From a Behind the Scenes blog, Marketing Director Melinda Johnson reflects on why someone should consider supporting AFR here in December.

Melinda Johnson, the Marketing Director of Ancient Faith Ministries, talks about the Ancient Faith Writing and Podcasting Conference, which will take place June 13-15 at Antiochian Village in Bolivar, Pennsylvania. Click here to register!

Bobby Maddex interviews Katherine Hyde, the Acquisitions Editor of Ancient Faith Publishing, about the Ancient Faith Writing and Podcasting Conference.

Bobby Maddex once again interviews Alexei Krindatch, the Research Coordinator of the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States of America, about the new Assembly study, Fast Questions and Fast Answers About American Orthodox Monasteries.

Fr. Laurent Cleenewerck joins us to talk about an upcoming cruise to Alaska with an Orthodox theme. Fr. Michael Oleksa, author of Everyday Wonders will be the main speaker and you will experience the history and spiritual richness of Orthodoxy in Alaska. The dates are September 7-14, 2019, and you might be surprised how affordable it is!

Bobby Maddex interviews Fr. Jason and Savannah Foster, founders of the new Orthodox Christian Deaf Association, or OCDA.

Bobby Maddex interviews Fr. Thomas Colyandro and Hieromonk Mark about the new Orthodox Monastery of the Mother of God, Joy of All Who Sorrow in Monteagle, TN. Listeners can learn more and help support this amazing monastery here.

Bobby Maddex interviews Anne Van Fossen and Bryan Smith. Anne is the chief academic officer of the Classical Learning Resource Center, or CLRC, and Bryan is the school’s Chief Operations Officer. The CLRC is offering a 10% discount off any CLRC Christian Studies class for AFR listeners for the next two weeks. The coupon code is AFRDiscount10.

Bobby Maddex interviews Dr. Nicholas Reeves about the upcoming AFR event, Christmas Across the Continent: Lessons and Carols featuring Six Choirs. Make sure to tune in this Saturday, December 19th at 7 pm (Central) on our streaming music & talk stations or simultaneously catch the podcast version with video under the "specials" tab to join us for this spectacular musical celebration of our Lord's Nativity!

Bobby Maddex interviews Rita Madden, a Master of Public Health, a registered dietician, and the host of the AFR podcast Food, Faith, and Fasting, about her upcoming virtual conference.

John Maddex catches up with his long time friend Fr. Constantine Nasr, retired priest at St. Elijah Antiochian Orthodox Church in Oklahoma City. Fr. Constantine has maintained his evangelistic spirit even in retirement and he shares information about a new outreach tool he recently created.

Bobby Maddex interviews Dr. Vladimir Morosan, the founder and president of Musica Russica, the largest publisher of Russian choral music outside of Russia, about a new massive collection of Pascha sheet music—the first of its kind in 40 years.

Bobby Maddex interviews Dr. John Burgess, a professor at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, about the graduate school's Eastern Christian Doctor of Ministry Cohort, a new academic offering presented in partnership with Antiochian House of Studies.

OCMC missionary Fr. Paul Patitsas joins us to talk about his work in New Zealand and Oceania.

Bobby Maddex interviews Anne Van Fossen, the Chief Academic Officer of The Classical Learning Resource Center. Together they discuss some exciting new developments at the CLRC, including a new online academy!

Bobby Maddex interviews Peter and Sharon Georges about their mission work in Uganda to help provide accessible education to children and break the cycle of poverty. To learn more about and support this incredible ministry, please visit their website here.

In this episode Bobby Maddex interviews His Grace Bishop Alexei of Sitka and Alaska on the history of the Alaskan Orthodox Church. Wonderful discussion about what life looks like for the clergy of the church and its parishioners. If you would like to donate the Alaskan diocese you can do so @ odesa.org.

Bobby Maddex, the Director of Digital Media from Ancient Faith Ministries interviews Dn Paul Zaharas from IOCC, who has been leading the USA Country Program since 2020. Dn. Paul shares details regarding the type of service work IOCC does and relates the history of the IOCC organization.

