Source: Religion News Service Christian leaders stress that the council and its anniversary still have relevance in the modern day, despite theological divides. By David I. Klein İZNIK, Turkey (RNS) — For Christian leaders across the world and across denominations, the anniversary of the first Council of Nicaea is providing an opportunity for introspection and, potentially, the beginning of further dialogue. Seventeen hundred years ago — from May through July 325 — more than 200 bishops of early Christian churches gathered in the town of Nicaea, then in the Roman province of Bithynia (now İznik, Turkey), to determine a unified…
Browsing: Pope Francis
Source: The National Herald Originally published on April 22, 2025 The late Pope Francis – whose ecclesiastical title was Bishop of Rome (Old Rome, as Constantinople is the New Rome) – was, both in life and after his exit from time (what we commonly call ‘death’), a different kind of Pope. During his life, he was the Pope “of Christ’s least brethren”: the poor, the lonely, the marginalized, the imprisoned – all those who, as the saying goes, “have no place in the sun.” It was with these that Christ – the One of the Holy Trinity – chose to…
Source: Orthodox Church in America ROME, ITALY [OCA] With the blessing of His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon, a delegation of the Orthodox Church in America traveled to Rome to attend the funeral of Pope Francis, who reposed on April 21, 2025. The delegation, appointed by His Beatitude, was comprised of His Grace Bishop Andrei of Cleveland, Auxiliary to the Romanian Orthodox Episcopate of America, and Archpriest Alessandro Margheritino, Acting Chancellor and Secretary of the Orthodox Church in America. The funeral services took place on Saturday, April 26, in Saint Peter’s Square, where an estimated 400,000 people gathered. Upon their arrival on April 25,…
Source: Yankee Athonite Michael Warren Davis Pope Francis is dead. May God remember him forever in His kingdom! What will be his legacy? Catholics will be wrestling with this question for many years to come. Their conversations will be held in public; nevertheless, they are private. They’ll be held on their own terms—terms like infallible and indefectable. I no longer accept those terms, which is why I became Orthodox. Yet that means I have no right to discuss what Pope Francis “means” for the Catholic Church. Those conversations must be kept in the family. I would, however, like to say a few words…
Source: Catholic News Agency By Hannah Brockhaus Rome Newsroom, Nov 28, 2024 / 06:30 am Pope Francis told a group of theologians on Thursday he plans to visit Turkey for the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea in 2025. Bartholomew I, the Eastern Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople, anticipated that Francis would be making the trip in comments to reporters in May. In September, he confirmed that the joint trip is expected to happen at the end of May 2025. The Council of Nicaea took place in the ancient city of Nicaea in 325 A.D. in the former Roman Empire, which…
Source: Peter Anderson, Seattle USA Pope Francis, in his Angelus address on Sunday, August 25, made a strong appeal relating to the religious situation in Ukraine. The official English translation of his remarks can be read at https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/angelus/2024/documents/20240825-angelus.html. With respect to Ukraine, he stated: I continue to follow with sorrow the fighting in Ukraine and the Russian Federation. And in thinking about the laws recently adopted in Ukraine, I fear for the freedom of those who pray, because those who truly pray always pray for all. A person does not commit evil because of praying. If someone commits evil against his…
Source: National Catholic Reporter Vatican City — The most important outcome of the current Synod of Bishops on synodality is the synodal process itself and not the hot-button topics discussed, Pope Francis said. With the second synod assembly scheduled for October, the pope said the synod process is approaching its “most challenging and important” stage — the point at which it must become “prophetic.” “Now it is a matter of translating the work of the previous stages into choices that will give impetus and new life to the mission of the church in our time,” he told members of the…
Source: Religion Unplugged by Jovan Tripkovic Despite coming to a conclusion just a month ago, the Synod on Synodality of the Catholic church continues to make headlines. Recently, Bishop Robert Barron expressed his “frank disagreement” with the synod’s report, which asserts that advances in the sciences require an evolution in the church’s moral teaching on human sexuality. Although the concept of a synod is new within the Roman Catholic church, it has a long-standing tradition in Orthodox Christianity. Metropolitan Job of Pisidia was invited to participate in the synod in Rome. On Oct. 9, he delivered a reflection on the…
Source: Peter Anderson, Seattle USA On January 23, 2023, President Zelensky of Ukraine signed Decree № 26/2023 “On the application of personal special economic and other restrictive measures (sanctions).” https://www.president.gov.ua/documents/262023-45613 Attached to the decree are the names of 22 individuals, all of whom are representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church. Six individuals are sanctioned for 30 years, while 16 are sanctioned for five years. See also https://lb.ua/society/2023/01/24/543485_zelenskiy_zaprovadiv_sanktsii_proti.html. The first person on the list of those sanctioned for 30 years is Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev), presently Metropolitan of Budapest and Hungary. As is well-known, he was chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department…
Source: Christianity Daily BY KATHLEEN ORENZA If Pope Francis’ most recent request is accepted, it is possible that the disagreement that has lasted for centuries between Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches on how to determine the date of Easter may finally be resolved. Pope Francis, at a meeting on November 19 with Mar Awa III, the head of the Assyrian Church of the East, called for an end to misunderstandings regarding the manner in which Catholics and Eastern churches establish the date of Easter each spring. Pope Francis Calling To End Disagreements Between Catholic, Orthodox “Let us have the courage…
Source: National Catholic Register The Russian Orthodox Church will send a delegation to the congress, but Kirill will not go. CNA Staff Vatican August 25, 2022 Patriarch Kirill of Moscow will not attend an interreligious summit in Kazakhstan in September, where it was hoped he would meet with Pope Francis to discuss a peaceful resolution to the six-month-long war in Ukraine. The Pope will travel to the Central Asian nation for the VII Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions in the city of Nur-Sultan on Sept. 13-15. The Russian Orthodox Church will send a delegation to the congress,…
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…