| Church of England Allows Women to Become Bishops Source: Sputnik The Church of England has approved an amendment allowing women to be appointed as bishops. After the vote, the Archbishop of Canterbury praised the historic decision and warned his coreligionists against the " imminent danger " of schism. Natalya Mihailova 20 November 2014 MOSCOW, November 17 (Sputnik), Ekaterina Blinova - The Church of England has formally approved an amendment allowing women to become bishops; the first female bishops will be ordained next year. © AP Photo/ Peter Morrison “The first women could be appointed before Christmas and arrangements are in place to fast-track anyone eligible into the House of Lords. By Easter, at the latest, there should be a female bishop sitting in the House of Lords,” the Guardian reported. “A man or a woman may be consecrated to the office of bishop,” the amendment to “Canon 33” now states. The newspaper cites Canon Rosie Harper, a female vicar, who tweeted: “The work of a whole lifetime for so many, many people has just come to fruition.” “Today we can begin to embrace a new way of being the church and moving forward together. We will also continue to seek the flourishing of the church of those who disagree,” said Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, who signed the historic legislation, as quoted by Agence France-Presse. However, although the conservative evangelical opposition has “retreated,” the divisions between Anglicans remain. Evangelical group Reform claims that “at least a quarter of the Church” will find the new legislation “incompatible with their beliefs,” the BBC points out. Thus far, after the vote the Archbishop of Canterbury warned his audience against an “imminent danger” of schism: “Without prayer and repentance it is hard to see how we can avoid some serious fractures,” he said, as quoted by the Guardian. According to Welby, about a half of the Anglican Church bishops would be women in the next ten years. He added that the church has been already training women as new potential bishops. |
| On the occasion of his Name's Day Patriarch Kirill and Met. Hilarion (Alfeyev) sent greetings to His Holiness Patriarch Neofit of Bulgaria: Greeting from His Holiness Patriarch Kirill: Your Holiness, Beloved in the Lord Brother and Concelebrant at God’s Altar, Please accept my heartfelt greetings on the commemoration day of the martyr Neophytos, your tireless intercessor before the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords (1Tim 6:15). By his prayerful supplication, this saint pleasing unto God helps you to follow your path, strengthening you for bearing the cross of your lofty and laborious primatial ministry, which you perform with zealousness to the glory of the consubstantial and undivided Trinity and for the salvation of the clergy and flock of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. May the King of Peace renew Your Holiness’ physical and spiritual strength by the intersession of your heavenly patron, and grant to you His abundant help for performing your ministry in His vineyard. With fraternal love in Christ, +KIRILL Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Greeting from His Beatitude Metropolitan Hilarioin of Volokolamsk: Your Holiness, Please accept my cordial greetings with your Name's Day. The untiring prayerful intercession of the holy martyr Neohytos, which has been assisting you in your monastic labours for forty years now, bestowing on you gifts of the manifold grace of God (1 Pt 4:10) and giving strength to Your Holiness for bearing the heavy cross of patriarchal service, is truly a source of God’s blessings for your abundant flock as well. In this day of celebration for Your Holiness and for the whole Bulgarian Orthodox Church, I prayerfully wish you peace, good health, and boldness in your primatial prayer for the future of the Bulgarian Orthodoxy. It is with warmth and gratitude that I recall our talks in Sofia, looking forward to new joyful meetings. With respectful love in the Lord, +Hilarion Metropolitan of Volokolamsk Chairmanof the Department for External Church Relations Moscow Patriarchate His Holiness Patriarch Kirill , Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev) 25 января 2016 г. Смотри также Комментарии Мы в соцсетях Подпишитесь на нашу рассылку |
| Скачать epub pdf Lords Prayer SERMON on The Lord's Prayer preached on Sunday, August 8, 1993. It is with an increasing sense not only of awe but of terror that I pronounce the words of the Lord's Prayer; of terror, because they all stand before me in judgement. When the disciples asked the Lord to teach them how to pray, He gave them this prayer, and the first words of it, which rejoice us at times so deeply, could and should perhaps fill our hearts with a sense of terror as well as of awe – «Our Father». When we think of these words we think of our human brotherhood, of our neighbours, of our parents, our sisters and brothers, of the beloved ones; but when Christ spoke these words, it must have sounded so different because He is the only One who can say «Father» to the God of Heaven, and it is because after His Resurrection, He could call His disciples «Brothers» and by implication, «Sisters», that this prayer becomes so frightening at times. Christ, the only Begotten Son, could speak to His Father in the words of the prayer «Our Father – My Father – who art in heaven, in the place where I, Myself, sit in glory on Thy throne, while at the same time I am here, walking slowly towards My Passion – Hallowed be Thy Name, Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven». These words were the words of the Son who had left the glory of eternity to enter the twilight and the horror of our earthly life. He had come that these three petitions might come true, and He could say the words because He could say them not only with all His mind, all His heart, all His will, all His gift of Self as God, but as the Son who had come into the world to make them real, real among men. And when we speak these words we should be as a passage in St John's Gospel puts it «in Christ». These words we can say without condemning ourselves only if we are so deeply, so totally one with Christ that we share with Him His sacrifice unto the salvation of the world. Only from the depth of Christ can we say these words of divine sonship otherwise they condemn us because our whole life denies the fact that we are one with Christ, His limbs, His continued incarnation in the world, for its salvation. |
