These are transcripts from a spoken lecture. The audio is attached to this lesson. If there is any confusion from reading the transcript, please refer to the audio for clarification!
I am Eastern Orthodox. To share a little bit about my own journey, it was really the study of philosophy, beginning in the ancient world and then moving into modern philosophy, looking at the problems that I saw there in terms of philosophy of religion, that led me to the Church Fathers in the first place. In studying the Church Fathers, I became acutely aware of the difference between Eastern thought and Western thought. It was really the Eastern Church Fathers who ended up drawing me to Christianity generally, and Eastern Orthodoxy in specific. So when I share these thoughts with you in these classes, talking about the Eastern Church Fathers, the differences between East and West, I’m really, in many ways, sharing the fruit of my own journey, my own spiritual journey, in moving toward Eastern Orthodoxy. So these things are very near and dear to my heart. The content we’ll be talking about isn’t strictly an academic exercise for me, although it will feel very academic at times. Nonetheless, I hope it benefits you as it’s benefited me throughout my spiritual journey.
In this class today, in our session today, we’re going to be looking at some basic terms and concepts, concepts that might be unfamiliar to you, terms that maybe you’ve heard but you don’t have a full grasp what they mean or their historical context. I’m going to try to give you some of that here today. The reason is because as we go through the next sessions, these terms are going to come up again and again, and unless we have a clear concept of what we’re actually talking about when we use certain terms, we’re open to a tremendous amount of misunderstanding. Here, what we want to do is give an initial foundation, introduce you to the common terms, what they mean, where they came from, how we understand them, how we don’t understand them, and dispel some of the misconceptions that might be associated with them.
