Faith & Religion
Mount Sinai: Monasticism, Collections, and Archives
Mount Sinai is home to the oldest active Eastern Christian monastic community in the world and holds a prominent place in Orthodox spirituality. The Byzantine Emperor Justinian I (r. 527-565) built the monastery, which is dedicated to Saint Catherine, following the death of his wife Theodora (d. 548). Largely retaining its 6th-century appearance, the fortified…
Read MoreEurope’s ‘Great Awakening’?
In contrast to the United States of America, always a cauldron of religious passions with a constant movement of believers from one church or religious tradition to another, Europe has always offered, especially for Catholicism, a simpler and more predictable religious landscape. There was one main way to get in – infant baptism – and…
Read MoreBilly Joel’s Weaponized Nostalgia and Spiritual Truth
I’m not sure what I thought pop culture would be like when my generation got into middle age. I certainly didn’t expect it would be dominated by ideas and figures from my 1980s childhood released into the wild again and again like some monstrous zombie army, hungry for our eyeballs and the reanimated feels of…
Read MoreUnitas, Caritas, Veritas: Understanding the Augustinian Spirituality of Pope Leo XIV
In the weeks since American Cardinal Robert Prevost was elected Pope Leo XIV, he’s returned more than once to a few key concepts. “I would like our first great desire to be for a united church,” he said in the homily at his installation Mass, “a sign of unity and communion which becomes a leaven…
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