| The feast of St. Demetrius the New, protector of Bucharest, was officially opened with the Way of the Saints Procession. After being carried in procession, the holy relics of the Three Holy Hierarchs, as well as of St. Demetrius the New and of the Holy Emperor and Empress Constantine and Helen were received by the Patriarch of Romania at the outdoor altar next to the Patriarchal cathedral. Here, His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel and His Eminence Metropolitan Pavlos of Drama delivered a speech to the pilgrims. We present below the address of His Eminence Metropolitan Pavlos of Drama: Your Beatitude Patriarch Daniel of Romania, The year 2015 is dedicated in the Romanian Orthodox Church to one of the greatest preachers, namely to St. John Chrysostom . St. John is alive in the conscience of the Church through his Divine Liturgy. He also lives through his eternal writings. The ones who heard him during his life exclaimed: “better to dim the sun than to shut the mouth of Chrysostom.” And their voices have been heard. The sun called John Chrysostom hasn’t set ever since. His mouth and his golden words have never been sealed. The writings and sayings of the golden-mouthed saint are decisive. Through his writings and sayings he is a contemporary of every generation, and especially of our generation. His theological, dogmatic, social, anthropological, and Christological words are necessary to Christians, science, society, theology, priesthood, politics, and to every dimension through which human life is expressed. Nevertheless, this saint is the teacher of mercifulness and of prayer. His opponents succeeded in removing him from the throne of the Church of Constantinople and exiled him. However, they didn’t succeed in one thing: to remove him from the throne of holiness. Theology boasts in him, the preachers of the divine Word take him as a model, while the faithful consider him an authentic teacher of godliness. Through this hopeless world passed many orators and preachers, but there never has existed anyone of the magnitude of St John Chrysostom, the one who was considered “the nightingale of the pulpit.” He was unique and unrepeatable. |
| 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 Hilarion: the Patriarch of Constantinople claims special privileges akin to those of the pope On September 16-17, 2021, a conference on the primacy and conciliarity in Orthodoxy took place at the Church of Christ the Saviour. Participants spoke in particular about the consequences of the Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople’s actions trampling upon the conciliar structure of the Church and destroying her canonical order. Answering a question of Ye. Gracheva, presenter of the Church and the World TV talk show, the head of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk stressed, “It seems to me that a truly Orthodox person will never turn away from the Church. It can be done only by one whose religiosity is superficial, who is unable to see behind human reality the reality Divine presence in the Church, who does not feel that the Church is a space in which God lives and works. The archpastor reminded the audience that the Church consists of those who come to her with their sins, passions and their problems, and the clergy are not free from human sins either, weaknesses and passions. “Sometimes, human weaknesses influence what we call church politics or church geopolitics, when a particular Local Church begins quarrelling or when a particular person begins appropriating powers he does not have in fact”, the DECR chairman stated. “In recent years, we have encountered with the Patriarch of Constantinople’s claims to special privileges, special powers in the Orthodox Church, which are akin to the papal powers in the Roman Catholic Church”, the hierarch continued, “But while in the western Catholic tradition there is a papal system of church governance when one person, perceived as vicar of Christ, stands over the whole Church, in our Orthodox tradition we have never had such a thing. The Orthodox Church is the family of Local Churches and their Primates are equal even if there is a special order among them in which they line in celebrating the Divine Liturgy together. |
| Canadian City Council Receives Icon of Its Own Saint Hamilton Mayor Fred Eisenberger, Archpriest Geoffrey Korz, Magdalena Korz, and Rajko Djurdjevic at Hamilton City Council, April 10, 2019. HAMILTON, CANADA (April 10, 2019) – The City Council in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, received an icon of its own resident saint this week. Mayor Fred Eisenberger, head of Canada’s ninth largest city, accepted the icon of the recently glorified Saint Sebastian Dabovich, who served as priest in the city a century ago. “Saint Sebastian was the priest of the first multi-cultural Orthodox parish right here in Hamilton’s east end, on Beach Road, over a century ago, where people from many cultures worshipped together in the English language, at a time when such a faith community was a rare and unusual thing,” the City Council heard from Archpriest Geoffrey Korz, Dean of Ontario and Rector of the local English-language parish of All Saints of North America. Last year, Hamilton City Council voted to grant an honorary street renaming, in memory of the saint. The