Paradise and Utopia

In this episode, Fr. John discusses Pope Urban II's calling of the First Crusade and the impact it and the crusades of the twelfth century had upon relations between the Orthodox and Roman Catholics.

Fr. John draws attention to a feature of Byzantine statecraft in which the Emperor persecuted and manipulated the leadership of the Church.

In this episode, Fr. John draws upon several scholarly works to show how hesychasm protected eastern Christendom from the forces that had begun to lead the new Christendom of the west away from traditional Christianity.

In this episode, Fr. John describes why Saint Gregory's defense of hesychasm against the westernized Barlaam represented a defense not only of Orthodoxy, but of Christendom itself.

Fr. John introduces the force that kept traditional Christianity on course at a moment of crisis in the east, Hesychasm, and how it maintained Christendom's focus on paradise.

After a transition to his new parish assignment, Father John returns to the podcast with a discussion of the atmosphere of catastrophe that hung over the old Christendom of the east as the Muslim Turks advanced on Byzantium, while a defender of traditional Christianity, Saint Mark of Ephesus, prepared to depart for the unionist Council of Florence in the west.

In his conclusion to this reflection, Fr. John discusses the Roman Catholic theological principle of "doctrinal development," and traces the origins of four new doctrines that arose in the west after the Great Schism.

In the latest episode of his reflection on the new Christendom of the medieval west, Fr. John discusses the new approach to theology fostered by scholasticism, contrasting it with traditional Christian theology.

Fr. John discusses the Christian statecraft of early Christian Russia.

In this episode, Fr. John describes the revolutionary changes that came to characterize western monasticism after the Great Schism, leading to the rise of the Franciscans, Dominicans, and Templars.