| This document is approved by the participants in the Synaxis of the Primates of Local Orthodox Churches on January 21 – 28, 2016, in Chambesy, excepting representatives of the Patriarchate of Antioch. It is published by the decision of the Synaxis of the Primates. Article 1 Introduction By the grace of the Holy Trinity, the Holy and Great Council is an authentic expression of the canonical tradition and perennial Church practice as to the functioning of the conciliar system in the One Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church and shall be convoked by His Holiness the Ecumenical Patriarch with the consent of their Beatitudes the Primates of all the universally recognized autocephalous Local Orthodox Churches. It shall consist of members appointed to their delegations. Article 2 The convocation of the Council The convocation of a Council shall be announced by Patriarchal letters issued by the Ecumenical Patriarch to all the primates of autocephalous Local Orthodox Churches in which he shall: 1) announce the completion of the pre-council preparation of the items on the Council agenda decided at the pan-Orthodox level; 2) fix the date and venue of the Council with the consent of their Beatitudes primates of all the autocephalous Local Orthodox Churches, and 3) ask the autocephalous Local Orthodox Churches, in conformance with the pan-Orthodox agreements reached at the meetings of their Beatitudes the primates, to appoint their representatives to the Council; Article 3 Membership of the Council Members of the Council shall be the hierarchs appointed by each autocephalous Orthodox Church as its representatives: 1) the number of members has been fixed by the meeting of the primates of all the autocephalous Local Orthodox Churches in March 2014 at the Phanar; 2) the delegations may be accompanied by special consultants: clergy, monastics or laity, but their number cannot exceed six persons. Invitations are also given to assistants numbering three from each autocephalous Orthodox Church; |
| 7. The Local Church In a Perspective of Communion I. The Historical and Ecclesiological Background The basic ecclesiological principle applying to the notion of the local Church in the Orthodox tradition is that of the identification of the Church with the eucharistic community. Orthodox ecclesiology is based on the idea that wherever there is the eucharist there is the Church in its fulness as the Body of Christ. The concept of the local Church derives basically from the fact that the eucharist is celebrated at a given place and comprises by virtue of its catholicity all the members of the Church dwelling in that place. The local Church, therefore, derives its meaning from a combination of two basic ecclesiological principles: (a) The catholic nature of the eucharist. This means that each eucharistic assembly should include all the members of the Church of a particular place, with no distinction whatsoever with regard to ages, professions, sexes, races, languages, etc. (b) The geographical nature of the eucharist, which means that the eucharistic assembly – and through it the Church – is always a community of some place (e.g. the Church of Thessalonika, of Corinth, etc. in the Pauline letters). 552 The combination of the above two ecclesiological principles results in the canonical provision that there should be only one eucharistic assembly in each place. But the geographical principle gives rise inevitably to the question of what we mean by a “place”: how are we to define the limits of a particular place which should be the basis of only one eucharistic assembly and thus of one Church? This question receives particular significance when the complexities of the early historical developments are taken into account. Since the Orthodox tradition was formed, both ecclesiologically and canonically, on the basis of these early historical developments, we must examine them briefly. Already in New Testament times there seems to be a tendency to identify κκλησα or even the κκλησα το Θεο with the assembly of the Christians of a particular city. |
| Beheading of the Venerable Cornelius the Abbot of the Pskov Caves Commemorated on February 20 The Hieromartyr Cornelius of the Pskov Caves was born in the year 1501 at Pskov into the noble family of Stephen and Maria. In order to give their son an education, his parents sent him to the Pskov Mirozh monastery, where he worked under the guidance of an Elder. He made candles, chopped wood, studied his letters, transcribed and adorned books, and also painted icons. Having finished his studies, Cornelius returned to his parental home with the resolve to become a monk. Once, the government clerk Misiur Munekhin took Cornelius with him to the Pskov Caves monastery in the woods, which then was in the worst condition of any church in Pskov. The beauty of nature, and the solemnity of services in the cave church produced such a strong impression on Cornelius that he left his parental home forever and received monastic tonsure at the Pskov Caves monastery. In 1529, at the age of twenty-eight, Saint Cornelius was made igumen and became head of the monastery. While he was igumen, the Pskov Caves monastery reached its prime. The number of brethren increased from 15 to 200 men. This number of monks was not surpassed under any subsequent head of the monastery. The activity of Saint Cornelius extended far beyond the bounds of the monastery. He spread Orthodoxy among the Esti [Aesti]) and Saeti people living around the monastery, he built churches, hospices, homes for orphans and those in need. During a terrible plague in the Pskov region Saint Cornelius walked through the plague-infested villages to give Communion to the living and to sing burial services for the dead. During the Livonian war Saint Cornelius preached Christianity in the occupied cities, built churches, and distributed generous aid from the monastery storerooms to the Esti and Livonians suffering from the war. At the monastery he selflessly doctored and fed the injured and the maimed, preserved the dead in the caves, and inscribed their names in the monastery Synodikon for eternal remembrance. |
