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Letters
This book is complied of selections from the email correspon-dence of Priest Daniel Sysoev with persons from all walks of life. The author answers unusual and even conniving questions from atheists, Muslisms, Buddhists, doubters, and many others. Thanks to Fr. Daniel’s gift for theology and his broad erudition, these an-swers form a veritable textbook on how to talk with people about the Orthodox faith. In these pages readers will learn things not written in ordinary books, thereby enriching their knowledge and fortifying their faith.
As relatives and spiritual children of Fr. Daniel, we had access to his email correspondence. We made it available to Fr. Daniel’s friend, missionary priest Georgy Maximov, who compiled his answers to various people and categorized them by subject. The result is the work you are now holding—a collection of letters sim-ilar to the Missionary Letters of Saint Nikolai Velimirovich.
The Acquisition of Faith
Theology
Holy Scripture
Spiritual Life
Church Life
Family
The Modern World
Atheism
Catholicism
Protestantism
Schisms
Islam
Eastern Religions and Occultism
Letters to Priests
A Sense of Sojourn
As relatives and spiritual children of Fr. Daniel, we had access to his email correspondence. We made it available to Fr. Daniel’s friend, missionary priest Georgy Maximov, who compiled his answers to various people and categorized them by subject. The result is the work you are now holding—a collection of letters sim-ilar to the Missionary Letters of Saint Nikolai Velimirovich.
The Acquisition of Faith
Theology
Holy Scripture
Spiritual Life
Church Life
Family
The Modern World
Atheism
Catholicism
Protestantism
Schisms
Islam
Eastern Religions and Occultism
Letters to Priests
A Sense of Sojourn
147 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 10, 2022
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
June 30, 2025
This book is excellent in terms of the extent to which it contains St. Daniel's writings. There is, unfortunately, the serious matter of Fr. Nathan Williams's senseless, modernist editorializing. His footnotes are an insult to St. Daniel and extremely presumptuous in their claims.
This is complete nonsense, and contradicted directly by St. Philaret's catechism that he himself quotes in the footnote! Using St. Philaret to argue that the unbaptized "aren't compatriots of the devil, just his captives and slaves" is self-contradictory and ridiculous. If you deny original sin, then they'd have to be "compatriots" (willing accomplices) rather than "slaves" (unwilling). This is completely incoherent, in addition to immensely disrespectful to both Orthodoxy itself and St. Daniel, who wrote against modernists like Fr. Nathan! Why did he translate St. Daniel's work if he despises his theology so? It's very strange.
"The majority of fathers" do not teach that infants are "innocent" at all - that's called pelagianism and it's a heresy condemned by the Church since St. Augustine's time. He couldn't be more wrong!
In this footnote on page 18, Fr. Nathan directly rebuts St. Daniel and inserts his own opinion as that of "The Orthodox Church." He also directly contradicts his own detraction by acknowledging St. Daniel's acknowledgment of an exception. St. Dismas was also baptized by Christ's blood after St. Longinus pierced His side, and martyrs are baptized by their own blood.
Again, if Fr. Nathan actually read St. Philaret's catechism then he would know not to write this heretical trash about the fate of the unbaptized - the question is answered.
Garden-variety modernist garbage that's frequently propounded as a polemic against the "rational, scholastic, juridical West." Read St. Daniel's own words and St. Philaret's catechism instead.
St. Daniel:
St. Philaret:
That's plenty juridicial.
It's awful that a heretic is trashing up St. Daniel's letters with his ridiculous, unevidenced opinions. Fr. Nathan doesn't provide any citations from the Saints for his garbage because THERE AREN'T ANY. Just Romanides and Paris School slop. This pisses me off. I'm sure Yuliya Sysoeva doesn't know or understand that Fr. Nathan is actively undermining her martyred, saintly husband's work, and Holy Orthodoxy itself, with his trash.
James Theuer
This is complete nonsense, and contradicted directly by St. Philaret's catechism that he himself quotes in the footnote! Using St. Philaret to argue that the unbaptized "aren't compatriots of the devil, just his captives and slaves" is self-contradictory and ridiculous. If you deny original sin, then they'd have to be "compatriots" (willing accomplices) rather than "slaves" (unwilling). This is completely incoherent, in addition to immensely disrespectful to both Orthodoxy itself and St. Daniel, who wrote against modernists like Fr. Nathan! Why did he translate St. Daniel's work if he despises his theology so? It's very strange.
"The majority of fathers" do not teach that infants are "innocent" at all - that's called pelagianism and it's a heresy condemned by the Church since St. Augustine's time. He couldn't be more wrong!
In this footnote on page 18, Fr. Nathan directly rebuts St. Daniel and inserts his own opinion as that of "The Orthodox Church." He also directly contradicts his own detraction by acknowledging St. Daniel's acknowledgment of an exception. St. Dismas was also baptized by Christ's blood after St. Longinus pierced His side, and martyrs are baptized by their own blood.
Again, if Fr. Nathan actually read St. Philaret's catechism then he would know not to write this heretical trash about the fate of the unbaptized - the question is answered.
Garden-variety modernist garbage that's frequently propounded as a polemic against the "rational, scholastic, juridical West." Read St. Daniel's own words and St. Philaret's catechism instead.
St. Daniel:
St. Philaret:
That's plenty juridicial.
It's awful that a heretic is trashing up St. Daniel's letters with his ridiculous, unevidenced opinions. Fr. Nathan doesn't provide any citations from the Saints for his garbage because THERE AREN'T ANY. Just Romanides and Paris School slop. This pisses me off. I'm sure Yuliya Sysoeva doesn't know or understand that Fr. Nathan is actively undermining her martyred, saintly husband's work, and Holy Orthodoxy itself, with his trash.
James Theuer
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