Mind in the Heart

Exploring an Orthodox Christian Worldview

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Location: Madison, AL

I am a former Anglican Priest (REC) who has recently converted to the Orthodox Church.

Friday, October 13, 2006

Reading Orthodox Books

After teaching the "Tov Meod" course I decided that it may be good to actually read some books on Orthodox theology. I had a book by Orthodox Bishop Kallistos Ware on my bookshelf titled The Orthodox Church that I decided to read for the first time. I was so impressed with the Bp. Kallistos Ware's introduction to the Orthodox Church that I decided to order another book by him titled The Orthodox Way which I liked even better. I found that both of these books are good places for Anglicans to begin reading Orthodox theology since Bp. Kallistos Ware is an Englishman and former Anglican. I also ordered a copy of the Orthodox Study Bible which has some very good introductory articles on Orthodox Christianity as well as some very beautiful icons. I later read a book recommended to me by Fr. Patrick Reardon titled The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church by Vladimer Lossky. It was through Lossky that I first learned about apophatic (negative) theology. A friend let me borrow his copy of Anthony Coniaris' book titled Introducing The Orthodox Church: It's Faith and Life which is very basic but helpful. One of the most influential books that I read on Orthodoxy was Fr. Michael Pomazansky's book Orthodox Dogmatic Theology. A Reformed theologian by the name of Donald Fairbairn wrote a book titled Eastern Orthodoxy through Western Eyes that allowed me to see the major distinctions between Orthodoxy and Western Christianity. These are some of the books that started me on my path to Orthodoxy and after reading everyone of them I kept telling myself that Orthodox Christianity is what I believe. But at the time I thought that I could just make Othodox theology a part of my Anglican theology. Later I would come across some problems in trying to do this.