by Alan Rummel Farrell is a small town in western Pennsylvania which once thrived as a steel town and supported five very active Orthodox parishes. Today, the steel mills are gone and the parishes are struggling. This is a story of how they have made a beginning to work together so as to survive. It all started during a general assembly meeting of Annunciation (Evangelismos) Greek Orthodox Church. Our membership is now down to 28 families, and we needed some help from other parishes to pull off another festival. It was suggested at the meeting to ask the assistance of other Orthodox…
Monthly Archives: November, 2013
Source: Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America The International Environmental 19th Conference of the Parties (COP 19) opened in Warsaw on November 11 and will conclude on November 22, 2013. His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has addressed a statement on the importance and implications of this convention. MESSAGE By His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew To the 19th Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 19) Warsaw, November 2013 When will we choose to live more simply? This week – even as the world mourns the tragic loss of life in the unprecedented Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippine Islands –…
Source: Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America NEW YORK – On Sunday, November 10, 2013, at a duly called parish assembly meeting of the St. Nicholas Church at Ground Zero, a major step forward was taken. Under the leadership of His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios of America, and with the full support of the parish priest, the Rev. Fr. John Romas, and the Parish Council, the community unanimously approved a resolution to make the community a national shrine of the Holy Archdiocese of America. This advance in the nature of the only House of Worship that was destroyed by the terrorist attacks of…
Source: inSerbia A group of female MPs of the European Parliament asked Greece recently to abolish a regulation, according to which women are strictly forbidden to visit the Holy Mountain, its twenty monasteries and 2,500 monks. The request says that the law “violates gender equality and introduces discrimination against women, which is not consistent with democracy”. At the same time, ads appeared in Serbian media, offering to take women on the “pilgrimage to the Holy Mountain” at the price of EUR 100 – 200. In this way, a question of women going to the Holy Mountain and the monastery of…
Source: inSerbia The head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Irinej, said that Serbia can not give up on Kosovo, and if the price for the entry into Europe is losing Kosovo, then, he said, we would rather be out of Europe. “If the price of entry to Europe is to secede Kosovo then we have to say ‘thank you but no thank you’ to Europe. We prefer to stay alone without Europe, if it must be, but with our Kosovo,” said the Patriarch Irinej receiving, at the Patriarchate, the participants of international Pan-European conference on human and religious rights.…
Source: OCP Media Network November 2013 The working session of the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church was held in the Synodal Hall of the Patriarchal Residence, under the chairmanship of His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel during the last week of October 2013. We mention some of the decisions adopted: Approval of the text of the Pastoral letter of the Holy Synod at the end of the Solemn Year of Saints Emperors Constantine and Helen and of “Dumitru Staniloae” Commemorative Year, which will be read in all the churches and monasteries of the Romanian Patriarchate on the first Sunday of…
Source: Cyprus Mail The views expressed in your Opinion section (Cyprus Mail, Saturday, November 2) regarding the Church and the formation of civil laws do not seem like very rational opinions to hold. It is rightfully stated that the Republic of Cyprus is a secular state. The opinion fails to admit, though, that there exists any kind of connection between the responsibilities of the elected representatives and the wishes of the people they represent, the majority of whom happen to be members of the Greek Orthodox Church of Cyprus. The Church of Cyprus is vitally concerned with all matters regarding…
Source: Project Mexico New Executive Director Announcement November 8, 2013 A Message from Geoffrey Bray, Executive Director Dear Friends, It is with a profound sense of gratitude that I write you today. In the past five years, you have seen me arrive and enter into the administration of Project Mexico, taking on the leadership position as Executive Director in 2010. As I said then, my motivation was purely to help take care of the place that helped me form into the adult I am today. Being a part of this ministry for the past 14 years has…
Source: The New York Times By ALAA AL ASWANY [November 10, 2013] Cairo — Mariam Ashraf was an eight-year-old Coptic girl. On Oct. 20, she went with her family to the Church of the Virgin, in Cairo, for a relative’s wedding. She was thrilled with her new hairstyle and the new white dress her mother had bought for the occasion. She stood on the street outside the church with other guests waiting for the bride and groom to arrive. Then a motorbike sped by. On it were two men who opened fire indiscriminately, killing Mariam and three others, and wounding scores…
Source: NorthJersey.com BY CHRISTOPHER MAAG STAFF WRITER THE RECORD When the hunger began, Peter Velechko ate grain meant for horses. When the horses died, he ate horse meat. When the meat was gone, he clawed the farmers’ fields with his hands and ate the seeds. When the seeds were gone, he found the holes of field mice and ate their stores of grain. When the hunger lifted in 1933, Velechko looked like a skeleton. But he was alive. “Even if the grain was bad, we ate it,” said Velechko, 89, a survivor of the Holodomor, the famine forced upon Ukraine…
Source: Orthodox Church in America YONKERS, NY [SVOTS Communications] – During St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary’s 75th Anniversary gala celebration on November 7, 2013, seminary leaders made several noteworthy announcements, including a stellar report about accreditation renewal, the reception of significant donations earmarked for endowed scholarships and special programs, and the bestowal of rare gift from the Ukraine: the relics of the Holy and Great Prince Vladimir, patron of the Seminary. More than 430 guests gathered for the black tie dinner hosted by the Seminary’s Board of Trustees at Glen Island Harbour Club, New Rochelle, NY, and celebrated the good news during an…
Christians feel they’re targets of extremists By Dusan Stojanovic Associated Press Source: The Augusta Chronicle DAMASCUS, Syria — Sami Amir is used to the deep, echoing rumble of Syr-ian army artillery pounding rebel positions on the outskirts of Damascus. It’s the thump of mortars launched from an Islamist-controlled neighborhood that scares him to death. Mortars have hit repeatedly in his mainly Christian district of Damascus, al-Qassaa, reportedly killing at least 32 people and injuring dozens of others the past two weeks. “You don’t know when and you don’t know where they hit,” says Amir, a 55-year-old Christian merchant. “Life here…