Above: Fyodor Dostoevsky by Vasily Perov The recent deaths of former Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev and Orthodox Metropolitan Kallistos (Timothy) Ware brought forth eulogies, remembrances, and commentary in both the secular and religious spheres. Gorbachev was the face of the end of Communism, while Ware was likely the premier English language writer and explicator of…
Historically and theologically, there are three “pillars” of Catholicism: Scripture, Tradition, and Magisterium. All are necessary; all are mutually implicated; and none of them is absolute, in the sense that it can be taken as greater in every respect than the others. Each is first but in a different way. There is an almost Trinitarian…
Above: woodcut of Constantinople by Giovanni Andreas Vavassore, circa 1535. Editor’s note: see part 1 in this series: “Eastern Orthodoxy and the Pathology Against Charity.” The Fourth Crusade is perhaps the greatest wound of blood between Catholics and Eastern Orthodox. In the year 1204 crusaders came and sacked Constantinople, the greatest Eastern Orthodox city…
I was in the car with my friend on the way to Vespers at the Russian Orthodox church. I remember it vividly for some reason; driving down the streets of the old Slavic immigrant neighborhood on the westside of my city (which encompasses also the Ukrainian Catholic parish and the Polish Catholic parish). This would…
One of the many encouraging signs in the Traditionalist ‘movement’ today is the growing understanding that the contemporary crisis in the Catholic Church does not simply originate in the neo-Modernist recrudescence of the 1940s to the 1960s, nor in the original Modernist wave of the 1900s that St Pius X fought against, but in fact…
Dear OnePeterFive donors, supports, and readers, I write this especially to the occasional Orthodox Christians who read our online journal, but also want to speak to all our readership and highlight something important for the salvation of our souls as we begin Great Lent. Perhaps Orthodox readers have seen some of our polemics against…
Editor’s note: please be advised that this article includes graphic details of sexual abuse. It is lamentable that we must discuss this, but unfortunately some are tempting Catholics away from the Roman Church due to the scandals. Ultimately, as Mr. Bieszad argues, this is a human problem which afflicts all religions. Fr. Nikolai Stremsky was…
Dear OnePeterFive donors, supporters and readers, Recently on the OnePeterFive Podcast, I tried to unpack the inner spiritual realities at work in the question of Eastern Orthodoxy, to which Catholics are especially susceptible. I made mention of this in my first article introducing the series “Against the Greek Schisms.” Eric Sammons over at our sister…
In our first essay we discussed some of the horrors of the three pornocracies of the Church, and suggested the term “Third Pornocracy” to be an accurate historical description of our own epoch. It is helpful, I believe, because the term truly describes the reality of how bad the corruption is, but it also reminds…
On Dec 8, 1854, to the great rejoicing of the Holy Catholic Church, His Holiness Pope Bl. Pius IX proclaimed the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception. In Ineffabilis Deus, the Supreme Pontiff taught, This sublime and singular privilege of the Blessed Virgin, together with her most excellent innocence, purity, holiness and freedom from every stain of sin, as…
I often get asked why I don’t become Eastern Orthodox. If I know so much about Church history, shouldn’t I conclude that the Roman Church has gone off the rails and Eastern Orthodoxy has preserved the precious dogmas of the early Church in their pristine form? There are many reasons why I can’t embrace the…
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