Byzantine, Texas

( OCMC ) - The Orthodox Christian Church continues to establish itself and grow in new areas across the globe. One place where OCMC is excited to be helping to establish an Orthodox presence is in Pakistan. The Orthodox Mission in Pakistan (OMP) was established in 2005 and is now under the direction of His Eminence Konstantinos, Metropolitan of Singapore. Fr. John Tanveer, who founded this movement originally under the Metropolitanate of Hong Kong and Southeast Asia prior to the establishment of the Metropolitanate of Singapore, leads the local church, whose mission is to serve the spiritual needs of the Orthodox Christians in Pakistan, where there are currently over 400 faithful. There is much work being done to continue the Church’s growth and to strengthen the Orthodox faith of those in Pakistan. Until recently, the OMP didn’t have a physical church building, and those near Lahore would gather in Fr. John’s home to worship. In regions further from Lahore, people would meet in ...

From the blog A Reader's Guide to Orthodox Icons a post entitled " The Holy Spirit as a dove in iconography ." A previous post on the Throne of Preparation showed the widespread (in time and location) practice of depicting the Holy Spirit as a dove. The Holy Spirit did descend “as a dove” at the Baptism of Christ , and so naturally we can see a dove representing the Holy Spirit in icons of this event. Yet there is some opposition to the widespread practice of using the dove to symbolize the Holy Spirit in other images, such as on the Throne of Preparation and icons of Pentecost (e.g.: here ). It is true that icons properly deal with what has been divinely revealed, rather than human imagining of divine things in terms of symbols and signs. However, the use of the dove as an easily recognizable symbol of the Holy Spirit’s presence persists in Orthodox iconography, and is based on numerous sources outside of the baptism of Christ. Saint Gregory of Nazianzus says ...

( The Economist ) - When really tragic events occur, categories of people who previously didn't feel much in common can find themselves coming together in a community of pain and indignation. Categories like....American Christians and Middle Eastern Christians, for example. Yes, I meant to write that. Until recently, America's politically engaged Christians, especially those on the right, seemed deeply ambivalent in their attitude to co-religionists in the Middle East. When Christian residents of Bethlehem and other West Bank towns complained that their land was being appropriated to make way for new Israeli settlements (including ones that the American government had deplored), they rarely found much much sympathy in the United States. Or take Iraq: the displacement of more than half of that country's Christian minority in the mayhem that followed the 2003 invasion has received remarkably little attention in American religious circles. Nor have church-going Americans b...

( Vatican Radio ) - Pope Francis met on Friday with a delegation from the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople which is in Rome to attend celebrations for Saturday’s feast of Saints Peter and Paul. Traditionally, as spiritual leader of Orthodox Christians worldwide, the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew the 1st sends a delegation to Rome each June 29th, while a Catholic delegation travels to Istanbul each November 30th to mark the feast of St Andrew, patron of the Orthodox world. In his meeting with the Orthodox representatives, led by Metropolitan Ioannis Zizioulas, Pope Francis spoke of important progress in the official dialogue between Catholics and Orthodox, which has already produced many joint documents. The Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue, co-chaired by Metropolitan Ioannis, and Cardinal Kurt Koch, is currently studying the key question of primacy and collegiality in the Church of the first century, one of the main obstacles on the road to unity a...

( Hurriyet Daily News ) - The nephew of the one of the bishops kidnapped in Syria has denied rumors that he has been killed, following the circulation of an undated video showing two other Christians, including a bishop, being brutally killed. Aleppo’s Greek Orthodox Bishop Boulos Yaziji and Syriac Orthodox Bishop Yohanna Ibrahim were kidnapped on April 22 by armed men en route from the Turkish border. Jamil Diarbekirli, who is also a member of the Syriac Democratic Organization and the nephew of Ibrahim, told the Hürriyet Daily News that the media should refrain from speculative reports because of the sensitivity of the issue. A bishop and another Christian were beheaded on video in front of a cheering crowd by Syrian insurgents, who say they aided and abetted President Bashar al-Assad’s forces, according to reports. However, Fadi Hurigil, the head of the Antakya Orthodox Church Foundation, said they were sure that the bishops in the video were not Yaziji or Ibrahim. “These video...

