I would like to bring to readers' attention the Institute of Catholic Culture and Orientale Lumen, two websites with a lot of information for Catholics. The Institute of Catholic Culture is run by a Melkite deacon out of Virginia and has hundreds of hours of audio lectures on philosophy, Church history, theology, liturgy, ethics, and much more. It is great material to download and play in the car whilst driving or while exercising. Despite the director's Melkite affiliation, the material is broadly Catholic and does not delve into the tiresome "East vs. West" buncombe.
Orientale Lumen—descended from the Catholic and Chalcedonian Orthodox conferences—tastes of a distinctly Eastern flavor, as one might expect. It has interesting lectures on spirituality, Byzantine theology, and many videos of Greek liturgical functions. Among my favorites are lectures by Met. Kallistos Ware on the Trinity and Fr. Robert Taft's series on the "final synthesis" of the Divine Liturgy, the last formation process that gave us the Divine Liturgy as it existed at the fall of Constantinople, when the texts and rituals of the Greek rite began to ossify.
Take a peak!
My wife and I listen to ICC stuff regularly. Their Bible Studies are some of the best I've found, especially those given by the deacon and his brother.
ReplyDeleteI've had my eye on the OL lectures for some time, but never really had the time to listen to them.