Archpriest and Dean also entrusted the mayor with the responsibility to serve as keeper of the printed icon, a responsibility which he will pass down to future mayors, to whom the Orthodox Christian communities will look each time they visit their City Hall, welcome visiting dignitaries from abroad, and remind all citizens of the Canadian city of this local hero who led and held together a multicultural community who was one in faith and spirit in a century of war and division. On hand for the presentation was Rajko Djudjevic, President of Saint Nicholas Serbian Orthodox Church, a parish whose founders and ancestors made up a majority of the faithful in the community served by Saint Sebastian. “Generations to come in this city and across the country will look back, seeking the grace of God in the person of His first saint of this city, Saint Sebastian. What they will find is one of God’s holy ones who drew people together beyond their language and nation, to their Eternal Country,” the Archpriest concluded. |
| Churches were burning in Pakistan, while African Christians died and radical forms of Islam threatened monasteries, sanctuaries and villages in Egypt, Syria and Iraq. That was 1997. Human-rights scholar Paul Marshall kept hearing one question over and over when he addressed this rising tide of persecution: Why didn't more American Christians protest as their sisters and brothers in the faith were jailed, raped, tortured and killed? Some Christians, he said, were distracted by apocalyptic talk in which persecution was a good thing, a sign that the end of the world was near. Others weren't that interested in violence on the other side of the world that threatened believers in ancient churches that looked nothing like their own suburban megachurches. " The result is a stunning passivity that calmly accepts such suffering, " said Marshall, in an interview for an earlier column for Scripps Howard News Service. " Perhaps this ... could be justified if we were dealing with our own suffering. But to do this with the suffering of another amounts to theological sadism. " That was 1997. Marshall had just co-written the groundbreaking book " Their Blood Cries Out, " with journalist Lela Gilbert. Since then, I have worked with both of these writers in global projects about religion-news coverage. Now it's 2013 and the news about the persecution of Christians has only gotten worse. Marshall, Gilbert and Catholic lawyer Nina Shea recently completed a new volume titled " Persecuted: The Global Assault on Christians. " The bottom line: This topic is more relevant than ever. A year ago, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said, " Christianity is the most persecuted religion in the world. " While some mocked her words, a Pew Research Center study in 2011 found that Christians were harassed, to one degree of violence or another, in 130 countries — more than any other world religion. British historian Tom Holland told a recent London gathering that the world is witnessing the " effective extinction of Christianity from its birthplace " in the Middle East. |
| Churches worldwide unite in prayer for 340 million Christians persecuted for their faith in Christ Source: The Christian Post DELIL SOULEIMAN/AFP via Getty Images To observe the annual International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted on Sunday, churches around the world are praying for more than 340 million Christians who are persecuted or oppressed because of their faith. Marking the IDOP 2021, the U.S.-based persecution watchdog group International Christian Concern said , “the number one thing persecuted Christians ask for is prayer.” “The IDOP is a time set apart to remember all those who share our faith, but not our freedom,” Godfrey Yogarajah, ambassador for Religious Freedom of the World Evangelical Alliance, said . The WEA Religious Liberty Commission launched the first IDOP in 1996, encouraging churches worldwide to dedicate a Sunday in November to pray for persecuted Christians. “For over two decades, every November, the global Church has united in prayer for our persecuted brothers and sisters around the world. Today, more than 300 million Christians live in places where they face persecution for their faith in Jesus Christ. Staggeringly, this is one in eight Christians, globally,” said WEA Secretary General Thomas Schirrmacher. Speaking to CBN News , David Curry, president and CEO of Open Doors USA, put the number of Christians who are persecuted or oppressed because of their faith in Jesus at more than 340 million. “Some of those places like North Korea are exceptionally difficult if you’re caught with the Bible, you may spend the rest of your life in prison or even lose your life,” he explained. “Then there are other places around the world where the Gospel is opposed. You may be harassed and bothered, so there are any number of ways people can be persecuted for their faith.” Behind each number and statistic, there is a human story, notes the World Watch List, which seeks to identify countries where Christian persecution is most rampant. During the lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, Christians in India, Myanmar, Nepal, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Central Asia, Malaysia, North Africa, Yemen and Sudan, were denied aid, the World Watch List says. |