( antiochian.org ) - A Statement issued by the Secretariat of the Holy Antiochian Synod Balamand, Lebanon, 20 June 2013 The Holy Antiochian Synod assembled between the 17th and 20th of June 2013 in the first ordinary session presided over by His Beatitude John X and attended by Their Eminences the Metropolitans George (Mount Lebanon and its dependencies), Elia (Hama and dependencies), Elias (Saida, Tyre and dependencies), Anthony (Mexico, Venezuela and dependencies), Sergios (Chile), Damaskinos (Brazil and dependencies), Saba (Hauran and Arabia), Boulos (Australia), George (Homs and dependencies), Silouan (Argentina), Basilios (Arkadias and dependencies), Efrem (Tripoli, Koura and dependencies). Apologies for the absence were received from their Eminences Spiridon (Zahle and dependencies), Philip (New York and North America), Constantine (Bagdad, Kuwait and dependencies), Youhanna (Lattakia and dependencies), Elias (Beirut and dependencies) and Metroplitan Paul (Aleppo, Alexan...

I took a bus over to the Cathedral of the Dormition of the Mother of God and All Saints in London for the Divine Liturgy. It ended up being the feast day of the Prophet Elisha, Abp. Elisey's name day. So what I expected to be a normal weekday liturgy ended up being a quite magnificent service comprised of 2 bishops, 2 deacons, 4 subdeacons, and seven priests. The service was celebrated quite masterfully and smoothly with about 20% of it in English (readings and a few litanies). After almost three hours I had to forego the gift shop, but I'm told it's quite nice as well.

I visited the Moscow Patriarchal church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in Oxford today. It's just outside the main section of town and quite beautiful and peaceful, if not a grand building in terms of size. The Akathist/Moleben was well attended and a very good mix of the Slavic with the English. The flow was intelligible even to those without any Russian (as the people who travelled with me were) due the priest's seamless switching from language to language. This parish has near daily services so, if you are in the area, do go visit.

( ROCOR-EAD ) - Around 6:00 AM on Sunday morning, on the feast of Holy Pentecost, a fire burned down the building housing the Convent of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary and candle factory at Holy Cross Monastery in Wayne, WV. By the grace of God, the fire caused the monastics no serious, life-threatening injuries. More information will be published as it becomes available. Please pray for Mother Theodora, who is left with no cell and only the clothes on her back. It is not yet clear what started the fire, but in the words of Mother Theodora, "God has allowed this so that we will repent for our sins." Those who wish to donate to the monastery to help with the repairs can do so at their website by clicking here .

As far as I could discover, there is no single resource for Orthodox churches by area in the UK like we have on the Assembly of Bishops website (see here ) so I had to do a bit of investigative work to find a parish near me while I'm in London this week. The nearest church to me was St. George's Antiochian Cathedral just a few miles away. Services are held in a rather large stone building that looks to have formerly been an Anglican or Catholic parish by the original apse visible behind a very ornate iconostasis. The four people that chanted the service were quite adept especially the protopsaltis whose voice resonated off the walls even without the microphones at the kliros. The vast majority of the service was in Arabic (the local English language parish is by all accounts St. Botolph's Church ). They did about 95% of the service in that language with the marked exception of the anaphora and one of the Kneeling Vespers prayers, which I considered quite a kindness to...

( orthodox.cn ) - On June 12, 2013, at the invitation of the shipowner LPL Shipping S.A., the merchant vessel "Costas L", located in Kaohsiung Harbor, was blessed according to the Orthodox rite of blessing of a new ship. The rite was performed by Priest Kirill, Rector of the Christ the Savior Patriarchal parish in Taipei (Moscow Patriarchate).

