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Child of Governance

Source: Spirit of Abilene By PHILIP LeMASTERS The centrality of peace to the worship and spiritual vision of Eastern Orthodox Christianity magnifies the tragedy of the invasion of Ukraine.  Petitions for peace abound in Orthodox services, including for deliverance from “the sword, foreign invasion, and civil war.” The Church prays regularly for “the peace of the whole world,” as well as for the liberation of captives and for people “in exile, in harsh labor, and…in every kind of affliction, necessity, or distress.”  Every Sunday service includes a petition for God to grant peace “to all civil authorities, to our armed…

Source: Orthodox Times The ecclesiastical antagonism in which the Moscow Patriarchate is engaged against the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the other churches that have recognized the Autocephaly of the Church of Ukraine is shifting to a new geographical field. So, after Africa, a new source of ecclesiastical tension is appearing in the United States against the background of the decision of the Archdiocese of America to place Archimandrite Alexander Belya as the vicar of the Slavic Orthodox Vicariate. In fact, the Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, to which the Archdiocese of America belongs, recently promoted Alexander Belya to the position of…

Source: The National Herald By Theodore Kalmoukos The last year and a half much has been said and written about the Charter of the Archdiocese because of its sudden and unilateral revocation on Thursday, October 8, 2020 by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and the Holy Synod in Constantinople in response to the demand of Archbishop Elpidophoros. The Archbishop demanded the revocation of the Charter verbally from the Patriarch without consulting the Holy Eparchial Synod and the Archdiocesan Council and without their agreement. There was not even a simple notification – the members of those bodies learned the news from The National…

Source: Orthodox Christian Leadership Initiative “Has the Lord not taken the lead?” This is the challenging question Deborah the Judge poses to the commander of Israel’s army in the Old Testament story in the book of Judges. It remains a critical question for today’s leader who aspires to serve the Lord. Women like Deborah and Jael were not the expected leaders of a nation over 2000 years ago. People would rather put their trust in the strength of an army and its commander. In this episode, Fr. Dustin Lyon shares how the army commanders from both sides were judged by the…

Click Here or on the images below to view the PDF Related Articles A Historic Event: His All-Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew Meets with the Clergy of the Slavic Orthodox Vicariate for the First Time Slavic Orthodox Vicariate All Allegations Against Archimandrite Alexander (Belya) Are Slander Belya v. Kapral et. al

Source: Get Religion by Terry Mattingly This was a very important weekend in the history of Eastern Orthodox Christianity in Ukraine and Russia — for those (including journalists) who believe that religious traditions and symbols matter as much as statements by government officials and headlines in Western media. At the center of the drama, of course, was the city of Kiev, as it is known in to Russians and many Ukrainians, and Kyiv, as it is known to many Ukrainians, as well as officials in the United States and the European Union. Here’s the quotation I keep thinking about, drawn…

Source: Christianity Today Possible manufacture of holy oil a signal of declaration of independence from Moscow patriarchate, while still opposing rival breakaway church. by JAYSON CASPER After 93 days of war, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) has definitively broken with Russia—maybe. In a council decision taken May 27, the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC)–affiliated body declared its “full self-sufficiency and independence,” condemning the three-month conflict as “a violation of God’s commandment: Thou shalt not kill!” Such a condemnation was not new. The day the invasion began, UOC-MP Metropolitan Onufriy called it a “repetition of the sin of Cain.” But in dry ecclesial language,…

Source: The New York Times Patriarch Kirill I has provided spiritual cover for the invasion of Ukraine, reaping vast resources for his church in return. Now, in an extraordinary step, the E.U. is threatening him with sanctions. By Jason Horowitz As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine unfolded, Patriarch Kirill I, the leader of the Moscow-based Russian Orthodox Church, had an awkward Zoom meeting with Pope Francis. The two religious leaders had previously worked together to bridge a 1,000-year-old schism between the Christian churches of the East and West. But the meeting, in March, found them on opposing sides of a chasm. Kirill…

Source: Eurasia Review By Paul Goble Despite its efforts to position itself as a Ukrainian church rather than a church of the country that is invading Ukraine, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate is now showing its true colors by dismissing from pastoral service priests that have denounced the invasion and cooperated with the autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine. The number of such cases is still small and is being handled not by the Russian metropolitanate of Kyiv but by other UOC MP bishoprics, something that keeps this development out of the public eye and likely reflects the individual…

Source: Public Orthodoxy by Paul L. Gavrilyuk Many western observers are puzzled. Aren’t the troops blessed by the Russian Orthodox Church presently slaughtering fellow-Orthodox civilians in Ukraine? Aren’t the Russian missiles destroying the Orthodox churches and monasteries, along with the schools, hospitals, and train stations, of the fellow-Orthodox in Ukraine? If all of this is true, how can Patriarch Kirill be sending the Russian troops into battle with his blessing? Isn’t this war precisely “fratricidal,” as Metropolitan Onufriy (Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Moscow Patriarchate) called it, in a moment of recently found clarity? It did not previously dawn on Metropolitan Onufriy…

Source: Public Orthodoxy by Rev. Dr. John Chryssavgis There are very few occasions in our lives—critical, pivotal events—that are truly life-shattering. We Orthodox describe them as kairos moments. World War II was one of these. In my lifetime, there was 9/11. Institutions and individuals are defined by such moments. We might recall how the Roman Catholic Church failed to stand up to Mussolini and Hitler; thankfully there was the selflessness of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his staunch resistance to Nazi dictatorship. Or we might remember the hostility and conspiracy spawned by the attack on the Twin Towers; thankfully there was the selflessness of first…

Source: NPR by Odette Yousef When Sarah Riccardi-Swartz moved from New York City to a small Appalachian town in West Virginia in the fall of 2017, she was searching for an answer to a puzzling question. Why had a group of conservative American Christians converted to Russian Orthodoxy? “It’s typically an immigrant faith, so I was really interested in that experience and why it spoke to converts,” said Riccardi-Swartz, a postdoctoral fellow in the Recovering Truth project at Arizona State University. Riccardi-Swartz’s study focused on a community of mostly former evangelical Christians and Catholics who had joined the Russian Orthodox…

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