| John Anthony McGuckin Mystery (Sacrament) MARIA GWYN MCDOWELL The Greek term mysterion, equivalent to the Latin usage of sacraments, refers in Orthodox theology to Christ himself, to specific rites, and to any action or material thing which is an outward sign ofthe energy of divine grace. Early Christian terminology absorbed and changed the language of the pagan mystery religions, just as it did Greek philosophy. Gregory the Theologian describes baptism, for example, as a “fulfillment” of the Mysteries (Orations on the Lights). Scriptural language references Wisdom as the mystery of the knowledge of God (Wis. 8.4), and gives mystery the less technical meaning of a “secret” ( Mt. 13.11 ; Mk. 4.11–12 ). Significant for subsequent theological development is the Pauline equation of Christ as the mysterion who dwells within believers (Col. 1.27). This serves as the basis of a developing Orthodox theology of mystery and sacrament inextricably tied to the incarnation, an ongoing Pentecost, and the concept of salvation as deification. Foundational to this is the idea of sacrament or mystery as that which manifests Christ through the Holy Spirit, indwelling the believer and enabling his or her participation by grace in the life of Christ. On the one hand, the one true mystery is Christ himself. On the other hand, all actions and material things which signify the presence of Christ in the world are sacramental. Through the incarnation, the most mundane of material things – water, bread, wine, oil – become vehicles of the Spirit, underscoring the impact of the incarnation as redeeming all matter. The use of mundane materials incorporates a participant’s body and soul into Christ, an outward and visible act signifying an inward and divine grace; such as the external washing of the body and the soul’s cleansing from sin. While contemporary Orthodoxy does not distinguish between sacraments and sacramentals as does the Roman Catholic Church, under its influence it has in later times adopted the convention of seven sacraments: Baptism, Chrismation, Eucharist, Confession, Marriage, Ordination, Unction. |
| May God give that everyone realizes Russia poses no military threat and no other danger to people. Phto: http://www.patriarchia.ru Sergiyev Posad, July 21, Interfax – Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia said he urged global community not to perceive Russia as an aggressor. “May God give that those, who do not understand Russia, understand it today. May God give that everyone realizes Russia poses no military threat and no other danger to people. We will find salvation in unity and love – we address this appeal of St. Sergius to the entire Russian world and beyond, to the entire human kind. And may God give that our homeland remains able to implement this legacy of the great Saint of the Russian land,” Patriarch Kirill said at a concert in Sergiyev Posad dedicated to the 700th birth anniversary of St. Sergius of Radonezh. Historical Rus “is the most important thing we should keep and give to next generations,” the patriarch said. “And we should be like-minded in all this and guard our unity – spiritual unity and human one. Love is where dissidence ends,” he said. “With God’s mercy we will overcome all internecine quarrelling and all disruption at the space of historical Rus,” Patriarch Kirill said. The patriarch said he thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin, who attended the concert, for reflecting “the consensus, which exists in our society today.” “It is essential that the state leader is able to form common thoughts and ideas uniting people,” Patriarch Kirill said. 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. |
| Patriarch Kirill Urges Believers to Fight New Idolatry in Their Own Lives Photo (fragment): Oleg Varov/foto.patriarchia.ru Our ancestors abandoned man-made idols during the Baptism of Rus, but today many believers worship new idols said His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russian. “With the Baptism of Rus, idols disappeared, and people began to worship the one true God The most important thing was probably that our ancestors abandoned idols – false gods,” said the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church on the feast of the Baptism of Rus on July 28 after the Divine Liturgy in St. Alexander Nevsky Skete near Peredelkino. However, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill continued, if you think about what is happening in society today, analogies with ancient idolatry arise. “The ancients worshiped man-made gods, but what do people worship today? First of all those who are deprived of faith in God, faith in Christ, but not only them, because many Christians worship new idols,” said Patriarch Kirill. His Holiness noted that “today the mass media impose certain tastes, a style of behavior, so that we are taught to worship idols again,” and added that, for example, “a certain image of a person is being formed, the main value of which is not in love, not in spiritual joy, not in purity of thoughts and life, but in strength; and many other factors affect consciousness today, forcing the worship of false gods, idols.” “Idolatry has not gone anywhere, and therefore the fight against idols remains relevant,” the Patriarch emphasized, inviting every believer to ask themselves a question: do they worship “some idols and pagan gods, attention to which pushes the genuine saving faith in One True God and Jesus Christ sent by Him to the periphery?” “And this question, directed to oneself, to one’s conscience, should help us understand: are we idolaters, even if we formally belong to the heirs of the Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Grand Duke Vladimir?” added Patriarch Kirill. The Primate of the Russian Church wished that the recollection of the “epochal historical event” – the Baptism of Rus’ – would help people to think about “whether we are truly the heirs of Holy Rus or whether we fell into idolatry, so powerful in ancient times and no less influential today.” |