From the blog Pithless Thoughts ... Fr. Joseph Huneycutt and I finished the final (probably semi-final) draft of our book project. It is at our "test readers" now. We'll do a final/final edit based on their proofreading and suggestions, then it goes to the publisher. I was originally just going to illustrate Fr. Joseph's text. We spent a weekend together several months ago discussing the project and pretty much checking each other out (we had never met in person). We both decided the other was "the real deal". As we talked, the vision for the book took some dark turns. The more we talked, the darker the theme of the material became. We've both lived long enough and done enough sinning and pastoral care to know being a Christian is damn hard and it isn't nearly as pretty as our Sunday faces show. We wanted to address the valley of the shadow of death and not put a smiley face on it (though there is some humor in the book). We wante...

BRATISLAVA ( Times of India ) - Stanislav Zvolensky, the Roman Catholic archbishop of the Slovak capital here, was thrilled when he was invited to Brussels three years ago to discuss the fight against poverty with the insistently secular bureaucracy of the European Union. "They let me in wearing my cross," the archbishop recalled. It therefore came as a rude surprise when, late last year, the National Bank of Slovakia announced that the European Commission (EC), the union's executive arm, had ordered it to remove halos and crosses from special commemorative euro coins due to be minted this summer. The coins were intended to celebrate the 1,150th anniversary of Christianity's arrival in Slovak lands but have instead become tokens of the faith's retreat from contemporary Europe. "There is a movement in the EU that wants total religious neutrality and can't accept our Christian traditions," said Zvolensky, bemoaning what he sees as rising a tide of...

( The Telegraph ) - Google, the internet giant, is to create a global database of child abuse images - which it will share with its rival companies - in a bid to eradicate child pornography from the web. The company disclosed to The Telegraph that its engineers are working on new technology which will, for the first time, allow internet search engines and other web firms to swap information about images of children being raped and abused. The new database, which is expected to be operational within a year, will allow child porn images which have already been “flagged” by child protection organisations such as the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) to be wiped from the web in one fell swoop. Google is also setting up a £1.27 million ($2 million) fund available to independent software developers to produce new tools to combat child pornography, it announced. The company’s new projects were heralded by independent child protection experts as important, game-changing developments in ...

MOSCOW, June 17 ( RIA Novosti ) – About 64 percent of Russians identify themselves as belonging to the Russian Orthodox Church, but many of them have never read the Bible and rarely go to church or pray, a recent poll showed. Some 52 percent of Russian self-identified Orthodox Christians said that they have never read the New Testament, the Old Testament or other key scriptures , while 24 percent said that they are rare church-goers, and 28 percent hardly ever pray, according to poll results released by the country’s Public Opinion Foundation (FOM) on Friday. The survey, conducted back in April this year across 43 Russian regions, is partly based on the template of a poll carried out in the United States in 2005 by Newsweek and Beliefnet, the Russian Kremlin-backed pollster said in a report on its website. The FOM results showed that there are more non-believers in Russia (25 percent) now than in the US back in 2005, when just 6 percent of Americans said they were not religious...

The Orthodox Leader has a new post entitled " The Orthodox Priesthood: Every Man for Himself? ". After reading it I thought what the current jurisdictional construction affords priests in bad situations and what a post-jurisdictional/Chambésy America would mean to these men. Right now a priest who is being treated poorly can jump ship and serve another jurisdiction. Where will a priest in the new, unified episcopal assembly configuration go if things aren't fixed before the merger? This return to blogging after hiatus is occasioned by a simple recollection of experiences as an Orthodox priest. The following are stories from friends and acquaintances. Not a one of these is fictitious. I am familiar with one priest whose parish leadership has repeatedly refused to pay for him to attend diocesan assemblies and pastoral gatherings. The same parish has previously objected to paying housing costs for the priest who is otherwise meagerly compensated. I am familiar with a ...

