CW
#0
I\'m embarking on an informal inquiry regarding the parish -- what a parish is, what are the various headings under which we group articles and books about the parish, and so on. I\'m posting this note to ask for pointers to topic names, books, etc.
For instance, what courses in the seminary would address the theology of the parish, and what ones would address the practical side of the parish? Any novels that show a parish being revived? Any history of the parish as an entity or a comparative Orthodox parish-ology across different times or cultures?
My suspicion is that the parish is somewhat invisible -- as water is invisible to the fish. So my expectation is that folks will say that it\'s sorta covered under pastoral theology, and sorta under stewardship, and sorta under this, and sorta under that, but rarely directly and on its own.
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Donna Farley
#3
I have an essay that fits somewhere in this topic in the Canadian Journal of Orthodox Christianity:
http://www.cjoc.ca/pdf/Vol 2 F 3 watership down paper 0914.PDF
(p.s. love your sig quote! ;-)
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Rev Fr Athanasios Haros
#2
I\'m not quite sure this is what you are looking for, but a very good book is
\"The Orthodox Parish in America, Faithfulness to the Past and Responsibility for the Future.\" by Anton C Vrame, Holy Cross Press (www.holycrossbookstore.com)
some articles include:
\"The development of the Orthodox Parish in the United States\" by Fr Thomas FitzGerald
\"Clergy and Laity in Late Byzantine Canon Law\" by Patrick Viscuso
\"Between Ecumenical Councils: The Orthodoxy of the Body of the Faithful\" by Jaroslav Pelikan
VERY GOOD BOOK even though it might not be what you meant.
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CW
#1
I got the Vrame book. Thank you very much for the pointer. Some of the articles in it are directly relevant to what I\'m pursuing.
Hopko, in his article in the book, says many important things that seem to be commonplaces -- that is, they seem to be taken for granted as Orthodox teachings. I would like to read prior or fuller teachings. I\'m not asking for precise references, just a pointer to the kind of book or the headings under which to look.
So here is one to start with, from p. 2: \\"We say that a parish must be the Church of Christ, and not simply a church, because, according to the Orthodox faith, every local community of Orthodox Christians must be -- and, theologically understood, is -- the One Church of Christ.\\"
Is there some place in the Fathers where this idea is laid out? In modern books, would it be under \\"ecclesiology\\" or some other heading? :confused:
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CW
#4
Thank you, nizhizawa, for your recommendation. A friend at my parish had already loaned that book to me, and I will start to read it.
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