Bobby Maddex, the Director of Digital Media for Ancient Faith Ministries speaks with Hieromonk Fr. Basil and Hieromonk Archdeacon Sergius of Holy Cross Monastery in Wayne, West Virginia USA. They are here today to tell us about the new church the monastery is building and how you might be able to help. If you would like to help please go to; Church donation page: https://www.holycross.org/pages/new-church Video #1, “Let the Walls of Jerusalem Be Builded”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjDsuvUIPec

Bobby Maddex speaks with Dn. Joseph Matusiak, Ellie Bernasol, Ilmari Hayrynen, and Gabi Moussa about their experience at the 2023 Suprasl World Fellowship of Orthodox Youth event, held in Poland. To donate to this project please visit http://suprasl.org http://www.suprasl.org http://www.facebook.org/suprasl2022 http://www.instagram.com/suprasl_wfoy OR reach out to Dn. Joseph Matusiak @ jmatusiak@suprasl2022.org

Bobby Maddex, Director of Digital Media for Ancient Faith Ministries interviews Zachary Waltz, the headmaster of Hagia Sophia Orthodox Classical Academy located in Indianapolis, Indiana. As well as Fr. David Wey, the rector of the Academy. Please visit https://www.hagiasophiaclassical.com for more information about the academy

Bobby Maddex interviews Vladyka Alexei, the Bishop of the Orthodox Church in America serving the Diocese of Sitka and Alaska, about his trip to the Alaskan village of Kwethluk to speak to the faithful there about Saintly Matushka Olga and the Church and cultural center that will be erected in her honor. To learn more about the project (as well as the film about His Grace's pilgrimage to Kwethluk) and help fund it, please visit https://odosa.org.

China's appetite for an Iran-Israel war is said to be limited. / The Economist

Five takeaways from Kamala Harris's interview with Charlamagne Tha God. / The New York Times [+]

Donald Trump turns a town hall into a 39-minute "living-room listening session." / The Washington Post [+]

Why does the media still struggle to portray Trump accurately? Partly because of the "myth of the reasonable man." / Degenerate Art

A reporter's road trip through the Southwest, talking to voters, finds that "Latinos are as American as anyone else, if not more so." / The Los Angeles Times

Farmers worry that Trump's proposed "mass deportations" will decimate the US food supply. / Grist

Unrelated: Russia to unveil a new statue of Joseph Stalin. / Politico

Billionaires are said to be dominated by existential crises, "although each displays nuance when it comes to confrontation." / MacGuffin

Who left the United States a $7 billion payment? Theories suggest a Texan investment manager, but it's maybe someone still alive trying to minimize their taxes. / Sherwood

See also: There's no evidence the Internet Archive was hacked to edit history—but what if it was? / Interconnected

Unrelated: A video tour of New York City's so-called fake buildings. / Open Culture

TikTok is turning users with relatively low follower counts into paid shopping influencers. / rest of world

A new AI company enables users to create bots in the likeness of any person—without their consent. / WIRED

Old fashioned bookshops are now cool destinations for young people. "I can spend hours browsing—I think that's a big part of it." / The Guardian

Writers and authors create adhoc writing programs to compete with institutional workshops. / Airmail

Astrophysicists are "exulting" in new findings about the universe's first billion years, such as an image of the earliest known galaxy. / Quanta Magazine

Video and photos of 14,000 prescription lenses dangling in a Japanese forest. / Colossal

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Ancient Faith Radio correspondent Chrysanthe Loizos takes us "behind the scenes" at the Orthodox Monastery of the Transfiguration in Ellwood City, PA. With the blessing of the Abbess, Mother Christophora, Chrysanthe gives us a glimpse into the daily life of the nuns as well as their purpose and goals.