BRUSSELS ( AFP ) - Belgium is considering a significant change to its decade-old euthanasia law that would allow minors and Alzheimer's sufferers to seek permission to die. The proposed changes to the law were submitted to parliament Tuesday by the Socialist party and are likely to be approved by other parties, although no date has yet been put forward for a parliamentary debate. "The idea is to update the law to take better account of dramatic situations and extremely harrowing cases we must find a response to," party leader Thierry Giet said. The draft legislation calls for "the law to be extended to minors if they are capable of discernment or affected by an incurable illness or suffering that we cannot alleviate." Belgium was the second country in the world after the Netherlands to legalise euthanasia in 2002 but it applies only to people over the age of 18. Socialist Senator Philippe Mahoux, who helped draft the proposed changes, said there had b...

Faith and Safety - Technology Safety Through the Eyes of Faith WASHINGTON ( GOARCH ) - The Communications Department of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America (GOA) have launched www.faithandsafety.org , a resource for adults to help children safely navigate online. The website and complementary social media channels ( Twitter and Facebook ) address safe use of the Internet, mobile devices and other technology, emphasizing the positive use of technology to support children's faith. June is Internet Safety Month. The initiative is funded by a grant from the Catholic Communication Campaign, which receives donations from U.S. Catholics. "Our children look to their parents for wisdom and guidance. However, many parents feel somewhat ill-equipped to help their children traverse the unfamiliar terrain of the digital social world," said Archbishop Demetrios of the Greek Orthodox Church in America. "This joint i...

An explanation of the photo available here .

From the blog Power of Prayer , an explanation of this photo. I made this blog because a photo of my husband and I has gone viral on the internet. I wanted to share the story behind the photo for the hundreds of thousands of people who found inspiration through this sweet moment we had. The Story Behind the Photo Moments before I was to walk down the aisle my soon to be mother in law came in the dressing room where my bridesmaids and I were all gushing with giggles and fluttering about finishing last minute details. “Sweetheart, your groom has called for you!”. In a nervous tizzy I said, “What?! I’m not ready! I have to get my shoes and…” She had already taken my hand and led me to a corner, where my groom was waiting. I barely sat down; I was filled with so much anticipation! So much excitement! So many nerves! “Is he going to like my dress? Does my hair look pretty? Can he see me?!” Right around the corner sat my soon to be husband, I so was nervous he might see m...

It wasn't Darth Vader who gave the blessing to the first communion children. This was personally undertaken by Pastor Christoph Nobs with a bright green laser sword at the celebration of a Star Wars First Communion Mass. The idea for the stars-War Communion came from Nicolas Gkotses community director. Star Wars had been a theme for the children in their religious instruction and so he tried to communicate the gospel in this way in a timely manner. - "May the force be with you!" H/T: Deacon's Bench

St. Vlad's has been touring the globe signing joint agreements. The Serbians , Romanians , and now the Ukrainians. The below is the computer-translated text. Update: Here's the SVS post . June 14th ( UOC-MP ) - Rector of the Kiev Theological Academy and Seminary, managing the UOC Metropolitan Anthony of Boryspil and Chancellor of St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary Archpriest Chad Hatfield signed a cooperation agreement between the two theological schools. From Kiev Academy were present at the signing of the first rector Archpriest Sergei Yuschyk, Vice President for Scientific and theological works Vladimir Burega, scientific secretary Archpriest Rostislav Snigirev. The agreement provides for exchange of students and teachers exchange experiences in the field of modern educational methods, the development and implementation of joint research projects, conducting research symposia, conferences and seminars, exchange of publications, educational and scienti...

( Acton Institute ) - Most Christians who are received into the Eastern Orthodox Church as adults do so for the same reasons that others embrace the Roman Catholic Church: They are tired of the moral relativism or the shallow theological traditions of their former communions. These great historical Churches offer an oasis of clarity where the first questions are settled and the foundations do not have to be laid again in every generation. At least that’s the idea. Alas, it is not always so. Orthodoxy and Catholicism have their share of dissenters but this is nothing new to anyone who knows their history. Yet this realization often comes as a surprise – even a shock -- to many Orthodox converts. They assume that the precepts of the moral tradition will be taught in our generation as well. Sometimes they aren’t. Analyzing the present culture and discerning how the moral tradition speaks to it is always a complex business because people are dynamic beings. Truth is relational because...

