| 4th Meeting of Commission for Dialogue between ROC and Assyrian Church held in India Source: DECR Photo: mospat.ru From November 13 to 18, 2019, the 4 th meeting of the Commission of Dialogue between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Assyrian Church of the East took place in Thrissur, Kerala State, India. The Moscow Patriarchate delegation included Bishop Clement of Krasnoslobodsk and Temnikov, co-chairman of the Commission; Hieromonk Stefan (Igumnov), secretary for inter-Christian relations of the Department for External Church relations; and S. Alferov, DECR, secretary of the commission. Representing the Assyrian Church of the East were Bishop Mar Awa Royel of California, secretary of the Holy Synod of the Assyrian Church of the East, co-chairman of the Commission; Cor-Bishop George Kanon Toma, cleric of St. Andrew’s Church in Glenview, Illinois, USA; Priest Ephraim Alkhas, secretary of the commission; and Deacon Roland Bidzhamov, cleric of the Assyrian diocese of Northern Iraq and the CIS. Metropolitan Mar Aprem Mooken of India, the oldest member of the Synod, and Bishop Eugene Kyriakos, vicar of the Metropolis of India, welcomed the participants in the meeting on behalf of His Holiness Catholicos-Patriarch Mar Gewargis III of the Assyrian Church of the East, who recalled with warmth his repeated visits to Russia, with the latest one made in late May-early June 2014, during the historic visit of the late Catholicos-Patriarch Mar Dinkha IV to the Russian Orthodox Church in June 2014. The commission discussed the implementation of agreements reached at the previous meeting in October 2018 in Sankt-Petersburg and defined the further cooperation program to be approved by the Supreme Church Authority. The meeting noted the successful development of inter-church contacts in the academic field, in particular, in students’ exchanges, as in autumn 2018, the first representative of the Assyrian Church of the East, Rev. Addai Daniel Nazlu, was enrolled in Moscow Theological Academy. It is planned to involve representatives of the Assyrian Church in academic conferences organized by the Moscow Patriarchate theological schools and to invite delegates of the Russian Orthodox Church to similar events held by the Assyrian Church’s educational institution, in particular, in the recently opened Nisibis Theological College in Sydney, Australia. In 2021, the 2 nd Summer Institute will be organized in Moscow for young Assyrian clergy and student. Its program will include visits to synodal establishments of the Russian Orthodox Church and introduction to ecclesiastical and historical-cultural sights in Russia. |
| Chapter 4. THE CHURCH I. Identity of the Church Now we must turn our attention to the Church. There is no undisputed definition of the Church, and many of the definitions on offer could equally be applied to other institutions. Since the Church is an organised community, many of it characteristics are not very different from those of other organisations that have come and gone in the course of history. What is it that makes the Church distinct from any other institution? In its Roman Catholic and Protestant forms, the Church was understood as an association (societas) with its own organisation. Although it has been dominant for centuries, this view of the Church is beginning to disappear, just as the idea that ‘society’ means a nation with a unified culture is also receding. This is not simply because the form taken by the Church varies from one country to another but also because national cultures are being dissolved by new social and economic forces. For the Protestant Churches, the relationship of Church and society, which determines the public aspect of the Church, generally appears in terms that relate to the issue of secularisation. The relationship of the Church to society is not well defined, but it is not very different from the relationship that any other cultural organisation has with society as a whole. Protestant Churches have been profoundly affected by changing views of society, so we can identify communitarian and liberal forms of Church, each denomination with its own definition of the relationship of Church and society. Where the emphasis is on doctrine, as in the Lutheran and Calvinist Churches, it was formulated to create their own particular denominational identity. Protestant Churches in particular are exposed to prevailing secular trends, so their ethics are described in terms of rights and freedoms not very distinct from those held by the population as a whole. The pressures determining Western ecclesiology have left their mark on Orthodoxy too. When Western denominations appeared in the seventeenth century, the Orthodox were asked which of them they recognised, so they described the teaching of the Orthodox Churches by reference to these denominations. In trying to distinguish themselves from these Western Churches, the Orthodox borrowed arguments from the Roman Catholics in order to reply to the Protestants and vice versa. However, to find a truly Orthodox account of the identity of the Church we have to examine its early history. The Church springs from the relationship of man and the world with God, experienced by the Christian community throughout the centuries. |
