Source: Orthodox Church in America SPRINGFIELD, VA [OCA] The Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America met for its Regular Fall 2025 Session from November 10–14, 2025, under the presidency of His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon. The meetings were held at the Hotel Belvoir in Springfield, VA, and at St. Mark Orthodox Church in Bethesda, MD. The session opened on Tuesday, November 11, with a Molieben, followed by a retreat for the hierarchs facilitated by Archpriest Alexander Garklavs, former Chancellor of the Orthodox Church in America. After lunch, the Holy Synod convened its first meeting, beginning with the Report of the…
Browsing: Orthodox Church in America
Source: St. Phoebe’s Center for the Deaconess September 23, 2025 Dear Supporters of the St Phoebe Center, This report is an update following the Orthodox Church in America’s (OCA) 21st All American Council (AAC) held in Phoenix AZ in July of 2025. We offer this update in love for the Church and with our prayers for its flourishing in America and everywhere. Earlier this year, many of you who are members of the OCA provided the St. Phoebe Center with your responses to the Metropolitan’s solicitation for reflections on the life of the Church in advance of the AAC. Thank…
Source: Orthodox Church in America SPRINGFIELD, VA [OCA] Since 2022, the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America has designated the first Sunday of October as Church Musician Sunday. The yearly recognition of church musicians is thus connected with the memory of Saints Saint Romanus the Melodist Romanus the Melodist and John Koukouzelis, commemorated together on October 1. This celebration, marked this year on October 5, highlights the essential role of liturgical music in Orthodox Christian worship and the important role of church musicians in the life of the Church. As Church Musician Sunday approaches, parishes are encouraged to: Mark this…
Source: Orthodox Church in America SPRINGFIELD, VA [OCA] The Orthodox Church in America announces the reorganization and expansion of the Clergy Wives Ministry under the Office of Pastoral Life. This transition affirms the Church’s ongoing commitment to supporting clergy wives and their families. It also brings the Clergy Wives Ministry into alignment with the other established programs of the Office of Pastoral Life and consistent with the structure of other departments and offices of the Orthodox Church in America. In this way, the ministry is being elevated to a higher and more intentional level, ensuring that it will continue with the same seriousness…
Source: Orthodox Church in America SPRINGFIELD, VA [OCA] The Orthodox Church in America’s Office of Pastoral Life has announced that its Clergy Wives Ministry has been awarded a grant of $3,000 from the Elsie Skvir Ganister Foundation Fund at the First Community Foundation Partnership of Pennsylvania. The first-ever In-Person Clergy Wives Retreat is scheduled to take place at St. Tikhon’s Monastery from July 27–30, 2026. The grant will help fund rooms for approximately forty of the clergy wives attendees from across the Orthodox Church in America, making participation more accessible for clergy wives who may not otherwise be able to come. The Elsie Skvir Ganister Foundation Fund supports…
Source: Orthodox Church in America SPRINGFIELD, VA [OCA] The OCA Department of Christian Education has released five more lessons at three grade levels in the “Blessed is the Kingdom” series, a new school-age curriculum based on themes presented in the popular “Essential Orthodox Christian Beliefs,” assisting parishes and Church School teachers in the formation of Orthodox Christian students. The project’s goal is to provide 32 lessons, at five grade levels: preschool, kindgergarten through second grade, third grade through fifth grade, and middle school. A high school curriculum is also being developed based closely on the original text of EOCB. The development of this school-age…
Source: Orthodox Church in America JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA [OCA] Between June 18 and 24, Matushka Rebecca Luft, Ph.D., of the Diocese of the Midwest, represented the Orthodox Church in America at the meeting of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches in Johannesburg, South Africa. Notably, resulting from the advocacy of Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox participants, the Central Committee produced a Minute on St. Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai, Egypt in which they asked the WCC General Secretary to write a formal letter to the president of Egypt expressing the WCC’s concern and “to call for a clear and binding agreement…
Source: Orthodox Church in America PHOENIX, AZ [OCA] On Wednesday, July 16, 2025, during the 21st All-American Council in Phoenix, AZ, the Diocese of the West convened a Special Diocesan Assembly under the presidency of His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon, Locum Tenens of the Diocese, to consider the nomination of a new bishop following the retirement of His Eminence Archbishop Benjamin on July 15. The Assembly nominated the Very Reverend Archimandrite Vasily (Permiakov) as their candidate for Bishop of San Francisco and the West. That same day, the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America, meeting in a Special Summer Session under the presidency of…
Source: Public Orthodoxy Sergei Chapnin Director of Communications at the OCSC of Fordham University and Chief Editor of The Gifts (Дары) Almanac As an Orthodox Christian witnessing the systematic persecution of clergy and faithful in Russia, I find myself compelled to break the deafening indifference within our American Orthodox communities. My heart grows heavier each day as friends—priests I’ve known for decades—suffer for their faithfulness to the Gospel of peace. Here, I must acknowledge that Ukrainians are dying daily under Russian aggression. At the same time, hundreds of pro-war priests from Russia actively support the war efforts in the occupied…
Source: Orthodox Church in America SPRINGFIELD, VA [OCA] At the upcoming 21st All-American Council, taking place July 14–18, 2025, in Phoenix, AZ, a new official icon of All Saints of North America will debut for the veneration of the faithful. In January 2024, His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon issued a call for proposals for a new icon of All Saints of North America. In response, His Beatitude’s Office received a number of proposals from iconographers around the world. After giving each entry due consideration, His Beatitude decided to commission the new icon from master iconographer Anton Daineko, instructor at the Icon School of St. Tikhon’s Art Institute in South Canaan,…
Source: Orthodox Church in America ANCHORAGE, AK [OCA] Following the canonization services for the Righteous Olga of Kwethluk in her home village, His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon and his delegation traveled to Anchorage over the weekend of June 21–22, 2025 to continue the celebration of St. Olga’s Glorification. Nearly one thousand faithful gathered at St. Innocent Cathedral to honor the newly glorified saint. Upon arrival at the cathedral for the All-Night Vigil on Saturday evening, His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon processed into the church bearing the relics of St. Olga. These were set out for veneration by the faithful. The veneration of the relics and anointing of the…
Source: Orthodox Church in America ANCHORAGE, AK [OCA] On June 18, 2025, His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon traveled to Alaska to preside at the services for the glorification of the Righteous Olga of Kwethluk, where hundreds of pilgrims gathered for the event from across Alaska and North America. His Beatitude and his delegation, which included Archpriest Alessandro Margheritino, Chancellor of the Orthodox Church in America and Deacon Alexander Woodill, were greeted at the Anchorage airport on Wednesday, June 18, by His Eminence Archbishop Alexei of Sitka and Alaska, along with diocesan clergy and faithful. On Thursday morning, June 19, His Beatitude, together with a delegation of…