Homily - Good Works and Fruitless Arguments
OrthoAnalytika
Titus 3:8-15; St. Luke 8:8-15 Drawing on St. John Chrysostom’s reading of Titus 3:5-15, Fr. Anthony explores how the mercy we have received from God should bear fruit in practical care for others. St. Paul calls us to turn away from fruitless disputes, receive correction with humility, and take initiative in meeting urgent needs. Through these ordinary acts of generosity, God teaches us to love and binds His people together. Enjoy the show!
info_outline
Catechism: Scripture and Tradition
OrthoAnalytika
How do we recognize and live the apostolic faith? In this parish class, Fr. Anthony explores Scripture’s place within Holy Tradition, how the Church received the biblical canon, and how we read the Bible to know Christ and follow Him. Questions from participants help connect these teachings with prayer, worship, and everyday Christian life.
info_outline
Homily - Sowing Mercy: Giving Without Keeping Score
OrthoAnalytika
II Corinthians 9:6-11; Luke 6:31-36 Reflecting on II Corinthians 9:6–11 and Luke 6:31–36, Fr. Anthony explores cheerful giving through the asceticism of relationships. Money is one gift we are called to share, but so are our attention, patience, forgiveness, and kindness. Drawing on the Church Fathers and the image of sowing seed, he considers what happens when we wait for others to deserve our mercy or attach an expectation of repayment to our love. Christ calls us to give even when gratitude never comes, trusting that God is cultivating mercy within our own hearts. The homily...
info_outline
Catechism: The Asceticism of Relationships
OrthoAnalytika
This concludes the asceticism portion of a catechetical series, following lessons on prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. It explores how everyday relationships train us to love through listening, patience, forbearance, and bearing one another’s burdens. Drawing on Scripture and practical pastoral examples, it connects spiritual discipline with kindness, forgiveness, and gentle correction. It also explains how love can include clear boundaries and how repentance helps us take responsibility for our own conduct. I used an AI voice to read the essay summary of the class rather than publish the...
info_outline
Homily - Remember Who Dwells in You
OrthoAnalytika
II Corinthians 6:16–18; 7:1 Holiness is real, and the people around us live with the consequences of what we are becoming. Drawing on 2 Corinthians and Saint John Chrysostom, we explore how pride can corrupt even our good deeds—and how remembering Who dwells in us can teach us to repent, give with mercy, and become a blessing to our neighbors. You can read more on this at OrthoAnalytika.org. Enjoy the show!
info_outline
Catechism: The Asceticism of Money
OrthoAnalytika
What is our relationship with money teaching us to love? Fr. Anthony explores tithing and almsgiving as ascetic practices that expose our weaknesses and train us in generosity, self-control, and trust in God. Drawing on Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick’s six reasons for tithing, he considers how giving supports parish ministry, how good work bears a double benefit, and why learning to receive can be as challenging as learning to give. This class was given at Christ the Saviour in Anderson, SC, on 24 September 2026.
info_outline
Homily - The Way Is Not the Law
OrthoAnalytika
Galatians 2:16-20; Mark 8:34-9:1 St. Paul teaches that the Law could protect, teach, and prepare God's people, but it could not give the new life that comes through Christ. The Orthodox Church gives us an extraordinary Way of prayer, fasting, worship, and tradition that forms us for holiness—but especially when we come to that Way later in life, we can be tempted to master its practices, turn the means into ends, and measure ourselves and others by them. On the Sunday after the Exaltation, we are reminded to be patient with the work of grace: the goal is not to become exceptionally good...
info_outline
Catechism: Fasting, Freedom, and the Music of Love
OrthoAnalytika
Fasting is about much more than changing what we eat: it is part of the Church’s training in freedom. Drawing on Scripture, the ascetic tradition, and the image of musicians learning to listen, restrain themselves, and play in harmony, Fr. Anthony explores how fasting retrains our desires so that they no longer rule us. The goal is not deprivation or impressive self-control, but the freedom to love, to live in communion, and to join the beautiful music God is making of His creation. This is the recording of the class given at Christ the Saviour in Anderson SC on 9/16/2026. You...
