by Alan Rummel Farrell is a small town in western Pennsylvania which once thrived as a steel town and supported five very active Orthodox parishes. Today, the steel mills are gone and the parishes are struggling. This is a story of how they have made a beginning to work together so as to survive. It all started during a general assembly meeting of Annunciation (Evangelismos) Greek Orthodox Church. Our membership is now down to 28 families, and we needed some help from other parishes to pull off another festival. It was suggested at the meeting to ask the assistance of other Orthodox…
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Source: The Republic TERRY MATTINGLY – Scripps Howard News Service It happens all the time: Church leaders stand at podiums and urge members of their flocks to go and share their faith, striving to win new converts. These speeches rarely make news, because they are not unusual. But something unusual happened earlier this month in Brookline, Mass. “You will surely agree that our mission … is to lead our brothers and sisters — both inside and outside the church — to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,” said the featured speaker. “This is becoming more and more difficult because many…
By Maria Korologou On October 15th, Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople called on the monks of Mount Athos to stay away from financial investments and to completely devote themselves to their mission. The Ecumenical Patriarch, who is on Mount Athos since Tuesday the 15th in order to officiate the celebrations for the centenary of the integration of Mount Athos to Greece, was very clear in his speech to the monks. Patriarch Bartholomew appeared to be well aware of what is happening in Mount Athos’s society, and he talked about the unfavorable conditions there, due to the general crisis of the Greek state. During the Divine Liturgy,…
Source: The Southampton Press (27east.com) By Dana Shaw Work on the mosaic that will grace the entrance to the Dormition of the Virgin Mary Greek Orthodox Church of the Hamptons in Shinnecock Hills began last week. Artisans from Tuscany began assembling the mosaic, which was constructed in Italy and brought over in pieces. According to Father Constantine Lazarakis, the mosaic depicts the Dormition of the Virgin Mary, sometimes translated as the “Falling Asleep of the Theotokos.” Theotokos is the term used most often in the Orthodox Church to refer to the Virgin Mary; it means “the Mother of God.” The…
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: Greek Orthodox Christians for Truth and Reform Two recently published articles, one in the Orthodox Observer and the other in The National Herald caught the attention of our Editors. Both concern the administration and the future of our Church and Faith. They come from two different perspectives yet both accurately indicate the present condition. Both authors draw upon their own views and reach, in our minds, the identical conclusion that foreshadows the future of our Church. These authors have not yet fully appreciated the foresight, power or the precision of their observations. Remarkably, it is as if both of…
Source: The Algemeiner The Palestinian Christian Initiative, an anti-Israel Christian group in Israel, said it condemned an Israel Defense Force program aimed at recruiting Christian cadets. While Christians around the world praised the increased Christian enlistment in the Israeli Army, the group, known as Kairos Palestine, denounced the news. A statement from the group was posted by Palestinian site International Middle East Center, and highlighted on Sunday by anonymousblogger Elder of Ziyon. “Those who call for recruiting Christians to the occupation army do not represent us, do not represent our Churches, and do not represent the Christians. It seems that some of those who…
Source: The National Herald To the Editor: I write to reply to your irresponsible and unnecessarily vitriolic editorial in your May 25 edition entitled “Not Even the Greek Flag?” in support of your belief that a Greek Orthodox Church in the United States must regularly fly the Greek Flag along with the American and Patriarchal flags. You make a number of misleading, derogatory, and pejorative allegations. I will refer to only three. 1) As Fr. George Stephanopoulos states in his article concerning the name of the Greek Orthodox Church, the word “Greek” is not used to describe just the Orthodox…
Source: Greek Reporter – USA The Archbishop of Athens and All Greece Ieronymos described the Diaspora as a “great chapter of our history” and as “Greece outside the borders of Greece” in an interview with the New York newspaper The National Herald. He is the first Primate of the Greek Orthodox Church to officially visit the Greek-American community in the last 50 years. Ieronymos was the guest of Archbishop Demetrios of America and his visit will start on May 15 in Brookline, Mass., adjacent to Boston, where he will receive an Honorary Doctorate of Theology at the Holy Cross Greek…
Source: Southeast European Times The Greek Orthodox Church refuses to allow the practice, but analysts said the church should be more compassionate. By Andy Dabilis for Southeast European Times in Athens The refusal of the Greek Orthodox Church to allow cremation has sparked a debate in the country. With urban cemeteries filling so fast that bodies are dug up after three years and put in ossuaries so plots can be reused, Greece gave approval for cremation in 2006. Although Athens gave licensing authority to local governments, no one has been able to get past opposition from the powerful church. “Cremation…
Source: CBS News (CBS) BOSTON – Police are looking for the thieves who broke into a church a few miles from Boston and stole a safe, chalices, Bibles, and blessing crosses, CBS Boston reported. It happened sometime Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning at the Taxiacrche/Archangels Greek Orthodox Church in Watertown, Mass. Police say the thieves broke in the boiler room door in the basement, went up to the church office and ransacked it. They believe the initial motivation may have been the church’s 75 lb. safe, which was taken from the office, according to CBS Boston. Father Demetrios Tonias…
Editor’s Note: Please see the author’s comment in the Comment Section at the end of the article. Source: The National Herald By V. Rev. Fr. Steven C. Salaris Last year I attended a clergy gathering where we had several “workshops” discussing the importance of Orthodox Christian Fellowship (OCF) ministry to college students, and what I call “The 60%.” This term derives from a recent study revealing that 60% of college students never return to church after college… So why do 60% of our college youth leave Orthodoxy? This is a difficult question to answer, but I have come up with several hypotheses.…