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The 5th Annual National Orthodox Advanced Leadership Conference

Bobby Maddex interviews Hollie Benton, Executive Director of the Orthodox Christian Leadership Initiative, and Fr. Chad Hatfield, President of St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, about the upcoming 5th annual National Orthodox Advanced Leadership Conference. The conference will be taking place at St. Vladimir's Seminary from Sept. 17-19. To find out more about the conference, the lineup of speakers, and how to get a registration discount, visit the Orthodox Christian Leadership Initiative website.




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Thank You Dr Chrissi Hart!

After 14 years of faithfully reading books to children each week, Dr. Chrissi Hart is retiring from Readings From Under The Grapevine. Don't miss this touching interview and join us in thanking her for these years of service to Christ.




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Doxacon 2021

Do you lie awake at night wondering what might have been had they never canceled Firefly? Then listen in as Bobby Maddex interviews Fr. David Subu about Doxacon 2021, an online conference focusing on the intersection of Christian faith and the film and literary genres of science fiction and fantasy. Check out the Doxacon website to learn more about the virtual conference including speakers and topics as well as registration information.




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Jonathan Jackson & The Theoria College of Filmmaking

Bobby Maddex is joined by award-winning actor, Jonathan Jackson to discuss the new Theoria College of Filmmaking. Listeners can learn more about the college and apply here. Also, listeners can find Jonathan's book, The Mystery of Art, at the Ancient Faith Store.




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The Orthodox Christian Attorney Network Conference

Bobby Maddex interviews Matthew Namee about the upcoming OCAN Conference, which takes place on November 6th. Listeners can learn more and register for the conference here!




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A Conversation on Children's Literature

Join special host, Richard Rohlin, as he interviews brilliant authors and educators, Dr. Edith Humphrey and Angelina Stanford. Together they engage in rich conversation about literature, fantasy, art, and faith. Topics include: what makes literature good or bad? How do we choose good literature for our children? How do we write good literature for our children? And more! To learn more about Dr. Edith Humphrey and her newest book, "Beyond the White Fence" here. To learn more about Angelina Standford and her work at the House of Humane Letters, check out their website. To learn more about Richard Rohlin and his Finding the Golden Key project, click here.




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Orthodox Volunteer Corps

Bobby Maddex interviews Kyra Limberakis and Michael Sider-Rose, co-directors of the Orthodox Volunteer Corps. Together they discuss this phenomenal new organization that aims to ignite & equip young adults to catalyze transformative service for Church and the world. OVC is perfect for young adults looking to engage in a yearlong life of service, formation, and community. Learn more about OVC and apply for the program at their website.




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The “Links between Times: Conclusions and Perspectives” Conference

Bobby Maddex is joined by Dn. Andrei Psarev to discuss the upcoming "Links between Times: Conclusions and Perspectives" Conference taking place in Belgrade, Serbia from November 22–26, 2021. The aim of the conference is to make sense of processes connecting the past and present of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. Interested listeners can learn more and register from the conference at the ROCOR Studies website. You can also learn more at the conference Facebook page.




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The Orthodox Christian Leadership Initiative

Bobby Maddex is joined by Hollie Benton and Fr. Paul Hodge to discuss the Orthodox Christian Leadership Initiative and its upcoming peer learning & BootCamp sessions for leadership development. Listeners who are interested in joining the upcoming cohorts can learn more and register at the OCLI website.




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Orthodox Christians For Life

Bobby Maddex is joined by Emily Wilkinson, the executive director of Orthodox Christians for Life, to discuss their history, ministry, and involvement in the upcoming March for Life in Washington, D.C. Listeners can learn more about Orthodox Christians for Life and support the ministry at their website.




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Man of God Update

John Maddex sits down with Man of God producer Yelena Popovic to get an update on the results from the Spring showings in the US. She shares some good news about a Canadian release as well as the availability of streaming and downloads very soon.




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Advanced Leadership Conference

John Maddex is joined by Fr. Chad Hatfield and Dr. Andrew Geleris to talk about the upcoming Advanced Leadership Conference sponsored by the Orthodox Christian Leadership Initiative. The dates are September 16-18, 2022 and the topic is "Money - The Gospel Changes Everything." This discussion centers on the issue of funding for parishes and organizations and the mind set that hinder growth. The book by Dr. Andrew Geleris that was referenced is Money and Salvation - An Invitation to the Good Way.




