Source: Virtue Online By Ralph H. Sidway, guest contributor Scarcely a day goes by now where we do not read of yet another in a constellation of initiatives being undertaken by both the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian government on behalf of persecuted Christians and other victims in Syria, Egypt, and elsewhere in the world. For instance, on July 31 it was announced that a charitable drive launched at the end of June by Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia had raised US$1.3 Million to assist victims of the Syrian armed conflict. That these funds will be distributed…
Browsing: Russian Orthodox Church
Source: RIA Novosti MOSCOW, August 8 (RIA Novosti) – The funeral of Pavel Adelgeim, the Orthodox priest stabbed to death in the northwest Russian city of Pskov earlier this week, took place Thursday in the presence of about 1,000 mourners at the Church of the Myrrh Bearers, where he served for the last decades of his life. A religious dissident who lost a leg during a three-year stint in a Soviet prison camp, Adelgeim was one of only a handful of priests willing to publicly criticize the modern Orthodox Church. He was killed on Monday evening by a man, reportedly…
Source: RIA Novosti MOSCOW, July 29 (RIA Novosti) – Neptune, the Roman god of the sea, will reportedly no longer be appearing at Russian Navy Day celebrations because the Orthodox Church, the strongest religion in the country, has protested against pagan characters at such events. Offending religious believers is a crime in Russia since last month. Violators face up to three years in prison. Pagan beings that were not aboard Noah’s Arc do not belong “at a celebration of an Orthodox Christian navy,” a Church representative told the armed forces branch, according to a military spokesman cited by Russian media.…
Source: Sobornost MOSCOW, July 25 (RIA Novosti) – Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday praised the role of Orthodox Christianity in the country’s history and congratulated the heads of the world’s Orthodox churches on the 1025th anniversary of the Christianization of Kievan Rus, a medieval state comprising parts of modern-day Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. “The adoption of Christianity became a turning point in the fate of our fatherland, made it an inseparable part of the Christian civilization and helped it turn into one of the largest world powers,” Putin said in a message addressed to participants of a commemorative celebration…
Source: AFP BB News SAINT-PETERSBURG (AFP) – Around 65,000 people have queued for hours in Saint Petersburg to see a religious relic brought from Greece, officials said Saturday, in the latest sign of the Russian Orthodox Church’s influence in post-Soviet Russia. The cross of Saint Andrew — said to be a relic of the X-shaped cross on which Andrew the Apostle was crucified — was placed in Saint Petersburg’s Kazan Cathedral on Thursday after arriving from its historic home in Patras in Greece. In just the first days of its display, there were some 65,000 visitors and the numbers are…
Source: Nanaimo Daily News Julie Chadwick, Daily News Found at the root of a tree in 1298, a revered religious icon with a long and colourful history will make its first-ever local appearance. The Kursk-Root Icon is a religious painting considered to be one of the most ancient and holy icons in the Russian Orthodox church. Housed in the Russian Synodal Cathedral in New York, the icon is currently on a cross-Canada tour that makes a stop at the Russian Orthodox church in Nanaimo on Monday. “Central to orthodox religious practice is iconography or images,” said Philosoph Uhlman, a priest…
Source: RIA Novosti HARBIN, May 14 (RIA Novosti) – The leader of Russia’s Orthodox Church conducted a landmark service in the Chinese city of Harbin on Tuesday, the first in several decades. Patriarch Kirill, accompanied by a large Orthodox clergy delegation, sang a hymn celebrating Easter at a 1930-built cathedral in the city. Kirill’s visit to China, which began last week, is the first by a leader of the Russian Orthodox Church. Harbin, in northeast China, founded by imperial Russia in 1898, became a refuge for White Russian émigrés fleeing their homeland after their side lost the civil war in…
Source: RIA Novosti BEIJING, May 10 (RIA Novosti) – The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, on Friday arrived in China for an official visit during which he will carry out services in Orthodox Cathedrals and meet with senior Chinese officials. “The head of the Russian Orthodox Church will meet with government leaders in China, leaders of religious groups, and also with the Chinese officials responsible for religious affairs,” the Patriarch’s press service told RIA Novosti. During the five-day visit, the Patriarch will hold a service in the Pokrovsky Cathedral in Harbin, and will meet members of China’s…
Source: The Guardian The latest addition to the Russian military arsenal takes the form of an airborne church complete with parachuting priests by Oliver Wainwright The Russian military unveiled an unlikely new weapon in its arsenal this month – an army of parachuting priests. The unit of chaplains, who have joined the Russian Airborne Force to train in parachute jumping and vehicle assembly, will operate out of flatpack churches that can be airlifted in to wherever soldiers may be stationed. The church could be mistaken for a standard-issue army cabin, taking the form of a khaki-coloured shed on wheels, were…
Source: The Telegraph By Damian Thompson There’s a quaint Anglican concept of the universal Church known as the “branch theory”. This claims that there are three main branches to apostolic Christianity: Roman, Orthodox and Anglican. It’s much favoured by Church of England clerics who aren’t very keen on “Romans”, as they call Catholics, and convey their anti-Papist sentiment in pro-Orthodox code, forever banging on about the riches of Byzantine spirituality, the mystical power of icons, etc. Richard Chartres, the Bishop of London, is an example of this breed. What these pro-Orthodox Anglicans don’t stress is that ordaining women priests was just…
Source: Pravoslavie.ru His Holiness Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia On March 23, 2013, the eve of the first Sunday of Great Lent—the Sunday of the Triumph of Orthodoxy, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia lead the Vigil service at Sretensky Stavropegic Monastery in Moscow. At the end of the service, abbot of the monastery Archimandrite Tikhon thanked His Holiness for finding the opportunity to celebrate this important service with them, and also for his Patriarchal support and blessing upon the monastery’s plans to build a new church dedicated to the New Martyrs of Russia, which…
Source: Catholic World News Three days after Pope Francis received a Marian icon as a gift from Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, the Pope gave the icon as a gift to Pope Emeritus Benedict. Metropolitan Hilarion, the Russian Orthodox Church’s chief ecumenical officer, presented the icon of Our Lady, Support of the Humble, along with a book, to Pope Francis during a March 20 audience; Pope Francis in turn presented the icon to the Pope Emeritus on March 23. Pope Francis told his predecessor that when he had received the icon, and been told that it…