So many Orthodox Christians have grieved over the loss of physical gathering and receiving Communion. Some may not consider that before the COVID pandemic, there were people who were denied the Eucharist on principle, for identifying as or allying with LGBTQ+.

I recently listened to a podcast which chronicles the experiences of queer Christians during a different pandemic: the AIDS crisis of the 1980s. The podcast is called Plague: Untold Stories of AIDS & the Catholic Church, and it is hosted by Michael O’Loughlin, who is both gay and Catholic himself. As I listened to the podcast, I was struck with the deep resonances between the AIDS crisis and our current political climate with COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement. Then, as now, people protested unjust laws, fought government mismanagement of an epidemic, prejudice and stigma, intolerant religious communities, systemic inequalities, ignorance of health risks, and a healthcare system which struggled to cope with an increasing body count. It is sobering to hear a clip from a 1989 protest at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York, in which a gay man shouts, Stop killing us! Read More

JUNE 2020

The Death of George Floyd and Its Aftermath

 Racism: Silence Is Not an Option

 Archbishop Elpidophoros Marches!

Boycott Pascha Press

Assaulted by Joy: Nicolae Steinhardt (1912-1989)

Do Black Lives Matter? Our Bishops Respond

You Go to Weddings, We Go to Funerals: A Perspective on “Black Lives Matter” from Down Under

Archbishop Alexander (Golitzin) Issues Warning against Father Peter Heers’ “Orthodox Ethos” Website

My People Are Hurting

Autocephalous Church of Ukraine Anticipates Recognition of Bulgarian, Cypriot, Georgian, and Romanian Churches in 2020 Read More

An Introduction to Christian Theology
Anthony Towey
New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2018

Anthony Towey’s massive An Introduction to Christian Theology consists of twenty-six chapters purporting to take the reader chronologically through a survey of historical theology from Genesis to the present. Each chapter comprises several subsections covered in one to three pages. The cursory treatment of each topic becomes evident from a quick glance through the table of contents. The Council of Nicaea, for instance, occupies all of three pages; the Great Schism, two pages; the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, ten pages covering four subsections. Towey writes in an informal style which I find at times engaging, at times off-putting, at times painfully unserious—as when he says that Adam’s exclamation in Gen 2:23 makes him “the original rap artist” (p. 25).

This edition differs from the original version (2013) mainly in the inclusion of a chapter on prayer—in order to add “conversation with God” to a book on “Theology as thoughtful conversation about God” (p. xxii; second emphasis mine)—and in the creation of supplementary electronic media accessible on Bloomsbury’s website.   Read More

✠

Again we offer unto Thee this reasonable and bloodless worship,

and we ask Thee, and pray Thee, and supplicate Thee:

Send down Thy Holy Spirit upon us and upon these gifts here offered,

and make this bread to be the precious Body of Thy Christ.

Amen.

And that which is in this Cup to be the precious Blood of Thy Christ.

Amen.

Changing them by Thy Holy Spirit.

Amen. Amen. Amen.

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