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Archbishop Ieronymos

Church of Greece head’s balancing act on same-sex marriage

By Webmaster on January 29, 2024 Governance & Unity News, Governance Top Stories

Source: Ekathimerini.com Dora Antoniou The recent unanimous rejection by the influential Greek Church’s governing Holy Synod of government plans to legalize same-sex marriage is perceived as a success for Archbishop Ieronymos in navigating the perennial antagonism between the more modernizing and conservative, at times obscurantist, factions within the Hierarchy. Opposition to the bill among senior clerics was a given, even before Tuesday’s meeting. Pressure on Ieronymos was restricted to the timing and manner of protests. However, his control over the majority of bishops and the increasing presence in recent years of younger clerics with a more educated and moderate profile…

Church Attendance Dropped Among Young People, Singles, Liberals

By Webmaster on January 9, 2023 Orthodox News, Orthodox News Top Stories

Source: Christianity Today Overall, most churchgoers—including most white evangelicals—returned to the pews after the pandemic, survey finds. DAVID ROACH Despite the short-term upheaval COVID-19 caused among American churches, the pandemic’s long-term effect on worship attendance patterns was minimal, according to a study released Thursday by researchers at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the University of Chicago. The biggest exception to that trend occurred among young adults, whose church attendance took a major hit. “Rather than completely upending established patterns, the pandemic accelerated ongoing trends in religious change,” wrote study authors Lindsay Witt-Swanson, Jennifer Benz, and Daniel Cox. “Young people,…

Fr Frank Marangos

Overcoming a Leaders Greatest Enemy

By Webmaster on September 14, 2020 Governance & Unity Essays, Governance & Unity News

Source: Oinos Educational Consulting HE, SHE . . . OR ME? A LEADER’S GREATEST FOE by Frank Marangos, D.Min., Ed.D., FCEP “Well, here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into!” Oliver Hardy When a leader is asked who or what gives them the most trouble, how do they usually answer? Where do they place blame when circumstances are challenging? Do they point to market forces or fierce competitors? Or is their anger directed towards the disgruntled employee, parishioner, or board member? The classic catch phrase cited above was first uttered by Oliver Hardy to Stan Laurel in their 1930 film Another Fine…

Fr Frank Marangos

How to Identify Your Life’s Core Desire

By Webmaster on April 8, 2020 Governance & Unity Essays, Governance & Unity News, Uncategorized

Source: Oinos Educational Consulting CORONA-QUEST: A QUESTION FOR THE 21st CENTURY CASTAWAY By Frank Marangos, D.Min., Ed.D., FCEP “In the 21st century, knowing all the answers won’t distinguish someone’s intelligence, rather the ability to ask all the right questions will be the mark of true genius.” ~ John E. Kelly, IBM Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be marooned on a remote tropical island? While the image of palm trees gently swaying in a warm ocean breeze might appear romantically quixotic, the globe’s current experience of social distancing has shown that such a respite would swiftly become monotonous,…

SPARTACUS: A TRIBUTE TO THE COURAGEOUS PHILANTHROPIST

By Webmaster on February 17, 2020 Orthodox News, Orthodox News Top Stories

Source: Oinos Educational Consulting by Frank Marangos, D.Min., Ed.D., FCEP “Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are often stiffened.” Billy Graham Courage is contagious. When coupled with compassion and selfless love, courage is a powerful contagion that distinguishes the authentic philanthropist whose generosity is based on the gravity of societal privation, and not from those who seek to support the most attractive causes du’ jour. The recent death of the American actor Kirk Douglas, at the age of 103, provides a wonderful opportunity to pay tribute to such philanthropists who, like the famed…

Church And Clergy Have Fallen Out Of Favor, New Polls Show

By Webmaster on July 19, 2019 Orthodox News, Orthodox News Top Stories

Source: National Public Radio TOM GJELTEN NOEL KING, HOST: There are two interesting new polls out this month that show evidence of a change in U.S. culture that’s been developing for a while now. Americans are finding less meaning in organized religion, and they are less confident that ministers are able to help them. Here’s NPR’s Tom Gjelten. TOM GJELTEN, BYLINE: There are several pieces to this story. More people have been saying they have no religious affiliation. Church attendance is down sharply. And now, a new Gallup poll finds that barely 1 in 3 Americans say they have a…

