My article from this evening is a laudatio. I have to remark a very expressive personality of American Orthodox Theology, but very humble, a priest which I met online and, for me, and for others, is the best orthodox blogger from USA. In his presentation, which we evoke it, is not substantial. This is his legitimation for readers:
“Glory to God for All Things is a blogsite written and maintained by Fr. Stephen Freeman. All unsigned posts are written by him. Fr. Stephen is an Orthodox Priest who lives and serves in East Tennessee. A convert from Anglicanism, where he was a priest for 18 years, he was ordained to the Orthodox priesthood in 1999″.
Something is evident from at first sight: his words has a Patristic smell. Father Stephen is not an arid theologian, is not a technician of phrases but a profoundly priest, that lives through the services of Church and looking at the faces of Saints from Icons, chiefly at Our Lady, at Theotokos…and wrote about his heart.
On every day I have a good reflection from his products. Father Stephen Freeman is an orthodox blogger that writes, near, day-to-day and he writes with the ebullience of his being, with this fervor man of the faith, with priestly consciousness. And this kind of labor is not flower to ear. His efforts are a plus torment, besides the weights of his house, is evidently, but is a cross from the freedom to make others… exultations.
If don’t know to exult on peoples with your person, you aren’t a good priest! So that you useful for somebody, that you be teacher for somebody, you must be due to the sons like an wise father and attentive, very attentive. Father Stephen is a priest of the attention. His holiness is careful to the details of the heart. When I translated his items, I saw his attention, his care too big to details.
Only that, can not somebody so attentive as he, but that he is a man of the prayer, a man of a theological depth. Can not to write, over aren’t! In orthodox life, firstly is practice, then the theory, sight the tints. Who sees the deep colors of relation with Christ and the Saints, this man is a man of the theory, of theory in that the patristic sense. And Father Stephen, that is a good successor of the Protomartyr Stephen, is a priest that sees the truth of Orthodoxy in his heart, because his articles are testimonies of the divine truth.
His blog has the age yearlong. It is little in appearance. In fact, his blog is a mature exercise of communication. Many people to find in it a support, a direction, a inner resonance with they. From 19 October 2006, Father Stephen bated out treasures from him for use and this is the treasure for everybody:
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
In one from his letters he told me, that the orthodoxies speak throughout same language, on the dialect. His holiness refers, in this context, the authentically orthodoxy from orthodoxies. And I believe same thing. In each Christian orthodox he exists an alone dialect, the dialect of love and the fraternity and is due to rediscover in us this unique dialect, generically.
So that you see he holds, be due to love it your brother, on the other. This equal of our is our salvation. If you want redeem, then, is indispensable, to want redeemed and others too. And Father Stephen searches the one sheep missed of the America and he preaches, with time and without time, for she to be redeemed.
Your holiness, please to receive on my part, all the wish of good, the wish of salvation, for you and for your family. Your family and your parish are in my heart and in my prayers. This my laudatio is not a favor from my part but a duty of consciousness. Because, according with is written in Scripture: ” whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops.” [Luke 12:3].
We speak to you now from the secret of our heart. And our secret is our love for you, my beloved Father Stephen! Even if don’t articulated very well in English, certainly that the love, this universal language of Christians, you speaks you now with power.
Father Dorin Piciorus
Pr. Dorin
