[Beliefnet; September 30, 2007]
In a time when churches of every description are faced with Vanishing Male Syndrome, men are showing up at Eastern Orthodox churches in numbers that, if not numerically impressive, are proportionately intriguing. This may be the only church which attracts and holds men in numbers equal to women. As Leon Podles wrote in his 1999 book, The Church Impotent: The Feminization of Christianity, “The Orthodox are the only Christians who write basso profundo church music, or need to.”
Rather than guess why this is, I emailed a hundred Orthodox men, most of whom joined the Church as adults.
[Ancient Faith Radio; August 23, 2007]
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Voiceover: We have a recording today of Frederica
Mathewes-Green addressing the audience at the Parish Life conference that was
recently held at Holy Cross Orthodox Church in Maryland, where Fr. Gregory
Mathewes-Green and Frederica serve. And
she’s reminiscing about their early days of Orthodoxy and how thankful she is
for the welcome they received.
Frederica: It’s amazing to me that Holy Cross is hosting the
Parish Life conference this year. We
started just 14 years ago, a handful of people, 19 people, meeting in rental
space in Catonsville. And that we have gotten to this point where
we can actually host a Parish Life Conference—I’m extraordinarily grateful to
God that we have the capability to do this.
And as my husband is now 60 years old, I’m extraordinarily grateful that
we’ll probably never have to do it again.
[Laughter] Once is enough in a lifetime! If you haven’t done it, you
don’t know how much work it is. I don’t
know how much work it is; I have to give a lot of the credit to someone who
would be an unsung hero otherwise: our brilliantly creative, our brilliant Shamassy,
Ina, who just has an imagination and an ability to accomplish the things that
she imagines that are going to set this Parish Life Conference apart. I’m eager to take part in it.
[Ancient Faith Radio; August 2, 2008]
Frederica: We’re at Five Guys Burgers, which is the best
burgers in Baltimore,
and everybody is chowing down except me, because I came late, so mine is still
on order. These are some pretty hefty burgers. In Pasadena. They just opened one of these in Pasadena; I got the word
from the end of the table. Our Pasadena. Pasadena,
Maryland. And Jocelyn sent me something she’d written
earlier today about dating, and ‘I kissed dating goodbye,’ versus ‘I gave
dating a chance,’ versus people should just do courtship. And you’d read an article by somebody who
said he’s very much in favor of courtship, but the problem is when people meet
for the first time, they want to get to know each other. They’re not ready to jump into
courtship. So his solution was parents
should absolutely control every moment of their children’s lives, and children
should know that their parents are going to choose their mate when they’re grown
up. They will have no choice whatsoever. I don’t think that’s completely feasible
[laughter] but it does show that even for people who are kind of opposed to the
dating whirl, what’s the alternative?
So, what do you think? Jocelyn?
My daughter-in-law Jocelyn, married to my handsome son Steve. Did you and Steve date?
[Precipice Magazine, July 2007]
1.) Can you offer some insight about how the Orthodox Church understands evangelism? Do you feel that, overall, that it is considered a priority when compared with Protestant Evangelicalism?
The Orthodox Church has a beautiful history of evangelism — but, unfortunately, it is largely history. A factor we tend to forget, which has made the path of Eastern Christianity so different from that of the West, is that for the most part they have not been free. Many Orthodox lands have been under Muslim rule for over a millennium, virtually since Islam began.
[Ancient Faith Radio; June 28, 2007]
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Frederica: I’m sitting here with my friend, Father Gregory
Czumack, who’s the pastor of Four Evangelists Ukrainian Orthodox Mission, in
Bel Air, MD, near the Pennsylvania
border. And feeling light and joyous and
teary-eyed because we just had my confession here in the icon corner of my
living room. And I asked Father Gregory
if we could talk for just a few minutes, if he could tell me what it’s like to
be a confessor. It was something you
were saying then, as we finished the prayers, about what a privilege it feels
like, and of course for laypeople, when we look at priests and we think about
hearing confessions, we think you must be very depressed about the state of the
human race, or you must hear things that just make you furious at people, and
we sort of project those ideas onto the clergy.
What is it like to actually be hearing confessions?
[Review of Faith and International Affairs; Summer 2007]“It was during this part that the majority of us tried to kill ourselves.”
They buried my spiritual father last November. I have never seen a body in a casket look so not-there; the indistinct pale husk he left behind looked like something a breeze could lift up and carry away. It was the contrast, I suppose. Few people in life are as radiant and vigorous as Fr. George Calciu, or as full of joy. He was a few days short of his 81st birthday, still full-time pastor of a church in the Washington, D.C. suburbs, still traveling world-wide to those who sought him as a teacher and spiritual father, still diligently reaching out to the poor and unchurched around him.
[Beliefnet, June 14, 2007]
“If I marry Bill it must be with open eyes,” a 21-year-old Ruth Bell wrote in her diary. “After the joy of knowing that I am his by rights and his forever, I will slip into the background.”
[Christian Vision Project email newsletter, Spring 2007]As a writer and culture critic Frederica Mathewes-Green has landed stories on National Public Radio, in the pages of major magazines and newspapers, and in bestselling books on culture and Christian spirituality. Like all public figures who challenge the assumptions of mainstream culture, she has had to learn how to stay focused and humble in the midst of both success and hostility. There are few Christians who model grace and creativity better than this grandmother of four. In this interview she describes two basic spiritual disciplines that lead to a life of integrity in a fragmented culture.
[ExploreFaith.com, May 2007]
We sat down recently with Frederica Mathewes-Green to talk about spiritual practice…
Explorefaith: Your spiritual journey has taken you from growing up Catholic, to practicing Hinduism in your twenties, to Anglicanism, and finally, conversion into the Orthodox Church. Would you say it was primarily belief, or practice, that drew to you to Orthodoxy?
FMG: Strangely enough, I had finished most of those changes by the time I was 21; the “wilderness wandering” was brief but intense in my teens. When I came home to Christianity my husband and I went to Episcopal seminary and enjoyed being part of the “renewal” movement in that denomination. In the late 80’s we were concerned about theological drift in that church, and that is why we set out to examine alternatives.
[Beliefnet, April 13, 2007]
Last summer we had a houseful at the beach, with our children and their spouses and the seven (soon to be nine) little grandchildren. The cousins don’t see each other much, so they splashed and ran and shouted, the wind tearing at their voices. But Adam, then four, stayed by himself. He moved along the edges of the dunes, circling the family like a silent satellite. Last year, Adam received a diagnosis of autism.
