Byzantine, Texas

( AZ Daily Sun ) - Father Patrick Henry Reardon's note to his flock at Chicago's All Saints Orthodox Church was short and simple -- yet a sign of how complicated life is becoming for traditional religious believers. "Because the State of Illinois, through its legislature and governor's office, has now re-defined marriage, marriage licenses issued by agencies of the State of Illinois will no longer be required (or signed) for weddings here at All Saints in Chicago," he wrote in the parish newsletter. The key words were "or signed." The veteran priest was convinced that he faced a collision between an ancient sacrament and new political realities that define a civil contract. His goal, he said, was not to "put my people in a tough spot," but to stress that believers now face complications when they get married -- period. The question priests must ask, when signing marriage licenses, is "whether or not you're acting on behalf of th...

New York ( GOARCH ) – The Holy Eparchial Synod of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America convened for its regular spring meeting at the Synodal Chamber of the Archdiocesan headquarters in New York on April 20th, 21st and 22nd, 2015. His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios of America presided at the meeting with the participation of the Members of the Synod. The Synod deliberated extensively on many matters including the following: 1) The Holy Synod discussed the progress of the publication of the text of the Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom in Greek and English, which has been approved by the Ecumenical Patriarchate. This publication will be available very soon and it will serve the liturgical needs of the parishes of the Archdiocese ; it will be comprised of two volumes, one for clergy, which will include liturgical rubrics, and one for the faithful (pew edition). 2) The Holy Synod worked on the English translation of the Regulations for Spiritual Courts of the Greek Orthod...

At the Holy Trinity Orthodox Seminary Conference on St Sergius of Radonezh, John Martin (HTOS, 5th year) reflected in his paper on the similarities between St Sergius’ life and the life of the sixth century Western monastic founder, St Benedict of Nursia. He noted a number of thought-provoking parallels and showed how these similarities were rooted in a common monastic tradition.

( ROC-Sourozh ) - Members of the Pan-Orthodox Episcopal Assembly for Great Britain and Ireland, who will be attending a regular meeting of the Assembly, will concelebrate the Divine Liturgy at the London Cathedral of the Dormition, Ennismore Gardens, on Saturday, April 25th at 9.30am by invitation of His Eminence Archbishop Elisey of Sourozh. The Chairman of the Assembly, His Eminence Archbishop Gregorios of Thyateira and Great Britain, will preside. This will be the second time the assembled hierarchs have celebrated the Liturgy together. The first celebration took place at the 3rd meeting of the Assembly in June, 2011. All are welcome to pray at the Divine Liturgy for the 'peace of the whole world, for the steadfastness of the holy Churches of God and for the union of all'.

Photo from the Genocide Forum the previous day. ( Public Radio of Armenia ) - Message of His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians On The Occasion of the Canonization of the Martyrs of the Armenian Genocide at the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, April 23, 2015. “If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because… the Spirit of God is resting on you.” - 1 Peter 4:14 Dear and pious faithful brothers and sisters, Under the gaze of biblical Ararat, in this cherished holy shrine of the Christ-built Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, today with unified prayer we offer glory up to our Omnipotent God for all of His gifts. We praise the Heavenly One, Who gave strength to our nation to overcome centuries of historical trials, to rise up from the horrors of the Armenian Genocide, and to create the victories and accomplishments of their new life. We glorify the Lord, that the witnesses martyred in the Genocide for faith and homela...

( Pravoslavie ) - Reports from Sofia indicate that the hierarchy of the schismatic “Alternative Synod of the Bulgarian Church” has, following a long process of trial and error, returned to full unity with the canonically-recognized Bulgarian Orthodox Church. The schism came about when in 1992 the government-established Board of Religious Affairs announced that the 1971 election of Patriarch Maxim was illegal as he had been appointed by the then Communist government, which led to a group of three bishops calling for his resignation. The overthrow of the Bulgarian Communist regime was accomplished in 1989, and the new government sought to appear as acting against all Communist vestiges. Soon after the then War Minister gave the dissenting hierarchs permission to occupy the official Palace seat of the Bulgarian hierarchs, and in 1996 they elected their own independent Patriarch, although the 1998 Pan-Orthodox Council of the Bulgarian Church in Sofia of course recognized Maxim as the le...

