| If we North Americans dislike what is being done in our church, we can go across the street with like-minded people and open another church of our own, even calling it Orthodox. This has happened, again and again. The result is ecclesiastical and spiritual chaos, disorder, hostility, competition, opportunism … and a steady decline in church membership in the churches without significant immigration of Orthodox peoples from the “old countries”, together with an almost total loss of evangelistic and missionary consciousness and activity. Except for a faithful few who strive to follow the narrow way which leads to life, we members of Orthodox churches in North America have largely lost our basic identity and consciousness as Orthodox Christians. We do not identify ourselves first and foremost, not to say essentially and exclusively, as Christians – Orthodox Christians who also happen to be of one or another national background and ethnic heritage. And we certainly do not organize and administer our church life on the sacred Orthodox principle which calls for unity and cooperation among all Orthodox believers living in the same – and related – territories and nations. From 1794 when the Orthodox missionaries first came to Alaska, until the early decades of this century Orthodox Christians in North America were in one unified church. But since that time, especially after the Bolshevik revolution, the North American missionary diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church splintered into many factions and groups. And this is how we Orthodox still exist. Recent events in your new countries fill some of us with sorrow and fear. We see you sinking into the state into which we have fallen. Will there be even a few Orthodox Christians among you who will follow the hard and narrow way of Christ which is uncompromisingly opposed to the broad and easy way of ecclesiastical division and schism because of nationalistic, ethnic, chauvinistic, political, ideological and personal passions and interests which leads to destruction, both here and in the age to come? Will there be at least some who say: “I am a Christian; I am Orthodox. I belong to the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church of Christ. I am of one mind, one heart, one soul, and one body with all those who belong to Christ and the Church, whatever their nationality and political opinions. I stand steadfastly opposed to those who use Christ’s Church for any secular, nationalistic, ideological, or political purpose, however apparently noble and justifiable.”? |
| The president of Egypt, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, has pledged to rebuild every single one of the dozens of churches, Christian institutions and homes destroyed during the last two years of anti-Christian violence in his troubled nation. Egypt " s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi greets Christians during Egypt " s Coptic Christmas eve mass led by Pope Tawadros II, the 118th Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, at St Mark " s Cathedral, in Cairo, Egypt. President al-Sisi, a Muslim who has spoken in the past of the need to “revolutionise” Islam, was addressing Christians during a Coptic Christmas Eve mass yesterday at St Mark’s Cathedral in Abbassiya. Mass was celebrated by the head of the church, Pope Tawadros II. Orthodox churches, which follow the traditional Julian calendar, mark Christmas two weeks later than the Western Christian churches which follow the Gregorian calendar. Extremist Islamic groups are still influential in Egypt in spite of the defeat of the the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013. Shortly after former President Morsi was ousted, there was an increase in violence against Coptic Christians and at least 65 churches, Christian bookshops, schools and convents were burned down, looted or destroyed, according to Open Doors. President al-Sisi, who last year became the first Egyptian President to attend a Christmas mass, greeted the Coptic Christian community and while emphasising the diversity of Egyptians, said that the way to overcome hardships was to remain united as a nation. “On this occasion, I want to exhort you all, let no one come between us. Nothing can harm us, not our economic conditions or political conditions. Unless we diverge, we can overcome anything.” He continued: “God Has created us different, in religion, manner, colour, language, habit, tradition, and no one can make us the all same.” He admitted the government should have acted sooner to help the Christians. “We have taken too long to fix and renovate churches that were burned. This year everything will be fixed. Please accept our apologies for what happened. God willing, by next year there won’t be a single church or house that is not restored. |
| Khouri has questioned the rebels’ demands for democracy, as they receive support from Qatar, Saudi Arabia and other Arab Gulf nations. “They want freedom and democracy from Saudi Arabia, where everything is banned and women cannot drive a car, or go to the beach. This is their democracy,” he said. He said the Syrian crisis proved that Arab Gulf countries follow Israeli commands. Khouri slammed rebel fighters, who follow the fatwas (religious commands) of fundamentalist and extremist scholars. “We never heard these sheikhs declare fatwa for reform, or peace,” he said. “They declare fatwas for murdering Syrians. This is not Islam. They have killed priests and sheikhs and bombed mosques, as they have killed Mohamad Said Al-Bouti.” Bouti was a Sunni scholar, supportive of Assad. He was assassinated by an explosion in his mosque in March. Khouri prayed on Bouti’s body at his funeral. “They are criminals,” Khouri said, referring to the rebels. “They use drugs to behead people and eat hearts.” On the situation of Christians in Syria, the