Byzantine, Texas

On June 28, 2020, 3rd Sunday after Pentecost, Metropolitan John of Dubna, head of the Archdiocese of Western European Parishes of Russian Tradition, celebrated the Divine Liturgy at the Cathedral of St. Alexander Nevsky in Rue Daru in Paris. Concelebrating with Metropolitan John were Metropolitan Antony of Chersonesus and Western Europe, Archbishop Nestor of Madrid and Lisbon, and Bishop Symeon of Domodedovo, vicar of the Archdiocese of Western European Parishes of Russian Tradition. During the Liturgy Archimandrite Elisée (Germain), rector of the French-speaking community of the Holy Trinity at the Cathedral of St. Alexander Nevsky, was consecrated Bishop of Reutov, vicar of the Archdiocese of Western European Parishes of Russian Tradition.

( Antiochian.org ) - St. Athanasius Academy Announces Class with Bishop JOHN, Other Resources Father John Finley, Chairman of the Department of Missions & Evangelism, and Interim Dean​ of St. Athanasius College and St. Athanasius Academy, announces several resources: His Grace Bishop JOHN: This fall, Bishop JOHN is teaching an online class called "Pastoral Care Revisited." Registration is currently open to Antiochian clergy only. On Wednesday, July 1, 2020, the registration will open up to clergy from all Orthodox jurisdictions. There are only 20 spots in this class. Reserve your spot for only $50! Register and learn more!​ Fr. Michael Oleksa: Fr. Michael is teaching two sociology courses for the college. His first course, Communicating Across Cultures, is an excellent course to help us understand and deal with current events. Learn more HERE . Let me give a personal nod on this one. If you have not heard him speak before, you are in for a treat. Academy Core Subjects: ...

( ROC ) - On June 28, 2020, 3rd Sunday after Pentecost, Metropolitan John of Dubna, head of the Archdiocese of Western European Parishes of Russian Tradition, celebrated the Divine Liturgy at the Cathedral of St. Alexander Nevsky in Rue Daru in Paris. Concelebrating with Metropolitan John were Metropolitan Antony of Chersonesus and Western Europe, Archbishop Nestor of Madrid and Lisbon, and Bishop Symeon of Domodedovo, vicar of the Archdiocese of Western European Parishes of Russian Tradition. During the Liturgy Archimandrite Elisée (Germain), rector of the French-speaking community of the Holy Trinity at the Cathedral of St. Alexander Nevsky, was consecrated Bishop of Reutov, vicar of the Archdiocese of Western European Parishes of Russian Tradition. The decision concerning the election of two vicar hierarchs for the Archdiocese was taken at its general assembly on January 24, 2020, and approved by the resolution of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia and the Holy S...

( GOARCH ) - ECUMENICAL PATRIARCHATE - Communiqué Between​​ June 23 - 25 2020, the Holy and Sacred Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate was convened for its regular meeting of the current month at the Orthodox Center of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Chambésy, Geneva. On the first day, the chairmen of the synodal committees were engaged in their cooperative work. Many of the Hierarchs of the Throne in Europe were present as well. During this meeting, the Official Letters of Their Beatitiudes the Orthodox Primates that had been received thus far in response to the letter of the Ecumenical Patriarch to them of May 17th of this year, on the issue of the mode of distribution of Holy Communion that emerged after the appearance of the coronavirus pandemic, were read and discussed. It was satisfactorily determined that their opinion coincided with that of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. This consists of the following: a) The Mystery of the Divine Eucharist is non-negotiable, because we believe t...

( OMSGSA ) - Sunday of the Chinese Martyrs - Second Sunday after Pentecost/Second Sunday of Matthew Synaxarion On this day, second Sunday of Matthew, we celebrate the Synaxis (gathering) of the Chinese Orthodox Christians who were martyred in Peking during the Boxer Rebellion in the year 1900.  Short History In the year of our Lord 1900, when the Empress Dowager reigned over the vast country of China and supported the Boxer Rebellion against all foreigners, two-hundred twenty Orthodox Christians in Peking died as martyrs, although a few others lost courage and renounced the truth of the Gospel. Leader of the martyrs was the Priest Metrophanes Tsi-Chung. Many others followed his example and became martyrs with him, by various means, among whom were his wife Tatiana and sons Isaiah and John, Isaiah’s fiancée Maria, also Paul Wang, the teacher Ia Wang, the eight year old boy John, Clement Kui Lin, Matthew Chai Tsuang, his brother Witt, Anna Chui, and many others, whose names are known...

