How can we become again like little children - with open hearts free of the numbness and guile that so infects us as adults - to become aware of God's continuing presence, filling our lives with beauty and meaning? This book points the way and shows us the path we must follow. The reader will soon discover that Christ is there at the beginning of our journey, accompanies us along the way - and is indeed the path itself - and waits for us with open arms at the end of our journey. Here is a book rich with insight into being able to see the extraordinary in the ordinary, the sacramental and therefore the relational nature of everyone and everything - and the consequences of this vision for how we ought to live our lives as believers. --Fr. Steven Tsichlis, St. Paul's Greek Orthodox Church, Irvine, CA.

Being Bread

Religion & Spirituality

Stephen Muse

Christian Books & Bibles

STM Press

Utilizing all that is valuable in historical-critical and related research, Dr. Mary Ford demonstrates with force and clarity just why biblical hermeneutics needs to return to the perspectives and methods of early Christian interpreters, particularly those of Eastern Church tradition. Since the late Middle Ages, biblical interpretation in Western Christianity has been largely guided by historical-critical methodology. Highly useful for questions of "Introduction" (the "who, what, when, where and why" of biblical writings), it has nevertheless led to a serious "reductionism," represented most flagrantly today by members of the "Jesus Seminar." The indispensable link between exegesis and spiritual life has been largely obscured, with the result that concern for the Gospel promise of salvation has been subordinated to scientific inquiry of the text. Her focus is consistently on the basic question, "What does the soul long for?" She answers the question by a careful criticism of non-orthodox trends in interpretation (from Spinoza to contemporary exegetes), and by demonstrating how a hermeneutic inspired by the Church Fathers can be faithful to the text, while leading the reader to discover what it means to be "a child of God." We are greatly indebted to Professor Ford for achieving her intended goal: to demonstrate that authentic and authoritative biblical interpretation is intimately related to the life of faith. This important book is a treasure that will be of special interest to clergy and students of theology, as well as to lay persons who experience the soul's deep longing for God. - Fr John Breck

The Soul's Longing: An Orthodox Christian Perspective on Biblical Interpretation

MARY FORD

This book is about the spirituality of personal encounter in and through Christ. Pastoral dialogue involves an integrated mindful personal presence and interested unknowing that engages the other with the same vulnerability and alertness that one brings to God in prayer. Inner discernment and ascetical struggle along with existential engagement with and for others in working for a just and humane world are equally important in response to God's love given for all. For an interview with the author on COEH TV at Columbus State University go to university vimeo.com/m/38325238

When Hearts Become Flame: An Eastern Approach to the Dia-Logos of Pastoral Counseling

St. Paul clearly states Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus. (Phil 2:5.) How do we acquire this Mind of Christ and where is it to be found? For the Orthodox Christian, salvation is the acquisition of this Mind of Christ which is to be found in the Church. This acquisition moves us from the image of God to the likeness of God; through our obedience to this call we begin to know God and this knowledge is eternal life (John 17:3). This small book hopes to begin to answer how acquiring the Mind of Christ is possible and why it is necessary in our lives today.

Acquiring the Mind of Christ: Embracing the Vision of the Orthodox Church

Sergius Boyer

These words and sermons represent in a way the archpastoral diary of Vladyka, in which the main aspects in the life of the American Orthodox Church that the Archpastor paid attention to are indicated. Re-reading these “Instructions and Teachings” of His Holiness to the American flock, the pastors and those in their care, the reader involuntarily is present amidst the flow of life in the American Church, enters the many-sidedness of its parts, recalls its distant past, contemplates what was contemporary for the hierarch, and detects similarities or differences between what took place then and what exists in its present life.”

Saint Tikhon of Moscow: Insturctions & Teachings for the American Orthodox Faithful

Alex Maximov

Amim, what happened to your nose? Where are your mouth and ears? Where did your fingers and hair go? Amim is a strange and beautiful story with a universal message about the uniqueness of each human being, the hunger for love, and how painful is the fear of rejection. A refugee far from his country, among strangers, a child like any other, seeking acceptance and willing to pay any price for friendship until In his search for the OTHER he finally finds a way to be HIMSELF!

Be Yourself: Amim's Great Discovery

In the following pages, Fr. Stephen Muse provides us, not with a manual of prayer, but with an opening into the life of prayer by unveiling for us “the mystery of embodied life and the uncreated divine life.” He provides an entranceway for us, as human beings with all our brokenness, weakness and fear, to dialogue with the uncreated life and light of God through prayer. Everything in this wonderful book provides the reader with an opportunity to learn what it means to truly breathe prayer and invites us to begin and continue the journey of seeking to draw closer to our Lord Jesus Christ with every breath. His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon, Archbishop of Washington, Metropolitan of All America and Canada

Treasure in Earthen Vessels

The Cross of Loneliness presents the first English translation from Russian of the correspondence between Saint Sophrony and Archpriest Georges Florovsky from 1954 to 1963. Rev. Dr. Alexis Torrance, Associate Professor of Byzantine Theology at the University of Notre Dame, illuminates in his introduction the “cross of loneliness” to which St. Sophrony and Fr. Georges refer in their letters as they lament the loss of an Orthodox theological culture in which life and dogma are joined in a deep and conscious union. The letters themselves discuss the publication of the first English edition of Saint Sophrony's book on Saint Silouan the Athonite (The Undistorted Image, 1958). He requests Florovsky's assistance in finding a publisher and writing an introduction after the untimely death of their mutual friend, V.N. Lossky, who had originally been engaged for this purpose. Later in the correspondence they discuss the issue of the Filioque, the doctrine of the Trinity, church hierarchy, and "despotism" among other theological and ecclesiastical matters. The letters conclude with Fr. Georges's reflections on his trip to India and the question of union between non-Chalcedonian and Orthodox Christians. Finally, Fr. Georges's foreword to The Undistorted Image is included as an appendix.

The Cross of Loneliness: The Correspondence of Saint Sophrony & Archpriest Georges Florovsky

Saint Sophrony

Georges Florovsky

Valeriu Gafencu was born in 1921 in the Bessarabia region of Romania. In 1941, he was arrested and imprisoned, remaining so until his death in 1952. Two years into his incarceration, Gafencu was seized by the conviction that he had squandered God’s love and felt a fervent wish to repent. Fr. George Calciu—who had likewise been a prisoner in Romania and had met Gafencu on several occasions—later witnessed to his conversion: “It was enough just to see him and to pass by him, to immediately feel the influence of Gafencu … people who stayed with him in the same room still pray to him as to a saint.” White Lilies is a collection of letters, writings, and poems that Gafencu composed while in prison and are testimony not only of Gafencu’s great love but of the power of God’s light to reach even the darkest of places.

White Lilies: Letters, Conversations, and Poems from Prison

Valeriu Gafencu

Octavian Gabor, translator

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