Eastern Christian Books

This  is an important defense of book reviews with which I am entirely in agreement. Readers of this blog who have expertise in relevant...

I yield nothing to nobody in my respect for Russian Orthodox Christian traditions--the staggering architectural beauty of her churches, the...

In the Roman Catholic world, this springtime/Paschaltide is often Confirmation season, a season and a sacrament that raise at least as many ...

I have already contacted the editor, Amir Azarvan, requesting an interview about his newly published collection,  Re-Introducing Christianit...

There is news emerging that the life of the emeritus bishop of Rome, Joseph Ratzinger, is moving peacefully towards its close. For someone ...

We live in a time of regular "conversions" among Christians from one tradition to another--to say nothing of moving between Christ...

As I noted last year and the year before, 2015 marks the centenary of the Armenian genocide, about which studies continue to pour forth from...

Though it's long been a staple of Eastern self-presentation, and sometimes of Eastern polemics against "the Latins," the notio...

As these recent anniversary years have ticked by, commemorating the two world wars and the genocides associated with them, we have seen gre...

I have discussed other publications about holy fools on here over the years, including my own; and interviewed authors about their work in t...

The Byzantine liturgical historian Robert Taft's 2000 essay, "Eastern Presuppositions and Western Liturgical Renewal" first al...

Well do I remember seeing first hand, more than a decade ago, the healing power of ritual--in this case the Byzantine "rite of forgiven...

More than a decade ago now, in a graduate class on Byzantine liturgical translations, I was first introduced to the Orthodox liturgical scho...

Northern Illinois University Press continues to bring forth important works in their Russian Studies series as well as their Orthodox Christ...

Pope Francis, the pope of surprises, last year declared the Armenian saint Gregory of Narek a "doctor of the Church," a unique cat...

Is there any other Russian novelist (apart from Tolstoy perhaps) who continues to attract such scholarly attention as Dostoevsky? I've n...

With chapters on the Orthodox musician Arvo Part (about whom see my interview with Peter Bouteneff) and one on the revival of chant on Mt. A...

It has often been said, when people are rushed for a quick explanation as to why Eastern Christianity has not been as riled by philosophical...

As I noted last summer, I have become more and more fascinated not just with the uses and abuses of memory--in the context of, e.g., the ...

There are certain groups, even within the often maddeningly confused world of Eastern Christianity, that are especially small and therefore ...

Sam Noble continues the absolutely vital work of making Arab Christian history better known. Fresh off his edited collection with Sasha Trei...

It has been a commonplace for some time that the development of the Christian priesthood is a relatively late one.  How and why that happene...

Well do I remember the controversy in the mid-90s when a handsome young historian at some school or other started putting it about that Chri...

Catholics have grown weary of papal speeches and interviews , whether on airlines or in other fora. The endless yammering has turned even...

Given the on-going turmoil in the Catholic Church over the disciplines of marriage, divorce, re-marriage, and annulments, as well as the pot...