Baghdad ( AsiaNews ) - Creating a "competent" Christian political class, training well-prepared priests, boosting the faithful's role as a "bridge between cultures" and partner with Muslims, reviving the ecumenical movement by opening a "brave and honest dialogue with the Church Assyrian Church of the East" are but some of the issues mentioned in the final paper issued by the Synod of the Chaldean Church, held on 5-10 June in Baghdad. As chair of the assembly of Fathers, which brought together all the bishops of Iraq and the Diaspora, except for Mgr Sarhad Jammo from California, the Chaldean Patriarch, His Beatitude Mar Raphael I Louis Sako, used the occasion to present his thoughts on "the bishop's pastoral work", whose success depends on "spirituality and prayer," not on "administrative work alone." The Synod, which saw the leaders of the Chaldean Church address a number of issues, ended with a dinner given by t...

( British Orthodox ) - On 10 June the Most Rev’d Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, invited the episcopal members of the Council of Oriental Orthodox Churches to join him for lunch at Lambeth Palace. The bishops were warmly welcomed and Archbishop Justin assured of his commitment to the ongoing ecumenical dialogue, especially welcoming the resumption of the Anglican-Oriental Orthodox International Dialogue, which would be hosted in October by the Church of England. Over lunch a number of topics of common interest were discusse,d with especial concern expressed for events in the Middle East, and the Archbishop spoke of the need for continuing efforts and prayer for the release of the two kidnapped Orthodox Archbishops of Aleppo. The company was joined by the Bishops of Europe (The Right Rev’d Geoffrey Rowell) and Southwark (The Right Rev’d Christopher Chessum).

It is often the very thing a person most publicly denounces in others that he has the most problems with himself. I've been yelled at by a portly priest on the subject of how fasting "doesn't matter." I've sat through homilies from priests on the evils of lying who were later removed for financial dishonesty. I've listened to men complain about how women are immodestly dressed at church whose marriages have fallen apart due to adultery. You get the picture. Religion is an easy target (Christianity chiefly because it doesn't "hit back") and has been blamed for all the world's ills. A careful study will show that it is not actually the Church that causes these troubles, but the Church has quite often been used as a tool to accomplish secular goals; politics, money, and expansion of empire come immediately to mind. So, when an atheist decides to blame the Church for being morally bankrupt and a source of iniquitous behavior then is found to ha...

For some background, see here .

( Eurasianet ) - Increasingly under pressure in Egypt, the Copts, one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, are starting to migrate to Georgia, a bastion of Orthodox Christianity in the South Caucasus. But the transition is not entirely a smooth one. In Egypt, violent clashes between Copts and Muslims have been on the rise since the 2011 ouster of former President Hosni Mubarak, with many Christians reportedly preferring to leave than experience continuing harassment and discrimination. Earlier this month, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom announced that Egypt “is failing to meet international religious-freedom standards.” Copts, who classify themselves as an Orthodox Christian denomination, say that Georgia’s strong Orthodox Christian heritage – Eastern Christianity took root here in the 4th century – motivated them to make the move. The country’s relative proximity (Tbilisi is roughly a two-and-a-half-hour flight from Cairo) and reputation for relativel...

Because Pharaoh was careful not to pollute the river with corpses, he summoned the midwives in order to make them murderesses. By his authority he made them the opposite of their titles, since he imagined he would turn physicians into executioners. - St. Ephrem on the midwives of Exodus A friend of mine saw a recent post online from an acquaintance of his advertising to train someone for an opening to be an "abortion doula" for her local Planned Parenthood clinic. Having used a doula in past deliveries, I knew what a doula was but the reality of what an abortion doula was took a moment to sink in. What a mockery this is. It's like a children's party planner who instead of planning for a birthday celebration plans infanticide, but uses all the same trappings as a traditional event planner. The word doula, as many of you already know, means female slave. Doulos - the male equivalent - is a word found throughout the new testament. There it is used in reference...

