ORTHODOX COUNSELING: THE APPLICATION OF LOVE

Father Peter Heers's brother John Heers, is talking in this episode of Heavy Things Lightly with a teacher of priests, Dr Philip Mamalakis who teaches courses in Pastoral Care at Hellenic College Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology (link). He is specializing in pastoral counseling, grief, marriage, family and mental health. If there ever was an treasure trove of the Orthodox phronema, it's Dr Mamalakis. In the podcast he's taking initial steps to join the Orthodox podcast circuit. Personally I can't wait for him to hop on. 

July 3, 2026 Heavy Things Lightly: Marriage Humility: When Your Intensity Becomes Your Marriage's Biggest Problem | Dr Mamalakis.

Dr Mamalakis exemplifies like no other, the concept of Orthodoxy as a hospital for the soul. There is no hint of Roman Catholic legalism in his approach, nor a whiff of Protestant doom and hellfire brought on by heretic doctrines about Original Sin and Substitutionary Atonement. 

No book on regulation or church canon passes his desk, just the practical application of Christian love, which is an action, not an emotion. The doctor is a stranger to the rationalistic and mechanistic approach to reality. 

We don't have to be able to explain everything on God's green earth. Just accept its wonders and mysteries for what they are, without demanding a mechanistic explanation. Mysteries are okay. 

As Dr Mamalakis explains, Orthodoxy has a habit of integrating what is good and valuable in other disciplines, schools and philosophies without necessarily taking the entire dogma on board. That too, is part of the phronema. 

Greco-Roman classical literature and works of art have no greater defenders than the Orthodox. Acts of cultural terrorism, like the current one of Hollywood on the works of Homer, are unthinkable in the Orthodox context. 

The sacred is not the handmaiden of the secular, as is the rule in the modern world. Actually, it is the other way around. 

Dr Mamalakis's advice is indispensable for families, (newly) weds and those planning to take the plunge. 

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