On April 20, at the invitation of His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians; His Holiness Tawadros II, Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of the See of St. Mark and leader of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria; arrived at the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin to attend the commemoration events for the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. And also... ( OCA ) - At the invitation of the His Holiness Karekin II, the Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians, His Beatitude, Metropolitan Tikhon and a delegation from the Orthodox Church in America, will arrive in Armenia on Tuesday, April 21, 2015, where they will participate in the commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Accompanying Metropolitan Tikhon are Archpriest John Jillions, OCA Chancellor, and Subdeacon Roman Ostash. Metropolitan Tikhon will be among the heads and representatives of Churches and presidents, pr...

One of the complaints lodged against the assembly is that they collected all this data and haven't done anything with it. Even if you listen to the interviews with committee members a common thread weaves its way through them when asked what's next - "We have gathered the data. That is what we were told to do. We'll see what happens next." It looks like some of the committees are indeed now moving forward. I find the last section to be of unquestionable importance (both personally and pastorally). ( AOB ) - Can Orthodox weddings be celebrated on Saturdays? Are group confessions permissible? How are catechumens prepared for reception into the Church? The answers to these questions and others depend on which Orthodox jurisdiction you call home. While there are vast areas of agreement in the Orthodox Church, there are variations in practice across jurisdictions in the United States as pertain to baptism, marriage, confession, and other sacraments of the Church. ...

Pope Francis is flanked by Catholicos Aram of Cilicia, Lebanon, left, and Catholicos Karekin II of Etchmiadzin, patriarch of the Armenian Apostolic Church, as he leaves after celebrating an April 12 Mass in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican to mark the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide. VATICAN CITY ( CNS ) — While Catholic and Armenian Orthodox theologians continue discussions aimed at full unity, Pope Francis and Catholicos Karekin II of Etchmiadzin, patriarch of the Armenian Apostolic Church, commemorated the already-achieved unity of Armenian Catholic and Orthodox martyrs in heaven. Pope Francis concelebrated Mass April 12 with Armenian Catholic Patriarch Nerses Bedros XIX Tarmouni in the presence of Catholicos Karekin and thousands of Armenian Catholic and Orthodox faithful. Media attention focused on the diplomatic tensions created between the Vatican and Turkey when Pope Francis used the term “genocide” to describe the deaths of up to 1.5 million Armenian...

NEW YORK ( RNS ) If someone offered you the chance to live in a world designed to look and feel like the real one, but is actually a tidier, more ordered Stepford-ish facsimile, would you take it? For many Christians today, the answer appears to be yes. Call it Newton’s Third Law of modern Christianity, but for every event, there appears to be an equal and opposite corresponding Christian event. There are Christian music festivals and book festivals; Christian versions of TED Talks; the upcoming International Christian Film Festival in Orlando, Fla.; and earlier this month, even a Christian Fashion Week. While it might seem tempting for Christians to lock themselves away in anti-secular bubbles, where they could wear nothing but Christian clothing and eat nothing but Christian food (Chick-fil-A, I’m guessing?), the ramifications of doing so are polarizing at best, and deeply destructive at worst. Just look at the recent spate of religious freedom laws being passed around the cou...

Quartodecimanism, different cycle lengths, and many other factors make it so a "complete" article on dating Pascha every year will always be met with "This is wrong because it ignores these points..." Chances are, if you are going to make that point you don't need to read the below article. ( Greek Reporter ) - As Catholics and most of the western world celebrate Easter today, we asked a Greek-Orthodox priest to explain why the Orthodox Church doesn’t celebrate Pascha (Easter) on the same day the Catholic church does! Here’s his well documented explanation. By Fr. Jon Magoulias – As Greek-Orthodox Christians prepare to celebrate Easter on Sunday,April 12th, we would like to shed some light on the reasons why the Orthodox Christian Church celebrates the Resurrection of Jesus Christ later than the Catholic one. While the issue is somewhat complicated, it may be summarized in the two factors at work that cause this conflict in dates: 1) The issue of the cal...

