THE TIME FOR ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN ADMINISTRATIVE UNITY IN AMERICA IS NOW! 

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Child of Governance

THE CRISIS OF ORTHODOXY: Restoring the image

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By on Governance & Unity Essays, Governance & Unity News

Source: The Tablet The Orthodox world is being shattered by the war in Ukraine. A close adviser to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew reflects frankly on the state of Orthodoxy before the invasion, and imagines how it needs to change if it is to have a future. By JOHN CHRYSSAVGIS On the Sunday of the first week of Great Lent, which this year began on 7 March, the Eastern liturgical cycle celebrates the Feast of Orthodoxy. Sometimes conceitedly called the “Triumph of Orthodoxy” it would be more accurate to describe it as the celebration of the “restoration of images”, for on this…

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Rocket damage in Kharkiv, Ukraine. iStock.com/OLeksandr_Kr

OPEN LETTER TO THE SYNOD OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH IN AMERICA ON THE WAR IN UKRAINE

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By on Governance & Unity Essays, Governance & Unity News

Source: Public Orthodoxy by Archpriest Denis J. M. Bradley His Beatitude, Metropolitan Tikhon Members of the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in America Dear Archpastors: We[1] write as painfully concerned, truth–seeking, and truth–committed Orthodox Christians: we are chagrined clergy and lay members of the Orthodox Church in America, who as American citizens value religious and political freedom. Conscience compels us to speak. The unprovoked Russian military invasion and indiscriminate bombardment and levelling of Ukrainian cities have resulted in the violent deaths and maiming of thousands and the dreadful displacement of millions of innocent Ukrainian citizens, among them vulnerable non-combatants: women, children,…

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WOMAN OF PEACE, TEMPLE OF WAR

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By on Governance & Unity Essays, Governance & Unity News

Source: Public Orthodoxy by Matthew J. Milliner The Main Cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces was sprinkled with holy water by Patriarch Kirill in 2020, but that does not mean it is holy. It has forsaken the elegant curves of a traditional Russian dome to deliberately resemble nuclear missiles (which Russian priests have cheerily blessed). The classic two-dimensional apse mosaic of Christ has been swapped out for a tacky sculpture, defying centuries of Orthodox wisdom which traditionally eschewed three-dimensional representation. Defending the six billion ruble (US million) expenditure, one Orthodox priest said that “metal, wood, glass and talent were offered practically free, for a few kopecks.…

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Pope Francis walks near a flag with the national colors of Ukraine during his general audience in the Paul VI hall at the Vatican March 16. (CNS/Vatican Media)

Behind the Frontlines of the Vatican’s Ukraine-Russia Strategy

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By on Governance & Unity Essays, Governance & Unity News

Source: National Catholic Reporter by Christopher White This article appears in the War in Ukraine feature series. View the full series. ROME — For four weeks, the Vatican has offered to serve as a mediator between Russia and Ukraine, and for four weeks, such overtures have been ignored by Russia. As Russia’s war against Ukraine rages on, Pope Francis has incrementally escalated his rhetoric against the invasion, condemning it as an “unacceptable armed aggression,” while refusing to directly name President Vladimir Putin or Russia as the aggressors. The diplomatic tightrope has been defended as consistent with longstanding Vatican neutrality, necessary for protecting Catholics in both Ukraine and Russia and…

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Survey for the Laity: How the Pandemic Has Reshaped the Life of Your Parish

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By on Governance & Unity Essays, Governance & Unity News, Orthodox News, Orthodox News Top Stories

Source: OrthodoxReality National Study about the Pandemic’s Impact on Orthodox Church Life in America Dear OCL friends, If you are a lay church member in the United States of America, we ask you to do something that could make a significant difference for the future of both your parish and the Orthodox Church in general. We ask you to take part in a national study about the pandemic’s impact on Orthodox church life in America. The study has heard already from about 400 American Orthodox priests and the results were published here: https://orthodoxreality.org/coronavirus-and-american-orthodox-parishes Now it is time to hear the thoughts, concerns and experiences…

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Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty

Putin’s Holy Man Pushed for the ‘Eradication’ of Ukraine

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By on Governance & Unity Essays, Governance & Unity News

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,…

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On the New Greek Orthodox Archdiocese Charter: No Need For Centralization, Just Refined Polycentrism

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By on Governance & Unity Essays, Governance & Unity News

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 the…

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His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros presiding via Teleconference at the meeting of the Holy Eparchial Synod of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. (Photo: GOA)

New Greek Archdiocese Charter to be Presented at 2024 Clergy-Laity Congress

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By on Governance & Unity Essays, Governance & Unity News

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.…

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His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros of America presents the newly ordained Bishop Athenagoras of Nazianzos to the congregation. (Photo provided by Bishop Athenagoras)

Haste, Imprudence, Impasses

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By on Governance & Unity Essays, Governance & Unity News

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…

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The Holy Eucharist

New Report: Post-Pandemic Orthodox Parish Life in America

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By on Governance & Unity Essays, Governance & Unity News, Uncategorized

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…

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Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow

Moscow’s Expansionism Is Destroying Orthodox Church Unity

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By on Governance & Unity Essays, Governance & Unity News

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…

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Church of the Nativity of the Virgin (UOC-MP), built in 1862. Village of Vyazívka Naroditsky district of Zhytomyr region. Damaged by the Russian shelling.

PATRIARCH KIRILL, THE “RUSSIAN WORLD” MYTH, AND GENOCIDE

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By on Governance & Unity Essays, Governance & Unity News

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…

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