Moscow, June 20 ( Interfax ) - Head of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate Metropolitan Hilarion believes that toppling of statues in the USA is an attempt to rewrite the history. "We certainly should not project modern standards to the past. People of the past lived according to other rules, they spoke a different language, they acted in a different way, and just automatically transfer all acting standards, especially the existing in the West so-called liberal standards, to the past of humanity - it means to rewrite history permanently," the metropolitan said on air Church and the World program on Rossiya-24 TV. According to the hierarch, it is impossible to rewrite the history and "it is necessary to pay tribute to outstanding figures of the past basing on the standards that existed that time and not artificially project modern standards to the past." Thus the Russian Orthodox Church official responded to mass dismantling of mon...

One of the interesting things about Orthodoxy in the North America is that every jurisdiction has their own template for types of people in every parish. I can almost guarantee you will have the same grouping wherever you are. In some situations the template can be even more specific. For example, I could post a short video of a coffee hour in Texas and you'd be able to say "OCA Diocese of the South!" with a very high degree of certainty. Or I could post a similar video for a Greek parish and (even without the smattering of Greek as a giveaway) you'd be able to say, "There's the lady who attends everything on the church calendar. There's the guy who opens the door for everything, but is oddly never at the services. There's the mother who asks about childcare for everything. There's the homeschooling mom who has to defend her choice to every bejeweled boomer who wants to compliment her kids while feeling compelled to ask bemused questions about why...

( ROCOR-Chicago ) - Dear in Christ Clergy, Brothers and Sisters of our God-loving Diocese of Mid-America, I greet you all with the great feast of Pentecost — the Descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles and establishment of the Holy New-Testament Church of Christ. Since the day of Her foundation, the Holy Church always defended and cared for the oppressed, widows, orphans, and homeless. (Acts: III, 45; IV, 34-35; VI, 1-3) Besides, all charity was of free will and non-compulsory. (Acts: V, 4) And so it was throughout the ages. State social services appeared rather recently. The Holy Church was always against any kind of revolutions or forceful overturning of power. Instead, She supported civil evolution. For example, being persecuted, She peacefully, without any riots, changed the course of the pagan Roman Empire, having completely regenerated it. The same was done by Orthodox Christian missionaries, who spread the Holy Gospel among different nations. Look at the history of Holy Russi...

( Orthodox History ) - On June 8, the OCA website published “ A Letter of a Parish Priest to His Flock .” This letter has been shared widely on social media, by people of many different Orthodox jurisdictions. It was written by an unnamed OCA priest in the Diocese of the South and was made public by his bishop, Archbishop Alexander of Dallas. Certain aspects of this letter touch on historical matters, and it is on these things that I’d like to focus. --- The unnamed priest writes, “Many people, particularly online, are now in a huff about practices concerning cleaning or even replacing the spoon. The use of a spoon for Holy Communion is approximately 1000 years old. That means, prior to that, there was no Communion spoon. I will not take time to go into the more ancient practices for receiving Holy Communion, I will only say that to make a dogma out of the spoon is wrong.” What were the “more ancient practices” that the priest does not discuss? From the time of the Apostles, all of the...

( Orthodox Observer ) - Holy Tradition is one thing; long-held Church customs are another. The former is divine in origin, Apostolic and unchangeable; the latter varies throughout time and place in response to varying human considerations. Those who fail to distinguish Holy Tradition from temporal traditions introduce confusion into the Faith, inviting rancor and even schism.  For example, clergy today employ an applicator for the Mystery of Holy Unction: a stick or brush or cotton swabs. Yet the Apostolic injunction for the anointing of the sick (James 5:14) uses the Greek verb ἀλείφω, meaning “to rub or smear” oil on the body, as ancient athletes used to do after a workout. This was done, not with brushes or swabs, but with bare hands. (Just as clergy apply the Oil of Gladness at Holy Baptism even today.)  Over time—and no doubt for practical considerations—clergy began to use applicators for the Agion Euchelaion instead of their fingers. This change was an innovation, but n...

I am constantly surprised by what people consider the life of a "good Orthodox to be." It is not simply being inoffensive; we are not the "Church of Nice." In fact, many of our beloved saints were quite controversial and would be "cancelled" by today's culture only seconds into their personal "elevator speeches." This talk is long, but good. A hearty congratulations to those of you who were pemitted to go to Liturgy last Sunday and good strength to all of you still waiting to be allowed back to church.

