Byzantine, Texas

( The Economist ) - The kingdom presented its shift from the Islamic to the Gregorian calendar as a leap into modernity. In April the dynamic deputy crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Muhammad bin Salman, chose to call his transformation plan Vision 2030, not Vision 1451 after the corresponding Islamic year as traditionalists might have preferred. Recently his cabinet declared that the administration is adopting a solar calendar in place of the old lunar one. Henceforth they will run the state according to a reckoning based on Jesus Christ’s birth, not on the Prophet Muhammad’s religious mission. But puritans in Islam’s birthplace are wincing at their eviction from control first over public space, and now of time. Guardians of the Wahhabi rite, who seek to be guided by Muhammad’s every act, ask whether they are now being required to follow Jesus. A slippery slope, the clergy warn, to forgetting the fasting month of Ramadan altogether; the authorities are rewinding the clock to the ja...

( Washington Post ) - This week, Christmas pageants across the country will reenact the scenes of the nativity; carolers will sing the beloved hymn, “O Little Town of Bethlehem”; and millions will turn their hearts toward that ancient city, where many believe that Jesus was born. But it’s likely most Americans haven’t pondered what that birthplace is like today — or who lives there. Bethlehem is the most heavily Christian city in Palestine. Its Arab Christian mayor, Vera Baboun, describes her hometown the “capital of Christmas” and says that between Bethlehem proper and the surrounding Bethlehem governate, there are upward of 38,000 Christian residents. Christmas celebrations there form an integral part of city life. “Bethlehem is the city that gave the message of peace to the whole world,” Baboun told me in a November interview at a conference hosted by the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C. “But today, Bethlehem does not live the peace that it gave to the whole world.” ...

The last true rebellion is death to the world. To be crucified to the world and the world to us. ( The Outline ) - You’re at a punk show. Someone dressed in all black hands you a bunch of black-and-white pages stapled together. Death to the World, says the cover. When you get home and open it up, you’re greeted by unrelenting doom: The last true rebellion is death to the world. To be crucified to the world and the world to us. This is Death to the World, a cult zine that’s punk on the outside, Eastern Orthodox Christianity on the inside. Typical articles have titles like “Death: Our Way of Life” and “One Hour of Suffering in Hell.” Pages are adorned with Medieval-looking illustrations of men climbing up a ladder from Hell to Heaven, surrounded by chaotic scenes of angels and demons and destruction. Essays by sixth century monks are printed alongside musings from former street kids... Complete article here .

In short, they are not impressed by the event's detractors. This is a very forceful statement akin to what we saw recently come out of Constantinople. You can see that they are brooking no one stepping out of line from the official position of the patriarchate. Lines like "disciplinary administrative and canonical sanctions will be applied in order to bring to order clerics, monastics and lay people who persist in their state of rebellion and disunion" are not easy to misunderstand. As a quick editorial note, the Romanian Church emboldened their own text (a rare and rather brash move as far as patriarchal communications go). I've kept those bold areas as they were released. ( Church of Romania ) - Please find below the position of the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church about recent evolutions in Romania regarding reception of the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church (Crete, 2016): During the working session of the Holy Synod of the Romanian ...

This is a repost from a few years back with vesperal hymn and video from Met. Hilarion's Christmas Oratorio 24: Rachel's Lament (H/T: Fr. Demetrios Carellas). Vesperal Hymn in the 4th Tone "When the Virgin had brought Thee forth, O eternal and changeless Lord, when in Thy great goodness Thou hadst become a babe, to Thee was offered up a choir of holy babes in martyric blood, having pure and stainless souls and made shining in righteousness; whom Thou tookest up to abide in Thine ever-living mansions, where they pillory (scorn, ridicule) the malice of ruthless Herod's insanity." A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more. - Matthew 2:18 - 14,000 Holy Infants were killed by King Herod in Bethlehem. When the time came for the Incarnation of the Son of God and His Birth of the Most Holy Virgin Mary, Magi in the East beheld a n...

