About this page.
Holy Comforter Orthodox Church was a local church in Houston, Texas led by Archbishop +Walter B. Conway. I met +Walter through a co-worker, Larry, who invited me to his ordination ceremony. +Walter had a wonderful personality and I instantly liked him. I particularly remember that he would walk up to someone and say, "tell me something spiritual." That generally made you think a moment!
I did some church-related computer work for +Walter, including preparing his Liturgy texts in computer form. Both +Walter and Larry went to be with the Lord in 1993 and the church stopped operating sometime thereafter. It didn't seem right to discard or shelve in a box the liturgy materials we prepared, so I put them here on the web, along with some other Western Rite texts, such as a version of the Gregorian Rite.
Why read about religion?
Things to teach your children (or yourself!)
Learn more about the Orthodox Faith
Links to Other Web Sites about the Orthodox faith
My small library of Western Rite Liturgy texts
Why read about religion?
The proper purpose of religion is to teach me how to live, not to teach me how everyone else should live. If I remove the freedom of choice from others, I deny them an essential part of their personhood. How can they choose to be good if they have no choice? Of course, much evil behaviour is so damaging that we cannot condone it, so we must set and respect boundaries. As Abraham Lincoln put it:
... I believe each individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the fruit of his labor, so far as it in no wise interferes with any other man's rights ... (speech in Chicago, July 1858)
People desperately need to feel the joyful, creative presence of God in their lives. There is no loneliness as profound as the isolation of a person who has walked away from God. God is the source of life itself, and to be distanced from that source is to die. I wish that everyone would experience God's constant presence. Many people have not found this awareness. Other people have found it, but through carelessness lost it again and must seek anew. If you feel something is missing in your life, be assured that God can fill that emptiness beyond your wildest dreams.
Things to teach your children (or yourself!)
- God created us as an act of love.
- Life is precious because it is the Gift of God and irreplacable by us. This is true even if the life form involved is a jerk.
- God wants us to treat each other as equals, with respect and service, recognising that God breathed a bit of his Spirit into each and every one of us.
- God gave us the freedom to choose between good and evil.
- We continually choose between good and evil, every moment of every day. Sometimes the evils seem small, like failing to use our time wisely, but even such small evils waste the precious gift of life. With the wrong choices, we can commit suicide one moment at a time and never realise it -- until we run out of moments.
- Evil often pretends to be fun, so as to seduce us. Choosing evil leads to death, real death for all eternity, and it's not a joke.
- There will always be some people who choose evil, no matter what we do. It's terrible, but we're stuck with it.
- Sometimes people choosing evil will cause others great pain or death. God allows this to happen so that people will be free. If they were not free to choose evil, they would not be free to choose good.
- God calls us to choose good, and by so doing, to choose to be with Him, the source of our life. The closer we are to the source of our life, the more we become the best we can be. Only then do we live to the fullest.
- No matter what other people do to us, we choose our own actions and are responsible for them ourselves. Stories of the lives of the saints give us examples of people who gave everything they had to choose good.
- Choosing good causes us to respect the image of God in other people, helping everyone to grow and achieve without usurping their own freedom.
- Choosing good means striving through prayer, reasonable self-denial, service to others, and study, to draw ever closer to the presence of God.
Written by George Jolly in response to the Columbine Disaster in 1999
Learn more about the Orthodox Faith
There are resources on the web that can help you understand what it means to have God at your side. I'll point you to a few, they will point you to others. Note this one thing very well: it is not enough to just read about religion. You must join a local Church community and pursue holiness day by day, minute by minute. Of course, I recommend a church of the Orthodox faith for this. It changed my life fundamentally, and while I'm still the worst of backsliding sinners, the change is real and inescapable.
If you are seeking to learn about Orthodoxy, I have some links to other web sites about the Orthodox faith.
Because we used the Gregorian Rite and the Salisbury Rite liturgies, I keep a small library of Western Rite Liturgy texts here. These are called "Western Rites" because they originated in western Europe. Most Orthodox groups use "Eastern Rites" which originated in the Byzantine tradition, probably best known for the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. Many writers assume that only the Eastern Rites exist.
Characteristic of churches in the Orthodox faith is celebration of the liturgy in the local language of the people. An exception to this is that sometimes a region continues to use an old version of its language, such as the Russian Church using Old Church Slavonic instead of modern Russian.
One rather tricky problem about Orthodox churches today is that the word "Orthodox" is not a legally protected trademark. Many groups who use the word in their name are not formally connected with each other, and often people raise many arguments about who is "authentic" or "valid" and who is not. While most are Chalcedonian, many others reject the formula of the Council of Chalcedon. This confusion makes it a bit difficult to know with whom you are dealing. The simple solution to this is to pray every day for Jesus to lead you to where you need to be to become what He wants you be. Placing everything in God's hands is always the best approach.
Links to Other Web Sites about the Orthodox faith.
There are many pages in the Web produced by followers of the Orthodox faith. You may wish to visit these Orthodox web sites to learn more.
- My library of Western Rite Liturgy texts.
- Bishop Paul maintains the Basilian Fathers web site and online library. His sermon notes, found in his weekly parish bulletin, are usually well worth reading. He also has a study curriculum for those aspiring to Holy Orders, but (in my opinion) useful for anyone wishing to grow in the faith. One of his interests is the possible reunion of Orthodox and non-Orthodox Christianity.
- An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith by St John Damascene:
- Orthodox Christian Resources on the Internet is a list of links to Orthodox information on the web, created by Catherine Hampton.
- The Orthodox Peace Fellowship presents a wonderful lecture series on the Sacraments of Healing by Bishop Kallistos Ware. There is much of value in this lecture series for everyone.
- The Celtic Orthodox Christian Church web site, maintained by Abbot-Bishop Maelrúain of New Tallaght, Céle Dé, presents authentic Celtic Orthodoxy.
- The Orthodox Christian Information Center