Dear friends, we are delighted to welcome you to the new website of Lumen Orientale!
A website is more than just a place to publish articles. It is also a space where ideas can be shared, stories can be discovered, and readers can come together to explore the things that matter to them. As Lumen Orientale continues to develop, we felt that it was the right time to rethink how our publication is presented online and to build a digital home that better reflects our identity and editorial mission.
Our new website represents the result of that journey. Along the way, we explored different website frameworks, experimented with modern web technologies, and ultimately settled on a new platform that offers greater flexibility for the future.
Here is a little story about how we got here.
Looking Back: Our Journey on Substack #
Our journey began on Substack, a platform that provided us with a convenient way to publish articles and share our work with readers. It allowed Lumen Orientale to establish its online presence and build a collection of articles covering Catholic news, ecclesiastical developments, sacred liturgy, and the wider life of the Church.
Substack served us well, and we are grateful for the opportunities it provided. However, as the publication continued to develop, we began to think more carefully about what we wanted our website to become.
We wanted greater freedom to customize the design, organize our articles, and develop a distinctive visual identity for Lumen Orientale. We also wanted more direct control over the website’s structure and the technologies behind it.
Rather than simply changing the appearance of our existing platform, we decided to explore a different approach to building and maintaining our online publication.
Our move to a new website does not mean that we are abandoning our Substack roots. The original Substack website will remain online, allowing readers to revisit previously published articles and explore our earlier work. We have no plans to delete it; instead, it will continue to serve as an archive of our publication’s journey.
Exploring New Technologies #
One of the most interesting parts of rebuilding a website is discovering the different technologies available and learning how they can work together.
In developing the new Lumen Orientale website, we explored the possibilities offered by static site generators and modern web development tools.
Unlike a traditional website that may generate pages dynamically when visitors request them, a static site generator prepares the website’s pages in advance. Articles, templates, and configuration files are transformed into ready-to-serve web pages, making the resulting website relatively lightweight and straightforward to deploy.
This approach also allows content and design to be managed separately, giving us greater control over the website’s structure and appearance.
After exploring the available options, we decided to build our new website with Hugo.
Why Hugo and Blowfish? #
Hugo is a fast and flexible static site generator written in Go. It is particularly well suited to content-driven websites, including blogs, online publications, and personal websites.
You can learn more about Hugo at gohugo.io.
One of the reasons we chose Hugo is its straightforward content workflow. Articles can be written in Markdown, while templates and configuration files determine how they appear on the website. This makes it easier to maintain a consistent presentation across our articles while allowing us to adjust the website as our needs evolve.
For the website’s visual design, we chose Blowfish, a modern theme developed specifically for Hugo.
Blowfish offers a clean, responsive design and a range of customization options. Its layout is well suited to an online publication, allowing articles to be presented in a readable format across desktop computers, tablets, and mobile devices.
We wanted the new Lumen Orientale website to be simple to navigate without losing its own character. Blowfish gave us a strong foundation on which to build, allowing us to concentrate on our editorial content while retaining the flexibility to refine the website’s appearance and organization.
Of course, choosing an existing theme does not mean that the design process ends there. We can continue adjusting settings, exploring templates, and refining the layout as the publication grows.
Managing Our Website with GitHub #
Another important part of the transition was deciding how to manage the website’s files and source code.
We use GitHub to store and manage the website’s source files, including its articles, configuration, and design-related resources. GitHub’s version control capabilities allow us to keep track of changes, review previous versions, and maintain a more organized development workflow.
For a publication that continues to evolve, this is particularly useful. Articles and website improvements can be managed alongside the rest of the project, making it easier to maintain the website and introduce changes over time.
We also use GitHub Pages, GitHub’s static website hosting service, as part of our approach to publishing the website online. It provides a practical option for hosting static web pages directly from a repository.
Together, Hugo and GitHub provide a workflow that helps us manage the website’s content and development in a more structured way.
A New Digital Home for Catholic Journalism #
Although the technology behind the website has changed, our purpose remains the same.
Lumen Orientale exists to share news, reports, and reflections on the life of the Catholic Church. We cover ecclesiastical developments, Catholic events and pilgrimages, sacred liturgy, Church history, and other stories that help readers better understand the Church and its mission.
The new website gives this work a dedicated digital home. It also provides greater flexibility in how we organize our articles and present our coverage to readers.
We hope the refreshed design will make it easier for you to discover our latest publications, revisit previous articles, and explore the different subjects covered by Lumen Orientale.
We will continue to develop the website as our editorial work progresses, always seeking ways to improve the reading experience and make our content more accessible.
Looking Ahead #
Rebuilding a website is not simply a technical exercise. It is also an opportunity to reconsider how we communicate with our readers and how we want our publication to grow.
Our transition to Hugo and Blowfish has given us a fresh start, together with a flexible foundation for future development. There will undoubtedly be more adjustments and improvements along the way, and we look forward to exploring what this new platform can offer.
Our Substack website will remain available as an archive, preserving our earlier articles and allowing readers to revisit the work that has brought us to this point. Meanwhile, our new website will be the home for our ongoing publications and future developments.
Most importantly, we remain committed to the work that matters most: bringing readers thoughtful coverage of Catholic news, the Church’s rich liturgical traditions, and the people and events shaping Catholic life today.
Although Lumen Orientale may not yet have a large readership, I give thanks to God for the grace and ability He has given me to share the faith with others through the internet. I am sincerely grateful to every reader who has supported this work, and above all, for the abundant grace and goodness of God, without whom none of this would have been possible.
These reflections bring to mind the words of St. Paul the Apostle:
“For if I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting. For necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward; but if not of my own will, I am entrusted with a commission. What then is my reward? Just this: that in my preaching I may make the gospel free of charge, not making full use of my right in the gospel. For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all, that I might win the more.”
– 1 Corinthians 9:16–19
Through the intercession of St. Paul the Apostle, may my humble words reach places I may never know and hearts I may never meet, becoming instruments through which the grace of God is made known to others.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you to everyone who has followed Lumen Orientale, whether you discovered us on Substack or have joined us here for the first time.
We invite you to explore our new website, read our latest articles, and continue this journey with us.
Once again, welcome to the new home of Lumen Orientale. We are glad to have you with us!
May God bless you!