| In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Why does the Church give such veneration to St. John the Baptist, even fixing a strict fast day in his honour? Here are ten reasons: 1. Our Lord Himself said that St. John was the greatest prophet “among those born of women” (Luke 7, 28). Some hearing these words are surprised. They ask: Surely, Christ Himself is the greatest man born of women? However, Christ was not born of a woman (i.e. a married female), he was born of a Virgin. Therefore, in obedience to our Lords words, that St. John is the greatest born of women, the Church duly honors him. In fact, there are no fewer than six feasts of St. John in the Church Year. The first is his Conception on September 23/October 6. Then comes his commemoration on January 7/20, the day after the Feast of the Baptism of Christ. The third is the Second Finding of his head on February 24/March 9. His next feast is the Third Finding of his head on May 25/June 7. The fifth is his Birth, or Nativity, on June 24/July 7, and finally today’s feast, the last in the Church Year, his Beheading on August 29/September 11. 2. The parents of St. John were great and holy people in their own right and their child was a gift in answer to prayer made to them in their pious old age. His father was St. Zachariah, Prophet, Priest and Martyr. His mother, St. Elizabeth, was the sister of St. Anna, that is the sister of the mother of the Mother of God. This relationship between the Mother of God and her kinsman, St. John, is expressed in the icon which hangs over the holy doors in every Orthodox church. This shows Christ in the center, the Mother of God on His right and St. John the Baptist on His left. This icon is called the Deisis, and signifies how our salvation is related not only to Our Savior, but also to His Holy Mother and St. John. 3. For this reason St. John has the special title of the “Forerunner”, in Greek “Prodromos”, which in is a common Greek Christian name. St. John alone can claim to be the Forerunner of Christ, therefore the pioneer of our Faith. How can we fail therefore to give him special honor? |
| In a way, the gospel reading is meant to address this. We hear of a boy who is brought to Jesus by his father who asks for the Lords help. The boy exhibits symptoms of being an epileptic. He often falls down and convulses. He has moments where he is no longer in control of himself and in fact, it goes beyond mere epilepsy since his father tells us that often the spirit which possessed the boy, tried to throw him into fire or water and destroy him. To all of this our merciful Lord Jesus responds “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.” Yet the father, overwhelmed by this trial and the way it has affected his son can only cry out “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” So it is quite similar to where we might be. We want Christ, we want the kingdom of God, we want to do all of the things that St. John mentioned above, but perhaps we feel powerless to get there. The gospel tells us that the disciples, who had been given power by Jesus, had earlier tried to help the boy but could not do the job and they wondered why. The Lord replied “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer and fasting.” It is the word that the Lord gives us today. We are reminded that we are in the middle of Lent precisely to increase our prayers and fasting. Why? Because it is in heartfelt prayer and humble fasting, that the greatest changes can happen to our spiritual state. Prayer when coupled with fasting, becomes a powerful catalyst in our transformation as sons and daughters of God. Fasting helps us to overcome obstacles and temptations as well as habitual sins that seem like they can never be defeated in our lives. Yet, we notice that it is the Lord Himself who has blessed the act of fasting. It is the Lord who began His own earthly ministry with 40 days of preparation through fasting and prayer. Fasting allows us to shed our sinful inclinations like a snake sheds its skin. So we fast in order that the transformational power of God might be magnified to it’s fullest potential. And we are amazed that as we are healed and transformed we sense that Christ is doing to us what He did to the boy in the gospel reading. He takes us by the hand and lifts us up. What a beautiful image! The Lord looks each of us in the eyes and He desires to reach out His hand to us and lift us up with His healing touch. We are in the difficult final weeks. Now is not the time to despair. It is the time to cry out “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” And Glory be to God forever AMEN. |