Saints Raphael, Nicholas & Irene Orthodox Church

O Thou Who ridest upon the cherubim, and Who art praised by the seraphim, Thou didst ride upon a colt, O holy, Davidic One. And the youths were praising Thee as befitteth God. And the Jews did blaspheme against Thee wickedly. Thy sitting on an ass foreshadowed the transformation of the bolting of the Gentiles from infidelity to faith. Glory to Thee, O Christ, Who alone art merciful and the Lover of mankind.

From the blog Departing Horeb , a post entitled "Just What Does “Hosanna” Mean Anyway?" This breakdown of the word hosanna is the exact topic of the homily I gave today so this is quite fortuitous. For all Christians celebrating Pascha on the Julian Calendar, this is, of course, Palm Sunday, a feast of remarkable theological depth beyond the basic biblical narrative. The entire feast is set, as it were, within Psalm 118 (117 LXX), wherein we find the origins of the exclamation, “Hosanna!” But what exactly does this word mean anyway? In verse 25 of the Hebrew text of the psalm, we find: אנא יהוה הושיעה נא ˀānnā YHWH hōšīˁa-nnā אנא יהוה הצליחה נא ˀānnā YHWH haṣlīḥa-nnā This poetic couplet is rather difficult to translate due to two Hebrew particles, which have no direct equivalent in English. First, אנא ˀānnā is a word that interjects a great deal of precative emotion, such as “Oh, please!” though the English sense here connotes more politeness than the Hebrew....

( EP ) - To climb the narrow staircase, in their understated elegance, which connect the floors of the Building of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, gives rhythm to the clear perception that this place, in itself small, is the spiritual heart of millions of Orthodox Christians worldwide. For 1,700 years, it has transcended a tumultuous history, yet remained constant in its mission of service. Its truly global role unfolds from a historic district of Istanbul where the Phanar, as it is pronounced in Greek, is found. Directly overlooking the Golden Horn, the estuary encroached on by the sea is located in the part of Turkey which is geographically Europe, and which divides the city of Istanbul in two: the ancient Byzantium-Constantinople to the South and the Genoese colony of Pera-Galata in the North. The name Phanar dates back to the Byzantine era and is derived from the Greek word «lantern» as used to assist navigation. After the fall of Constantinople (1453), the distric...

( mospat.ru ) - On 31 March 2015, the first meeting of the bilateral commission which will consider the possibility of recognizing the hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Old-Rite Church took place at the Moscow Spiritual Centre of the Old Believers of the Belokrinitsa branch in the Rogozhskaya Settlement. The commission was established on the initiative of Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations, and Metropolitan Korniliy of Moscow and All Russia, head of the Russian Orthodox Old-Rite Church. Representing the Moscow Patriarchate at the meeting were archpriest Vladislav Tsypin, professor of the Moscow Theological Academy; archpriest Igor Yakimchuk, DECR secretary for inter-Orthodox relations; priest Ioann Mirolyubov, secretary of the Commission for Old-Rite Parishes and Cooperation with the Old- Rite Community; and Mr. Dmitry Petrovsky, DECR staff member. Representing the Orthodox Old-Rite Church were archpri...

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People that have come out of physical/sexual abuse, that have untreated mental issues, that have substance abuse problems, that have been thrown out by family, or that have simply lost a job with nowhere to go. That's homelessness. The scam artists and the criminals are also there, but vilifying an entire group because of a few is cruel. Doing it because their smell, look, or mere presence makes you uncomfortable is crueler still.

From the blog Icons and their Interpretation , a post entitled "The Lion, the Splinter, and Folktale Motif #156." “Whom the lion served”? Obviously there must be an interesting story connected with this. We find the story of Gerasim of the Jordan and the lion in the book called The Spiritual Meadow, by John Moschus (Ioannes Moskhos). Moschus tells us that a monk named Gerasimos (the Greek form; the Russian form is Gerasim) was walking, one day, along the banks of the Jordan, when he encountered a roaring lion. The lion held one paw in the air, and Gerasimos could see it was bloody and swollen because of a splinter of reed that had become stuck in it. The lion held the paw out as though asking for help, and Gerasimos took the lion’s paw in his hands, pulled the reed out, and cleaned and dressed the wound, after which the lion would not desert Gerasimos, but followed him everywhere, and … Wait. Doesn’t this sound awfully familiar? A little thought will bring to mind th...