info_outline
When Good Things Get in the Way of Christ
OrthoAnalytika
Galatians 6:11-18; John 3:13-17 The bronze serpent was given by God for the healing of His people, but when Israel began treating the gift as though it possessed holiness in itself, Hezekiah destroyed it as Nehushtan—a mere piece of bronze. St. Paul confronts a similar temptation in Galatians, warning Christians not to mistake even good and God-given practices for the new life that comes only through union with Christ. This homily considers how Orthodox rituals, customs, cultures, and identities can form us in holiness without becoming substitutes for the One toward whom they are meant to...
info_outline
Catechism: The Subtle Work of Prayer
OrthoAnalytika
This is a recording of the class given at Christ the Saviour in Anderson SC on 09/09/2026 Prayer is more than asking God for things; it is one of the primary means He has given us for learning to know Him and becoming capable of doing His will. Like practicing music or learning a vocation, a regular prayer rule gradually trains the intellect, disciplines our instincts and passions, opens the heart to God, and joins us more deeply to the common life of the Church. Through prayer, God does not simply change the circumstances around us—He changes us, so that we can participate more faithfully...
info_outlineToday we started our Fall Wednesday evening education series, during which we are working our way through Zachery Porcu's "Journey to Reality" from Ancient Faith Publishing. Today, after framing our discussion with the "trees walking" account of the healing of the blind man from the Gospel according to St. Mark (8:22-38 - see below), we cover the main topics in chapter one. Enjoy the show!
------
Trees Walking: the Problem of Discerning the Gospel
Fr. Anthony Perkins; 03 September 2025
Text: Zachery Porcu, PhD. 2025. “Chapter 1 – What is Christianity” in Journey to Reality; Sacramental Life in a Secular Age. Ancient Faith Publishing.
St. Mark 8:22-38 (KJV)
22 And he cometh to Bethsaida; and they bring a blind man unto him, and besought him to touch him.
23 And he took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the town; and when he had spit on his eyes, and put his hands upon him, he asked him if he saw ought.
St. Ambrose; Through the font of the Lord and the preaching of the Lord’s passion, your eyes were then opened. You who seemed before to have been blind in heart began to see the light of the sacraments.
24 And he looked up, and said, I see men as trees, walking.
Why would he see men as trees???
25 After that he put his hands again upon his eyes, and made him look up: and he was restored, and saw every man clearly.
Note the progression.
26 And he sent him away to his house, saying, Neither go into the town, nor tell it to any in the town.
27 And Jesus went out, and his disciples, into the towns of Caesarea Philippi: and by the way he asked his disciples, saying unto them, Whom do men say that I am?
28 And they answered, John the Baptist; but some say, Elias; and others, One of the prophets.
How could they not know?
29 And he saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Peter answereth and saith unto him, Thou art the Christ.
But even using the right word, how much did he understand?
30 And he charged them that they should tell no man of him.
31 And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.
32 And he spake that saying openly. And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him.
And how much of this plain speaking were they able to hear?
33 But when he had turned about and looked on his disciples, he rebuked Peter, saying, Get thee behind me, Satan: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men.
This is the warning: a poor understanding of the truth can lead us to condemnation. (segue to text)
So how can we know the Gospel in a way that saves?
Intellectual knowledge. Study the Bible! [oops]
More intellectual knowledge. Study the Fathers. [oops]
The Bible is not the source of the Gospel or of the Church or of Christianity. All the written texts of Holy Tradition – to include the Bible - are not the source of Orthodoxy.
How can I make this claim?
It is not the way that the members of the early Church were saved and grew in holiness. It was not a text that evangelized the Roman Empire. It was a way of being; a way of thinking; a way of relating. It was first called “The Way.”
The metaphor of the family (p 13)
Our way of relating to information is new. Before, information was contextualized within relationships. We still have some of this, but even people’s experience of Orthodoxy is increasingly a-contextual and un-Orthodox.
The metaphor of sex (p. 15)
Two types of Christianity
Text-based (re-enactment). Ideas. Dissolute community.
Sacramental participation. A community with a life-energy (an angel!)
Problems with using the Bible. Genres: myth, song, prophecy, history, rules, authors, styles. Needs interpretation!
Need to avoid: ignoring – forsaking both the culture AND the text (progressive/individualist). Make the text and the culture what we want it to be.
A paradigm shift to Sacramental Reality.