Paradise and Utopia

In this episode Fr. John explores the life of Protestant father John Calvin and the reformer's contribution to the Reformation project.

In this episode Father John describes some of the most noteworthy effects of the Protestant Reformation on Western Christendom, emphasizing the decline of a sacramental basis for civilization and the rise of a primarily moral one.

In this anecdotal introduction to the final reflection of Part 2 of the podcast, Father John relates the extraordinary story of a Reformation-era town that declared itself the kingdom of Christ on earth, a "New Jerusalem." Expressing a profound absence of God in the world, however, the story of Reformation Muenster was in fact a sign of the fall of a Christendom centered upon the experience of paradise.

In this episode Father John concludes his reflection on the critical state of western Christendom on the eve of modern times, exploring how the Reformation tried to resolve the issue of anthropological pessimism but ironically served to intensify it.

In this episode, Father John continues his discussion of developments that led to the Protestant Reformation, emphasizing doctrines and practices related to human salvation.

In this latest episode on the impending Protestant Reformation, Fr. John discusses ways in which the long legacy of pessimism about the human condition and the world in general undermined western Christendom at one of her most critical moments.

In this episode, Fr. John discusses ways in which papal supremacy led to the growing sense of crisis that preceded the Protestant Reformation.

Returning after a long absence from the podcast, Fr. John in this episode introduces a new reflection on the crisis of western Christendom prior to the Reformation by discussing the penitential context of Martin Luther's famous Ninety-Five Theses.

Fr. John describes the desanctification of the world that began to occur in the time leading up to the Great Schism.

Fr. John looks at a couple of consequences of St. Augustine's anthropology in the West.

Fr. John continues to discuss St. Augustine by looking first at his notorious doctrine of original sin and its impact on the conception of man in the West.

Fr. John addresses the foundations in the West of a growing pessimism about man's condition, paying particular attention to Augustine.

Fr. John contends that to understand the coming of the Renaissance and its humanism, one really needs to understand how in the West the doctrines about man became increasingly pessimistic.

Fr. John discusses the dignity of man according to the Greek Fathers

In this final episode of his reflection on Muscovite Russia, Fr. John describes the Old Believer Schism as a crisis in the formerly optimistic cosmology of eastern Christendom, leading to its decline on the eve of modern times.

In this episode, Fr. John discusses Muscovite Russia's encounter with the West in the face of Uniatism, military invasion, and theological "captivity," all of which contributed to the decline of eastern Christendom.

In this episode, Fr. John discusses an important and fateful development in the history of Russian Christendom before modern times, the Possessor Controversy.

In this episode Father John describes the rise of the Muscovite state within Russian Christendom, and the way its Orthodox leaders began to see themselves as heirs to the fallen Byzantine Empire.

Having related the fall of Byzantium to the Turks, Fr. John now begins a reflection on the only remaining Orthodox state in eastern Christendom, Muscovite Russia. In this introductory anecdote he tells of an event in the history of this "Third Rome" that signaled the coming decline of ecclesio-political symphony, and with it the experience of paradise.

In this final episode of Reflection 17, Fr. John relates the final catastrophe to befall eastern Christendom during the period, the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453.

Fr. John gives an account of the atmosphere in Italy in which Orthodox and Roman Catholic delegates met to discuss the possibility of union in the middle of the fifteenth century. Only one of the Orthodox would refuse to sign the resulting Treaty of Union, Saint Mark of Ephesus.

In this episode, Fr. John draws upon several scholarly works to show how hesychasm protected eastern Christendom from the forces that had begun to lead the new Christendom of the west away from traditional Christianity.

In this episode, Fr. John describes why Saint Gregory's defense of hesychasm against the westernized Barlaam represented a defense not only of Orthodoxy, but of Christendom itself.

Fr. John introduces the force that kept traditional Christianity on course at a moment of crisis in the east, Hesychasm, and how it maintained Christendom's focus on paradise.

After a transition to his new parish assignment, Father John returns to the podcast with a discussion of the atmosphere of catastrophe that hung over the old Christendom of the east as the Muslim Turks advanced on Byzantium, while a defender of traditional Christianity, Saint Mark of Ephesus, prepared to depart for the unionist Council of Florence in the west.