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Who Is Dr. Jeannie Constantinou?

John Maddex sits down with biblical scholar and AFR podcaster Dr. Jeannie Constantinou to learn about her life and upbringing. Did you know she had a career as an attorney? In addition to her Search the Scriptures Live podcast/live show, Dr. Constantinou is the author of Thinking Orthodox and The Crucifixion of the King of Glory published by Ancient Faith.




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Peal of the Bells

The heritage and theology behind Russian bells with Mark Galperin of Blagovest Bells.




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A Miracle at the Hyatt - The Story of Abbess Aemiliane

Kevin Allen interviews Abbess Aemiliane of the Sacred Monastery of St. Nina about her miraculous rescue in Kansas City when a Sky Walk came crashing down on the public on July 17, 1981.




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Man of God

Bobby Maddex speaks with Yelena Popovic about the widely acclaimed film, Man of God, which is now available for purchase in digital format, DVD, and Blu-ray.




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Classical Learning Resource Center (CLRC)

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!




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The St. Nicholas Uganda Children's Fund

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.




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The 2022 Orthodox Christian Attorney Network National Conference

Bobby Maddex interviews Joan Berg and Jesse Roberts about the upcoming Orthodox Christian Attorney Network National Conference in Newport Beach, CA. This year's conference will be held from October 7-8 and will feature keynote speaker, The Honorable Gregory Katsas. To learn more about this conference, to register, and to find details on financial assistance, please visit the OCAN website.




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Doxacon 2022

Bobby Maddex interviews conference founder, Fr. David Subu, and keynote speaker, Richard Rohlin, about the upcoming Doxacon 2022. Doxacon is a conference exploring the intersection of Christian faith and fantasy, fiction, and sci-fi genres. This year's theme is "Depictions of Evil and Redemption in Sci-Fi and Fantasy" and will the conference will take place November 4-5th at St. George Greek Orthodox Church in Bethesda, MD. To learn more and register, visit the Doxacon website.




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The Psalm 103 Project

Bobby Maddex interviews Richard Barrett and John Michael Boyer about the new Capella Romana release, "Heaven and Earth", the Psalm 103 Project, which is both available to purchase and hear live starting October 14th! Listeners can find more information at https://cappellaromana.org/




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AFR App Tutorial

Have you downloaded the new AFR app yet? If so, this little tutorial will help you navigate. If not, get it now in either the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store for Android.




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From Communism to Christ - Metropolitan John of Korce

The traveling mic of AFR goes all the way to Korce, Albania to interview Metropolitan John. He grew up in communist Albania, found Christ in a miraculous way, became part of the underground and illegal Christian Church, and is now a member of the Holy Synod of the Autocephalous Albanian Orthodox Church under the hierarchical leadership of Archbishop Anastasios. It's a powerful story of God's grace and provision under very difficult circumstances.




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Ancient Faith Presents - Bishop Alexei of Sitka and Alaska

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.




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Dn. Paul Zaharas from IOCC Interview

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.




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She Who Loved Much

Bobby Maddex interviews Fr. Kevin Kalish about his new book She Who Loved Much, the Sinful Woman in St. Ephrem the Syrian and the Orthodox Tradition. Published by Holy Trinity Publications. Information about his book is available @ http://bookstore.jordanville.org/ https://kevinkalish.substack.com https://orthodoxlife.org/jordanville-readings/ephrem-graecus-sinful-woman/




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The Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies

In this episode Bobby Maddex interviews Fr.Dragos ; principal of the Institute for Orthodox Christian studies that has existed in Cambridge in the United Kingdom for 25 years. IOCS is a pan-Orthodox place of education, of outreach with a mission to provide Orthodox postgraduate studies. If you would like to donate please visit iocs.com.ac.uk.