The Church is Made of Faith

By Webmaster on June 22, 2019 Orthodox News, Orthodox News Top Stories

Source: St Philaret`s Christian Orthodox Institute (SFI) Participants of SFI’s Annual Theological Conference discuss the church’s ministry and her structure The question of exactly “what the Church is,” is no less relevant and pressing for the church herself today than it is for secular society, which can’t seem to find a place for the church in its system of coordinates. What is it? A social organization that helps the poor and the sick? A funeral service provider? An ideological department of the state government? A club for the virtuous and a moral policeman? Few would immediately guess that the Church…

Greece: Orthodox Clergy Oppose New Church/State Agreement

By Webmaster on November 7, 2018 Orthodox News, Orthodox News Top Stories

The cross in front of the Greek Parliament in Athens. File photo Senior members of the Greek Orthodox Church expressed their opposition to the historic agreement between Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and Archbishop of Athens and All Greece Ieronymos to remove some 10,000 priests and auxiliary staff from the state payroll. The agreement, reached on Tuesday, foresees the setup of a special fund to handle church assets, and changes in the salaries of clerics, who will no longer be civil servants but will be paid by the church through an annual state subsidy. Archbishop Ieronymos was forced to backtrack on Wednesday, stating…

Light of Life Church by Shinslab Architecture, South Korea (2014) – The church's interior takes note of its mounta and heavily forested surroundings -- its interior looks like an inverted treehouse, made of 834 dieren pieces of Siberian red cedar wood. A cross is fixed in the middle of a pool of water.

10 reasons Americans go to church — and 9 reasons they don’t

By Webmaster on August 9, 2018 Orthodox News, Orthodox News Top Stories

Source: CNN By Daniel Burke, CNN Religion Editor (CNN) If American religion were traded at a stock exchange, your broker might be advising you to sell. The trend lines don’t look great and haven’t for quite some time. Social scientists and religious leaders have lots of theories about the long, slow slide, blaming it on everything from the internet to the politicization of conservative Christianity. A new Pew Research Center study offers something different: a survey of 4,729 Americans telling us precisely why they do (or don’t) attend religious services. Some of their answers are unsurprising. Americans who don’t believe in religion don’t often attend church. Because duh. But the…

Is Ministry Preparing Kids for Life in the Church?

By Webmaster on June 19, 2018 Orthodox News, Orthodox News Top Stories, Uncategorized

Source: Orthodox Observer By Steven Christoforou Dorothy Day was a Catholic social activist. And a Cardinal once described her as trying “to live in such a way that one’s life would not make sense if God did not exist. “This is the sort of description that should apply to every Christian’s life. Shouldn’t it? After all, as St. Paul wrote, the Gospel is something that doesn’t quite make sense in light of the wisdom of our time: “We proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.” (1 Cor. 1:23) Phrased even more simply: “the message about…

Stemming the exodus: College graduates and the church

By Webmaster on May 28, 2017 Orthodox News, Orthodox News Top Stories

Source: Chicago Catholic by Kerry Alys Robinson Close to half a million Catholics in the United States have just graduated from college, and almost as soon as they did their participation in the church plummeted. For decades, leaders of the U.S. church have observed that many young-adult Catholics enjoy a positive experience of the church while they are in college, either because they attend a Catholic university or because they attend a secular university with a vibrant Catholic campus ministry. Catholic students note the exceptional liturgies, relevant homilies, student participation, opportunities for service and attention to helping them develop a mature…

In this Friday, May 27, 2016 file photo, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow arrives to the port of Dafni, at Mount Athos, Greece. (AP Photo/Darko Bandic,file)

The Church of Russia, Prestigious and Growing

By Webmaster on April 19, 2017 Governance & Unity Essays, Governance & Unity News, Uncategorized

Source: The National Herald By Dennis Menos The emergence of the Russian Church has the largest and most prestigious Church in Eastern Orthodoxy, after seventy years of persecution by a brutal and atheist regime that killed thousands of its clergy and desecrated its places of worship, should be a matter of pride to the entire Orthodox world. This accomplishment of the Russian Church, however,is not without troubling questions concerning its future posture and policies. Could the Russian Church, many skeptics wonder, encouraged by its newly gained power and prestige attempt to compete with Constantinople for influence over the Eastern Christian…

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