( UOJ ) - Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew proclaimed 2017 as the Year of Protection of the Sacredness of Childhood and urged all to respect the rights and privacy of children, reports RIA Novosti . "Unfortunately, the Gospel of Christmas is once again proclaimed to a world where the racket of weapons is heard, where unprovoked violence against individuals and peoples is enacted, and where inequality and social justice prevail. It is unbearable to witness the state of countless children, victims of military conflict, irregular situations, manifold exploitations, persecutions and discriminations, as well as hunger, poverty and painful dispossession. Last April, we had the opportunity in Lesbos to witness with our own eyes—together with His Holiness Pope Francis of Rome and His Beatitude Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens and All Greece—the tragic circumstances of refugees and immigrants, and especially the acute problems of the suffering children, innocents and defenseless victims...

( Orthodox Life ) - Dear Reader, I am pleased to welcome you to the new Orthodox Life website. Sixty-six years ago Holy Trinity Monastery began producing the print journal Orthodox Life. The year was 1950 and this English-language publication was a major undertaking for a community of mostly Russian-speaking monks, but the missionary need for a source of Orthodox spiritual nourishment in the English language made this effort an imperative. That same missionary spirit has now led us to move from a print to an online platform. It is our firm belief that this step will make the content of Orthodox Life much more widely available than ever before and easily sharable. Thanks to these new technologies we can better make the voice of Orthodoxy heard in our times. Orthodox Life will no longer produce bimonthly issues; rather, new content will be posted on a weekly basis utilizing all the best forms of digital media. As our initial offering there are several new posts as well as arti...

( Pravoslavie.ru ) - A group of Georgian women who have had abortions and doctors who have performed abortions have decided to build a new church as an act of repentance, reports newsgeorgia.ge. The group recently met with His Holiness Patriarch-Catholicos Ilia II of Georgia to receive his blessing for their penitential undertaking. He blessed them and wished them luck in building their new church near Tbilisi by the Haddonstone Forest, dedicated to the Holy Trinity. “Under the conditions of the atheistic regime many didn’t comprehend how great a sin abortion is, considering it a normal occurrence. After a large part of our population began a Church life, mothers and gynecologists, troubled by their sin of abortion, began to have the desire to build a church in the name of the Holy Trinity as a sign of contrition,” notes a message from the Patriarchate. 40,000 abortions were officially registered in Georgia in 2012, while in 2014 the number dropped to 33,000.

This article, entitled " Our culture of purity celebrates the Virgin Mary. As a rape victim, that hurts me ," was quite a read. What I find as so odd is how she takes her own pain about rape and accuses the historical and theological values placed on virginity as being at fault for a lot of it. It's also odd for her to reference the Church's (and the Orthodox explicitly at one point) position to say that it has "overfocused on virginity and made it into an idol of sexual purity." To put forth such an opinion I think she must have failed to read the works that underpin the importance placed on virginity. She fails to grasp the value of chastity seen from the apostolic homes, to the desert sketes, to the snowy monasteries, to the chastely unwed of today, and to all so dedicating themselves to Christ throughout the ages. She conflates the offering made by the virgin with the shame of the victim of sexual abuse and comes to the lamentable conclusion that our Lor...

( EP-Oceania ) - The members of the 6th Episcopal Assembly of Oceania met in the Central Offices of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia in Redfern, Sydney, on Thursday 8th December 2016 under the ex officio chairmanship of His Eminence Archbishop Stylianos of Australia. Once again this Assembly provided the opportunity for the Hierarchs to recognise and reinforce their unity in the Orthodox faith. Present were: His Eminence Archbishop Stylianos (Ecumenical Patriarchate); His Eminence Archbishop Paul (Antiochian Church); His Grace Bishop George (Russian Church); His Grace Bishop Siluan (Serbian Church); His Grace Bishop Mihail (Romanian Church); His Eminence Metropolitan Amphilochios (Ecumenical Patriarchate, New Zealand); His Grace Bishop Ezekiel (Assistant Bishop); His Grace Bishop Seraphim (Assistant Bishop); His Grace Bishop Nikandros (Assistant Bishop) and His Grace Bishop Iakovos (Assistant Bishop). In the opening session, the Chairman, His Eminence Archbishop St...