| Thomas E. FitzGerald 4. EARLY DIOCESAN DEVELOPMENTS The Orthodox immigrants did not sever ties with their homeland. Although they lived in a new country, the immigrants were very much influenced by the political and ecclesiastical developments that occurred in their fatherlands during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. By means of ethnic newspapers, letters from relatives, and the reports of persons who recently arrived in America, the immigrants were kept informed of all the events that occurred in their homelands before, during, and after World War I. Political differences in Greece following World War I spread to the United States and had a profound impact upon the Greek immigrants, as well as upon their ecclesiastical life. Similarly, the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 and the events that followed it had a momentous impact upon both the immigrants from Russia and other parts of Eastern Europe as well as the Russian Orthodox Archdiocese in America and the parishes associated with it. Having their roots in Eastern European politics, fratricidal disputes, parish divisions, and schisms became the principal characteristics of Orthodox Christianity in the United States in the two decades following the conclusion of World War I. THE FOUNDING OF THE GREEK ORTHODOX ARCHDIOCESE The formal organization of the Greek Orthodox parishes in the United States began at a time when the people of Greece were seriously divided between the followers of King Constantine I and the followers of Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos. 114 Following the assumption of power by Venizelos in 1917, Meletios Metaxakis was elected Metropolitan of Athens. On 4 August 1918, the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece, under the presidency of Metropolitan Meletios, resolved to organize the Greek Orthodox parishes in America. 115 Having great interest in the American situation, Metropolitan Meletios traveled to the United States in order to oversee personally the organization of the parishes. Accompanied by Bishop Alexander (Demoglou) of Rodostolou, Father Chrysostomos Papadopoulos, and Professor Amilkas Alevizatos of Athens, Metropolitan Meletios arrived in New York on 22 August 1918. Concerned with the need to establish a central ecclesiastical authority for the American parishes, Metropolitan Meletios began to meet immediately after his arrival with prominent clergy and laypersons. The metropolitan recognized that there was a great need for a bishop in the United States who could act with authority to bring unity and direction to the parishes, which at that time numbered about 140. Before leaving the United States on 29 October 1918, therefore, Metropolitan Meletios appointed Bishop Alexander of Rodostolou as the synodical representative. 116 |
| Accept The site uses cookies to help show you the most up-to-date information. By continuing to use the site, you consent to the use of your Metadata and cookies. Cookie policy Russian Church Synod expresses strong disagreement with decision to establish “Romanian Orthodox Church in Ukraine” DECR Communication Service, 12/03/2024 On 12 th March 2024, members of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church had under consideration (Minutes No. 29) the resolutions of the Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church of 29 th February 2024, which had established the “Romanian Orthodox Church in Ukraine” and declared invalid any canonical punishments imposed on the clerics of the Orthodox Church of Moldova who had been received without letters of release into the “Metropolis of Bessarabia” of the Romanian Patriarchate, patriarchia.ru reports . On 29 th February 2024, the Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church resolved “to bless, encourage and support the initiatives of Romanian Orthodox communities in Ukraine to re-establish communion with the Mother Church – the Romanian Patriarchate – through their legal organisation in a religious structure called the Romanian Orthodox Church in Ukraine; and “to reaffirm that all Romanian Orthodox clerics… from the Republic of Moldova who return to the Metropolis of Bessarabia are canonical clerics.., and any disciplinary sanction directed against them on the grounds of their membership of the Romanian Orthodox Church is considered null and void, according to synod decision no—8090 of December 19, 1992.” Similar deeds of the Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church had repeatedly received rightful canonical appraisal from the Bishops’ Councils and the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, for instance: in the resolution of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church of 22 nd December 1992 (Minutes No. 105), adopted in response to the establishment of the “Metropolis of Bessarabia,” with subsequent approval of the viewpoint of the Primate and the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church on that matter by the Bishops’ Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1994; |