archbishop said Christians are suffering from the war, like all Syrians. “Archbishops and priests have been kidnapped, tortured and murdered,” he added. “We are standing along with Muslims and all sects for our country.” Khouri accused Christian opposition leaders George Sabra and Michel Kilo of not being real Christians. Kilo is a leftist intellectual and a lifelong prominent dissenter, and Sabra headed the opposition’s Syrian National Coalition for a few months last year. “They have nothing to do with Christians. They are communists; sons of communists. They never visited a church,” the archbishop said of Sabra and Kilo. “They have sold themselves to the devil.” Responding to reports by human rights organizations, such as Human Rights Watch, about abuses committed by the Syrian Army, Khouri said: “Let these organizations come and teach us what human rights are? Are human rights respected in their country? We taught people freedom and peace. These organizations are paid to spread destruction in Syria.” |
| We must follow the example of the ancient saints Tatiana Veselkina Cherry blossoms have already come to New York, and the syringas will soon bloom. Metropolitan Hilarion celebrated Pascha in 2013 in New York with the “Protectress” of the Russian diaspora, and soon after the Bright Holiday, he marked his fifth anniversary as First Hierarch of the Russian Church Abroad. – Your Eminence, for five years now you have led the Russian Church Abroad as part of a united Russian Orthodox Church. What have these years of union given us? – Turning back, I think: Where do I begin? I can say this: the annual return to her homeland of our Protectress—the Kursk-Root Icon of the Mother of God " of the Sign " —and the pilgrimages throughout the various dioceses of Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and this year it will go to Vladivostok and Japan for the first time. I can talk about the teachers, the monks and priests who came from Russia, Ukraine, enriching our Orthodox traditions. This exchange is continuing, and expanding. Hundreds of students and young people who go to Russia and the CIS not only to meet other youth but to do real work—restoring Russian holy sites in Solovki and Tikhvin, for instance. I could tell you about the publications, films, returned archival documents. Or about the all-diaspora conferences, joint youth pilgrimages… The marriages, and now their own offspring who are born on various continents. You can read all about this on the Internet. But this could not have happened without our joint prayer at the Divine Altar, without the spiritual enrichment of Eucharistic communion with the Mother Church, her episcopacy, clergymen and laity. Naturally, we might have differing points of view in some matters. It is important that the unity of our Church exist exclusively on the foundation of Truth and purity. That is why the reestablishment of prayerfully communion within the Russian Church, the fifth anniversary of which we celebrated last year, is in our opinion an historic event, and the most important one in recent decades. |
| Archive Пн Circular letter of the Moscow Patriarchate Chancellor on prayers for hierarchs and clerics of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church held prisoners 30 October 2023 year 09:30 The circular letter of Metropolitan Grigoriy, chancellor of the Moscow Patriarchate, dated October 26, 2023, has been published on the official website of the Russian Orthodox Church. To: All Diocesan Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Circular letter to follow up Re: Request to remember in prayers the Right Reverend archpastors and clerics of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church held prisoners Your Eminences and Your Graces: Over the past eighteen months, persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church by the Ukrainian state authorities has took a new turn: discriminatory bills related to the canonical Church are being passed, intolerance to clerics and flock and hatred for them are being stirred up, illegal seizure of religious sites is taking place, searches are being conducted at the places of residence of hierarchs and clerics. Clergymen come under crude pressure from special services by humiliating interrogation and from over-exited mob that often unites schismatics with the most exotics pagans and with people alien to any faith. The incidents of arrests and beating of clergymen of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and desecration of the holy sites are being recorded. Legal actions have been taken against some archpastors of the canonical Church. The ruling hierarch of the diocese of Cherkassy is under house arrest, while Metropolitan Ionafan of Tulchin and Bratslav has been sentenced to five years in prison. Orthodox communities are being evicted from churches and monasteries. The ancient Kiev Lavra of the Caves is under the threat of closure, while its abbot, Metropolitan Pavel of Vyshgorod, earlier placed in preventive detention, is now under house arrest. With the blessing of the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church, I ask all of you, dear bishops, to follow the Bishops’ Conference held on 19 July 2023 in calling clergymen, monastics and laypersons in dioceses entrusted to your care to offer up augmented prayers for the Right Reverend archpastors, pastors, monastics and laypersons of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, who despite threats, slander, and persecution are striving to preserve church unity, and especially for those who perform the feat of confessors by courageously raising their voice in defense of this unity. |