Today, heaven’s gates opened wide to many victims of terrorism, angels placed the crowns of martyrdom upon their heads, and our Lord Jesus Christ welcomed them into the paradise of joy. Shortly after receiving the Holy Eucharist, a bomb exploded on the side of this ancient church, where women, infants, and young children await their turn to partake of the Holy Eucharist. There is no God in any religion that can accept this savagery, for it is incomprehensible that heaven can be comprised of murderers. Where is the bravery in these atrocities? Where is the heroism in such violent acts? Bravery and heroism are marked by the courage of all Christians, regardless of their dire circumstances, whether poor, ill, or disadvantaged, but greet each day with faith and fill every church in this great land that has been blessed by the blood of the martyrs for more than 2000 years. We are not praying for our martyrs, for they have won the kingdom of God. We are praying and fasting for those who ...

Pope Tawadros II of Alexandria in moments following attack New York, New York ( Coptic-NYNE ) - For Immediate Release, Coptic Orthodox Diocese of New York & New England We have learned with great sorrow, according to initial reports, that a terrorist explosion has killed at least 25 and injured many more at the Church of St. Peter, adjacent to St. Mark’s Cathedral and the Papal Residence in Cairo. It is attacks like these that have given the Coptic Orthodox Church the title of “The Church of Martyrs” for the last 2000 years. Though it is the blood of these martyrs that makes the Church stronger, we strongly condemn this heinous terrorist attack on our beloved motherland and brethren. We pray for God to have mercy on those who have lost their lives and hope for a speedy and full recovery to those who are injured. We also send our condolences to the affected families and express our solidarity with our brothers and sisters who continue to suffer at the hands of a radical ide...

It's the words of the supporters of this atrocity that cause so much distress to my heart. The hate that rejoices in the death of women and children comes from only one place and it is one of darkness. Prayers for those mourning, those fighting for their lives in hospitals, and for a conversion of hearts for the proponents of such a deplorable act of cowardice. ( Al Arabiya ) - A bomb exploded near Cairo's Coptic cathedral on Sunday killing 25 people and wounding another 35 on Sunday, according to Egyptian state television. The blast took place as a Sunday mass being held in the chapel was about to end and coincided with a national holiday in Egypt marking the birth of Islam's Prophet Muhammad. Most of the victims are thought to be women and children. A device containing about 12 kg of the explosive TNT had denoted on the women's side of the cathedral, the security sources said. “Today's terrorist attack is a direct attempt to derail Egypt's economy ...

( Orthodox Ethos ) - In unprecedented and uncanonical fashion the Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew, is demanding that the Archbishop of Athens and the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece depose and excommunicate leading hierarchs and clergy of the Church for their opposition to the "Council" of Crete and its innovative organization and decisions. The Patriarchal letter names first of all, the one-time representative of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, Protopresbyter Theodore Zisis, professor emeritus of Patrology, as the supposed "ring leader," but also implicates "those under him" who traveled with him to the Churches of Georgia, Bulgaria and Moldova before and after the Cretan gathering. The Patriarch demands that, in the event of their persistence in rejecting the "Council" of Crete, they be defrocked and excommunicated, according the canonical akriveia.. The Patriarch goes further and states that similar action be taken also against two...