| 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 Metropolitan Onufry on the fate of canonical Orthodoxy in Ukraine The information and education department of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has published an interview given by His Beatitude Onufry, Metropolitan of Kiev and All Ukraine, to Pastor and Flock magazine. - Your Beatitude, according to the Ukrainian Constitution, Church is separated from state. When in the early 20 th century the Bolsheviks adopted this law, many believers perceived it as a serious religious catastrophe. However, as it very soon became clear, the Bolsheviks separated Church from state only to busy themselves with her destruction. Later, in the early 90th, the situation changed as the communists went down from the historical arena and a time of restoration came for the Church. And here the law on the separation of Church from state played to some extent a positive role: the Church could develop in a necessary direction almost without any pressure from the authorities. But now when the authorities seek to influence the solution of church problems, how would you comment on the developments? Can the government help create ‘a One Local Church’? And how should a believer react to all this? - The law on the separation of Church from state is a fruit of revolutionary transformations carried out in the early 20 th century. The Bolsheviks separated the Church from the state in order to show that the country adopted a new, atheistic way of development. This law was also necessary to the Soviet power to untie its hands in its struggle against the Church until her full destruction. And this struggle was waged under the slogan: ‘The Church is an enemy of the state’. However, the Lord, Who does everything for the good of His faithful, ordained that the separation of Church from state became a new stimulus for her powerful development. And we humbly thank the Lord for this mercy to us, unworthy children of His holy Church. |
| Скачать epub pdf History Almost two thousand years ago, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to earth and founded the Church, through His Apostles and disciples, for the salvation of man. In the years which followed, the Apostles spread the Church and its teachings far; they founded many churches, all united in faith, worship, and the partaking of the Mysteries (or as they are called in the West, the Sacraments) of the Holy Church. The churches founded by the Apostles themselves include the Patriarchates of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Rome. The Church of Constantinople was founded by St. Andrew, the Church of Alexandria by St. Mark, the Church of Antioch by St. Paul, the Church of Jerusalem by Sts. Peter and James, and the Church of Rome by Sts. Peter and Paul. Those founded in later years through the missionary activity of the first churches were the Churches of Sinai, Russia, Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, and many others. Each of these churches is independent in administration, but, with the exception of the Church of Rome, which finally separated from the others in the year 1054, all are united in faith, doctrine, Apostolic tradition, sacraments, liturgies, and services. Together they constitute and call themselves the Orthodox Church. The teachings of the Church are derived from two sources: Holy Scripture, and Sacred Tradition, within which the Scriptures came to be, and within which they are interpreted. As written in the Gospel of St. John, «And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world could not contain the books that should be written» ( John 21:20 ). Much teaching transmitted orally by the Apostles has come down to us in Sacred Tradition. The word Orthodox literally means right teaching or right worship, being derived from two Greek words: orthos (right) and doxa (teaching or worship). As the false teachings and divisions multiplied in early Christian times, threatening to obscure the identity and purity of the Church, the term Orthodox quite logically came to be applied to it. The Orthodox Church carefully guards the truth against all error and schism, both to protect its flock and to glorify Christ whose body the Church is. |
| John Anthony McGuckin Church (Orthodox Ecclesiology) TAMARA GRDZELIDZE THE PURPOSE OF THE CHURCH The purpose of the church is to restore fallen humanity and thereby reconcile the whole creation to God. Its sacramental life is the means to fulfill this purpose. The divine economy of salvation is the foundational principle of the church. The mystery of human salvation leads to the mystery of the salvation of the whole creation which is God’s ultimate goal. In this life the church bears witness to a new existence revealed through the incarnation and the resurrection of Jesus Christ – “The Church has been planted in the world as a Paradise,” says St. Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. 