In his conclusion to this reflection, Fr. John discusses the Roman Catholic theological principle of "doctrinal development," and traces the origins of four new doctrines that arose in the west after the Great Schism.

In the latest episode of his reflection on the new Christendom of the medieval west, Fr. John discusses the new approach to theology fostered by scholasticism, contrasting it with traditional Christian theology.

In this episode, Fr. John describes the revolutionary changes that came to characterize western monasticism after the Great Schism, leading to the rise of the Franciscans, Dominicans, and Templars.

In this episode of his reflection on the new Christendom of the middle ages, Fr. John discusses the new ecclesiology of Roman Catholicism, contrasting it to Orthodoxy and concluding with a reference to its most notorious statement, the papal bull Unum Sanctum of Boniface VIII.

In this opening anecdote of a new reflection in the podcast, Fr. John examines a famous account of a medieval English knight's pilgrimage to Ireland and vision of purgatory there, relating how it documents the rise of a new type of piety in western Christendom.

In this final episode of Reflection 15, Fr. John discusses the thirteenth-century popes Innocent III and Gregory IX, showing the close connection between their efforts to advance papal supremacy on the one hand and direct crusades against the Orthodox on the other. He concludes the reflection by noting the recent meeting of Pope Francis and Patriarch Bartholomew and placing it within the context of centuries of cultural division between east and west.

In this episode, Fr. John discusses Pope Urban II's calling of the First Crusade and the impact it and the crusades of the twelfth century had upon relations between the Orthodox and Roman Catholics.

In this episode, Fr. John discusses the coming of the crusades and the decisive role played by Pope Gregory VII.

In this episode, Fr. John discusses the immediate aftermath of the mutual excommunications of 1054 and the ways in which papal supremacy emerged as the main point of continued division between the east and the west.

In the anecdotal introduction to a new reflection, Fr. John tells the story of the fall of Constantinople to the western crusaders in 1204, showing how this event, inspired in part by new claims of papal supremacy, resulted in the permanent separation of eastern and western Christendom.

In this conclusion to his account of the Great Schism, Fr. John reviews the leading controversies that aggravated relations between Rome and Constantinople during Pope Leo IX's military confinement, and how they resulted in the latter's posthumous act of excommunicating Patriarch Michael Cerularius in 1054.

Fr. John continues his exploration of the pivotal reign of Pope Leo IX and the way in which its reforms led toward a confrontation with the Patriarchate of Constantinople in 1054.

Fr. John discusses the spiritual decline of the Church in the West and the attempt to reform this degradation.

Fr. John discusses the Christian statecraft of early Christian Russia.

Fr. John discusses the baptism of Saint Vladimir and shares an introductory anecdote about the death and canonization of Saints Boris and Gleb.

Fr. John concludes his account of the influence of the Franks by returning to the question of the filioque and how the papacy's resistance to its insertion in the Creed finally came to an end on the eve of the Great Schism.

Fr. John examines the tendency toward eucharistic piety in Frankish Christendom.

Fr. John looks at the development that took place within the Frankish lands themselves, especially those concerning the liturgy.

Fr. John discusses the rise of the Franks in Western Christianity.

In the first episode of part two of his four-part podcast "Paradise and Utopia," Fr. John Strickland, a professor of history at Saint Katherine Orthodox College, describes how Pope Nicholas I paved the way for the rapid development of the papal theory of empire.

Fr. John looks at some of the actual texts of early Christian hymns and the way in which they gave expression to the vision of early Christendom.

Fr. John discusses the development of Christian hymnography.

Fr. John continues his discussion of traditional Christian architecture.

Fr. John explores traditional Christian temple or church architecture and locates the principle of heavenly orientation at work.

In this, the first episode of the Paradise and Utopia video edition, Father John provides a video lecture from his office in Puget Sound, showing, with the use of powerful, full-color icons such as those of Andrei Rublev, how hesychasm inspired some of the greatest art in the history of eastern Christendom.