In this special documentary, Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick goes on pilgrimage to encounter Fr. Nicola Yanney, an early 20th century Orthodox missionary in America and the first priest ordained by St. Raphael of Brooklyn, whose missionary territory included most of the Great Plains. Join Fr. Andrew as he explores the life of this holy man through interviews, research and prayer in Kearney, Nebraska, asking the question: Is Fr. Nicola a saint? Included with this documentary are 9 bonus tracks of extra interviews and other material that was not included in the main documentary.

Fr. Tom Soroka and John Maddex will dive into the topic of Universalism and speak with Orthodox panelists who fall into one of three categories: Confident Universalists, Hopeful Universalists, and those who say Universalism was condemned as a heresy. We read in Scripture that God is not willing that any should perish (2 Peter 3:9). But we also read that It is appointed unto man once to die, and after that comes the judgment (Hebrews 9:27). There are those who claim that, since Christ died for all, we can be assured that all will indeed be saved and not face eternal condemnation. This is called “universalism” or “apocatastasis.” Was this teaching condemned by the Church? Who among the Church Fathers embraced universal salvation?

Fr. Pat places the Sunday of St. Thomas in the overall context of the Pentecostarion, the fifty days that separate the Lord's Resurrection from the Gift of the Holy Spirit.

Fr. Pat explains that Pascha is not about the resurrection of a god, but rather about the resurrection of a Jew who lived and breathed and ate with us here on earth.

Fr. Pat contemplates what the life of the Virgin Mary teaches us concerning 1) dogmatic theology, 2) the life of piety and worship, 3) the moral, ascetical life.

A great pastor makes for a great church, right? Fr. Pat compares Peter, Paul, and Apollos, and their various ministries to the Corinthian Church.

Fr. Pat examines three saints of the old covenant as three dimensions of the mystery of Christmas.

Fr. Pat examines the three images of Jesus found in this parable: the Judge, the Brother, and the Teacher.

Fr. Pat examines the primitive proclamation and theological premise of the Christian faith: the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

Fr. Pat examines the principle of synergy, the assent of Mary, and holiness and personal history as they relate to the Feast of the Annunciation.

Fr. Pat address some of the themes of Pascha in preparation for this Feast of Feasts.

Fr. Pat shares his homily from the Sunday of the Genealogy.

Fr. Pat explores three ways of looking at Protagoras's infamous assertion.

Human beings are complex; grace is time insensitive; and we are coworkers with God.

Fr. Pat speaks on the Gospel of the Final Judgment, and what it teaches us about Christ.

By considering the ancestors of Jesus found in Matthew 1, we can discern qualities of the Divine Initiative in our lives. Fr. Pat looks at three of these.

On St. Thomas Sunday Fr. Pat considers the theological meaning of memory, the quality of the event of the Church, and the challenge of that event.

Fr. Pat provides brief reflections on three parables from Matthew 24:36-26:2; the Parable of the Faithful and Evil Servants, the Parable of the Ten Virgins, and the Parable of the Talents.

In this homily from St. Thomas Sunday, Fr. Pat considers a person with a Stoic personality facing the great puzzle presented in the books of Job and Ecclesiastes.

In the opening verses of Romans 5, Paul says we "rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” Fr. Pat examines the characteristics of Christian hope.

Among Biblical concepts, one of the central is the covenant. Indeed, covenant is at the absolute center and root of the identity of the people of God. In today’s homily, Fr. Pat considers three aspects of covenant.

Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon discusses a Christian reading of the Hebrew Scriptures.

The story of Jesus healing the man born blind in John 9 provides the context for Fr. Pat's reflections on epistemology, anthropology, and history.

What is there about the human being that must be said if we are to take the Last Judgment seriously? Fr. Pat explores this question.

In this homily from Agape Vespers 2021, Fr. Pat explains how the task of the Church is to share with the world the message of the Cross; not as an abstraction, but as something they can reach out and feel.

On Forgiveness Sunday and the start of Great Lent, Fr. Pat encourages us to rededicate ourselves to a serious life of prayer.