5.20.2) – and this new reality already proclaimed is destined finally to attain the status of the new creation. The nature of the church, as Orthodoxy understands it, is deeply experiential and accordingly it is difficult to describe it by any single formula that carries an overwhelming authority. The early church knew no such single doctrinal definition and the reason for this is that, according to Fr. Georges Florovsky (1972: 57), the reality of the church was only made manifest to the “spiritual vision” of the church fathers. The nature of the church can thus be experienced and described, but never fully defined. The closest approximation to a doctrinal definition within orthodoxy is the clause in the creed, which affirms that the church is “One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic.” The church is the place par excellence of a believer’s participation in the mysteries of God. The faithful participate in the divine mysteries from the very beginning of their life in Christ through the sacrament of baptism and reach the height of that participation in the Eucharistic celebration. The very essence of this participation is experiential, something that can be readily observed in the case of children whose love exceeds their understanding, or orthodox people of little knowledge but great faith. The love of God manifested to human beings and creation is reciprocated in faith by the church’s constant returning the love of God through the praise of the faithful. This human participation in the divine mysteries is nurtured always by the belief and knowledge that “God is love” (1 John 4.8), and this movement of praise that constitutes the church’s inner life is the height of creation – its meaning and fulfillment. |
| 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. |
| D. Oliver Herbel FR. RAPHAEL MORGAN AND EARLY AFRICAN AMERICAN ORTHODOXY ON AUGUST 15/28, 1907, THE Feast of Dormition, a black Jamaican immigrant to the United States was ordained to the Orthodox priesthood in Constantinople. 166 This marked the culmination of a journey in search of the «true church.» On that day, Robert Josias Morgan was ordained as Fr. Raphael and became the first man of African American descent born in the New World to be ordained in the Orthodox Church. One scholar found Morgan’s story so incredible that he wrote, «the Morgan story is so utterly improbable that one tends to dismiss it as a hoax.» 167 On the other hand, the journal Epiphany included a brief summary of Morgan’s story in a special volume dedicated to «African-American Orthodoxy.» 168 In the introduction, the editor noted that while sources for Morgan’s story were not extensive, they were substantial enough to prove his story was no hoax. The editor went on to speculate about possible motives for Morgan’s conversion and how Morgan may have understood his own conversion from the Protestant Episcopal Church to the Greek Orthodox Church. 169 Morgan’s ordination and subsequent ministry within the Orthodox Church was a considered response to the difficult situation black Americans faced, often being viewed as second class even within somewhat integrated churches, as was the case for his own Protestant Episcopal Church. One might expect that Morgan would have turned to one of the historically black churches in America, of which he had knowledge. One might alternatively think that if none of those were appropriate for him, he would seek to establish his own church. As this chapter shows, however, Morgan sought a different solution, one not grounded in the anti-traditional tradition but in the tradition of Orthodox Church, which he entered by the gate of restorationism. Although he initially considered an independent church, in keeping with American restorationism, and hoped for a furthering of ecumenical relations between Anglicanism and Orthodoxy, Morgan soon decided against such a move. Rather than continue the tradition of breaking from one " s previous tradition to join or start another sect in an attempt to restore the early Church, Morgan looked an outside tradition that could serve as a grounding, even critique, of that very anti-traditional tradition. The Orthodox tradition offered Morgan precisely that, for he saw it as a tradition that could stand on its own apart from the racial problems that beset Western Christianity. Indeed, he saw the Orthodox tradition as standing authoritatively prior to Western Christianity. |
| Photo: patriarchia.ru It is very easy for people, especially outsiders, to miss the fundamental fact about the Church. It is easy to assume that the Church is fundamentally an organization or (worse yet) a collection of clergy. That is perhaps because the Church is obviously organized (in the case of Orthodoxy, one is tempted to say, “ loosely organized”), and it does have clergy, whose dress and titles set them apart and make them very visible. But the Church is not primarily an organization, or even a holy organization, despite some external organized features, such as officers, rules, and power structure. That is, the essence of the Church is not institutional. In a recent edition of the Biblical Archaeology Review there was an article provocatively entitled “Jesus Found in Ancient Arabia”. The title is perhaps a touch misleading, because it focuses not upon Jesus Himself being found in Arabia, but upon early archaeological traces of Christian communities found there. But the title is more significant than it knows, for those communities did indeed consist of the presence of Jesus Himself in Arabia during the time when the Church flourished there. The essence of the