| Michael Prokurat, Alexander Golitzin, Michael D. Peterson Скачать epub pdf CHRISTOLOGY CHRISTOLOGY. Literally, this term means the doctrine of the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth. The question that Jesus directed to his disciples in all three of the Synoptic Gospels, “Who do you say I am?” drew the response from Peter, “You are the Messiah, the Son of God.” The full implications of Peter’s reply remained to be worked out. “Messiah,” “Son of God,” and so on, were all different appellations that could mean much less than a divine and preexistent being. Other New Testament texts, however, the earliest being Philp 2:5–11 and a later one the prologue from Jn (1:1–18), taught the preexistence of the divine Son. Just how, though, humanity and divinity coexist in Christ, and the meaning of each in relation both to the Father and to the rest of humankind, were the subjects of fierce debate throughout most of the first Christian millennium. Orthodox Christology, as it emerges in Joh n of Damascus (q.v.) in the 8th c., is the product of that long debate. The key refrain or leitmotiv throughout the centuries of argument in Eastern Christendom is the notion of deification, theosis (q.v.). Christology is always linked to and expressive of an understanding of salvation that is articulated as early as 2Pet 1:4 , that in Christ human beings become “partakers of the divine nature”-which the Orthodox see as at least implicit in other New Testament documents. (For example, the “glory” shared by the Son and the Father is from eternity, and is given by Christ to his followers, Jn 17:5, 22–24 .) With this reading of the Christian Scriptures (q.v.), the struggle over Christology may be viewed as an attempt to keep in balance Christ’s humanity and divinity in such a way as to preserve both the paradox of their union in his person (so toward the “hypostatic union” of Chalcedon [q.v.]) and the possibility of human communion in the divine life. The battle had obviously been joined by the time of the earliest Christian writings: Paul struggles in his letters to the Corinthians against what appears to be a nascent Christian gnosticism (q.v.). |
| Michael Prokurat, Alexander Golitzin, Michael D. Peterson Скачать epub pdf MONASTICISM MONASTICISM. The origins of Christian monasticism are much debated, but early one may point with authority to the life of Jesus, as well as that of Joh n the Baptist and the Virgin Mary (q.v.). It is clear that ascesis (q.v.) formed a component of Christian life from the start, and that from its beginnings as a mass movement in 4th c. Egypt (q.v.), monasticism has been an essential and vital expression of Christian life. It is surely not accidental that its great popularity and the rapid spread of monasteries were simultaneous with the new status of the Church following the conversion of the Emperor Constantine (q.v.). With the disappearance of the martyr (q.v.) as a model of Christian witness, a new set of heroes emerged and were seized upon by the faithful: the ascetics of the desert. Antony of Egypt (q.v.) was the first, a hermit whose austere rule of life and extraordinary personal charismata caught the imagination of late antiquity. He was followed by Macarius of Scete (q.v.) and by Pachomius of the Thebaid (southern Egypt), whose communal organization of monks provided the first standing model of common-life (cenobitic) monasticism, indeed of monasteries in the usual sense. The elders (gerontes, startzi) of Scete gave Christianity the term, Desert Fathers (q.v.), and a median way of life between Pachomius’s strict communalism and Antony’s solitary life. All three forms of monastic life continue in force in the Orthodox oikoumene, most notably on Mt. Athos (qq.v.). Also, in the 4th c., Basil the Great (q.v.) organized the ascetics of his metropolitanate in Asia Minor (q.v.). His rule, communicated via letters addressed to specific questions on ascetic life, emphasized communal life, obedience to the abbot, and service. It was to play a significant, though not dominant, role in the later monasticism of Byzantium (q.v.). Asceticism in Syria (q.v.) remained for some time an individual effort, the “sons” or “daughters of the covenant” being attached to the local churches and active in their affairs. This form of ascetic life seems to have had roots in the Syriac Church (q.v.) well before the 4th c. A later period saw a rise in extreme-even eccentric-forms of asceticism, perhaps best known by the early 5th-c. phenomenon of the stylite saints, for example, Symeon Stylites, who subsequently appeared in Byzantium itself. |
| Thanksgiving Service on the 70th Anniversary of the Arrival of Russian Refugees Held in San Francisco Source: ROCOR San Francisco, California - May 19, 2019: The Altar of the Holy Virgin Cathedral. The Holy Virgin Cathedral, also known as Joy of All Who Sorrow, is a Russian Orthodox cathedral in the Richmond District of San Francisco. Photo: Stock Photo The years 2020-2021 mark the 70th anniversary of the arrival of the three Military Sea Transport Ships that brought Russian refugees from the island of Tubabao in the Philippines to the United States. The three ships that arrived in San Francisco arrived on November 30, 1950, January 25, 1951, and June 14, 1951. Previous ships carried Russian refugees that made the tent camp their home from 1949 to other countries, including Australia, South America and Europe. Some refugees arrived either by ship or plane from Shanghai, Harbin and other cities of China directly to the U.S. With the blessing of His Eminence Archbishop Kyrill, a thanksgiving moleben was held on Sunday, January 24, 2021, at Holy Virgin Cathedral by the relics of St John of Shanghai and San Francisco after Divine Liturgy. After World War II and the defeat of Japan, a full-scale civil war erupted between the Chinese communists led by revolutionary Mao Tse-Tung and the ruling republican party led by militarist, Chang Kai Tsek. As it became ominously clear that Mao would soon undoubtedly take Shanghai, the white Russians, “stateless” since they no longer had valid “Imperial Russian” passports, and