The connection between dreams and desire is something that is accepted in today’s post-Freudian world. However, for Byzantine Christians to come to terms with illicit dream images, without the benefit of a theory of the unconscious, was a different matter entirely.

Dreams, Memory and Imagination in Byzantium (Volume 24 in Brill’s Byzantina Australiensia series) grew out of papers offered at the 19^th Biennial Conference of the Australian Association for Byzantine Studies, on February 24-26, 2017, at Monash University Law Chambers in Melbourne. Selected and revised conference papers have been supplemented by others to cover the volume’s three-fold theme. Our contributors come from the United States, Israel, Italy, Australia, and New Zealand, and our sources stretch from Byzantine Greek and Latin to Hebrew, Arabic, and Armenian.

Overview of the Volume

Monastic writings from Egypt, Gaza, and Sinai indicate the practical challenges that dreams posed to Eastern monks in their attempts to implement ideals of purity in their ascetic regimen. The Eastern tradition of Evagrius of Pontus was mediated to the West by John Cassian of Marseilles, among others. Although the classical background to the notion of “yearning for the divine” in Cassian and other writers of the Western Christian tradition has attracted an impressive amount of scholarship, the oneirological theories of ancient philosophers and their influence on Byzantine thought have been given considerably less attention. This is the subject of Part 1 of the book. Read More

Orthodoxy in Dialogue launched on August 22, 2017 with a maiden article by Rørik Hróthgar, a former associate editor of ours and current PhD candidate in Theological Studies at Trinity College in the University of Toronto. It remains our guiding manifesto and one of our best pieces to date. Over the course of our first year we went on to publish 353 articles, editorials, book reviews and summaries, interviews, reprints, commentaries, reports, and open letters by approximately 160 authors. These have come to us from the Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Eastern Catholic, Anglican, and Protestant Churches, and from no ecclesial affiliation at all, to share with our readers an enormous spectrum of perspectives on an unlimited range of topics.

Articles on sexuality and gender have accounted for approximately 25% of our activity. We have proactively sought—but not always found—individuals willing to write for us whose views on this topic differ from those most often expressed on our pages.

Our sole purpose has been to generate discussion within and beyond the Orthodox Church—to get people talking. Any measure of success that has come to us in this endeavour is due entirely to the grace and mercy of God in our unworthiness, to our growing international team of writers, to our tens of thousands of faithful readers from 171 countries around the planet, and to the generosity of the Patrons of Orthodoxy in Dialogue. We thank God and each of you with our whole heart. 

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MAIDEN ARTICLE

The State of Orthodox Theology Today
Rørik Hróthgar

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TOP TEN ARTICLES BY A GUEST AUTHOR

1.
Will the Non-Christian Be Saved?
Metropolitan George (Khodr)
Najib Coutya, Translator

2.
The Scandal of Sexual Abuse: A Moment of Radical Conversion for the Church
Gilles Mongeau, SJ

3.
Confessions of a Catechumen and Ex-Marine
Micaiah David Dutt

4.
Anba Epiphanius the Neo-Hieromartyr
Ramez Rizkalla

5.
Sexual Minorities in the Orthodox Church: Towards a Better Conversation
Gregg Webb

6.
Juliana Schmemann, My Mother
Serge Schmemann

7.
Can You Be Orthodox in Communion with Rome?
Brian A. Butcher, Liam Farrer, Kevin Basil Fritts

8.
An Encomium for Father Robert F. Taft, SJ
A.A.J. DeVille

9.
12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos
Adam A.J. DeVille, Reviewer

10.
Young and Orthodox in Trump’s America
Stefan Kleinhenz

Read More

In publishing this article Orthodoxy in Dialogue wishes, first, to offer support and solidarity to our many Roman Catholic readers; second, to acknowledge openly that the sexual assault of children by clergy and church workers is not unknown in the Orthodox Church (see Pokrov, the Orthodox affiliate of SNAP); third, to dispel the absurd, shopworn myth—popular in some Orthodox circles—that same-sex attraction equates with pedophilia (see also Randal Rauser’s “Catholics Are Now Trying to Link the Problem of Child-Molesting Priests to Same-Sex Attraction” ); and fourth, to draw attention to our articles by Teresa Hartnett on recovery from clergy sexual abuse in our Archives by Author.

Finally, if you have been a victim of clergy sexual abuse, know that in no way whatever does the blame or fault reside with you. 

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro announces release of grand jury report on clergy sex abuse.

I forgot that my friends can see these posts. Via Facebook Messenger last night, one asked me, “So what will you write at that website about the Philadelphia grand jury report?”

I mumbled something about being swamped at work with a project, I really don’t write all that often, just haven’t read news, much less the report. Nothing to say, really. Same old, same old.

Then Thursday, in a work session with a colleague who has become a friend, a question from left field. “Do you listen to The Daily?” It took me a second to reply. “The New York Times podcast? Sometimes.” Well, evidently Thursday’s podcast was about the grand jury report. My friend listened to it. I hadn’t.

Tonight I headed to the Y and pulled up the podcast as I drove.  I didn’t make it to the gym. I had to turn back. I came home and dove into the grand jury report. My initial thoughts: Read More

Editorial Foreword

We offer the present reflection to our many Roman Catholic readers, our Protestant and Anglican readers, our Orthodox readers, and all of our readers of good will, whether Christian or not. The clergy sex abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church—with its latest chapter in the grand jury report from Pennsylvania—weighs heavily and painfully on all Christians everywhere, regardless of our particular ecclesial affiliation. Not one of us has grounds to cast stones at the Roman Church, because not one of us belongs to a church that is institutionally sinless. All of our churches stand in need of repentance, healing, and reform through the collaboration of human initiative with divine grace. 

Le Sacré Cœur (The Sacred Heart). Maurice Denis. 1916.

In the last few weeks, the ongoing scandal of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church has once again become front page news, with the publication of accusations against Theodore McCarrick, and the release of the report of the Pennsylvania grand jury investigation into sexual abuse in the dioceses of that state.

I have recently become the associate to the provincial superior of the Jesuits of Canada. In that new role, it is my responsibility to review and supervise the policies and practices of our community for the protection of vulnerable persons. But for the last fifteen years, in my work as a theologian, I was tasked with preparing young men and women for ordained and lay ecclesial ministry. In that context, I trained these future ministers to conduct themselves professionally, to respect boundaries, and to recognize their power in a ministry relationship so as to exercise fiduciary care for the other. I have made sure that they understand their responsibilities to report abuse to the proper civil and ecclesial authorities. My students know what they need to do to exercise good self-care, and they can recognize in themselves the need for supervision in difficult situations. Read More