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Book Review of Creation as Sacrament by John Chryssavgis

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By on Orthodox News, Orthodox News Top Stories, Uncategorized

Source: Academia Creation as Sacrament: Reflections on Ecology and Spirituality  by John Chryssavgis (London: T&T Clark, 2018), xi + 220 pp.      When speaking once in a discussion on climate change about the sacramentality of creation, a priest of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America responded to me, “I know there are seven sacraments, but I’ve never heard of creation as a sacrament.” This is exactly the kind of attitude that has itself contributed to an exploitative relationship to the cosmos and which John Chryssavgis hopes to correct with his aptly-titled book, Creation as Sacrament: Reflections on Ecology and Spirituality.…

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Report: “The Pandemic and American Orthodox Parishes”

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Source: OrthodoxReality.org Today we release the report, “The Pandemic and American Orthodox Parishes.” You can download it HERE. If you are one of the 250 priests who participated in this study, we express our deep gratitude to you for sharing your thoughts and your parish’s experience in dealing with the pandemic. Information provided by the study participants was amazingly frank, heartfelt, and insightful. Thanks to the input from parishes representing seven jurisdictions and all parts of the country, we were able to learn about the great variety of local circumstances and parishes’ responses to the pandemic. Some findings presented in the…

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Patriarch Kirill, in the white headdress, leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, at a procession in Moscow last month. Experts say his reluctance to enforce orders against church gatherings has led to an explosion of coronavirus cases in monasteries and convents.Credit...Patriarchal Press Service, via Reuters

A ‘Breakdown of Trust’: Pandemic Corrodes Church-State Ties in Russia

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By on Orthodox News, Orthodox News Top Stories

Source: The New York TImes Even as the monasteries of the Orthodox Church are besieged by the coronavirus, apocalyptic-minded priests balk at state restrictions on public worship. By Andrew Higgins MOSCOW — A physics student at Moscow State University, Dmitri Pelipenko turned away from science in 2018 to devote himself to God, enrolling as a novice monk at Holy Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra, the spiritual center of the Russian Orthodox Church. His spiritual journey, derailed by the coronavirus, came to an abrupt and gruesome end shortly after the Orthodox Easter. Admitted to the hospital after testing positive for the illness, Mr. Pelipenko…

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#GivingTuesdayNow: Support Orthodox Christian Laity

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By on Orthodox News, Orthodox News Top Stories

Source: Orthodox Christian Laity #GivingTuesdayNow emphasizes opportunities to give back to communities and causes in safe ways that allow for social connection and kindness even while practicing physical distancing. Please donate to OCL’s communication ministry that brings the understanding of unity to all Orthodox Christians. Unity in the new normal that follows this pandemic. Our OCL community will assist the Assembly of Bishops to continue to work together as it has during this experience of physical distancing. Live streaming of our liturgical life demonstrates our unity in our diversity and is a role model for others. During this special GivingTuesdayNow…

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WHEN ICONS MAKE YOU SICK

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Source: Public Orthodoxy RELIGIOUS MATERIALITY IN POST-CHERNOBYL CONTAMINATION by Elena Romashko The publication of this essay coincides wit the anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, Saturday, April 26, 1986. In March 2020, we were asked to work from home because of the pandemic of coronavirus. We could not even imagine how quickly the situation would escalate to a global lockdown. Looking at the warm and beautiful weather my husband said, “It’s hard to believe that being outside can be dangerous—the world around looks exactly the same, like nothing has changed.” His words stung me with a flashback: Sonja, one of my informants…

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“If the nurses and doctors and respiratory techs are on the front line, I should be there, too,” says the Rev. Gabriel Ghanoum of his role in palliative care and administering last rites at JFK Medical Center. He’s shown here at St. Nicholas Catholic Church in Delray Beach. [THOMAS CORDY/PALMBEACHPOST.COM]

Where Spirituality, Technology Meet

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Source: The Palm Beach Post Chaplain uses smartphone to connect dying with family members, often during last rites By Joe Capozzi The Palm Beach Post ATLANTIS — The priest’s cellphone buzzed again as he was visiting coronavirus patients. An hour earlier that day, April 1, he had given last rites to yet another COVID-19 patient at JFK Medical Center. But now he was needed again, in another room in the intensive care unit. So the Rev. Gabriel Ghanoum repeated his routine — solemn, courageous and tragically all too familiar — as a humble and technologically savvy hospital chaplain on the…

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A man walks through the empty Monastiraki square, in central Athens on April 9, 2020, as the country remains under lockdown to stop the spread of Covid-19 disease caused by the novel coronavirus. (Photo by Angelos Tzortzinis / AFP) (Photo by ANGELOS TZORTZINIS/AFP via Getty Images)

Greece Has an Elderly Population and a Fragile Economy. How Has It Escaped the Worst of the Coronavirus So Far?

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Source: TIME BY BILLY PERRIGO AND JOSEPH HINCKS This weekend’s Orthodox Easter celebrations in Greece were a low key affair for Michalis Stratakis and his wife Nancy. They still ate lamb, but the meat was oven-cooked instead of carved off a whole animal that had been spit-roasted for hours over charcoals. They painted eggs red according to Greek tradition and played games with family members in Athens, but over cell phone screens from their home on the Greek island of Crete on Sunday, rather than at the usual raucous feast of about 20 friends and relatives. “It was heartbreaking, to tell you the truth, because we didn’t…

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Young Adults: Join the Telos Project Response Team

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

Source: Telos Project Dear Orthodox Young Adults, My name is Billy Tabrizi (CrossRoad ’08) and along with Kosta Nicolozakes (Telos Project, St George Chicago), we are reaching out today in the hopes of rallying some young adults together to help our parishes and communities during COVID-19. It seems like so many of us are already helping our parishes in this new online world, and we think we can come together to make an even bigger difference. Many parishes are worried: parishioners need help, parishes aren’t sure how they are going to pay their bills, and ministries need to be reimagined…

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Transcendent Moments of Faith and Music, from all Orthodox Traditions

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Source: Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church Bulletin, Kankakee, IN Christ is Risen! Alithos Anesti! What a wonderful – against all apparent odds – Holy Week and Easter we had, connected in new and unusual ways – by icons in the pews, by Facebook live and Zoom, by our souls and by Christ’s love and sacrifice. I hope you were able to feel the transcendence of it all. Spiritual music helps, and our Church is loaded with it, and blessed with multiple traditions of sublime combinations of sacred text with melody, harmony, tone, and mood, to create moments that transcend everyday life…

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A Video Compilation of Pascha (Easter) from Home During the 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic

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By on Orthodox News, Orthodox News Top Stories

Source: Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the USA During a painful time of forced separation due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Orthodox Christians united as the one Body of Christ worshiping from home. This short compilation highlights creative ways the faithful celebrated Holy Week and Pascha (Easter) in 2020. Thank you to those who shared their experiences!

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