"In the West, traditionally, the educators want the students to become a part of this great conversation of intellectuals. That is not our goal. We want to have a great conversation, a truly great conversation, but not because we engage every prominent thinker, but rather because we are engaged by exceptionally inspired discourse of heavenly origins. The boast of Orthodox civilization is not the quantity of the works produced (you often hear that in classical circles in the West), nor the rate by which the ideas are exchanged, but rather the quality of the communion generated and the depth of the meaning attained. That is what we are interested in. It is better to have less but go deeper than to have more, have confusion, and have diversion from the one thing needful. So our end, in Orthodoxy, in educational enlightenment, is not merely to produce good wise men and much less good citizens. If this were the case, we would be impoverished as Orthodox, and the incarnation would be rather unnecessary-if that was the goal of our education. Just as the law was our pedagogue, until faith came, so too, the end of education must be initiation into the Spirit-the beginning of an endless ascent to divine humanity in the Church." (From Fr. Peter Heers' lecture "The Central Place of the Orthodox Academy in the Church's Resistance to Secularism").
About the Author
Fr. Peter Heers is the founder and current head of Uncut Mountain Press (est. 2000), the founder and head of The Orthodox Ethos (est. 2016), and the founder and first editor of Divine Ascent, A Journal of Orthodox Faith (est. 1995). Fr. Peter was also the host of the Ancient Faith Ministries podcast, Postcards from Greece.
Fr. Peter is the author of The Missionary Origins of Modern Ecumenism: Milestones Leading up to 1920, as well as The Ecclesiological Renovation of the Second Vatican Council: An Orthodox Examination of Rome’s Ecumenical Theology Regarding Baptism and the Church.
Fr. Peter is also the translator of several books, including The Life of Elder Paisios by Elder Isaac (co-translator) and The Epistles of Elder Paisios, The Truth of our Faith (vols. 1 & 2) by Elder Cleopa and Apostle to Zaire: The Life of Fr. Cosmas of Grigoriou, as well as the best-selling children’s book From I-ville to You-ville.
Fr. Peter was born in Dallas, Texas and raised near San Francisco, California. The son of an Anglican priest, in 1992 his parents and much of his father’s parish converted to the Orthodox Church. In 1996 he came to Thessalonica, Greece, in order to visit Mt. Athos, returning in 1998 to begin the Theological School of the University of Thessalonica. Fr. Peter has undergraduate, master’s and doctoral degrees in Dogmatic Theology from the Theological School of the University of Thessalonica, all completed under the tutelage of Professor Demetrios Tselingides.
He lived in the Thessaloniki area for 20 years where he was married to a Thessaloniki native, blessed with 5 children, and ordained to the diaconate and priesthood in 2003, in the Diocese of Kastoria. In 2014 he was made Protopresbyter and Spiritual Father of the Diocese of Ierissou and Agion Oros. He was the rector of the parish of the Holy Prophet Elias in Petrokerasa, a small village in the mountains outside of Thessalonica, from 2006 until 2017.
Fr. Peter served as the instructor of Old and New Testament at Holy Trinity Orthodox Seminary in Jordanville, New York, and later as a Lecturer of Ecclesiology in the Certificate of Theological Studies Program. Fr. Peter was also the Headmaster of Three Hierarchs Academy in Florence, Arizona. He is a regular speaker to parish groups in the United States and Canada. Fr. Peter Heers currently resides outside of Coolidge, AZ.
Details
- First published: June 2024
- Length (softcover): 184 pages
- Size (softcover): 5.5 x 8.5 inches
- ISBN (softcover): 978-1-63941-063-7