( Sofia Globe ) - The Bulgarian Orthodox Church’s governing body, the Holy Synod, has accepted the resignation on the grounds of ill-health of Simeon, Metropolitan of Western Europe. Simeon, elected in 1986 as the first Metropolitan of the then-newly established diocese of Western Europe, has been ill for some time and has been having medical treatment in the United States. It is expected that a replacement will be named in the autumn. Simeon was among those named by the Dossier Commission as having worked for Bulgaria’s communist-era secret service State Security. He also was a member of the Bulgarian Communist Party. Patriarch Neofit, elected presiding officer of the Holy Synod on February 24 2013, also was named – along with most members of the church’s governing body – as having been a State Security agent. Neofit has retained the post that he held before his election as Patriarch, Metropolitan of Rousse, with a replacement to head the church in Bulgaria’s Danubian city...

( CBC News ) - The sex-abuse trial of Canada's senior Orthodox Church cleric began Monday with a former altar boy accusing Archbishop Kenneth William (Seraphim) Storheim of inviting him to touch his private parts. Archbishop Kenneth (Seraphim) Storheim was suspended by the Orthodox Church of America after two sexual assault charges were laid against him in November 2010. (Archdiocese of Canada) Storheim has pleaded not guilty to two counts of sexual assault involving two pre-teen brothers who were members of the church more than 25 years ago, when he worked at a parish in Winnipeg's North End. Storheim is the highest-ranking cleric in the Canadian diocese of the Orthodox Church in America. The first witness at the trial being held at the Court of Queen's Bench in Winnipeg testified that his mother encouraged him to go to Winnipeg and serve as Storheim's altar boy during the summer of 1985. He was shown his room, where he said Storheim sometimes came at night and hu...

Much is said, year after year, about the process of making the numerous jurisdictions now working independently of one another in the New World into an "American Church." Inculturation will eventually move, as if by a force as relentless as gravity, the clergy and laity of this country into a unified and distinct Orthodoxy body. I travel a bit and make a point of visiting whatever parishes my schedule allows throughout the days I'm journeying about. What I've found is that time is different from ambition . Simply existing as a parish in America is no guarantee that it will become more "American"... ever. Case in point: I just returned from a business trip where I attended Sunday Orthros and Liturgy at the nearest available parish . It didn't reside in an ethnic area nor was it in such a heavily Orthodox-laden city that the landscape was dotted with golden domes. From the moment I walked in the front door to my eventual stepping out of the fellowsh...

( SVOTS ) - In the first week of June, St. Vladimir's Seminary hosted the 84th meeting of the North American Orthodox–Catholic Theological Consultation, the oldest official dialogue between the two Churches in the modern era. The dialogue is jointly sponsored by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of North and South America. Since its establishment in 1965, the Consultation has now issued more than 20 agreed statements on various topics. All these texts are now available on the USCCB Website . The Very Rev. John Erickson, former dean of St. Vladimir's, and Dr. Paul Meyendorff, professor of Liturgical Theology at the Seminary, are members of the group and participated in the meeting. "During our discussions," said Professor Meyendorff, "we focused on the role of the laity in the life of the Church, as well as on the contentious question of priestly celibacy."

Regardless of what you think of the players (or of the biases in this coverage), something is afoot in Europe and it is an explosive something.

