Fr John Nankivell answers the question of why Christians today should read the great Fathers of the Fourth Century such as SS John Chrysostom, Basil and Gregory of Nyssa. Giving an overview of their lives and writings, he looks at what we can learn from their approaches and how we can apply this to our own lives.

An interview with Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury.

This ultimately joyful work is one of the few books available in English to deal exclusively with the problem of despondency — acedia — and how it can be overcome. Bunge analyzes the views of Evagrius Ponticus, the famous "philosopher of the desert," on the dangers of acedia. Evagrius develops a sophisticated psychology which remains beneficial to us today.

Lorenzo Perrone announces wonderful news for the Patristic Community

Feminism and Tradition deals head-on with the questions and challenges which feminism presents to the traditional Orthodox Faith, in a way which is irenic, straightforward, and comprehensive.

How did the sense of the individual arise in European culture? And why did this sense develop more strongly in the Latin West than in the Greek East, in spite of the fact that some of the earliest reflections on the nature of the person belong to the Orthodox Christian world? In this searching investigation, Stelios Ramfos explores the roots of the modern debate on the person and concludes that the preoccupation of the Byzantine Greeks with eternity inhibited them from developing a fruitful sense of interiority. He argues that, nevertheless, a figure such as Leontius of Byzantium can suggest a way forward if Byzantine theological thinking is revisited in the light of insights derived from the Western philosophical tradition.

Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia examines the teachings of St Gregory of Sinai (1255-1346) on the Jesus Prayer. Describing both the form of the Prayer and the inward and outward techniques of prayer of the heart, Metropolitan Kallistos also touches upon the question of possible parallels or influences from other religions on the Jesus Prayer in Eastern Christianity. We are left with a clear impression of the extraordinary saint who, with St Gregory Palamas, initiated the renaissance of hesychasm.

Father Oleg Mumrikov (Doctor of Theology, lecturer at St Tikhon’s Orthodox Humanities University, teacher at the Moscow Theological Academy), asks a rather important question for the field of theology in a report presented during the session "On the Origin of the World and of Man" at the Moscow Theological Academy 20th International Educational Christmas Readings on 24 January 2012: how should one understand the array of facts, supporting evolutionary anthropogenesis, which have been gathered in anthropology?

We often regard the author of the Gospel of Mark as an obscure figure about whom we know little. Many would be surprised to learn how much fuller a picture of Mark exists within widespread African tradition, tradition that holds that Mark himself was from North Africa, that he founded the church in Alexandria, that he was an eyewitness to the Last Supper and Pentecost, that he was related not only to Barnabas but to Peter as well and accompanied him on many of his travels.In this provocative reassessment of early church tradition, Thomas C. Oden begins with the palette of New Testament evidence and adds to it the range of colors from traditional African sources, including synaxaries (compilations of short biographies of saints to be read on feast days), archaeological sites, non-Western historical documents and ancient churches. The result is a fresh and illuminating portrait of Mark, one that is deeply rooted in African memory and seldom viewed appreciatively in the West.