The Practice of Faith

.oOo.

Disclaimer: This site does not represent the Orthodox Christian Mission Center, with which I'm associated. I read and think about a wide range of ideas, opinions, and news, and I post here what interests me, with the hope of engaging in dialogue. You may find views here that even I don't agree with— but always ones I believe are worth thinking about. Feel free to about anything you find here.

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• Paul Evdokimov, The Struggle with God (Sister Gertrude, OP, translator; Paulist Press, Glen Rock NJ: 1966) (entire book).
  
  This is a book I have read 12 times, and will read again. It's that good. Be aware that the translation was revised in 1998 by Michael Plekon and Alexis Vinogradov, and republished as Ages of the Spiritual Life (which was in fact its original title in French) by St Vladimir's Seminary Press. Unfortunately though, to my mind, the new version has little to recommend it: The revisers quoted large sections of Sr Gertrude's translation almost verbatim, but elsewhere just flattened its astonishing lyricism; they put roughly half the book into "inclusive language", while leaving the other half alone; and in some cases translated the opposite of what Sr. Gertrude's work, with results that occasionally don't even seem to make sense. Deadly. But read the 1966 translation: it sings. Like I say, I've read it twelve times, you should too.
• St Maria Skobtsova, "Types of Religious Lives": Essay written in 1937 and discovered in 1996.
  
  Mother Maria examines aspects of the inner life and the dangers of fascination with institutional structures, rituals, esthetics, and asceticism as ends in themselves. The author, who died martyrically at Ravensbruck Concentration Camp, was recently canonized by the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
• Saint Mark the Ascetic (5th-6th c.), On Those who Think They are Made Righteous by Works: Two Hundred and Twenty Six Texts
  
  From The Philokalia: The Complete Text, vol. I, compiled by St. Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain and St. Makarios of Corinth; translated from the Greek and edited by G.E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware (Faber & Faber, London & Boston: 1979), pp. 125-146.
• Christos Yannaras, "The Asceticism of the Church and Individual Virtue": Chapter 7 of The Freedom of Morality (St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, Crestwood, NY: 1984), pp. 109-117.
• Christos Yannaras, "Pietism as an Ecclesiological Heresy": Chapter 8 of The Freedom of Morality (St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, Crestwood, NY: 1984), pp. 119-136.
• Christos Yannaras, "The Church Canons and the Limits Set to Life": Chapter 10 of The Freedom of Morality (St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, Crestwood, NY: 1984), pp. 173-193. (See also St. Gregory the Great on whether women should receive Communion during menstruation, and K.C. Hanson on Blood and Purity.)
• St. Seraphim of Sarov, "Conversation with Nicholas A. Motovilov". This is the celebrated "conversation in the snow".
• Fr. Georges Florovsky, "The Ascetic Ideal and the New Testament: Reflections on the Critique of the Theology of the Reformation": Chapter 1 of the Collected Works of Georges Florovsky, Vol. X, the Byzantine Ascetic and Spiritual Fathers (Buchervertriebsanstalt: Vaduz, Europa, 1987), pp. 17-59. This same chapter is duplicated in Vol. XIII, Chap. 3, pp. 102-133 under the title, ¿Reformation Theology and the New Testamentî.