| This year Orthodox Christians and the Catholics are celebrating Easter on the same day – but this is not always the case. In fact, there are many distinct reasons why many a year the Orthodox Church celebrates the Resurrection of Jesus Christ on a different day than the Catholics. We spoke with Fr. Jon Magnolias, a Greek-Orthodox priest at the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in Modesto, CA, and asked him to explain what factors determine if the Orthodox Church celebrates Pascha (Easter) on the same day the Catholic church does. His explanation is below and clarifies the matter immensely: “As Greek-Orthodox Christians prepare to celebrate Easter on Sunday, April 16th, we would like to shed some light on the reasons why the Orthodox Christian Church celebrates the Resurrection of Jesus Christ later than the Catholic one. While the issue is somewhat complicated, it may be summarized in the two factors at work that cause this conflict in dates: 1) The issue of the calendar; and 2) the adherence by the Orthodox to the early practices of the Christian Church. The first factor, the calendar, has to do with the fact that the Christian Orthodox Church continues to follow the Julian calendar when calculating the date of Pascha (Easter). The rest of Christianity uses the Gregorian calendar. There is a thirteen-day difference between the two calendars, the Julian calendar being thirteen (13) days behind the Gregorian. The other factor at work is that the Orthodox Church continues to adhere to the rule set forth by the First Ecumenical Council, held in Nicea in 325 AD, that requires that Pascha must take place after the Jewish Passover in order to maintain the Biblical sequence of Christ’s Passion. The rest of Christianity ignores this requirement, which means that on occasion Western Easter takes place either before or during the Jewish Passover.” The end result is that the Orthodox Church usually celebrates Easter as much as five weeks later than Western Churches. However, this year is an exception as Orthodox Easter in 2017 is on the same days as the Catholic celebrations. One thing worth noting is that this the last time that the two Churches will share Easter celebrations until 2025! Recently, the Easter holiday has fallen on the same day in 2010, 2011, 2014, as the two dates coincide only when the full moon following the equinox counts as the first full moon after March 21 in the Julian calendar and the Gregorian calendar. |
| Ukrainian Villagers Celebrate 1-year Anniversary of Round-The-Clock Prayer Vigils in Defense of Their Church Source: OrthoChristian Photo: Facebook The faithful of Holy Dormition Church in the village of Mikhalcha in the Chernivtsi Province of Ukraine have been keeping a round-the-clock prayer vigil in defense of their church for a year now. During that time, they have endured insults, beatings, vandalism, pressure, and physical and legal threats, but their faith has only become more steadfast they say. “Today [February 9], the Ukrainian Orthodox Church prayerfully honors the memory of the holy New Martyrs and Confessors who in times of trouble suffered at the hands of the godless authorities in the previous century. There are no coincidences,” a report from the Chernivtsi Diocese emphasizes. “Now we see how modern confessors on Earth pray to the holy Confessors who preserved the purity of the faith and the Orthodox Church at the cost of their lives and passed it on to us,” the report continues. Throughout the year, the canonical faithful have suffered many mockeries from the godless authorities and enemies of the Church, beatings, slander, broken Church doors, the dismissal of teachers, the bullying of children in school, lawsuits, and constant insults. One of the main schismatic activists in the village and the initiator of the problems for the UOC community is the village chairman Zacharian Ivanovich Shevchuk. “However, despite all the trials, the religious community of the Holy Dormition Church in the village of Mikhalcha became even more friendly and more rigid in their faith and religious beliefs,” the diocesan statement reads. The faithful of the Holy Dormition Church reflect upon their year of keeping vigil, saying: A year ago, none of us knew what would happen next. But at the Liturgy exactly a year ago, the faithful of the UOC were sure of one thing: We will remain faithful to the Mother Church and His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry! We are prepared for anything to preserve the purity of the Orthodox faith! |
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