| We forget this dimension and we think only of another one, the dimension of human fellowship – «Our Father» – but does it imply that everyone around us is our brother, our sister. There is a frightening phrase in the works of the Russian writer, Solovyov, in which he says, «Whenever anyone says to me that we have the same Father, my first question to him is, and what is your name, is it Abel or is it Cain?». And again, when we pronounce on the level of our humanity the words «Our Father», when we proclaim thereby that we recognise everyone around us as a brother or a sister, who are we, Abel or Cain? You may say Cain was the first murderer, I am not. Am I not? It is not only by shedding the blood of a person, by depriving him or her of this bodily life that we become murderers. How often people have been betrayed and murdered at the heart of their being by this betrayal. How often slander has destroyed not only a person's reputation but his whole life? How often gossip, malicious or mindless, has wounded a person and destroyed relationships around him. And how often do we think of those people who are dying of hunger, who are homeless, who are surrounded by hatred, by the desire that they should not be. How often we meet, if we are attentive, people who wish one or another person not to be. Oh – we do not think of killing, but how much we hope that something would remove that person from our life, from our neighbourhood, that I could forget this person and that he should no longer exist for me – this is the way of Cain. He wanted to remove Abel who was his condemnation, or an accusation against him. Do we often think of this? When we say the words «Our Father» and think they unite us in brotherhood, in sisterhood, do we realise the implications? In the second half of the prayer, we say «Forgive as I forgive»; if we do not forgive, this prayer is a blasphemy, and is no longer our prayer said together with Christ. Do we realise this? Do we understand how frightening it is to pronounce words which Christ could say to His Father, and which we can say only in Him, with Him, but not in our own right. |
| Then, it moves on to mention Joseph, who was sold into slavery in Egypt, but then rose to great power in Egypt: “By a ring Joseph was given might in Egypt…” “And Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Behold, I have set you over all the land of Egypt.” Then Pharaoh took his signet ring from his hand and put it on Joseph’s hand… Thus he set him over all the land of Egypt.” (Genesis 41:41-43 RSV) Daniel gets a ring Then the prayer moves on to mention Daniel, who was a prophet in exile in Babylon. When the Babylonian king forbad Daniel to pray, Daniel remained faithful to God and prayed anyway; for this reason the Babylonian king sealed Daniel in the lion’s den with a ring: “…by a ring Daniel was exalted in Babylon…” “And a stone was brought and laid upon the mouth of the den, and the king sealed it with his own signet ring and with the signet ring of his lords, that nothing might be changed concerning Daniel.” (Daniel 6:17 RSV) Tamar gets a ring Then the prayer mentions Tamar, who was denied her legal rights to a Levirate marriag e. She tricked Judah into sleeping with her by pretending to be a prostitute. However, she asked for his ring, so when Judah found out she was pregnant, she could prove it was his and that she was within her legal rights: “…by a ring the truth of Tamar was made manifest…” “He said, ‘What pledge shall I give you?’ She replied, ‘Your signet ring and your cord, and your staff that is in your hand.’ So he gave them to her, and went in to her, and she conceived by him.” (Genesis 38:18 RSV) The prodigal son gets a ring Finally, the prayer mentions the Prodigal Son in the New Testament, who had disrespected his father, ran away from home, but then returned in repentance: “…by a ring our heavenly Father showed compassion upon His prodigal son, for He said, ‘Put a ring upon his right hand, kill the fatted calf, and let us eat and rejoice’.” “But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet’.” (Luke 15:22 RSV) |
| “O faithful, having learned true prayer from the very words and divine teachings of Christ, let us cry out to the Creator each day: Our Father, who dwells in heaven, give us always daily bread, and forgive us our transgressions”. Vesper Hymn, September 1st Of course this hymn is making reference to the Lords Prayer, the “Our Father…” Both the above Vesper hymn and the Lord’s Prayer set down three anchors, three great principles, necessary to make the coming year a year of the Lord, a year of grace. Prayerful daily dependence on God sanctifies every moment of the day, whether we are at work, at play, at rest or in difficulty; it fills it with the presence of God and makes it God’s moment. “Christ our Lord, You who provide the rains and fruitful seasons, and hear the prayers of those who humbly seek You, accept also our requests about our needs and concerns and deliver us from worry, danger and sin. Your mercies are as abundant as Your works. Bless all our activities, direct our steps by Your Holy Spirit, and forgive’ our shortcomings. Lord, bless the year with Your goodness and make it a year of grace for all of us. Amen.” Matin Hymn, September 1st O Lord, Creator of all things, who by Your authority have established times and seasons, bless the beginning of our Church year with Your goodness; preserve Your people in peace, and through the intercessions of the Theotokos, save us. Amen. Dismissal Hymn, September 1st The worship of the Orthodox Church is rich in the Word of God. For the first day of the Church year a total of eight readings are designated, three from the Old Testament which are read during Vespers, and five from the New Testament which are read during the Matins and Liturgy. Vespers are chanted on the previous evening (that is, August 31st) because, according to the Bible and the Orthodox tradition, each new day begins after the setting of the sun. The main Bible reading from the Divine Liturgy of September 1st is Lk. 4:16-22, a passage which marks the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry in St. Luke’s Gospel. In this reading we see the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. He reads from the Book of Isaiah in the synagogue and proclaims to the world that Isaiah’s prophecy is fulfilled in Him. |
