Source: Cambridge News Written by GARETH MCPHERSON Trainee priests were among the students plunged into crisis when an embittered director of a religious studies institute brought down its distance learning programme, a tribunal heard. Decorated academic Dr Constantinos Athanasopoulos, who was director of distance learning at The Institute For Orthodox Christian Studies (IOCS), pulled the plug on the online course after he was made redundant, the Bury St Edmunds hearing was told. The night before the system crashed on August 4 last year he allegedly told IOCS’ chairman of board of directors Gladys Bland he could “bring down the distance…
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Source: InSerbia [TANJUG] Welcoming the guests, the SPC head conducted a doxology prayer service and pointed to the importance of the Edict of Milan, issued by Roman Emperor Constantine the Great, who was born in today’s Nis, southern Serbia. Patriarch Irinej said that the Edict of Milan is the foundation of the civilization as we know it. The prayer service in the Belgrade cathedral was also attended by representatives of the Roman Catholic Church. The celebrations of 1,700 years since the Edict of Milan will bring together representatives of Orthodox and other churches and religious communities which, as the Serbian…
Source: Catholic News Service By Cindy Wooden VATICAN CITY (CNS) — In societies that trumpet individual rights, see everything as fleeting and see no value in sticking to something that’s difficult, deciding to get married today takes courage, Pope Francis told young people in Assisi. “Don’t be afraid of taking definitive steps, like that of marriage,” the pope told thousands of young adults and teenagers who flocked to see him Oct. 4 in the square outside Assisi’s Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels. As the pope’s meeting-filled day in Assisi turned to evening, he arrived at the basilica and…
Source: Orthodox Church in America NEW YORK, NY [OCA] – Shortly after midnight on Friday, October 4, 2013, a two-alarm fire broke out at Saint Nicholas Cathedral on East 97th Street. The historic cathedral serves as the cathedra of His Eminence, Archbishop Justinian of Naro-Fominsk, Administrator of the [Moscow] Patriarchal Parishes in the USA. According to New York’s WABC Eyewitness News, two firefighters were hurt battling the blaze, which was contained to the cathedral’s basement and took two hours to get under control. Twenty-five units and over 100 firefighters were called to the scene. The cathedral has a long and…
Source: OCA Diocese of New York & New Jersey On Saturday, 21 September, approximately 70 people gathered at a construction site located on Cherry Hill Road in Princeton NJ for “OPERATION PRINCETON” to help establish a new place of worship for the Mother of God, Joy of All Who Sorrow Orthodox Christian community. The day was beautiful, the sun shined and the air was filled with the voices of people sharing, laughing, and conversing about their common work effort. The task was simple, the work a great effort! Young and old worked together to separate stone and soil from a…
Source: International Orthodox Christian Charities October 4, 2013 (Baltimore, MD) – A generation of school children is at risk as the education of Syrian youth threatens to become another casualty of the prolonged conflict. Over the past year, two million youngsters inside Syria were forced to drop out of school according to UNICEF. Many schools inside Syria now serve as emergency shelters for displaced families and the one million child refugees who fled Syria empty-handed lack the uniforms and supplies required to attend class in host country schools. International Orthodox Christian Charities (IOCC), an ACT Alliance member, is helping to bridge…
Editor’s Note: Are there lessons here for all clerical assemblies, no matter what background? Source: The New York Times By LAURIE GOODSTEIN As Pope Francis convened a closed meeting on Tuesday with eight cardinals he appointed to overhaul the Vatican, he used his second revealing interview in two weeks to make a barbed indictment of the failings of the Roman Catholic Church, calling it overly clerical and insular, interested in temporal power and often led by “narcissists.” “Heads of the church have often been narcissists, flattered and thrilled by their courtiers,” he said in the interview, published Tuesday and conducted by one of Italy’s most outspoken…
Source: Assyrian International News Agency (AINA) By Mary Abdelmassih (AINA) — Bishop Anba Makarios of Minya was the target of an unsuccessful assassination attempted this morning. The Bishop was driving into the town of el-Sario in Abou Qorqas, Minya province, when his car came under a hail of bullets from several unidentified persons. The Bishop’s driver was able to drive away and he brought the Bishop to the home of a local Copt, where the Bishop took refuge. But the gunmen followed, surrounded the Copt’s house and shot at it for over 90 minutes, causing extensive damage to its windows,…
Source: Kenneth E Hines Blog Rasha called her fiance Atef on his cell phone. A rebel answered and told her that they captured Atef and had given him the option of converting to Islam. He refused. So they slit his throat. Atef was engaged to be married to Rasha. They are Christians and they lived in the ancient Christian village of Maaloula in Syria where the residents still speak Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke. Earlier this month the village was attacked by rebels of the Free Syrian Army made up of Jihadist factions from all over the Middle East including…
Source: International Orthodox Christian Charities Athens, Greece (IOCC) — Nick, a 61-year-old unemployed construction worker, stands silently in line at a modest storefront in Kallithea, Greece. Doing his best not to be noticed, he and his wife Theodora wait with scores of other people to receive parcels filled with staples from the food bank established by Apostoli, the social service agency of the Archdiocese of Athens, with support from International Orthodox Christian Charities (IOCC). Admitting that he needs help does not come easily for Nick, who lives in this densely populated working class suburb of Athens. His situation is all…
Source: The National Herald by Theodore Kalmoukos One of the many issues revealed in TNH’s interview with Dean Poll, President of the Parish Council of the Archdiocesan Holy Trinity Cathedral of New York (Sept. 14), was that of the $1.9 million annual budget, $200,000 of it goes toward the choir – which includes expenses to hire professional singers, many of which are not Orthodox, or even Christian. Every Sunday they are paid, as professionals, to partake in the Holy Eucharist which is “the sacrament of the sacraments.” This unprecedented act proves very vividly the extreme secularization of the eschatological nature…
Source: The National Herald by Katherine Boulukos Special to The National Herald BROOKLYN – On September 22, a memorial service was held at the Three Hierarchs Greek Orthodox Church in Brooklyn, under the leadership of Very Reverend Archimandrite Eugene Pappas and His Grace, Bishop Sevastianos of Zela. The service commemorated the Smyrna Holocaust of 1922, honoring the blessed memory of the millions who were lost during that painful period. This particular recognition is coordinated annually by Archon Depoutatos Basil (Basilios) Theodosakis, who has dedicated his life to raising awareness of the genocide to global attention. He is credited for pursing…