Many Protestants use 1 Timothy 2:5 as an anti-ecclesial quote, this video explains the main purpose of St. Paul’s statement about Christ being the one mediator in the sense that Christ mediates the two natures: Divinity and humanity in His hypostasis/person.
The doctrine of the divine energies in so-called “Palamism” is very controversial and seen as a 14th century innovation, but it in fact has a very strong scriptural basis for its existence, this video aims to explore this by looking at various biblical passages that uses the word “energy” and its forms.
St. Maximus the Confessor’s Letter to Marinus is a somewhat popular prooftext used by Roman Catholic Apologists in which they attempt to argue that St. Maximus was a filioquist. This video explains in detail why such an argument is untenable.
Is the filioque an addition or a clarification to the creed? What does it mean that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son? How do we make sense of scripture and the Fathers in some cases speaking of a double procession? Is this merely a semantical issue lead by problems in translation and why is this issue so important anyway? All of these questions are answered in this stream in detail with academic and patristic sources and deep theological analysis of the western view of the Trinity in contrast to Orthodox view of the Trinity.
The Paschal season is the celebration of the resurrection of Christ, the central mystery of the Orthodox faith. According to the Apostle Paul the resurrection of all men necessarily follows from the resurrection of Christ and vice versa, and if the resurrection is not true then our faith is in vain (1 Cor 15:12-17). As the Person of Christ is the core content of the faith (Mtt 16:13-19) then the importance of the resurrection as described by St Paul must be integral to our understanding and experience of the Person of Christ, and therefore a false Christology will lead to a false or deficient view of the resurrection. Indeed, as Christ is the ultimate meaning and criterion of value for all existence, so the resurrection must have transformative significance for all things, all creatures and all human striving.
For the Orthodox Theophany is known as the Feast of the waters. Water is one of these special things that God has given us. Water when blessed retains the blessing. It retains the the action of God’s grace. So if we drink a little each day and we sprinkle in our homes, that blessing that has been given to the water is then given to our homes to us. God’s grace is active in our lives and we receive God’s grace when we use Blessed Holy Water this way.
St. Mark of Ephesus was a defender of Orthodoxy in the Council of Florence where he rebutted the Latin view of theological issues such as purgatory and Filioque. This video shortly examines some of his prominent arguments against the Filioque such as John 15:26, the patristic witness of the Nicene and Constantinopolitan fathers, and the 3rd Ecumenical Council rejecting the Filioque!
St Gregory’s letter to Cledonius (101) has one of the most important and famous Patristic statements (present in other forms in other Fathers as well): “Or, for that which is not taken up (or assumed) is not healed.
That which is united to God, that will be saved.If half of Adam fell, also half will be taken up and saved. But if all [of Adam], all of his nature will be united [to God], and all of it will be saved.”
Why does this matter? Why does Christology matter? Because God has come to us to redeem, to save, to heal, the entirety of us; that gives us the power and responsibilitiy to live entirely new lives, body and soul, by the power of the Spirit, in holiness for eternal life. He has done it for us, and calls us to join him.
At the beginning of the controversy between St Cyril of Alexandria and Nestorius, the latter had preached a sermon arguing against the use of the term Theotokos (Θεοτόκος, the Mother of God) based on his understanding of who Jesus Christ was. Cyril corresponded with Nestorius, who was the Patriarch of Constantinople, to correct him. Nestorius refused to be corrected; Cyril eventually wrote 12 anathemas which were adopted by the Third Ecumenical Council (Ephesus, 431), and Nestorius was condemned.
God created all things by his free will, and all things exist outside of his nature. God became the Creator when he wished to become so; creation is not eternal, and there is no necessity in its coming into being. God transcends creation, and he is infinitely good, and so he gives rise to created things and created beings. The generation of the Son and the procession of the Holy Spirit are distinct from creation, since the former are eternal, proceeding from the very substance of God. Creation, on the other hand, is the work and result of the free will of God, and so it is not coeternal with God. When creation comes into being, nothing is added to the being of God. Creation is also contingent, since its existence is not necessary, it depends entirely on the will of God. Any necessity existing in creation is whatever God imposes it to be.