| 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 Circular letter of the Moscow Patriarchate Chancellor on prayers for hierarchs and clerics of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church held prisoners DECR Communication Service, 30.10.2023. The circular letter of Metropolitan Grigoriy, chancellor of the Moscow Patriarchate, dated October 26, 2023, has been published on the official website of the Russian Orthodox Church. To: All Diocesan Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Circular letter to follow up Re: Request to remember in prayers the Right Reverend archpastors and clerics of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church held prisoners Your Eminences and Your Graces: Over the past eighteen months, persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church by the Ukrainian state authorities has took a new turn: discriminatory bills related to the canonical Church are being passed, intolerance to clerics and flock and hatred for them are being stirred up, illegal seizure of religious sites is taking place, searches are being conducted at the places of residence of hierarchs and clerics. Clergymen come under crude pressure from special services by humiliating interrogation and from over-exited mob that often unites schismatics with the most exotics pagans and with people alien to any faith. The incidents of arrests and beating of clergymen of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and desecration of the holy sites are being recorded. Legal actions have been taken against some archpastors of the canonical Church. The ruling hierarch of the diocese of Cherkassy is under house arrest, while Metropolitan Ionafan of Tulchin and Bratslav has been sentenced to five years in prison. Orthodox communities are being evicted from churches and monasteries. The ancient Kiev Lavra of the Caves is under the threat of closure, while its abbot, Metropolitan Pavel of Vyshgorod, earlier placed in preventive detention, is now under house arrest. With the blessing of the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church, I ask all of you, dear bishops, to follow the Bishops’ Conference held on 19 July 2023 in calling clergymen, monastics and laypersons in dioceses entrusted to your care to offer up augmented prayers for the Right Reverend archpastors, pastors, monastics and laypersons of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, who despite threats, slander, and persecution are striving to preserve church unity, and especially for those who perform the feat of confessors by courageously raising their voice in defense of this unity. With love in the Lord, + Grigoriy, Metropolitan of Voskresensk, Chancellor of the Moscow Patriarchate Share: Page is available in the following languages Feedback |
| Another contributor to the rapture ideology came through Emmanuel Lacunza (1731-1801), a Jesuit priest from Chile. Lacunza wrote the “ Coming of Messiah in Glory and Majesty ” around 1791. It was later published in London in 1827. The book was attributed to a fictitious author name Rabbi Juan Josafat BenEzra. Edward Irving (1792-1834) contended that it was the work of a converted Jew and proved that even the Jewish scholars embraced a pre-tribulation rapture line of thought. It wasn’t long until he had persuaded others to follow his line of thought which gave birth to the Irvingites. However, when chaotic disturbances arose in Irving’s services during the manifestations of these “gifts”, the Church of Scotland took action, dismissing Irving from his position as minister in 1832. In 1830 during one of Irving’s sessions before his dismissal, a young Scottish girl, named Margaret MacDonald, fell into a trance. After several hours of “vision” and “prophesying” she revealed that Christ’s return would occur in two phases, not just one. Christ would first come visibly to only the righteous, then He would come a second time to execute wrath on the unrighteous in the nations. This rapture was promoted by Irving claiming he, too, had heard a voice from heaven commanding him to teach it. In March 1830, in Port Glasgow, Scotland, 15 year old Margaret McDonald made claim of her visions. Robert Norton published Margaret’s visions and prophecies in a book entitled, “ The Restoration of Apostles and Prophets in the Catholic Apostolic Church ” (London, 1861). The ultimate result of Irving’s dismissal was the formation of the Catholic Apostolic Church, which still exists until this day. Irving’s movement grew and became the basis of modern day pentecostalism. There is good evidence that John Nelson Darby, the father of modern dispensationalism, visited Margaret Macdonald in her home during her ecstatic episodes. He began to teach the rapture as a result, provided the idea with theological underpinings necessary for it to be considered legitimate, and his teachings were embraced by the Plymouth Brethren. |
| Maximus is, without any doubt, a difficult writer, at any rate when he begins to explain matters at length. His Centuries may be fairly straightforward, but once he allows himself to develop his ideas, his sentences become long and involved, and he seems positively shy of full-stops! Even the immensely learned Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople in the ninth century, found him ‘unclear and difficult to interpret’ (Henry 1962, 80). It is perhaps this that has deterred translators. But, as the Empress Irene said, in these works one will come to ‘taste their sweetness’: I hope there are not too many asperities in my English to disguise still further that sweetness. The translated texts that follow more or less cover the whole of St Maximus the Confessor’s writing career. The first is one of his early letters written from the monastery of St George in Cyzicus shortly before 626, and the last two are short works that belong to the period in the early 640s, when Maximus had come out against Monothelitism, before his departure for Rome in 646. Most of these translated texts are drawn from his Ambigua, his