Stefan Kleinhenz

In today’s political world there is much discussion over the nature of the time in which we live. For many reasons on both sides of the aisle, our political parties have become polarized to the point where we are separated into one of two categories, neither of which is based on core or fundamental principles, but rather on simple opposition to the other party.

We are currently at a point of division that many believe history has never seen before. The election, and now the presidency of Donald Trump, has personified this ever-growing political climate simply because we, as Americans, are forced into one of two extreme corners: one extreme being that Donald Trump will be the savior of the world, and the other proclaiming that he will orchestrate the extermination of all life on earth.

Both of these are wrong. Wrong, because these are the beliefs that lead us to the thought that we are living in Trump’s America.

Those who have faced the challenges of history did not set the path for the present by believing they lived in someone else’s world. They understood that they as individuals were the masters of their own destiny. We are the heirs of the patriotic beliefs that not only founded a nation, but revolutionized the world. As the bearers of that ancestral burden—and more profoundly, as Christians—how can we believe that anyone other than ourselves is responsible for our life? Read More

“Therefore shall a man (LXX: ἄνθρωπος, anthropos) leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife, and the two shall be one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24)

Recent efforts by some to re-translate liturgical texts have ignited discussions about how best to express the unchanging teachings of Orthodoxy in language that is comprehensible to modern people, which is a good thing. (See John Fotopoulos and Aristotle Papanikolaou’s article here.) The practice of the Church has always been to adopt local language and custom wherever possible to make the Gospel available to people. That is why Cyril and Methodius undertook their work of translating Scripture and liturgy from Greek into Slavonic. That is why the apostles and early fathers struggled to express Aramaic and Hebrew ideas in Greek. That is the miracle of Pentecost: everyone can say, “We hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God” (Acts 2:11). Every time someone understands the Divine Liturgy in their own language, the miracle of Pentecost happens again. Read More

In creating Orthodoxy in Dialogue we made a conscious decision, as a matter of editorial policy, not to publish very often on questions of sexuality and gender. The list of upcoming titles on the Archives by Author page gives an idea of the wide range of topics to which we look forward in the coming weeks. Yet we will not hesitate to return to these questions more frequently when circumstances warrant it.

SS. Theodore of Tyre and Theodore Stratelates. (Holy Transfiguration Monastery. Zrze, Macedonia. 14th century.)

It seems to have occurred by sheer coincidence that our elder sister blog, Public Orthodoxy, published Bradley Nassif’s “The Holy Trinity and Same-Sex Marriage” just as we were preparing to release Giacomo Sanfilippo’s interview with Father James Martin, SJ. The contrast in pastoral spirit between Martin and Nassif could not have been juxtaposed more starkly.

Given that Public Orthodoxy had previously published Sanfilippo’s “Conjugal Friendship,” we commend our brother editors for their commitment to presenting more than one side of a question. At Orthodoxy in Dialogue we likewise encourage prospective writers to submit articles irrespective of whether we might agree or disagree with them.

Yet Nassif’s article stands out precisely for adding nothing new to the conversation, nothing that has not already been iterated and reiterated a thousand times before.

To be clear, we do not judge the value of his article so much for his position on same-sex love, as for the disappointment for which he sets up his readers. With great interest we started his second paragraph: “At times, Orthodox responses have been knee-jerk in their opposition to same-sex marriage and the LGBTQ agenda. But a blunt rejection is woefully inadequate. A rebuke is no reply.” Read More

“Creation: Day Five” (Cappella Palatina. Palermo, Sicily. 1140-70.)

“We knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth, for surely there is no such splendour or beauty anywhere on earth. We cannot describe it to you; we only know that God dwells there among men….” (Grand Prince Vladimir’s envoys on their impressions of Hagia Sophia and its liturgy)

Beauty—what is it? Something quite indefinable that is often taken for granted, whether by laymen or professionals in the area of æsthetics: something that is nevertheless there, whose presence beholders admit without any full or clear explanation. The beauty of an object or living creature may unite people in a moment of consensus, whether silent or verbalised, who would never agree with each other on any other kind of subject.

This world was created by God, and God saw that it was very good. The Septuagint’s καλὰ λίαν (kala lian) can equally well be translated as very beautiful . Living in our post-lapsarian world we can understand the general idea that there is good and evil, beauty and ugliness, difficult though it is to get into details. Some might say that there is more beauty in a young deer than in an octopus; others can add that there is more beauty in an octopus depicted on a Mycenaean vase than in a living prototype. Ancient Greeks definitely knew something about beauty, and we are still applying the laws that they discovered. “Man is the measure of all things: of the things that are, that they are, and of the things that are not, that they are not”—these words of Protagoras of Abdera (c. 490-c. 420 BCE), together with the Canon of Polykleitos, give us no choice but to admit that Man is the key. Read More