| There is nothing in human experience, nor even in the human imagination, that could offer greater promise and greater joy than this central message of the Christian gospel. Yet for most of us, the most familiar and painful aspect of our lenten journey is likely to be our inability to relate to that message to that extraordinary promise in a way that actually changes our life. Distraction, dispersion, and chaos, whether from outside or from deep within our own psyche, exercise their demonic influence in every phase of our daily life, while we are at work, with our friends or family, or in a liturgical service. And so we live our lives on the surface, feeling little and caring little for what is in fact the one thing in this world that really matters, the one thing that is truly needful. Holy Saturday calls us back to what is essential. In the Entrance Hymn especially, it reminds us that our life is a battle ground, where a constant struggle pits us against the Enemy, against the worst inclinations of our fallen nature. Appropriately, it calls us to engage in that struggle with fear, with trembling, and in silence. One of the great teachers of Orthodox tradition, the fifth-century mystic, Diodochos of Photiki, captured the vital link between inner silence and spiritual warfare with these words: Spiritual knowledge comes through prayer, deep stillness and complete detachment. . . When the soul " s incensive power [thymikon, spiritual wrath] is aroused against the passions, we should know it is time for silence, since the hour of battle is at At the close of Holy Week, as we journey with our Lord toward His resurrection, we hear once again in the words of the Great Saturday Hymn of Entrance an invitation to enter into that silence: silence which is essential if we are to assume with real faithfulness the ascetic struggle that characterizes our entire " life in Christ. " In that silence we stand in holy awe before the King of kings and Lord of lords. For a few moments we move beyond the superficiality of our social and cultural existence: the noise, the distraction, and the pointlessness of our daily routine. By the grace of God we discover at least a minimum of " prayer, deep stillness, and detachment. " In that stillness in the silence granted to our mortal flesh we contemplate the unfathomable depths of Jesus " sacrificial love, for ourselves and for all mankind. And " with fear and trembling " we receive Him as eucharistic food, the Bread of heaven, which nourishes us to eternal life. |
| The Lord " s Day: Resurrection and Salvation Our Saturday evening vigil service anticipates Sunday, defining the liturgical day just as a day is defined in the creation account in the book of Genesis, wherein God’s major creative acts are set off by the phrase, " there was evening and there was morning, " making one day. As we can learn from a perusal of our prayer book, in the Orthodox prayer life, each day of the week is assigned a commemoration. We recognize, even the world recognizes, that Sunday is both the beginning and the culmination of the week. This common understanding comes straight from the Gospel which records that the Lords resurrection was discovered by the women coming to anoint His body with myrrh and spices " early on the first day of the week. " From the time of the myrrh-bearing women until today, Sunday is recognized as the " Lord’s Day " because of His triumph over death and the consequent raising to life of all who would follow Him. Our regular Saturday vigil service is therefore devoted to the proclamation of the Lord’s resurrection. Because this " mighty act " is the fountain and fulfillment of our salvation, it has thus in a sense created Sunday as we know it, and has pushed into general awareness this sense of fountain and fulfillment, of celebration, even if the world is only barely or dimly aware and keeps the day only as an opportunity to " go to the park " or to a museum. Since the regular Saturday vigil service is devoted to the act that fulfills our salvation, it is fitting that all parts of the service are held up to the light of the full story of our salvation. The Beginning: Creation The service opens with our glorification through the mouth of the celebrant of our Holy, consubstantial and undivided Triune God, the Author of everything, including our salvation. This point is made clear by the immediate intonation of the oft-said phrases that recognize Christ our Savior as the incarnate God when we are called to worship Him as " Christ, our King and God. " We continue the service with the introductory Psalm 103, which recalls the original creation of the world and the placing of mankind within it, pure and sinless. We are reminded that Christ our God, the Son, was already co-eternal with the Father at the beginning, was God at the beginning, as St. John the Theologian emphasizes at the beginning of his Gospel. Just as the Royal Gates open and the priest moves about the whole church with incense, just so the Holy Spirit of God moved over the original creation. The full text of the Psalm is not heard in the vigil, but we recall that the original state did not include sin. The last verse emphasizes our desire that sinners perish. The obvious implication, since we all are sinners, is that sin itself would be taken from us, and, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, we might be re-created and made again " living souls " as our first parents were at the beginning. |
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