Source: In Communion by NICHOLAS SOOY By now, everyone has left Crete. Everything has been wrapped up. My skin, for its part in this, is a shade darker and a shade redder. The Council has ended. But the conciliar process has not. One of the phrases that is used in the Council documents is “liturgy after the liturgy.” This phrase is meant to capture the manifold ways in which prayer, love, and sacramentality are to shape the whole of life and the cosmos, and not just the experiences we have during liturgical services. After the liturgy each day at the Council,…
Browsing: Orthodox Church
Source: Pravoslavie.ru The Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church concerned itself with the matter ofAutonomy and the Means by Which it is Proclaimed. Therefore, the respective document, which was submitted by the Fifth Pre-Conciliar Pan-Orthodox Conference (Chambésy, October 10-17, 2009) was discussed and was approved with some minor amendments as follows: The questions of the text examined by the Council addressed: a) the concept, nature, and various forms of the institution of autonomy; b) the prerequisites for a local Church to request autonomy from the autocephalous Church to which it belongs; c) the exclusive prerogative of an autocephalous…
Source: Pravoslavie.ru ENCYCLICAL OF THE HOLY AND GREAT COUNCIL OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit With a hymn of thanksgiving, we praise and worship God in Trinity, who has enabled us to gather together during the days of the feast of Pentecost here on the island of Crete, which has been sanctified by St. Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, and his disciple Titus, his “true son in the common faith” (Tit 1.4), and, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to conclude the sessions of this…
Source: Pravoslavie.ru Buenos Aires, June 24, 2016 An open letter from METROPOLITAN PAUL of ALEPPO addressed to all the Hierarchs of the Orthodox Church on the Feast of the Holy Spirit My chains, the bond of our unity Short time or long—I pray to God that not only you… may become what I am, except for these chains (Acts 26:29) Your Holinesses, Your Beatitudes, Your Eminences and Your Graces, Hierarchs of the Orthodox Church, My Fathers and brothers in the grace of the episcopate, “Apostles of Christ” and “Servants” of the people of God in all the oikoumene, This year,…
Source: Pravoslavie.ru The Orthodox Church, as the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, in her profound ecclesiastical self-consciousness, believes unflinchingly that she occupies a central place in the matter of the promotion of Christian unity in the world today. The Orthodox Church founds the unity of the Church on the fact of her establishment by our Lord Jesus Christ, and on the communion in the Holy Trinity and in the sacraments. This unity is expressed through the apostolic succession and the patristic tradition and is lived out in the Church up to the present day. The Orthodox Church has the…
Source: Pravoslavie.ru The contribution of the Orthodox Church in realizing peace, justice, freedom, fraternity and love between peoples, and in the removal of racial and other discriminations. For God so loved the world that he gave his Only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life (Jn 3:16). The Church of Christ exists in the world, but is not of the world (cf. Jn 17:11, 14-15). The Church as the Body of the incarnate Logos of God (John Chrysostom, Homily before Exile, 2 PG 52, 429) constitutes the living “presence” as the sign and image…
Source: Pravoslavie.ru THE IMPORTANCE OF FASTING AND ITS OBSERVANCE TODAY Fasting is a divine commandment (Gen 2:16-17). According to Basil the Great, fasting is as old as humanity itself; it was prescribed in paradise (On Fasting, 1, 3. PG 31, 168A). It is a great spiritual endeavor and the foremost expression of the Orthodox ascetic ideal. The Orthodox Church, in strict conformity with the apostolic precepts, the synodal canons, and the patristic tradition as a whole, has always proclaimed the great significance of fasting for our spiritual life and salvation. The annual liturgical cycle reflects the entire patristic teaching on…
Source: Pravoslavie MESSAGE OF THE HOLY AND GREAT COUNCIL OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH To the Orthodox people and to all people of good will To God, “the Father of mercies and all comfort,” we address a hymn of thanksgiving and praise for having enabled us to gather during the week of Pentecost (18-26 June 2016) on Crete, where the Apostle Paul and his disciple Titus preached the Gospel in the early years of the life of the Church. We give thanks to the Triune God who was well pleased that in one accord we should bring to a conclusion the…
Source: Orthodox Church in America ORTHODOX ACADEMY OF CRETE [Multiple Sources] The Holy and Great Council officially concluded with the Patriarchal concelebration of the Divine Liturgy on June 26, 2016—the Sunday of All Saints—at which His All-Holiness, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople presided. The Council’s concluding session was held one day earlier. According to a release issued by the Press Office of the Holy and Great Council, His All-Holiness, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, “expressed his joy for the willing and positive response of the Local Autocephalous Orthodox Churches in attendance. At the same time, he underlined the immense efforts, over many…
Source: Press Office of the Ecumenical Patriarchate CRETE—On the third day of the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church, the Divine Liturgy was celebrated by His Beatitude Patriarch Irinej of Serbia at the Sacred Patriarchal and Stavropegial Monastery of Gonia. Afterward, the hierarchs continued their work in the sixth, seventh, and eighth sessions of the Council. In the sixth session, the hierarchs of the Council continued their discussion on The Orthodox Diaspora; in the seventh session, they focused on Autonomy and the Means by which it is Declared; and in the eighth session, they reviewed The Importance of…
Source: Press Office of the Holy and Great Council CRETE—The official texts of the opening speeches and adresses for the Holy and Great Council are available at https://www.holycouncil.org/documents in their original languages. Translations will be posted as they become available. More than 320 journalists, representing 138 media outlets and 25 countries, have received credentials for the Council. Daily media briefings are broadcast live at approximately 15.30 GMT +3 (8:30 am EDT) at https://www.holycouncil.org/live, and available as video on demand. The Council continues meeting through June 25, concluding with the Divine Liturgy on June 26. On June 25, the Closing Session of…
Source: Sputnik News The budget of the council of Eastern Orthodox Churches underway on the Greek island of Crete has amounted to 2.5 million euros (some $2.8 million), including $1.5 million from US donors, the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America said Tuesday. KOLYMBARI (CRETE) (Sputnik) — According to Father Alexandros, the US funds have come from non-state sources only, and the US government was involved neither in organizing nor in financing the Council. “It is 2.5 million euros. All these are funds from donors, mostly from Greeks living in the United States and Greeks in Greece itself. Donors from the US have provided 1.5 million euros, from Greece — one million,” Reverend…