with no nation to shield them from harm, as anti-communists, they would surely be persecuted by the Chinese communists. Gregory K. Bologoff, a former Cossack colonel in the Tsar’s Imperial Army, managed to unify several ethnic groups of refugees within the Russian Emigre Association in Shanghai and planned their mass departure. Bologoff’s powerful leadership resulted in most of the white refugees to affirm their opposition to communism by refusing to accept Soviet citizenship and return to Russia, where they had already heard from relatives and friends who did return that life was not as it was before and it was dangerous for them if they returned. Bologoff sent letters appealing to the world’s free countries to grant asylum to the refugees, indicating the imminent danger and great tragedy that was in their future if no help arrived. Despite receiving letters of comfort and sympathy, no country offered to take any of them. |
| Accept The site uses cookies to help show you the most up-to-date information. By continuing to use the site, you consent to the use of your Metadata and cookies. Cookie policy Acting Patriarchal Exarch of Africa: Even more priests wish to join the Russian Orthodox Church The Patriarchal Exarchate of Africa began 2024 with massive visit of clergymen of the Russian Orthodox Church to various countries on the African continent. In some of them, services for Russian-speaking believers were celebrated for the first time on the feasts of the Nativity of Christ, the Epiphany and the Circumcision of the Lord. Bishop Konstantin of Zaraisk, the new head of the Exarchate, the acting Patriarchal Exarch of Africa, gave his first interview in that office to RIA Novosti agency. He spoke about the selection of clergy for visiting Africa, the highlight tasks, and educational and missionary projects of the Exarchate of Africa. – Vladyka Konstantin, the Christmas visit of Russian priests to Africa has become the largest in the Exarchate’s history. What kind of difficulties did you find in organizing and making it? – There were some organizational difficulties, because Russian priests were sent to African countries fr om different dioceses. Vaccinations, documents, letters to embassies and transportation require quite a lot of efforts, but it was a routine technical work. There were no big problems. All visits took place at the same time, but each one is a separate event. Almost all priests visited two or even three countries. I was joined by seven priests. In total we visited seventeen countries; Christmas liturgies in the Russian Church tradition were celebrated in six countries for the first time. Also, our priests celebrated at the feasts of the Circumcision of the Lord and the Epiphany. – You said that there were clergymen fr om different dioceses. How were they selected? – They were the well known to us volunteers. We obtained approval of their participation fr om the diocesan bishops. Those participating in the visit must have some experience of stepping out of comfort zone and a basic level of English or French, which are the most required languages on a large continent of Africa. |
| Michael Prokurat, Alexander Golitzin, Michael D. Peterson Скачать epub pdf THE SPIRITUAL REGULATION (REGLAMENT) OF PETER THE GREAT THE SPIRITUAL REGULATION (REGLAMENT) OF PETER THE GREAT. It must be understood that the religious reforms of Tsar Peter occurred in the greater context of the Westernization and reform of Russia, including the military, all government administrations (which meant for him the Russian Church, too), the economy, education, society, and culture. Though the reforms were ad hoc during a time of continual war, their scope and comprehensiveness cannot be overemphasized. Peter was definitely the visionary who, for better or for worse, united the various and disparate measures in his own person. In 1700 Peter changed the calendar in two ways: Years were counted from Christ’s birth, not the date of the (supposed) creation of the world, and the first month was January rather than September of the ecclesiastical year. He arranged for books to be published by a Dutch press, and produced the first newspaper in Russia. But this was after he allowed the national language to be Russian, and not Dutch as he had seriously considered. Still, the older Slavic language was reformed and simplified with Slavic, Greek, and Latin letters to produce what came to be known as the civil alphabet. Slavic alphabetic numbers, quite cumbersome, were replaced with Arabic numerals. Only church liturgical books (q.v.) were allowed to continue with the old alphabet and numbers. The establishment of secular schools on the European model anticipated what was to happen with ecclesiastical schools. Besides sending students abroad, Peter created a School of Mathematical and Navigational Sciences (Moscow, 1701), a Naval Academy (St. Petersburg, 1715), medical schools (1706, 1709), a museum of natural science and a library (St. Petersburg), the Imperial Academy of Science (St. Petersburg), and about forty elementary schools in provincial towns. Private schools and tutoring for the gentry survived Peter’s death, unlike the public schools-which did not take root until Catherine II made Russian, not Latin, the language of instruction. As a result of Peter’s educational reform, a university was begun in Moscow (1755) with departments of law, medicine, and philosophy. (Before one might idealize Peter as the liberal visionary who promoted education at all costs, it should be considered that almost all of his schools had a direct bearing on “oiling his war machine,” which he kept functioning continually during his reign with the exception of twenty-four scattered months.) |
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