Source: Orthodox Christian Laity (West Palm Beach, FL) His Eminence Metropolitan Alexios – Atlanta, GA (Greek Orthodox Archdiocese – GOA) and His Grace Bishop Antoun – Miami, FL (Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese – AOCA) celebrated the Feast of Theophany in an Inter-Orthodox Service ON January 11 at Saint Catherine Greek Orthodox Church, West Palm Beach, FL. Clergy and Laity from South East Florida gathered together with the Hierarchs for the celebration. This is the first time a hierarch from a jurisdiction other than the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese was invited to serve. The invitation and the concelebration are symbolic of efforts…
Browsing: Orthodox Christian Unity
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…
Source: First Things by Ivan Plis October was not a month of especial cooperation in the global Eastern Orthodox communion. Protesting the appointment in March of an archbishop for Qatar by the Church of Jerusalem, the Church of Antioch withdrew its participation from “all the Assemblies of Canonical Orthodox Bishops abroad.” The Antiochian Patriarchate claims sole authority over the small Gulf state though at present it has no parishes of its own there. The assemblies affected by this decision include the canonical episcopal council in North America, which counts several Antiochian bishops among its officers. Meanwhile, following a visit to Indonesia by Serbia’s Patriarch Irinej,…
Source: Orthodox Christian Laity As part of its 26th Annual Meeting, Orthodox Christian Laity is sponsoring a Forum on Saturday, November 2 from 9:00 am to noon at the Holy Trinity Serbian Orthodox Church in Moraga, CA (Click here for more detailed information). The program will focus on the work of the Assembly of Bishops with an update on its September 2013 conclave. In discussing the forum, OCL President Susan Haikalis said: “Although the majority of Orthodox Christians in America support the idea of unity, few of us are aware of the work of the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops…
Pentecost 2013 As we take leave of the Paschal Liturgical Cycle of Lent through Pentecost, I want to take this opportunity to reflect upon a book I re-read during this period: Christ in Our Midst by Father Theodore Stylianopoulos. The book was written in 1980, and I was familiar with it when I was putting together the Chapter on “Spiritual Renewal” in the OCL publication “Project for Orthodox Renewal”. You can read this work online on our website. The discussion and insights presented in Christ In Our Midst, which was written by Father Ted as he worked on the Commission…
Source: Orthodox Christian Laity Sunday April 1974…Sunday of Orthodoxy…Why the failure to unite the Orthodox Church in the United States? The Assembly of Bishops has this task in 2013. Let us pray that they have the strength and courage to work in synergy with the Holy Spirit to do God’s Will for His Church. “It is high time that the Orthodox Christians in America rise to the demands of the time, look ahead and endeavor to respond to the unanswered questions of a whole generation – the generation of the American-born Orthodox, who do not understand the reason or reasons…
Source: Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of North and Central America His Grace Bishop Basil, Secretary of the Assembly, has been interviewed by Fr. Christopher Metropulos of Orthodox Christian Network. Listen to the interview here.
Source: Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops in North America The 2012 Annual Meeting of the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of North and Central America will be convened Monday through Wednesday, September 10 through 12 at the O’Hare Airport Hilton Hotel in Chicago, Illinois. This is the third Annual Meeting of the Assembly which consists of the sixty-six active hierarchs serving the Church in this geographic region: eleven residing in Canada, five in Mexico and fifty in the USA. The first annual meeting was convened in New York City in 2010 and the second in Chicago in 2011. Provided below…
Source: The National Herald For the last two decades the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) and other Orthodox Christian groupings have been tested by internal and external forces. The OCA has been humbled by its testing. It remains to be seen if it will be able to rise up with wisdom. The OCA’s internal problems have been presented impartially by Dr. Andrew Walsh in the Spring 2012 issue of Religion in the News. Vol. 14, No. 1. Dr. Walsh asks an important question: “Does or should anyone outside the group care what happens to a tiny, historically ethnic religious body…
Source: Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of North America The Legal Affairs Committee of the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops held its first face to face meeting in Atlanta, Georgia on July 10, 2012. Chaired by Bishop Daniel of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA, the committee is composed of attorney consultants from the Orthodox jurisdictions participating in Assembly. At this meeting the committee began legal planning to meet the immediate needs of the Assembly. This committee must consider and resolve a host of issues as it works to support the Assembly in laying ground work for organizational unity…
Source: The National Herald | George Matsoukas, Executive Director of Orthodox Christian Laity Having looked over the information concerning the recently completed National Assembly of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese, which took place in Phoenix, AZ and having talked to some members of my local community in Southeast Florida who attended, I conclude that there were no workshops, discussions, or information presented on the work of the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of North and Central America. Unity of the Orthodox in America was not on the conference’s agenda. I find this amazing and shocking. The 14 Patriarchs of the worldwide…