( BBC ) - A bomb explosion in the Coptic Christian cathedral complex in the Egyptian capital Cairo has killed at least 25 people, officials say. Dozens of others were injured in the blast in a chapel adjoining St Mark's cathedral during a Sunday service. Many of the victims are thought to be women and children. Egypt's Christian minority has often been targeted by Islamist militants. Christians gathered to show anger at the attack, the worst in years. Egypt has seen a wave of attacks by militants since 2013 when the military overthrew President Mohammed Morsi, an elected leader who hailed from the Muslim Brotherhood, and launched a crackdown against Islamists. Some of Mr Morsi's supporters blamed Christians for supporting the overthrow. The explosion happened at about 10:00 local time (08:00 GMT). Video footage carried by regional media showed the interior of the church littered with broken and scattered furniture, along with blood and clothing on the floor. ...

( EP ) - His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew is visiting South Italy on 1-7 December 2016. On 1 December, he participated in an ecumenical prayer at the cathedral of Lecce where he delivered a brief homily⇒, in which he described his visit as a pilgrimage “to meet the brothers in the West, to hug their children that live here and give witness of Christian love, and to breathe together friendship and dialogue with all”. On 2 December 2016, the Ecumenical Patriarch received a doctorate honoris causa from the University of Salento. In his lectio magistralis, he referred to the encyclical of the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church (Crete 2016) relating to three main challenges for humanity today: globalization, violation of human rights and religious fundamentalism. Bartholomew stressed that “A human being is not only a citizen of the world, but also a citizen of heaven, full of longing for eternal life”. According to him, “Orthodoxy is called to serve as a pr...

( AOB ) - A new map, Orthodox Bishops and Parishes in the United States, is now available on the Assembly's website. The updated map shows: a) locations, names and jurisdictions of all active Orthodox bishops in the United States and b) the total number of Orthodox parishes in each county. The map is in PDF format and can be downloaded here (PDF).

Where the "European Forum of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Christian Groups" and Orthodox clergy converge. Not a few of these names will be known to the readers.

This won't be a long, scripture-strewn article. Instead a few words on a contemporary topic. If you look at the year as a journey from one place to another with stops in-between, you acknowledge that there are times when you pack lightly and times when you have a train of luggage behind you and times when you stay home and settle into your home with a good book and a hot cup of tea. Throughout those 365 days of sojourning, sometimes the trip calls for light meals and other times great sumptuous banquets and still other times no food at all. This week my inbox is full of emails about how to "eat smart" this holiday season. Ignoring the egregious abuse done to the adverb, it is worth pointing out that these communications miss the point. There are times to feast, but there are also times to fast. For the person who lives the year liturgically the bountiful Christmas meal is as welcome and reasonable as the hummus and crudités of the days preceding it. The person who fas...

There was a very rich man in the city of Mora who lost all his wealth. He had three daughters who had passed the age of marriage, and could not marry them because of his poverty. Satan caused the man to think that he should make his daughters live in sin so that they might get their food by means of fornication. God revealed to St. Nicholas the thoughts which were in this man's head. St. Nicholas took one hundred dinars of his father's money and tied it up in a sack, and during the night he threw the money into the window of that man's house. When the man found the gold, he was astonished and rejoiced exceeding and was able to give his eldest daughter away in marriage. During another night the saint threw another hundred dinars into the man's house and the man was able to give his second daughter away in marriage. The man wanted to know who this charitable person was. The third time when the saint threw the gold into the house, the man was watching and immediately whe...

( St. Nicholas Center ) - These hymns were composed for the Centenary of the Miracle of St Nicholas at the Darr Mine, December 19, 1907. Two to three hundred lives were spared, as faithful Carpatho-Rusyn men and boys were at Divine Liturgy on the Feast of St. Nicholas when the Darr Mine exploded. 239 lives were lost in the Pennsylvania's worst mining disaster. Tropar (Tone 4) Protected by your prayers, O Holy Father Nicholas* we children of those saved offer praise to you.* Beneath your holy omofor you covered your people* as they labored beneath the hills of a new land.* Cease not to intercede that our souls may be saved. Kondak (Tone 3) You were truly the protector of your people, O Holy Nicholas* for those who zealously celebrated your holy feast.* You preserved them from danger and death as they labored beneath the earth.* Therefore with one voice we ask you to continually pray for us* that we may obtain mercy from Christ our God.

