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…
Browsing: Russian Orthodox Church
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: 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…
Source: Public Othodoxy PERSONAL REFLECTIONS ON RUSSIA’S WAR ON UKRAINE by Rev. Dr. John Chryssavgis | ελληνικά | Română Few, if any, would go so far as to claim that Patriarch Kirill, as head of the Orthodox Church in Russia (or “the Russias,” as he likes to say), could be charged with crimes against humanity or war crimes for not preventing unwarranted and unjustifiable military aggression that has cost innocent lives in just the last few days. At the same time, many, if not most, would concur that President Putin should be charged with such atrocities. Even with his egregious violations of conventional law, however,…
Source: Religion News Service Their characterizations of the conflict, however, are very different. By Claire Giangravé, Jack Jenkins VATICAN CITY (RNS) — Addressing the faithful on Thursday (Feb. 24), prelates associated with a Moscow-linked subset of Orthodox Christianity issued statements lamenting the suffering caused by the ongoing attack against Ukraine by Russian forces and calling for peace. Speaking to members of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church who answer to the Moscow Patriarchate, Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev called the invasion of Ukraine “a disaster,” according to a translation of his statement from OrthoChristian. He addressed Russian President Vladimir Putin directly in his remarks. “Defending the sovereignty…
Source: The Wall Street Journal By George Weigel While Vladimir Putin is determined to reconstitute the old Soviet Union as a sphere of unchallenged Russian influence, Russian imperialism has a history that long antedates Mr. Putin. Czarist Russia was an expansive imperial power, extending its hegemony over the Eurasian landmass to the Pacific Ocean. Lenin, Stalin and their epigones, despite their ideological rejection of czarism, acted as de facto Great Russian imperialists in assembling the Soviet Union and maintaining it by brute force. In lamenting the demise of that prison house of nations as the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century, Mr.…
Source: Peter Anderson, Seattle USA Metropolitan Amfilohije of Montenegro and the Littoral (age 82) died this morning after receiving communion. On October 6, he had been hospitalized with the Covid virus, but had subsequently conquered the virus. He died from pneumomediastinum (air in the space between the two lungs), caused by the earlier inflammation of his lungs and oxygen therapy. The Serbian Church has lost a giant of a man. The following is his official biography: https://mitropolija.com/2020/10/30/zivotopis-mitropolita-crnogorsko-primorskog-amfilohija-1938-2020/ . The letter of condolence from Patriarch Kirill can be read in English at https://mospat.ru/en/2020/10/30/news187619/ . It is providential that the Metropolitan lived to see the election…
Source: The Wheel The pandemic now ravaging the Orthodox Church is not only COVID-19 but also fundamentalism. Fundamentalism is a sort of populism for the church. It is based on post-truth and conspiracy theories. Although it pretends to be pietistic, it is quite secular and secularizing. I would apply to fundamentalism the phrase once coined by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “cheap grace.” Fundamentalism is a cheap spirituality and a cheap substitute for genuine ecclesial existence. The circumstances of the COVID 19 epidemic demonstrate that fundamentalism not only corrupts minds and muddies faith, but can also kill bodies. It is time to treat…
Source: Religious Information Service of Ukraine (RISU) Vitaliy Portnikov The Russian Orthodox Church suffered defeat at a Pan-Orthodox meeting in Amman, which was attended only by representatives of the Churches that depend on Moscow. Patriarch Theophilus III of Jerusalem convened the meeting after his visit to Moscow. This means that the Moscow Patriarchate does not dare to initiate pan-Orthodox meetings on its own, journalist Vitaly Pornikov wrote in his column for Grani.ru, reports Obozrevatel. “The Pan-Orthodox conference convened by Patriarch Theophilus III of Jerusalem after his visit to Moscow ended in a virtual failure. At the invitation of the Patriarch of Jerusalem,…
Source: Meduza Patriarchal Commission on Family Issues The Russian Orthodox Church now formally opposes new draft legislation in Russia that would increase penalties on domestic violence. In an announcement by the Patriarchal Commission on Family Issues and the Protection of Motherhood and Childhood, the Church argues that the bill recently published by the Federation Council “contains a number of legal defects that make its adoption unacceptable.” Specifically, the church commission says the legislation “disregards universally recognized legal principles of common sense, justice, and equality,” and warns that its implementation “can and will lead to grave and mass violations of the…
Source: Interfax Moscow, November 6, Interfax – The United States had a hand in the granting of autocephaly to the new church of Ukraine and is seeking to split the Orthodox world even more, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said. “I didn’t hear that the Church of Greece officially recognized the schismatic Orthodox Church of Ukraine. I’ve heard that there is a letter by Archbishop Ieronymos II of Athens and All Greece addressed to the leader of the schismatics, but I didn’t see an official statement by the Church of Greece,” Lavrov said at a press conference following negotiations with…
Source: Public Orthodoxy by His Eminence Metropolitan Ignatius of Demetrias (Volos, Greece) The following are excerpts from the intervention of His Eminence Metropolitan Ignatius of Demetrias, Chairman of the Synodal Committee for Inter-Orthodox and Inter-Christian Relations, during the Extraordinary Session of the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece (12th October 2019). The Synodal Committee for Inter-Orthodox and Inter-Christian Relations, which I am honored to chair, explicitly followed the mandate of the Standing Holy Synod of the Church of Greece. In this light, I would like to summarize the prevailing perspectives during the Committee’s discussions, drawing your attention to the following five points: The…