Orthodox Books Recommendations?

[The Bus Station]

[Amppax]

I was told he was originally Orthodox.

 

Nope. 

[PhuturePriest]

You shouldn't believe everything you hear.

 

 

From an about the author section of a book I have:

 

But that includes this statement itself.

 

[Deus te Amat]

But that includes this statement itself.

 

 

 

Not really. It means that you should do your own research about things instead of passing off hearsay. This goes for elections, political agendas, religion, history, etc. Because no one is required to tell the truth, or make sure that the facts they present are accurate before saying them.

 

Just a suggestion.

[PhuturePriest]

Not really. It means that you should do your own research about things instead of passing off hearsay. This goes for elections, political agendas, religion, history, etc. Because no one is required to tell the truth, or make sure that the facts they present are accurate before saying them.

 

Just a suggestion.

 

Yeah. Something tells me looking into whether G.K. Chesterton really was originally Orthodox isn't as important as religion and history.

 

That being said, when I was told that I actually did look into it, and the first thing I found confirmed that he was originally Orthodox. I believe this confusion stems from the fact that he originally referred to himself as an "orthodox Christian" while he was still Anglican, and some people don't know the importance of upper and lowercase letters.

Edited September 28, 2014 by FuturePacker

[marigold]

Indeed. Many Roman Catholics also refer to themselves as orthodox with a small o. The title of the book refers to what Chezza understood as right belief in Roman Catholicism. I really enjoyed it, mainly because it is so well written, and he has his gift of explaining things uniquely.

 

One of my favourite quotes from it (note that he uses a small o):

 

This is the thrilling romance of Orthodoxy. People have fallen into a foolish habit of speaking of orthodoxy as something heavy, humdrum, and safe. There never was anything so perilous or so exciting as orthodoxy. It was sanity: and to be sane is more dramatic than to be mad. It was the equilibrium of a man behind madly rushing horses, seeming to stoop this way and to sway that, yet in every attitude having the grace of statuary and the accuracy of arithmetic. The Church in its early days went fierce and fast with any warhorse; yet it is utterly unhistoric to say that she merely went mad along one idea, like a vulgar fanaticism. She swerved to left and right, so exactly as to avoid enormous obstacles. She left on one hand the huge bulk of Arianism, buttressed by all the worldly powers to make Christianity too worldly. The next instant she was swerving to avoid an orientalism, which would have made it too unworldly. The orthodox Church never took the tame course or accepted the conventions; the orthodox Church was never respectable. It would have been easier to have accepted the earthly power of the Arians. It would have been easy, in the Calvinistic seventeenth century, to fall into the bottomless pit of predestination. It is easy to be a madman: it is easy to be a heretic. It is always easy to let the age have its head; the difficult thing is to keep one’s own. It is always easy to be a modernist; as it is easy to be a snob. To have fallen into any of those open traps of error and exaggeration which fashion after fashion and sect after sect set along the historic path of Christendom — that would indeed have been simple. It is always simple to fall; there are an infinity of angles at which one falls, only one at which one stands. To have fallen into any one of the fads from Gnosticism to Christian Science would indeed have been obvious and tame. But to have avoided them all has been one whirling adventure; and in my vision the heavenly chariot flies thundering through the ages, the dull heresies sprawling and prostrate, the wild truth reeling but erect.

Edited September 28, 2014 by marigold

[Amppax]

Yeah. Something tells me looking into whether G.K. Chesterton really was originally Orthodox isn't as important as religion and history.

 

That being said, when I was told that I actually did look into it, and the first thing I found confirmed that he was originally Orthodox. I believe this confusion stems from the fact that he originally referred to himself as an "orthodox Christian" while he was still Anglican, and some people don't know the importance of upper and lowercase letters.

 

You could just admit you got this one wrong, rather than continue to justify yourself. :idontknow:

[PhuturePriest]

You could just admit you got this one wrong, rather than continue to justify yourself. :idontknow:

 

I was wrong. I do admit that. But it wasn't because I just freely accepted what some random dude on the street said, I did actually look it up.

 

However, none of this matters, and we are hijacking the thread.

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

I was told he was originally Orthodox.

 

Was it G K Chesterton that said " fantasy is not good because it tells you there are dragons but because it tells you they can be defeated."

 

Fantasy is Junk food, it will put holes in your soul.

[Nihil Obstat]

Was it G K Chesterton that said " fantasy is not good because it tells you there are dragons but because it tells you they can be defeated."
 
Fantasy is Junk food, it will put holes in your soul.

I am pretty certain that Chesterton was saying that as a credit to fantasy. And I think Tolkien would have been quite on the same page.

“Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.”

[marigold]

Tab'le, I think that's one of those simple grammar mis-reads - I do it all the time. 'Fantasy is not good because X, ... it is good because Y.' 

 

FWIW there are dragons and they can be killed. 

 

:knight:

[Not The Philosopher]

Some of the recs on this thread look quite worthwhile indeed. I may check them out when I have less on my reading list.

 

I second the Kallistos Ware recommendation. He helped me out with a citation a few months back.

[veritasluxmea]

Thank you everyone for the suggestions, especially Egria, Nihil, Catherinem and Marigold! I've written down a few titles and hope to get them soon (early Christmas present for myself, maybe?) I didn't know Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, whatever was a separate religion from Catholicism, so I'm interested to learn about their history and how it relates to Catholicism and world history. I just thought they liked the Latin mass or something. Well, the more you know... 

[Nihil Obstat]

Thank you everyone for the suggestions, especially Egria, Nihil, Catherinem and Marigold! I've written down a few titles and hope to get them soon (early Christmas present for myself, maybe?) I didn't know Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, whatever was a separate religion from Catholicism, so I'm interested to learn about their history and how it relates to Catholicism and world history. I just thought they liked the Latin mass or something. Well, the more you know... 

I would really hesitate to say that it is a different religion. The Orthodox do form true Churches in that they maintain Apostolic succession and valid sacraments.

But no, they very much do not like the Latin Mass. ;) They like their Eastern Masses, especially the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil, and the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. And our Church history is full of very unfortunate attempts on the part of the Latin Church to force the Latin liturgies on the Eastern Churches. As a result, the Orthodox typically resist everything vaguely Latin and Roman, even sometimes to an unreasonable degree.