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Interview with Julia Pawelko

Bobby Maddex, the Director of Digital Media for Ancient Faith Ministries interviews Julia Pawelko, founder of Orthodox Christian Counseling and Consulting. If you would like to contact Julia you can at eaglealb@gmail.com or contact her by phone @ 347-502-8482




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Monique Neal and Cerci Institute

Bobby Maddex, the director of Digital Media for Ancient Faith Ministries speaks with Monique Neal the head mentor of the Cerci Institute and its new Greek language apprenticeship. If you would like to contact Monique you may @ Monique.c.neal@gmail.com. To check out Cerci Institute go to ccinstitute.org




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Anne Van Fossen, Chief Academic Officer of the CLRC

Bobby Maddex interview with Ann Van Fossen, the Chief Academic Officer for the Classical Learning Resourse Centre, also known as the CLRC, as well as, two of her teachers at the centre; John Bassett and Michelle Wib Band. To learn more about the CLRC please go to; clrconline.com. email @ info@clrconline.com Also the CLRC is offering a discount code until August 3,2023 which is AFR10




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Interview Fr. John Manuel

Bobby Maddex, the Director of Digital Media of Ancient Faith Ministries, interviews Fr. John Manuel, Greek Orthodox priest and author of the book, Fable Hood Trilogy; What I learned as a Child published by City Bear Press. Available for purchase on Amazon or at citybearpress.com




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Dr. Andrei Psarev, Professor at Holy Trinity Orthodox Seminary

Bobby Maddex, the Director of Digital Media for Ancient Faith Ministries speaks with Dr. Andrei Psarev, a professor of Russian church history and Canon Law at Holy Trinity Orthodox Seminary. Dr. Psarev shares about his new project; This Day in the History of the Orthodox Church. Please visit https://www.patreon.com/rocorstudies for more information.




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Holy Cross Monastery in Wayne, West Virginia

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




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2023 Suprasl World Orthodox Youth Gathering: Event Recap and Interview

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




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Interview with St. Raphael & Schole Academies

Bobby Maddex interviews Dr. Joylynn Blake, director at St. Raphael School and Presbytera Maria Koulianos,SRS Principal Tutoring Center CSLD Manager. To learn more about the St. Raphael and Schole Academies please visit ; https://raphaelschool.org and https://scholeacademy.com




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Interview with Fr. Dragos Herescu, Principal of IOSC

Bobby Maddex interviews Father Dragos Herescu who is the Principal of IOCS (Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies) in Cambridge, United Kingdom. For more information please visit their website @ https://www.iocs.cam.ac.uk




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Hagia Sophia Orthodox Classical Academy Interview

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




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Interview with Dr. John Burgess of Systematic Theology at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary

Bobby Maddex, the Director of Digital Media for Ancient Faith Ministries, interviews Dr. John Burgess, the James Henry Snowden, professor of Systematic Theology at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.




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Interview with Fr. Patrick Viscuso, President of the Orthodox Canon Law Society of North America

Bobby Maddox, the Director of Digital Media for Ancient Faith Ministries, interviews Fr.Patrick Viscuso, the president of the brand new Orthodox Canon Law Society of North America. Pleae visit www.oclsna.org to learn more about the Orthodox Canon Law Society of North America




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Three Men and a Mountain: A Pilgrimage to Holy Mt. Athos

Join Bobby Maddex, Jerry Minetos, and Samuel Heble as they journey to Greece to experience firsthand the monasteries, sketes, and churches of both Thessaloniki and Mount Athos. In partnership with Orthodox Tours, the three travelers—all employees of Ancient Faith Ministries—present listeners with the highs and lows of pilgrimage, as well as what they should expect on their own potential journeys to Greece and the Holy Mountain. For more information about Orthodox Tours, please visit orthodoxtours.com.




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Orthodoxy, Norway, and a Parish in Need

Bobby Maddex interviews Hallvard Lid and Fr. Theodor Svane of The Annunciation of the Holy Virgin Mary Orthodox Church in Bergen, Norway, about the religious climate in Norway, the state of Orthodoxy there, and the pressing needs of their own Orthodox parish.




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Parenting Toward the Kingdom: A Companion Guide

Bobby Maddox, the Director of Digital Media for Ancient Faith Ministries, interviews Dr. Philip Mamalakis, author of the Ancient Faith publishing book Parenting Toward the Kingdom: Orthodox Christian Principles of Child Rearing, about the book's new Companion Guide.