( OCA ) - With the blessing of His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon, the Chancellor, Archpriest Alexander Rentel, and the General Counsel to the Orthodox Church in America, Judge E.R. Lanier, made the following statement: While it is not the practice of the Office of the Chancellor to comment on every rumor or baseless charge published on the internet that cause scandal and aggrieved the faithful of the Orthodox Church in America, we have seen fit to make this comment now. The situation in society and the Church has improved because of the steps that were taken in response to the present pandemic, and so it seems fitting to take a moment a reflect on what has transpired in and for our Church. We offer this statement in order to testify to the faithful of the Orthodox Church in America that our Church has faced well the challenges posed by novel SARS CoV-2 and COVID-19 in a hierarchical and conciliar manner. The Church acted, in other words, in a manner totally and completely consistent wi...

It's an odd thing isn't it that we were forbidden from going to church while we kept the alcohol stores open and the lottery tickets printing. How we closed the AA meetings but left Target open. How some states forbid buying seeds but considered men circling restaurants in foam outfits shaped like pizza slices, ice cream cones, and cheeseburgers to be essential workers. And now, how churches still can't be trusted to pray together, but somehow thousands of people can march together shoulder-to-shoulder without any restrictions. How can it be that many of you have to fill out web forms to make a "reservation" for church this Sunday, while outside people stream past that same building chanting and yelling and more while the police sit impotently or join in themselves? Has the virus gone away? If not, how do we explain the startling juxtaposition? It all points to an image of the Church as a luxury. It points to the Church given the consideration of an amateur club w...

Moscow, June 8 ( Interfax ) - The Russian Orthodox Church official urges Russians not to hurry with pilgrimage to abroad shrine, in spite of abolished quarantine restrictions. "I highly recommend and advise our Russian citizens not to go abroad until it becomes entirely safe," head of the Synodal Department for External Church Relations Metropolitan Hilarion said on air Church and the World program on Rossiya-24 TV.  He points out that there are many places for pilgrimage and shrines in Russia - ancient monasteries, holy relics, churches. The metropolitan mentioned the Mirozhsky Monastery in Pskov with frescoes of the 12th century.  "We have such shrines as the Solovetsky Monastery and the Valaam Monastery, they are not open yet, but I think that access to these monasteries will be given earlier than opening of the boundaries," the metropolitan said.

( AOB ) - We all hear about mental health and mental illness in our society. Yet what we learn about these things outside of the Church are often disconnected from what we learn about our faith in Church. For those who suffer with mental illness, it is easy to feel alienated, out of place or unwelcome in Church when issues related to mental illness are never mentioned or discussed. In this series we seek to help our people understand mental illness and mental health from an Orthodox Christian perspective, making the connections between the contemporary understanding of mental health and our Orthodox Christian Tradition.

And, it seems, if you're interested in joining, the process is streamlined ... Biography (indicating places of ministry and education) Photograph of candidate in vestments at a service The website of the current parish (if any) A petition addressed to Archbishop Elpidophoros

Moscow, June 1 ( Interfax ) - At the blessing of Patriarch Kirill, Moscow churches will reopen to parishioners on June 6, the eve of the Trinity Sunday, after almost two months of quarantine. The Christ the Savior's Cathedral and the Epiphany Cathedral at Yelokhovo will open on June 2, the patriarch's working group said.

( impantokratoros.gr ) - It is with sorrow and wonder that we are observing an event unprecedented in world history [1]. In the name of “love” for the elderly and the more vulnerable, vaccination is being scheduled for all people worldwide, in order to exterminate the implacable “invisible enemy”, known as Corona virus SARS-Cov2 (COVID19): A necessary legal framework that will abolish the right to individual choice and will “defend” the benefit-right to public health (Law 4675/2020 for Greece) [2] An accompanying governmental authoritarianism to enforce it Creating demand and expectation for the vaccine (terrorism-brainwashing by the media with the dilemma of “vaccine or social incarceration-isolation”) Unilateral funding for the production of the vaccine, for controls by clinical trials, for mass-production in vast quantities and for delivery to every corner of the planet - at the expense of research for finding and producing specialized antiviral drugs. These are just some of the ste...

( Orthodox Times ) - Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew sent a letter to the primates of Orthodox Churches in which he said that the Ecumenical Patriarchate aimed to coordinate in a uniform manner a communication with the Orthodox Churches on the way the Holy Communion could be offered to the faithful. In the letter he wrote on the 17th of May, the Ecumenical Patriarch pointed out that, during the period of the pandemic, the Church accepted that the services be performed without the presence of the faithful for their protection. However, he noted that, in the meantime, many unprecedented views were heard on how to offer the Holy Communion to the faithful: “We cannot remain indifferent to this,” he said. He also highlighted that the Orthodox Church has been abiding by the guidelines given by health and political authorities and that it would continue to do so provided that the essence of our faith is being respected. “The Church can be understanding with all matters on its way to the Cros...