When I was 11, my grandfather (a Greek man in his late 60s) took me, at my request, to the traveling show of Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake (which, by the way, is having a revival this December in London if anyone wants to come with me). Ten minutes into the show, Pappou turned to me and said, “Sweetheart, I don’t think this is meant for me. I am going to wait out in the lobby. Holler if you need anything.”... Read more
Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev) does not strike a sympathetic character. The former head of the powerful Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate and current Metropolitan of Budapest and Hungary is the sort of man who makes both friends and enemies with equal ease. Moreover, as a high-ranking Russian cleric granted a Hungarian passport (and subsequently visa-free access to the Schengen Zone), it seems natural that suspicion will follow him wherever he might go. As a consequence, there were... Read more
This piece is a bit of “first thoughts” on a topic I hope to come back to soon, in a longer, likely more academic forum. The debate around the female diaconate in the Orthodox Church is hot at the moment. A recent conference hosted by the St. Phoebe Center at Hellenic College/Holy Cross and a documentary on Ancient Faith Ministries have reignited the debate. As I say below, I have little investment in the outcome of the debate, but I am troubled by... Read more
It took me a while to write this first piece for Patheos. Nearly four months, which is crazy for someone who prides herself, for better or worse, on being a quick writer. It took me so long, because I was not sure what to write. The personal, and often confessional, nature of writing at Patheos put me off. I have managed to write about the personal a handful of times: a friend’s suicide, my eating disorder. On every occasion, it... Read more
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