Source: National Catholic Register COMMENTARY: That Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople would travel to Warsaw to stand alongside a Catholic bishop to call out the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill is altogether remarkable. by Father Raymond J. de Souza The aftershocks of the “ecclesial earthquake” were not long in coming. On Friday, Pope Francis consecrated Ukraine and Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. On Sunday, the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople was in Warsaw. What connects the two events? Neither the Bishop of Rome nor the patriarch of the “New Rome” — Constantinople — take into account any longer possible objections from…
Browsing: Patriarch Kirill
Source: The Tablet The Orthodox world is being shattered by the war in Ukraine. A close adviser to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew reflects frankly on the state of Orthodoxy before the invasion, and imagines how it needs to change if it is to have a future. By JOHN CHRYSSAVGIS On the Sunday of the first week of Great Lent, which this year began on 7 March, the Eastern liturgical cycle celebrates the Feast of Orthodoxy. Sometimes conceitedly called the “Triumph of Orthodoxy” it would be more accurate to describe it as the celebration of the “restoration of images”, for on this…
Rocket damage in Kharkiv, Ukraine. iStock.com/OLeksandr_Kr
Source: Public Orthodoxy by Archpriest Denis J. M. Bradley His Beatitude, Metropolitan Tikhon Members of the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in America Dear Archpastors: We[1] write as painfully concerned, truth–seeking, and truth–committed Orthodox Christians: we are chagrined clergy and lay members of the Orthodox Church in America, who as American citizens value religious and political freedom. Conscience compels us to speak. The unprovoked Russian military invasion and indiscriminate bombardment and levelling of Ukrainian cities have resulted in the violent deaths and maiming of thousands and the dreadful displacement of millions of innocent Ukrainian citizens, among them vulnerable non-combatants: women, children,…
Source: Daily Beast by A. Craig Copetas Beneath the gold onion domes of the Danilov Monastery a few miles south of the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin’s chief shaman explains why Russia is hell-bent on destroying Ukraine. “If we see [Ukraine] as a threat, we have the right to use force to ensure the threat is eradicated,” Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill recently preached to his church’s 90 million faithful followers. “We have entered into a conflict which has not only physical but also metaphysical significance. We are talking about human salvation, something much more important than politics.” The wartime coalition between Putin and his patriarch is called symphonia,…
Church of the Nativity of the Virgin (UOC-MP), built in 1862. Village of Vyazívka Naroditsky district of Zhytomyr region. Damaged by the Russian shelling.
Source: Public Orthodoxy by Jaroslav Skira Suggestively linking a Russian Orthodox primate, an ideology, and genocide may seem provocative or sensationalist. For me, given the current unjustified Russian war on Ukraine, the connections between them are far from that. In this moment in our common history as a human family, ‘naming” a reality is utterly important here for assessing the horrific events in Ukraine and the ideology that is complicit in such violence against the very innocence that characterizes the people of Ukraine. Naming is a profoundly ethical choice. Genocide is not an abstract concept in this present moment for the…
Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with Patriarch Kirill in February 2020.
Source: CNN By Delia Gallagher, CNN (CNN)Russian President Vladimir Putin has given several explanations for his country’s war on Ukraine, and some are more plausible than others. They include stopping NATO’s advance towards Russia’s borders, protecting fellow Russians from “genocide” or the baseless claim of “de-Nazifying” Ukraine. The top-ranking priest in the Russian Orthodox Church, meanwhile, has offered a very different reason for the invasion: gay pride parades. Patriarch Kirill said last week that the conflict is an extension of a fundamental culture clash between the wider Russian world and Western liberal values, exemplified by expressions of gay pride. Yet experts say that…
The Patriarch at the Forgiveness Sunday service on March 6. From Telegram.
Source: Bitter Winter On March 6, ironically Forgiveness Sunday for the Orthodox, Patriarch Kirill abandoned all caution and blessed the war of aggression against Ukraine and the “false freedom” of democratic countries. by Bitter Winter Originally published on March 7, 2022 Note: We publish the translation of the integral version of the sermon delivered by Patriarch Kirill of Moscow on March 6, 2022, in the Cathedral of the Holy Savior in Moscow. Our readers may judge for themselves. Surely, there can be different opinions about the Gay Pride parades, and criticizing these events from a religious point of view is also part…
Patriarch Kirill of Moscow
Source: Orthodox Times The use of Church symbols in the Russian struggle to conquer Ukraine continues. This time, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and Russian National Guard leader Viktor Zolotov pinned their hopes on a “quick” victory over the Ukrainians in an image of the Virgin Mary, which the Patriarch presented to Zolotov during the service. “We believe this image will protect the Russian army and bring our victory faster,” the top military official told Patriarch Kirill at the Church of the Savior in Moscow. As he noted, “things are not going as fast as we would like”. The commander justified…
Source: Orthodox Church in America SYOSSET, NY [OCA] On Sunday, March 13, the first Sunday of Great Lent, the Sunday of Orthodoxy, Archpriest Daniel Andrejuk, Dean of the Representation Church of Saint Catherine the Great Martyr in Moscow, was invited, as it is customary, to the concelebration at Christ the Savior Cathedral presided by His Holiness Patriarch Kirill. His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon took the opportunity of this invitation to have Father Daniel personally deliver a letter to officials within the Moscow Patriarchate for His Holiness imploring him to do what he can to end the war in Ukraine and the suffering and…
H.H. Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and all Russia. Photo: Ivars Kupcis/WCC
Source: World Council of Churches In a 10 March letter, H.H. Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and all Russia responded to a letter sent 2 March by World Council of Churches (WCC) acting general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca asking Patriarch Kirill to mediate so that the war can be stopped. Letter from Archpriest Ioan Sauca Geneva, 2 March 2022 His Holiness Kirill Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia Russian Orthodox Church Your Holiness, It is with great pain and with a breaking heart that I am writing to Your Holiness. The tragic situation of the war in Ukraine has…
Source: Interfax Moscow, February 28, Interfax – Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia in his Sunday sermon after Divine Liturgy in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior said that he prayed for peace in the Russian land that includes “Ukraine, Byelorussia and Russia.” “May the Lord preserve the Russian land. When I say “Russian”, I use the ancient expression from “A Tale of Bygone Years” – “Wherefrom has the Russian land come”, the land which now includes Russia and Ukraine and Belarus and other tribes and peoples,” he said addressing the parishioners. He also called on all believers of…
(L-R) Patriarch Joseph of Alexandria; Metropolitan Epiphaniy of Ukraine; Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople
Source: Orthodox Times Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine Epiphaniy, declares in a message his support to the Patriarchate of Alexandria and Patriarch Theodore. Metropolitan Epiphaniy in his letter to Patriarch Theodore said that “with deep sadness and pain in our being, we learned about the lawless, wicked, and impious decisions that the Church of Russia adopted to incur upon the canonical boundaries of the Patriarchate of Alexandria”. According to Metropolitan of Kyiv, those actions of Patriarch Kirill have no canonical or even Christian motive, but are based solely on revenge for Your Beatitude and the Patriarchate headed by you…