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Source: Radio Free Europe – Radio Liberty By Temur Kiguradze and Robert Coalso TBILISI/PRAGUE — Georgia faces a serious and growing demographic problem. According to the United Nations, the ratio of newborn boys to girls in 1991 was 105 to 100. By 2000, it was nearly 110 to 100. And in 2011, it was almost 114 to 100. Together with its neighbors in the South Caucasus — Armenia and Azerbaijan — Georgia is on a trajectory to develop a gender imbalance on par with what has been observed in India and China. That kind of imbalance brings myriad social problems,…

Source: Order of St. Andrew the Apostle – Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate by Dr. Elizabeth H. Prodromou [Washington, D.C. – 5/5/2013] Today is Easter for the world’s 350 million Orthodox Christians, who just completed their Holy Week of prayer and fasting  which culminated in today’s message of transcendent hope.  But all last week and today, Orthodox Christians the world over have been reminded that politics trumps human rights.  There’s a cruel irony in the fact that Orthodox Christians—whose belief that all persons are created equally and distinctly in the image and likeness of God is a perfect expression of…

Source: Mlive DORR, MI — After his Holy Cross Antiochian Orthodox Church was vandalized for the second time in six months, the Rev. Gregory Hogg was able to find solace in the misdeeds of others. “Because the Bible says that after doing good, we will suffer evil,” Hogg said on Tuesday, May 7, the day he learned that unknown suspects had defaced the church. A parishoner called Hogg, who resides in Byron Center, to tell him the church had been hit again, the pastor said. When he arrived he saw a two upside-down crosses, and spray-painted graffiti that included a…

Source: San Diego Union-Tribune By Dana Littlefield El Cajon — A man accused of setting fire to a Greek Orthodox church in unincorporated El Cajon, and later attacking his cellmate in county jail, was ordered Monday to stand trial on charges including premeditated attempted murder and arson. Darin Wayne Williams, 39, was arrested and booked into jail Jan. 27, hours after the early-morning fire started at St. Gregory of Nyssa Greek Orthodox Christian Church. At the end of a preliminary hearing in El Cajon Superior Court, Judge Herbert Exarhos ruled that prosecutors had presented enough evidence for the case…

Source: National Public Radio Click here to Listen to the Story – All Things Considered (3 min 50 sec) TRANSCRIPT ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST: As Orthodox Christians around the world celebrated Easter this week, the Orthodox communities in Syria and neighboring Lebanon postponed festivities. Instead, they gathered in churches to pray for the safe return of two bishops kidnapped outside the Syrian city of Aleppo last month. While the Syrian opposition and the regime of President Bashar al-Assad continue to trade blame for the abduction, the bishop’s whereabouts remains a mystery. NPR’s Susannah George has our story from Beirut. SUSANNAH GEORGE, BYLINE: On the…

Source: Huffington Post In this stunning video, Orthodox Christians welcome the Holy Fire, a miracle that Orthodox Christians believe occurs every year on the evening before Easter Sunday. Close to 10,000 people crowded the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, believed to be the location of Jesus’ burial and resurrection. Since the 9th century, Orthodox Christians celebrate the Holy Fire ceremony with a belief that a mysterious ‘blue fire’ lights a candle held by the Greek Orthodox Patriarch in Jerusalem. According to RT.com, the light is then shared with other clergy leaders and then spread to waiting worshipers who claim that…

NEW YORK – The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America is pleased to announce the receipt of a very significant message and greeting from the President of the United States, Barack Obama, and the First Lady Michelle Obama, on the occasion of Orthodox Pascha (Easter). In his message, the President makes reference to the ordeals facing Orthodox Christians in the Middle East and North Africa and reaffirms his commitment to religious freedom as a universal human right. The Statement of the President follows: THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 4, 2013 Statement by the…

Source: Southeast European Times The Greek Orthodox Church refuses to allow the practice, but analysts said the church should be more compassionate. By Andy Dabilis for Southeast European Times in Athens The refusal of the Greek Orthodox Church to allow cremation has sparked a debate in the country. With urban cemeteries filling so fast that bodies are dug up after three years and put in ossuaries so plots can be reused, Greece gave approval for cremation in 2006. Although Athens gave licensing authority to local governments, no one has been able to get past opposition from the powerful church. “Cremation…

Source: International Middle East Media Center by Saed Bannoura – IMEMC News Sunday evening April 28, 2013, a group of extremist Israeli settlers burnt a land that belongs to the Greek Orthodox Church in Wadi Hilweh, in Silwan town, in occupied East Jerusalem. The Wadi Hilweh Information Center reported that dozens of extremist Israeli settlers and soldiers gathered in the area, and that the armed settlers went on to burn the church land. On Saturday, three Palestinians, member of the Al-Maghribi family, in Sheikh Jarrah, were injured after the settlers burnt the family’s land near their home, and the fire…

Source: Oinos Consulting by Fr. Frank Marangos, D. Min., Ed. D. “I have learnt through bitter experience the supreme lesson to conserve my anger. As heat conserved is transmuted into energy, even so, anger controlled can be transmuted into a power that can move the world.”  – Mahatma Gandhi The deadly percussion of two homemade bombs shook the finish line of the Boston Marathon on our nation’s April 15th celebration of Patriots’ Day.  Fragments retrieved from the anniversary of the first skirmish in America’s war for independence suggest that the malevolent devices were each constructed from a six-litre pressure-cooker packed with gunpowder, a…

Source: Preachers Institute The Paschal fast of Holy Week1 is the most ancient part of the Great Fast.2 It is already well attested by the second century, in conjunction with the rites of Christian initiation through baptism. At first spanning one or two days, the fast lengthened to four and then to a full six already by the third century. With the conversion of Constantine, the ensuing flood of people desiring to enter the Faith and imperial interest in holy places, the fourth century witnessed tremendous development in ritual for Holy Week. This evolutionary process continued in the middle ages and shows…

Source: Albawaba Sunday is the Orthodox Palm Sunday, celebrating when Jesus returned to the city of Jerusalem. The day is known as  Shaa’nineh in Arabic and is one of most important dates in the Orthodox religious calendar. The event enables families to come together celebrate mass, and the day is traditionally a familiar affair and an excuse to cook up a good feast and is well celebrated across the Levant nations of Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria and beyond. Palm Sunday also starts the Holy Week, the run up to Easter. The Middle East though, long associated with Muslims, has…

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