Archbishop Iakovos on Spiritualism, Materialism and Darwinism

By Archbishop Iakovos of North and South America

"I believe in one God, Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible."

As you may observe, this is not a definition. We can define only visible and tangible objects, not abstract ideas or unattainable conceptions. God, being an invisible and absolute spirit and the perfect manifestation of love, can be felt and believed, but not fully conceived in His essence. We do not agree with those who claim that a partial knowledge of God is equal to none. We are not greatly impressed by stereotype scientists who believe only in what they can conceive, or by stylish agnostics. We instead believe firmly that our ratio, or intellect, has its limitations, while the field and scope of knowledge is so vast, so endless, that no human mind can completely explore or even make an impression on its endless limits.

Orthodox Faith and the Natural Sciences

By Protopresbyter Fr. George Metallinos

1. In Orthodoxy, the antithesis – and the conflict – between faith (or theology) and science is not something self-evident. It is only a pseudo-problem, because Orthodoxy in its authentic expression and realization is likewise a science, however with a different cognitive subject.

Orthodox Theology is a science and in fact a positive science, because it has a cognitive subject and it also implements a scientific method. In Orthodox tradition, two kinds of cognition or wisdom are discernible (from the Apostle Paul, James the brother to Christ, through to Gregory Palamas and Eugenios Voulgaris etc.). There is the cognition of the Uncreated (God) and the cognition of the created (the world, as something fashioned or created). The cognition of God (“theognosy”) is supernatural and is attained through the synergy of man with God. The cognition of the world is natural and is acquired through scientific research. The method for attaining the cognition of the Divine is the “nepsis” (soberness) and “catharsis” (cleansing) of the heart (Psalm 50:12 and Matthew 5:8). Theology, therefore, is the gnosiology and the cognition of the Uncreated. Science is the gnosiology and the cognition of the created. In the science of faith, cognizance is called “theosis” (deification) and is the sole objective of Orthodoxy. All else is only the means to that end.

Our Universe Contains 10 Times More Galaxies Than We Thought

Timothy Revell

October 13, 2016

New Scientist

Space used to be surprisingly crowded. The observable universe contains a whopping two trillion galaxies, making it 10 times as packed as we previously thought.

Since the Hubble Space Telescope started observing the deep sky, we’ve used its images to estimate that the universe we can see contains around 100 billion galaxies. But now, a team of astronomers led by Christopher Conselice at the University of Nottingham has generated 3D images of deep space by combining images from telescopes around the world, including Hubble.

Protopresbyter John Romanides's Teaching on Creation

PROTOPRESBYTER JOHN ROMANIDES'S

TEACHING ON CREATION

By James L. Kelley, 2016

Father John Romanides (1927-2001), from his earliest publications in the 1950's to his final postings to the website romanity.org in the early 2000's, never ceased to speak of the Orthodox doctrines about creation as essential to understanding Orthodox Tradition. The core of this Tradition, for Father John, is the healing of man's dissipated noetic energy through the “way free of error”: the threefold path of purification, illumination, and glorification.[1] His presentation of the Orthodox faith, undoubtedly unique in its organization and in some of its applications, is nonetheless not new, but rather remains in essence identical to what the Orthodox have taught at all times. This being the case, our discourse can be read as a general presentation of the Orthodox teaching concerning creation, though it also serves to introduce Father John's rich and enduring oeuvre.

Commentary on the Six Days of Creation and the Six Ages (St. Bede)

Concerning the Six Ages of the World

By Saint Bede

Hitherto it may have sufficed to speak literally of the origins of the growing world. It is pleasing, however, to intimate in a few words that order of those six or seven days in which the world was made correspond to its ages - which are of the same number.