Browsing: Governance & Unity Commentary

Source: Daily Beast by A. Craig Copetas Beneath the gold onion domes of the Danilov Monastery a few miles south of the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin’s chief shaman explains why Russia is hell-bent on destroying Ukraine. “If we see [Ukraine] as a threat, we have the right to use force to ensure the threat is eradicated,” Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill recently preached to his church’s 90 million faithful followers. “We have entered into a conflict which has not only physical but also metaphysical significance. We are talking about human salvation, something much more important than politics.” The wartime coalition between Putin and his patriarch is called symphonia,…

Source: Helleniscope EDITOR’S NOTE (Nick Stamatakis): We received this interesting white paper (Charter Whitepaper) through our sources in the Charter committee. Father Nicholas Metrakos, using his scientific background, analyzes the benefits of a polycentric, decentralized model for the Archdiocese. It is very close to how America is organized and successful as a governing model – decentralization is exactly what makes this country a democracy and so successful at all levels. Father Nicholas Metrakos proposes the movement to a “polycentric matrix” through refinement and not through “correction”… Polycentrism: A Model Worthy of Refinement Not Reversion Fr. Nicholas Metrakos, Submitted to…

Source: The National Herald By Theodore Kalmoukos BOSTON – The new charter of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America will not be presented at the upcoming Clergy-Laity Congress this July, but at the next one in year 2024 because valuable time has been lost and there is not enough time to draft it in time for this year’s Congress. As The National Herald had reported, the Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate scheduled to be convened from Sunday March 13 will appoint the members of the Patriarchal delegation which is going to collaborate with the corresponding committee appointed by the Archdiocese.…

Source: The National Herald By Theodore Kalmoukos If the revelations of The National Herald prove anything in the last few days concerning the issue of the new Charter, it is that there was haste and imprudence, as a result of which we were led to deadlocks, unfortunately reducing the prestige of the Archdiocese, but also of the Patriarchate. I will explain this immediately. Even before the present Archbishop met and became acquainted with our Church here, of which he is not “flesh of her flesh and bone of her bone” and who had not worked, had not been raised, had…

Source: Orthodox Reality The “New Traditional” in a Most Traditional Church: How the Pandemic Has Reshaped American Orthodox Christian Churches How has the pandemic transformed the Orthodox Church, the original Christian Church that “never changes?” Based on the national survey of the Orthodox Christian parish clergy conducted January 24 – February 10, 2022, the report answers this question. It examines both overall impact of the pandemic and the possible long-term consequences for American Orthodox Christian parishes. The report also discusses “mysteriously” strong growth in vitality that some congregations (12% of all American Orthodox parishes) experienced despite and even because of the…

Source: Providence Magazine Originally published on February 17, 2022 By Evagelos Sotiropoulos Appeasement,” Winston Churchill once said, “is feeding the crocodile, hoping he will eat you last.” It is this approach—one of appeasement and concession—that Orthodox primates have applied to the ecclesiastical ambitions of the Moscow Patriarchate. While the 2019 granting of autocephaly, or self-governing status, to the Orthodox Church in Ukraine (OCU) by the Holy and Sacred Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate made intra-Orthodox tensions more public, the root cause of today’s growing disunity is decades in the making. Moscow’s obsessive ethnophyletism and promotion of its Russkiy Mir agenda were quietly acknowledged…

Source: Public Orthodoxy by Jaroslav Skira Suggestively linking a Russian Orthodox primate, an ideology, and genocide may seem provocative or sensationalist. For me, given the current unjustified Russian war on Ukraine, the connections between them are far from that. In this moment in our common history as a human family, ‘naming” a reality is utterly important here for assessing the horrific events in Ukraine and the ideology that is complicit in such violence against the very innocence that characterizes the people of Ukraine. Naming is a profoundly ethical choice. Genocide is not an abstract concept in this present moment for the…

Source: CNN By Delia Gallagher, CNN (CNN)Russian President Vladimir Putin has given several explanations for his country’s war on Ukraine, and some are more plausible than others. They include stopping NATO’s advance towards Russia’s borders, protecting fellow Russians from “genocide” or the baseless claim of “de-Nazifying” Ukraine. The top-ranking priest in the Russian Orthodox Church, meanwhile, has offered a very different reason for the invasion: gay pride parades. Patriarch Kirill said last week that the conflict is an extension of a fundamental culture clash between the wider Russian world and Western liberal values, exemplified by expressions of gay pride. Yet experts say that…

Source: Bitter Winter On March 6, ironically Forgiveness Sunday for the Orthodox, Patriarch Kirill abandoned all caution and blessed the war of aggression against Ukraine and the “false freedom” of democratic countries. by Bitter Winter Originally published on March 7, 2022 Note: We publish the translation of the integral version of the sermon delivered by Patriarch Kirill of Moscow on March 6, 2022, in the Cathedral of the Holy Savior in Moscow. Our readers may judge for themselves. Surely, there can be different opinions about the Gay Pride parades, and criticizing these events from a religious point of view is also part…

Source: Public Orthodoxy “For the peace of the whole world, for the stability of the holy churches of God, and for the unity of all, let us pray to the Lord.” (Divine Liturgy) Русский | Српски The Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, is a historic threat to a people of Orthodox Christian tradition. More troubling still for Orthodox believers, the senior hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church has refused to acknowledge this invasion, issuing instead vague statements about the necessity for peace in light of “events” and “hostilities” in Ukraine, while emphasizing the fraternal nature of the Ukrainian and…

Source: The National Herald To the Editor: When Theodore Kalmoukos asked me to answer a number of questions about the current status of Hellenic College Holy Cross, I did so in good faith and at some length. That he chose to print only a very small portion of my full response did a disservice not only to HCHC but also to your readers, who deserve better than an incomplete account serving one individual’s apparent agenda. Here is the narrative section of my response, which I hope you will share with them: “You would please note that the current enrollment numbers…

Source: Public Orthodoxy by Assaad Elias Kattan | Русский A Greek version of this text is available at Polymeros kai Polytropos, the blog of the Volos Academy for Theological Studies At the time of writing, the tsar’s fighter jets are pounding the gorgeous Kyiv, and air raid sirens are echoing everywhere. “Who has believed our message” declares the prophet Isaiah: the fighters of Vladimir Putin are striking Kyiv, not Tbilisi, Yerevan, Berlin, Paris, or Istanbul, and certainly not New York. In fact, the Russian tsar wants to exact revenge on the Ukrainians…and on his own history. He is destroying the cradle of his own…