Orthodox listeners will get a kick out of the first question asked by the show's host, Celeste Headlee, to the book's author, Adam English, about inarguably one of the most famous saints in Christendom. What a search you have been on. It couldn't have been easy to find any documentation whatsoever into the life of St. Nicholas of Myra. Tell us a little bit about him and what you discovered that's actually true about this man. ( NPR ) - If you celebrate Christmas, you may have found some presents under the tree, and you may believe those mysterious presents came from a jolly old man in a red suit. He has a lot of names, including Santa Claus, Kris Kringle, Sinterklaas, Noel Baba, Popo Gigio — and of course — St. Nicholas. But believe it or not, St. Nicholas was a real man. He was a bishop, living in the 3rd century, in what's now modern-day Turkey. Professor Adam English of Campbell University in North Carolina pieced together the life of St. Nicholas in his ...

From the blog A Reader's Guide to Orthodox Icons ... In many icons of Nicholas, the Saint is shown flanked by Jesus Christ and the Mother of God either in medallions or, especially later, resting upon clouds. This is recalling a miracle from St Nicholas’ life. At the First Council of Nicea (325 A.D.) the anti-Trinitarian heresy spouted by Arius so angered Nicholas that he walked over to Arius in mid-speech and struck him in the face. The scene is shown in all its glory in this fresco. For his transgression, Nicholas was evicted from the Council, stripped of his bishorpic, and thrown in prison. Whilst there, Nicholas was visited one night by Jesus Christ and the Mother of God: Jesus holding a Gospel book, Mary a bishop’s stole. Christ handed the book to Nicholas, whilst the Theotokos offered the omophorion, restoring Nicholas to the rank of bishop, as it were, by Divine decree. The next morning the gaoler was astonished to find Nicholas miraculously unchained and dressed a...

( St. Nicholas Center ) - When Nicholas visited Palestine he is believed to have lived for three to four years in a small cave in Beit Jala. St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church is on the site of the cave. In Beit Jala today there are innumerable stories about Saint Nicholas. Fr. George Shawan, Beit Jala's senior Orthodox priest says, "For us he is not Santa Claus but like our great great grandfather. We feel we know him personally. In the year 305, several monks from Anatolia in Asia Minor came here and established a small monastery with a church named in honor of the Great Martyr George. This was before St. Sava’s Monastery was founded in the desert east of Bethlehem on the Kidron Gorge near the Dead Sea. The monks in Beit Jala had a few caves and several houses. In the years 312-315, St. Nicholas was here. He came as a pilgrim to visit shrines in the Holy Land. A text written in his own hand is still in the care of the Patriarchate in Jerusalem. It was in his prayers th...

How much do I dislike the RUPTLY banner on these videos? A lot. ( RT ) - The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, has consecrated a new cathedral in central Paris, just yards away from the Eiffel Tower, with hundreds of worshippers attending the service he led there on Sunday. Trinity Cathedral was opened as part of a Russian cultural and spiritual center on the banks of the Seine River in the French capital. Around 500 Orthodox believers from the Russian community in Paris, including the offspring of Russia’s former princely houses, packed the church for the event. Renowned French singer, Mireille Mathieu, and Russian super-model, Natalia Vodianova, were also attending. The Patriarch called the new church a symbol of the close ties between the peoples and the cultures of Russia and France. “It’s a monument to our close relations in the past and, certainly, a symbol of what awaits us in the future,” he said. The Orthodox Church leader also thanked Fr...