( Reuters ) - The head of the Russian Orthodox Church has urged monks not to use cellphones to access the Internet in order to avoid temptation. "Now the Internet appears to be a great temptation," Patriarch Kirill said during a trip to the Zograf monastery in Greece, according to a transcript of his remarks posted on the church's website. "Many monks act, in my view, quite unreasonably. On the one hand, (monks) leave the world in order to create favorable conditions for salvation, and on the other hand, they take their mobile telephone and start to enter the Internet where, we know, there is a large number of sinful and tempting things." The monastic tradition is by definition strict and does not need to adapt to modern conditions, he said. Kirill has in the past warned against "manipulation" on the Internet but an Orthodox Church official, speaking on condition of anonymity, has said the patriarch does use it himself to seek out information....

From the people that gave you this bit of hilarity, The Sacred Sandwich has done the below:

I'm told this Russian effort to reopen parishes in Taiwan is being done with the blessing of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow. As has been reported here over the years, the Russians and Greeks have been at odds over their discrete (if sometimes overlapping) attempts to bring the Church back to life after years of Communist suppression. Excommunicating other canonical clerics is a decidedly drastic next step in this feud. If that is what is indeed happening - other reports are conflicting with this account of things. Time will tell. ( OMHKSEA ) - Encyclical of His Eminence Metropolitan NEKTARIOS of Hong Kong and Southeast Asia to the Reverend Priests and Deacons, the Monks and Nuns, the Members of the Orthodox Communities of the Orthodox Metropolitanate of Hong Kong and Southeast Asia. Dear Brethren in Christ, I regret to inform you that the following individuals, who reside in Taiwan, Kiril Shkarbul (Name removed by request) created a schismatic “church”, the so called “Taiwa...

( St. Emmelia Homeschool ) - This survey is being conducted by request of His Grace, Bishop THOMAS. He is Bishop of Charleston, Oakland and the Mid-Atlantic, in the Antiochian Archdiocese. The education of our children is a subject dear to his heart (see, for instance, his essay here ). His hope is to collect some data on Orthodox homeschoolers, across jurisdictions, so as to better understand and minister to our needs. Take the survey here .

( St. Katherine College ) - This is a series of forty reflections on the history of Christian civilization, or Christendom (and will include additional introductory and concluding episodes). It is divided into two halves tracing the “rise” of Christendom in early times and its “fall” in modern times. The entire podcast is organized around the theme of “paradise and utopia”—that is, of the civilization’s orientation toward the kingdom of heaven when traditional Christianity was influential, and of its “disorientation” toward the fallen world in the wake of traditional Christianity’s decline in the west following the Great Schism. Fr. John Strickland is a professor of history at Saint Katherine College near San Diego and serves as an attached priest at Saint John of Damascus Church (OCA) in the nearby town of Poway. He is the author of The Making of Holy Russia, which will be published by Holy Trinity Publications, Jordanville, in September.

( AFR ) - Bobby Maddex interviews Fr. Timothy Scott Lowe, the Orthodox Rector of the Tantur Ecumenical Institute , an organization committed to Christian unity and interchurch harmony among diverse Christian communions. Located in Jerusalem, it also serves as a welcoming place in The Holy Land for visitors and scholars from the Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox traditions.

( mospat.ru ) - On 5 June 2013, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia celebrated the Divine Liturgy at the Cathedral church of the Russian Monastery of St. Panteleimon on Mount Athos.

( Vatican Insider ) - The Archbishop of Israel’s Greek Melkite Catholic Church, told Vatican Insider the situation in Syria is tragic and asked why the West is doing nothing to help. "Arab Spring is not the right term. This was no spring. It was a monumental bloodbath. So many died, but the biggest losers are the Christians…” Elias Chacour, the Archbishop of Akko, Haifa, Nazareth and All Galilee of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church is the elder of one of the largest communities of Arab Catholics in Israel. The Church has 80 thousand faithful, 32 parishes and 28 priests. The archbishop met Vatican Insider and other Italian media in his residence in the Israeli city of Haifa, a shining example of peaceful co-existence between religions. During his meeting with journalists, he expressed his concerns about the fate of Christians who have been forced to flee Syria, about the dialogue process with the Orthodox Church and about Pope Francis. “I do not know why so many lost their...