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Orthodox Christian Attorney Network

Bobby Maddex interviews Kenneth Liu, the Executive Director of the Orthodox Christian Attorney Network, about some new developments at the organization that listeners will want to learn more about and even perhaps support.




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Parenting Toward the Kingdom: A Companion Guide - Part Two

Bobby Maddex interviews Kendra Hunter, Kristina Tartara, and Stephanie Petrides, the authors of the new companion guide to Dr. Philip Mamalakis's book Parenting Toward the Kingdom: Orthodox Christian Principles of Child Rearing, publishing by Ancient Faith Publishing.




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Saintly Matushka Olga and Alaska

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.




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The Orthodox Church in Africa

Bobby Maddex conducts an in-studio interview with Fr. Kwame Labi, a Grand Protopresbyter of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria and All Africa. Currently he is the Vicar General of the Holy Orthodox Archdiocese of Accra and Rector of the Holy Transfiguration Orthodox Cathedral in Accra.




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Three Hierarchs Orthodox Christian High School

Bobby Maddex, the Director of Digital Media for Ancient Faith Ministries, interviews the Board of Directors of Three Hierarchs High School, founded in 2021 with the help of His Eminence Nicolae of the Romanian Orthodox Metropolia of the Americas and located in Niles, Illinois. For more information about the school and to register for the next upcoming school year, please visit https://www.thochs.org.




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This Day in the Life of the Church

Bobby Maddex interviews Dr. Andrei Psarev, a professor of Russian Church History and Canon Law and the Director of Undergraduate Studies at Holy Trinity Orthodox Seminary, about his daily reflections on the history and theology of the Orthodox Church, now available on Substack: https://andreipsarev.substack.com.




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Legacy Icons

Bobby Maddex interviews David DeJonge, the founder of Legacy Icons, about Legacy's recent partnership with St. Catherine's Monastery at Mount Sinai and the icon reproductions that are resulting from this collaboration. Please visit the Legacy Icons website at http://www.legacyicons.com.




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Monday headlines: The medium is a mess

The death toll from Hurricane Helene has now reached 91 as Asheville, isolated by floods, struggles to get supplies airlifted to emergency workers. / Associated Press

Every time a climate disaster like Helene happens, insurance companies gouge customers, who complain to politicians, who claim climate disasters rarely happen. / How Things Work

Leonard Leo led the right-wing takeover of America's judiciary. Now one of his organizations is trying to block the efforts of a group that educates lawyers and judges about the climate crisis. / The Guardian

See also: Using an absurd legal basis, a Leo-funded think tank is suing the Consumer Product Safety Commission, arguing its structure is unconstitutional. / Rolling Stone

From inside Shein warehouses, gig workers—who don't have the same protections as full-time staff—are posting videos to expose grueling working conditions. / WIRED

"Perhaps this is appealing to you, but I find this revolting." The future of your Instagram and Facebook feeds is Meta's own AI-generated content. / Pixel Envy

Why AI is like the advent of the microwave oven: It's good at certain tasks and underwhelming at others—and just try to convince its advocates otherwise. / The Atlantic

Hardly a surprise, but according to a new FTC report, social media companies are gathering data far beyond users' expectations, sometimes with thousands of attributes per user. / EFF

See also: Ireland is fining Meta $101 million for "storing hundreds of millions of user passwords in plaintext and making them broadly available to company employees." / Ars Technica

According to a new study, "There will never be enough computing power to create AGI… because we'd run out of natural resources long before we'd even get close." / Radboud Universiteit

When AI scores higher on an IQ test than a third of people, have we "reached peak human?" That depends on whether "more" is necessarily "better." / VentureBeat

See also: The case for having lots of kids. / The New Yorker

Because of a legal dispute with a copyright group, a vast swath of popular music is currently blocked on YouTube. / Variety

Postcards were the memes of their day a century ago, replete with cats and everything. / BBC

How the 1937 hoax photo of a man holding a giant grasshopper—that later became a popular postcard—came to be. / Boing Boing

On Friday, the Chicago White Sox lost their 121st game of the season, the most for any Major League Baseball team in modern history. / ESPN

In a list of the world's 38 coolest neighborhoods, Marseille's Notre-Dame-du-Mont tops them all. / Time Out

Unrelated: A collaborative map for anyone interested in urban fruit harvesting. / Falling Fruit

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