discussion of difficulties in the writings of St Gregory the Theologian (and one from the works of Denys the Areopagite). These Ambigua exist in two distinct collections, one addressed to John, Bishop of Cyzicus, and the other to a certain Abbot Thomas, described as Maximus’ ‘spiritual father and teacher’ (the two collections are consequently often called the Ambigua ad Joannem and the Ambigua ad Thomam). The Ambigua ad Joannem are the earlier, to be dated to the very beginning of Maximus’ African stay, that is 628–30; the Ambigua ad Thomam belong to 634 or shortly after, as it is clear from them that the Monenergist controversy has broken. As printed in Migne’s Patrologia Graeca (following the Greek manuscripts consulted for Oehler’s edition), these two collections are printed together, the later placed–confusingly–before the earlier (in their joint enumeration the prefatory epistles to the dedicatees are not counted). |
| We need to acknowledge that Byzantium is gone, and that in the words of the old song, “It’s Istanbul, not Constantinople”. More importantly, we need to acknowledge that many if not most of the people in the world around us in North America are not Christians. Some might object to regarding nice secular people as tainted or unclean (in the same way as third century Christians regarded the non-Christians surrounding them), but this objection simply reveals how far we are from the mindset of the early Church. The cry of “The Doors! The Doors!” was originally a diaconal call to the doorkeeper to guard the doors against secular intrusion, and served as a kind of verbal dividing line between the Church and the World. In Byzantium it eventually came to have the same anachronistic meaninglessness as the prayer for and dismissal of the by-then non-existent catechumens, since the assembled church no longer needed protection against hostile intrusion. Perhaps the retention today in the Liturgy of that ancient cry may yet prove providential. The line between the Church and the World, blurred in the heyday of Byzantium, has once again come to the fore. The fine liturgical details resulting from this acknowledgment are less important than the acknowledgment itself. The World is once again a place of sin, rebellion, and spiritual danger in a way that it was not when Christendom and Byzantium were still standing. Becoming Orthodox must be seen as a renunciation of this World with its perverted values and as an entrance into a completely different moral universe. Christians are fundamentally different from the society around them, and this difference must be insisted upon canonically (i.e. by excommunicating blatantly worldly behaviour) and possibly expressed liturgically as well. It is no good pretending that western society around us is Christian and that we may therefore follow its norms. Through God’s grace and baptism, we are different from the society in which we now live. We need to realize that we belong no longer to the World, but to the Kingdom of God, and to close the spiritual doors to worldliness. Byzantium is long gone, and once again we live as exiles and aliens in the world around us. Let us hearken to the ancient diaconal cry, and set our faces away from the World and toward the coming Kingdom. In words of a very old prayer, “Let grace come, and let the world pass away”—even the world which flies the national flags we so often see around us. Our ultimate allegiance lies elsewhere. |
| “My hope is that we can come to a more common vision between the various churches so that we can actually deal with some of these issues and come to a common mind,” the metropolitan told CNS in an interview in Alexandria, Virginia. The council’s final encyclical echoed a proposal made in Crete that the bishops should convene more regularly, perhaps every decade, for this type of conciliar dialogue. “For us in the U.S.,” Father Chryssavgis said of the church’s conciliarity, “it means always searching for ways to open doors and mend bridges, to create opportunities for reconciliation and cooperation.” All three of the clergy members expressed a desire for some sort of unity with Rome. “I think that the ecumenical project with the Roman church is a very good and important thing that we need to pursue,” Metropolitan Jonah said. “We need to pursue that, but on the terms of a unanimity of faith” among the Orthodox churches. Catholic Archbishop Joseph W. Tobin of Indianapolis, co-chair of the North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation and a member of the analogous worldwide consultation, said in a phone interview from Indiana: “My hope is that the 14 autocephalous (Orthodox) churches will be able to find union and reconciliation among themselves.” The Orthodox Church of America, the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America and the Serbian Orthodox Church in the U.S.A. could not be reached for comment at press time. The Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese, part of the Antiochian Church which did not attend the council, declined to comment as its metropolitan was in Lebanon attending the Antiochian follow-up synod. Code for blog Since you are here… …we do have a small request. More and more people visit Orthodoxy and the World website. However, resources for editorial are scarce. In comparison to some mass media, we do not make paid subscription. It is our deepest belief that preaching Christ for money is wrong. Having said that, Pravmir provides daily articles from an autonomous news service, weekly wall newspaper for churches, lectorium, photos, videos, hosting and servers. Editors and translators work together towards one goal: to make our four websites possible - Pravmir.ru, Neinvalid.ru, Matrony.ru and Pravmir.com. Therefore our request for help is understandable. |
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