● Poetic inspiration has its origins in the archetypal images hidden in the subtle sensibility of the inner, spiritual, subconscious, and unconscious depths, in the surreptitious chambers of the heart, in the streams of awakened consciousness, where the divine encounters the human. Without emotional intelligence, imagination, and aesthetic sensibility, there would be neither poetry, nor religion, nor saints or mystics endowed spiritually with the gift to understand and bear witness to the perplexity of that meta-reality, the reality beyond reality—to the existence of that dream world and those celestial visions of which the rational mind is neither aware nor cognizant. When mankind can no longer dream and no longer create authentic poetry, when it will only know how to calculate and consume, that radiant glory of the divine image imprinted from the beginning inside the ground of being and in the depths of man’s heart will collapse under its own shadow, under the penumbra of man’s true identity, and man will no longer be human.

● Inspiration and the unbridled flame of poetic creativity can rise to the apex of a sublime aesthetic beyond the horizons of the world’s contingency. A poetic mind can also wander vainly through the obscure and dark pathways of a jungle of dreams and bewildering imagination. But we all must first wander through the mythopoetic labyrinth in search of the Minotaur hidden within us, through the desert of loneliness and transcendental despair, through the darkness of the unseen reality and dream, so that we can then come to the light by seeing what we actually sought, and which may be hidden within the depths of our unconscious mind long before we are born in this wonderful world. Read More

As a service to the readers of Orthodoxy in Dialogue we share links to reports, announcements, and commentary at the following sources:

Department for External Church Relations/Russian Orthodox Church

Department for External Church Relations/Russian Orthodox Church

Department for External Church Relations/Russian Orthodox Church

BBC News

Religious Information Service of Ukraine

Public Orthodoxy

See also the extensive Ukraine section in our Archives by Author Read More

Metropolitan Jonah (Paffhausen)

On October 12 Fort Russ News published a panic piece by “Metropolitan Jonah”—last name omitted, even parenthetically—entitled MANY THOUSANDS WILL DIE – The Coming Schism in Orthodoxy: “Repent, and Stop this Insanity” (all caps in the original for paranoiac effect). 

It’s hard for me to take the mystique confected by Metropolitan Paffhausen’s unkempt beard and hair and his white klobuk too seriously. I’ve known him since around 1984, when he was just Jim, a 25-year old convert and SVS graduate (or about to graduate) who pined endlessly after the winsome Susan S.

Susan was a fellow parishioner at St. John of Damascus Church in Poway CA. She rented a room in my family’s house around the time that my wife and I had our third child. Jim wanted me to talk Susan into going out with him. His misplaced interest made her laugh out loud in disbelief.

Any official vita that portrays Metropolitan Paffhausen on a straight trajectory from chrismation to seminary to monastery to the primatial throne of the Orthodox Church in America is simply not accurate. On the way to the monastery he tried assiduously to find himself a wife and to become a married priest with kids.

Following his “resignation” as Primate of the Orthodox Church in America in 2012, it was reported that Metropolitan Paffhausen retained a lawyer and threatened the Holy Synod with legal action unless his demand for release to the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia was granted. It was also reported that the OCA released him to ROCOR with the proviso that he never be given an episcopal assignment. Six years after his forcible resignation and no longer a member of the OCA, he continues to style himself Metropolitan of All America and Canada on his currently active “public figure” Facebook page. Read More

Presided by His All-Holiness, the Ecumenical Patriarch, the Holy and Sacred Synod convened for its regular session from October 9 to 11, 2018, in order to examine and discuss items on its agenda.

The Holy Synod discussed in particular and at length the ecclesiastical matter of Ukraine, in the presence of His Excellency Archbishop Daniel of Pamphilon and His Grace Bishop Hilarion of Edmonton, Patriarchal Exarchs to Ukraine, and following extensive deliberations decreed:

1) To renew the decision already made that the Ecumenical Patriarchate proceed to the granting of Autocephaly to the Church of Ukraine.

2) To reestablish, at this moment, the Stavropegion of the Ecumenical Patriarch in Kyiv, one of its many Stavropegia in Ukraine that existed there always.

3) To accept and review the petitions of appeal of Filaret Denisenko, Makariy Maletych and their followers, who found themselves in schism not for dogmatic reasons, in accordance with the canonical prerogatives of the Patriarch of Constantinople to receive such petitions by hierarchs and other clergy from all of the Autocephalous Churches. Thus, the above-mentioned have been canonically reinstated to their hierarchical or priestly rank, and their faithful have been restored to communion with the Church. Read More