Church consists of the presence of Jesus. Through the gatherings of Christians in Arabia, Jesus was indeed found alive and living there—and also in Thessalonica, Corinth, Rome, and Philippi. And later He turned up in Moscow, London, and New York. This is because Jesus promised to show up and be present wherever two or more of His disciples gathered together in His Name (Matthew 18:20). This is why St. Paul repeatedly referred to the Church (literally, the gathering or assembly; Greek the κκλησα/ ekklesia ) as “the body of Christ”. This description was not simply one metaphor among many (i.e. church as a household or a vine or the city of God), but the main and controlling metaphor to describe the reality of the Church. Just as one lives, is present, and works through one’s body, so Jesus lives, is present, and works through the gathering of Christians whenever they gather in His Name. That is why St. Paul makes the astonishing claim that the Church is “the fullness of Christ”, the One who “fills all in all” (Ephesians 1:23). |
| Balkan Peace Initiative Orthodox Christianity is a Church at once rooted in the past, yet at the same time a Church looking toward the future. It is this dual nature that permits Orthodoxy to speak boldly about critical contemporary issues, while at the same time firmly retaining its respect for sacred practices of the early Church. It is, in fact, what we like to call a “living tradition.” Istanbul, Turkey 4/1/2014 BALKAN PEACE INITIATIVE Our Cultural Treasure: Common Values of the Balkans His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew (Istanbul, March 29, 2014) Dear Convenor Mr. Murat Çelik, Your Excellencies, Dear friends, Good morning – and have a nice and fruirful Confrence! I. Introduction It is an honor and a privilege to participate in this distinguished gathering of the Balkan Peace Initiative. The subject that we have been assigned to address pertains to the rich cultural heritage that the Balkan people have in common. As a religious leader, what comes to mind – most naturally and most spontaneously – is the unique legacy bequeathed to us from Byzantium, both spiritual and cultural. The Eastern Orthodox Church is characterized by its continuity with the apostolic tradition, adhering to the faith defined by the ecumenical councils. However, the Orthodox Church is not only defined by its historical perspective. Like Janus, the god of antiquity, the Orthodox Church looks both ways: backward toward the sources of the historical Church; and forward toward the heavenly kingdom. Therefore, in its very essence, Orthodox Christianity is a Church at once rooted in the past, yet at the same time a Church looking toward the future. It is this dual nature that permits Orthodoxy to speak boldly about critical contemporary issues, while at the same time firmly retaining its respect for sacred practices of the early Church. It is, in fact, what we like to call a “living tradition.” This vivid sense of continuity with past and community with the future shapes the way that Orthodox people throughout the Balkans think, feel and live. |
| John Anthony McGuckin Canon Law ANDREI PSAREV Canon law is the sum of ecclesiastical regulations recognized by church authorities; the discipline, study, or practice of church jurisprudence. The term derives from the ancient Greek word kanon, meaning “yardstick” or “standard.” It has been used since the time of the early church for the rule of faith (regula fidei) established by Christ and the apostles ( Gal. 6.16 ; Phil. 3.16 ). THE TASKS OF CANON LAW As a field, canon law deals with the following issues: the sources of canon law, church order, the foundation of new Orthodox churches, the canonization of saints, the ecclesiastical calendar, control for the execution of justice, the ecclesiastical court, marriage regulations, reception of converts from other confessions, the church’s relations with civil authorities, the correlation of church law with civil law, finances, and ownership relations. Canon law includes the subjects and methods of other theological disciplines: critical analysis (church history), doctrinal teaching (dogmatics), canons of the holy fathers (patristics), baptism, and reception into the church (liturgics). The New Testament is the disclosure of the essence of the “Covenant of the Law” contained in the Old Testament Pentateuch: “Not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” ( 2Cor. 3.6 ); thus, for Christian Orthodox: “In Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but rather faith working through love” ( Gal. 5.6 ). The Decalogue and all the commandments of Christ and his apostles have received in the Christian Church the status of law. Every church regulation is supposed to be based on them as on a source. From the very beginning, Christian society had to deal with a diversity of opinions. In order to establish consensus as to whether or not the proselytes had to observe Mosaic Law, a council of apostles was convened in Jerusalem (Acts 15). This principle of conciliarity, the convention of church representatives for an open competition of views, became one of the main mechanisms that the Orthodox Church applied, and still uses, to establish consensus. |
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