The Lord of Spirits

The voicemail is full. Doom. Doom. Doom. The system is down. Join the Podfathers for a pre-recorded SpeakPipepalooza.

Why is the Western theology of salvation, both Catholic and Protestant, different from Orthodoxy? Where did the Latin "treasury of merit" come from? Did Martin Luther fix it? Join the Podfathers for a direct look at a core theological difference with Orthodoxy.

Old Testament sacrifices were offered for sins, but was it only accidental ones? What happens if you sin on purpose? Does Jesus' sacrifice change all this? And why repent if Jesus paid it all? Fr. Stephen and Fr. Andrew explore the relationship between sin and sacrifice.

What do you do with a dead human body? The ancient world had strong opinions about this, and they showed up not only in their cemeteries and funerary rites but also in the myths central to their religious practice.

Icons of God in the Old Testament depict Jesus. The Hymn of Kassiani includes "I will kiss Thy feet whose tread, when it fell on the ears of Eve in Paradise..." How can this be? Fr. Stephen and Fr. Andrew discuss the eternality of the incarnation of Christ.

Mankind has looked to the heavens with fascination since pre-history, always charting the stars and sometimes worshiping them. But what is the Biblical witness? And is there such a thing as a Christian Zodiac? Join Fr. Stephen and Fr. Andrew for a look at astrology.

Christianity has been called a “mystery” religion. There are some who say that it is simply one of many mystery cults that existed in the ancient Greco-Roman world, such as the Eleusinian, Dionysian, Orphic or Samothracian mysteries. So what were their mysteries really like?

In 1954, deep under the streets of London, a mysterious 3rd c. temple was unearthed, but it was not as hoped a Christian church. It was a Mithraeum, a place of bloody secret rituals practiced by Roman soldiers. Who is their god Mithras? And is he the real Jesus?

In this live-recorded, in-person Q&A session, Fr. Stephen and Fr. Andrew respond to questions and comments from the attendees at the Lord of Spirits Conference, hosted Oct. 2-5 at the Antiochian Village in Ligonier, Pennsylvania.

Some say that the Persians had their own Messiah, and some even say that this is where Israel got the idea. Cyrus the Great, founder of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, once ruled much of the ancient world. But was he God's anointed?