Showing results by author "Kallistos Ware" in All Categories

Just as undertaking a journey into an unfamiliar land or climbing a mountain requires an experienced and knowledgeable guide, so also an experienced and trusted spiritual guide, a mystagogue, is needed for the spiritual journey, to ascend Mount Sinai and encounter the mysterious God in its darkness, and to climb Mount Tabor and behold the mystery of the transfigured Lord, and to be initiated into the mysteries of the Jerusalem above, our Mother, the Church. The Orthodox Way is such a guide, a book that takes the listener into the very mystery of God, and now speaks to us.

And God said, “Let us make man according to our image and likeness” (Gen 1.26). The mystery of the Trinity and the mystery of the human person are intricately connected, and thus it is fitting that we come to know both God and man in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, the last Adam (1 Cor 15.45) in whom the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily (Col 2.9). This second volume of Met. Kallistos’ collected works explores the mystery of the Trinity and of the human person created in the image of God.

It is often said that the Orthodox Church is a hospital and that our understanding of salvation is therapeutic. Here Met. Kallistos explores what this means in many different ways, and helps us to understand more deeply our relationship with Christ the physician of souls and bodies, who came to save and to heal both us and the world.

People all over the world know Metropolitan Kallistos Ware as a church leader, scholar, and writer. But far fewer know him as a man. Near the end of his life, he agreed to sit for several sessions and speak about his life, as well as his memories of the many different people he met and knew over the years and to give his thoughts on some contemporary questions facing the Church in our age. These sessions were recorded, transcribed, and edited for the present volume.

The Inner Kingdom focuses on the themes central to Eastern Christian worship and spiritual life. The opening chapter recounts the author’s journey to Orthodoxy. The next two chapters provide profound and illuminating insights on death, bereavement, and resurrection in Christ, as well as repentance. The following four chapters bring us into the world of the desert ascetics and hesychast monks. Combining scholarly rigor with practical counsels on prayer, Metropolitan Kallistos makes the wealth of the Orthodox tradition accessible to today’s Christians.