musings on Church and State
Just now I came across some notes I wrote exactly one year ago, on August 11, 2025; perhaps they are worth sharing. It is August; the weather is hot, and I live in a house with no functioning air conditioner; instead, I use fans, not to keep cool, but to make the heat more bearable. [ ]
Yesterday, the U.S. Congress approved a National Defense Appropriations act for fiscal year 2027 that includes a controversial provision (Section 219, the United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative ) that reads as follows: (a) Establishment.--The Secretary of Defense shall designate an executive agent, as such term is defined in Department of Defense Directive 5101.01 (relating…
(In memory of James Lee Preston, who died this past May 17th, aged 66.) There is a place where the stream runs deepA place where children safely sleepA place where love has set its rootsAnd puts forth many worthy fruitsA place that hatred can’t controlA place of refuge for the soul That’s where you lived, [ ]
John Bekkos lived a long long time agoand was a Patriarchand was a Patriarcha Patriarch of the New RomeConstantinople was his homeConstantinople was his home He taught about the need for truth and peacebetween the sons of Italy and Greecewithin the Church that long divided wasfor what he deemed was insufficient cause And to that [ ]
Although the destructive dilemma is a formally valid argument, it is often materially a fallacy; it can give a specious appearance of truth owing to some ambiguity in the terms or some error of inference in the premises or some lack of exclusivity in the alternatives presented. The destructive dilemma sometimes is expressed as follows: [ ]
Almighty God, who governest the nations: have mercy on us. Avert, we pray, the scourge of war. Grant sanity and sobriety of heart to those in seats of authority, that they may recognize the gravity of their choices and the tremendous responsibility they shall bear for their actions. Turn their hearts into the way of [ ]
Below I present a translation of the opening paragraphs of Constantine Meliteniotes work On the Procession of the Holy Spirit. From 1275 to 1282, Constantine Meliteniotes served under Patriarch John Bekkos as chartophylax, that is to say, patriarchal chancellor and librarian, a position Bekkos himself had previously held under a succession of patriarchs of Constantinople. [ ]
In 1986, Markos A. Orphanos published an edition of the two antirrhetic discourses of Constantine Meliteniotes, archdeacon and chartophylax of the Great Church during the patriarchate of John Bekkos and a devoted friend of his who attended to him in prison during the final years of his life; the discourses were written in the aftermath [ ]
It is sometimes easier to know what a thing is not than to know what it is. If someone argues that a bullet hit John F. Kennedy in the neck, then veered around and wounded John Connelly, then veered again and landed in the grass fully intact, showing no signs of having hit anybody, then [ ]
Further on the subject of the former Patriarch Joseph and Bekkos. (Failler, vol. II, pp. 528-530.) While Joseph was residing at the monastery of Anaplous, a serious illness befell John, the patriarch in charge — that is to say, Bekkos, who had previously been chartophylax. After much suffering he began to improve, and the doctors [ ]