, “The Creation of a Christian Culture“: Of all the great callings that Christians are reminded of on a daily basis, the creation of culture is not among the most mentioned. I would even hazard a guess that many Orthodox would find [the callingā€¦

“The Limits of the Church” by Fr. Georges Florovsky

The following piece by Protopresbyter Georges V. Florovsky was originally published in 1933 in Church Quarterly Review. Where Florovsky does not translate foreign phrases, we have supplied a translation in brackets for non-specialists. It is very difficult to give an exact and firm definition of a ā€˜sectā€™ or ā€˜schismā€™ (I distinguish the theological definition from the simple canonical description), since a sectā€¦