Icons Are Not Written – Correcting A Misunderstanding Here’s an interesting link from the Orthodox History website. I’ve used this incorrect verbiage myself. I even used it in a poem once (which I have now corrected.) Spread the word, O lovers of exactitude.
Byzantine Chant is stark for a reason; it eliminates all the excess in the music and cuts to the core. Constantine Cavarnos has written of its “inner essence…its pureness…its mystical quality, its power of evoking contriction.” One may compare harmonizing chant to colorizing Ansel Adam’s photography. It may add visual richness, but there is a unique beauty found in his black and white photography: starkness, definition, and clarity. There is a contrast between light and shadow, which disappears when the element of color is added. Furthermore, there is a link… Read more Furthermore, There Is A Link Between Byzantine Chant and Iconography →
I used to think that to forgive someone was to release them from an obligation they had incurred by wronging me. Such a definition is easy to formulate and fits neatly into certain elegant theories about right and wrong. However, I think that what is more true is that we are all, already, under measureless obligation to forgive one another because of that law which says, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” When we ask God to forgive us, however, we are not asking him to fulfill an obligation. There are theological… Read more And Forgive Us Our Trespasses →
Last night I stood in the porch of heaven. Angels were singing to the Mother who bore God about what a wonderful occasion it was when she first entered the Temple: the vessel prepared for the Lord’s entrance into our world had come at last to the holy place, a foreshadowing of his soon coming. “The Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his Temple.” I stood respectfully in the back since I had entered late. The stiffness in my back disappeared as I took my place next to dear St. Nicholas,… Read more Congregating on the Porch →
Slow Literature 