Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchDeaconesslessness
Season 2
The questions arise every few years, and each time they're news. Who were the "deaconesses" in the early Church? What was their role? Why did the ro…
3 years, 6 months ago
The Gentle Intervention: Frontline Church Discipline
Season 2
Many ideas that seem peculiarly modern actually have deep Christian roots. This is true of much of the terminology of addiction and recovery. Today …
3 years, 6 months ago
Liturgy and Love: Revolutionary Acts
Season 2
The Fathers saw a profound connection between Eucharistic communion and social concerns — between liturgy and charity. It's evident in the works of t…
3 years, 7 months ago
The First Social-Justice Struggle
Season 2
The early Church initiated many struggles for the cause of social justice: opposition to slavery, capital punishment, and other institutions of paga…
3 years, 7 months ago
2.8 Picture This: Iconoclasm and Second Nicaea
Season 2 Episode 8
The last of the classic councils was, like so many of the others, a comic production worthy of the Marx Brothers—and simultaneously a tragedy worthy…
3 years, 8 months ago
2.7 Third Constantinople: Where There's a Will, There's Two
Season 2 Episode 7
Leave it to intellectuals (in any age) to "solve" the world's problems in ways that create bigger problems. Monothelitism was a religious idea concoc…
3 years, 8 months ago
2.6 Second Constantinople: The Emperor and the Waffling Pope
Season 2 Episode 6
Every council represents a crisis — often provoked by strong and eccentric personalities. But Constantinople II, in 553 AD, may have been the strang…
3 years, 9 months ago
2.5 Chalcedon: Firm Foundation for the Doctrine of Christ
Season 2 Episode 5
What happened when God took flesh? A simple question roused hundreds of speculative answers, most concerning the "person" and "nature" (or natures) …
3 years, 9 months ago
2.4 Ephesus: The Mother of All Controversies
Season 2 Episode 4
From the distance of more than a millennium and a half, Nestorius can seem a comic character. He was a verbally fussy man with an uncanny knack for …
3 years, 10 months ago
2.3 First Constantinople: A Capital Council
Season 2 Episode 3
Nicaea didn't resolve the Arian crisis. In fact, it provoked a riot of reactions — endless variations on the Arian theme. Imperial force only made m…
3 years, 10 months ago