NEW YORK, September 3, 2015 ( LifeSiteNews ) – An Orthodox Christian woman has won the right to refuse a vaccine developed using aborted babies' tissue, based on her religious beliefs. The vaccine is for measles/mumps/rubella and is required by New York City law for all schoolchildren. It was developed from fetal tissue procured from abortions, hence the moral dilemma for practicing Christians. The woman, who remains anonymous, said her Christian beliefs against abortion compel her to have nothing to do with vaccines made using aborted fetal tissue. "Abortion is clearly a mortal sin and is [an] abhorrent act to any Christian," the New York mom said in her petition for exemption, according to the New York Post. "The vaccine manufacturers' use of aborted fetal cells in its products and research means that I cannot associate with them or support them financially (by buying their products), for such support would make me complicit to their sin." New Yor...

( Middle East Monitor ) - Patriarch Theophilos III of the Greek Orthodox Church in Jerusalem has sacked Archbishop of Sebastia Attalla Hanna, a statement issued by the office of the Archbishop said yesterday. “Patriarch Theophilos and his Holy Gathering decided today to stop the salary of Archbishop Attalla Hanna,” the statement said, noting that Hanna is the only Palestinian archbishop in the Greek Orthodox Church. The statement cited “the latest stances” of the Archbishop Hanna and his “clear support” for many other issues, stressing that this measure aimed to “blackmail him and put pressure on him and all the Arab clergymen.” Meanwhile, the statement noted that the salaries of other Arab clergymen were “arbitrarily stopped” by the Patriarchate of the Greek Orthodox in Jerusalem. In addition, the statement said that the Orthodox Church took several other “punitive” measures against Arab clergymen such as moving Archimandrite Christophoros from his monastery in Jordan to Jeru...

( Sofia Globe ) - The Bulgarian Orthodox Church’s governing body, the Holy Synod, has formally rejected the Pan-Orthodox Council and its conclusions, it emerged from an announcement in Sofia on November 29. The Bulgarian Orthodox Church declined to attend the council, held in Crete in June, after its call for the Pan-Orthodox Council to be postponed was not heeded. It was among four autocephalous Orthodox churches that refused to attend, along with the Patriarchate of Antioch, the Georgian Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church. The event in Crete was “neither Great, nor Pan, nor Pan-Orthodox,” the Holy Synod said in its November 29 decision. The decision noted that the Crete council had been attended by “representatives of the media and guests from heterodox religious groups (Roman Catholic, Anglican, etc)”. It noted that 33 people from among the bishops who had participated in the council had not signed the document on “Relations of the Orthodox Church with the re...

( LA Copts ) - The following is a summary of a study dealing with women receiving Holy Communion presented by the Medical Subcommittee of the Holy Synod, which convened at the Synod’s request in March 2016 at Logos Center. The Christian Church clearly teaches that sin alone defiles a believer and that men and women are temples of the Holy Spirit, which only leaves a person in the case of death in sin. Thus, a woman is a pure dwelling place of the Holy Spirit every day of her life. However, because of piety and the proper care concerning the Holy Mysteries of the Church, and for the preservation of the received traditions, it is fitting for both men and women to refrain from Holy Communion during periods of physical unpreparedness, which include all kinds of bodily secretions such as nocturnal emissions of semen for men (i.e., “wet dreams”), the menstrual cycle, the period of postpartum bleeding, and normal marital relations, except in special cases at the advice of the spiritual f...

From the blog Byzantine Frontier , a post on liturgical colors. This isn't a big, complex article but instead presents things simply and and succinctly. I love the change of liturgical colors because it helps mark the seasons with a different focus so quickly and beautifully. But one in Orthodox churches we run into such variety about what color is used for what season or feast it seems confusing. Well, it is confusing, sort of anyway. Before the fourteenth century no Christian church had assigned colors for seasons, fasts or feasts the way we understand them now. There was only a very broad guideline. In the Orthodox Church the colors are specified in what is called the Typikon, but in the Typikon there are only three colors called for: general, dark and bright. That’s as specific as it gets. General is taken to mean gold. Dark is often thought of a purple (but can be red, burgundy, or even black). Bright is white but historically could also simply mean one’s nicest or mos...