Byzantine, Texas

( Word from Guatemala ) - Excitement is growing in Guatemala and Chiapas, Mexico, as the Orthodox Church carries out the vision of Archbishop Athenagoras of Mexico to take the Gospel message into all of Central America and beyond. The thousands of Mayans who have already made Orthodoxy their spiritual home are looking to the future, so that the Church’s many pastoral and evangelical challenges can be met by trained clergy and dedicated missionaries and catechists. To help meet this great need, construction of a seminary/mission training center, with the support of the Orthodox Christian Mission Center and generous donors, has begun in the mountain village of Talmiche, perched high above the fast-growing city of Huehuetenango. 

NEW YORK ( EA ) – The Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States of America announced that its 10th Annual Assembly of Bishops Meeting will be held October 2-5, 2021 in Washington D.C. The Assembly will also be hosting a charity networking event to hear the voices of the youth and young adults while assembling hygiene kits for those in need. The event will kick-off at 5:00 PM EDT on Sunday, October 3, 2021 and will be open to the public.  

( Catholic Philly ) - Following Pope Francis’ recent institution of the ministry of catechist, a local Catholic college has launched a one-of-a-kind program to “teach the teachers” of the faith. Starting this fall, Manor College will offer the world’s first post-baccalaureate certificate in Eastern Christian catechetics. For those unfamiliar with Greek Catholic speak, "Eastern Christian" and "Byzantine" and other phrases often mean something like "not Roman" or "Orthodox" theology as Greek Catholics understand it. It's an inexact, umbrella term. The 180-hour, fully online curriculum is designed for catechists or lay persons wishing to delve more deeply into Eastern Christian tradition. Courses, which begin Sept. 7, are structured in seven-week segments, with each costing $1,125. Tuition for the certificate totals $4,500, and discounts are available when five students from the same diocese or eparchy enroll. The program is anchored in the “Cat...

( Eparchy of Newton ) - An increasing number of Byzantine churches are observing the Feast of the Dormition by conducting the Burial Service of the Theotokos. This observance comes to us from the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the traditional site of her death and burial.  On the morning of August 14 a procession sets out from the Patriarchate, bearing the icon of the Dormition. They leave the Old City and cross the Kedron Valley, arriving at Gethsemane and the tomb of the Theotokos. There the people, passing beneath the icon, enter the church where the burial shroud of the Theotokos has been displayed for veneration. On the closing of the feast, August 23, another procession returns the icon and the shroud to the Patriarchate. The Tomb of the Holy Virgin We do not know when the site of the Virgin’s tomb in Gethsemane, at the foot of Mount Olivet, became a place of Christian devotion. Some say that the first church there had been built by St Helena in the fourth century. There was clea...

( St. Athanasius College ) - TH 113: Confession, the Secret Heart of Orthodoxy ​ This class aims at understanding the mystery of confession as vital to our life in Christ and His body, the Church. It has a biblical and canonical position in the Church and is spiritual oxygen. Confessing our sins humbles us, calls down the grace of God on us and enables us to grow in the knowledge and love of God. It is a sacramental opportunity to remove the cause of what ails the human person and brings healing. It is a sure aid in the continual struggle to draw near to God in Christ Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, and is important not only to the individual’s spiritual growth but also to the spiritual life of the larger faith community. September 7: Questions/Expectations about the mystery of confession September 14: What is the biblical and theological teaching on the place and practice of confession September 21: How to prepare for and do confession September 28: Revealing sin breaks its power and ...

As I posted here when it happened, giving Mr. Cuomo the Athenagoras Human Rights Award was not a good idea. At the time, his full-throated support of abortion should have disqualified him for any awards with the words "human rights" in it, but we can now add to the reasons to rescind this commendation. His orders to put the elderly back into nursing homes after they had been in hospitals due to illness (and then cover up of the action) might be a sufficient affront to human rights. As might the unwelcome sexual overtures made to at least eleven women. The Archons have removed others in the past. They completely scrubbed the sexual offender Cardinal Theodore Edgar McCarrick from their website, for example. What will their response to his resignation be? Time will tell. ( CNBC ) - New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday he will resign effective in two weeks because of a sexual harassment scandal that has crippled his administration, saying he did not want to distract the stat...

Man illegally enters and then remains in France. He then sets a 400-year-old cathedral on fire - destroying many irreplaceable items. The leader of the community takes him in in act of Christian love and forgiveness. The man then beats that priest to death. Prayers to all who knew this man of God. PARIS ( Reuters ) -A Rwandan immigrant in France already under investigation for setting the Nantes cathedral on fire last year has been arrested on suspicion of murdering a Roman Catholic priest, prosecutors said on Monday. The 40-year-old man surrendered to police mid-morning and admitted to killing the head of the religious congregation where he was staying as he awaited trial for the cathedral fire. La Roche-sur-Yon prosecutor Yannick Le Goater told reporters police had found the body of 60-year-old Olivier Maire, head of the Montfortain Missionary Order at Saint-Laurent-sur-Sevre, in a room to which the suspect had given them the key. “At this stage of the investigation there seems to be...

This has been sent widely around the Internet. It has been panned as overly ornate or out-of-touch by some and lauded as a clarion call to the clergy and laity of the Church by others. It is certainly hard to digest without being moved one way or another. Read it for yourself. Their website is here . Below is a snipper of the letter available in full at Orthodox Reflections . TO OUR BELOVED HIERARCHS, BROTHER CONCELEBRANTS, AND OUR FAITHFUL FLOCKS, Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ! We write this letter in anguish and pain of heart, carrying a burden we have borne in silence for too long. Today we write with boldness, a boldness that is found not in ourselves but in our desire to hold fast to the Holy Traditions of our beloved Orthodox Faith—the true medicine of the world. We write as a brotherhood of clergy in America not bound by jurisdiction or diocese. The fires of current trials have brought us together, and our brotherhood has been forged in tears, brokenness, and pr...

( Holy Cross Monastery ) - As the virus continues to spread throughout the brotherhood, services in church are now being limited to the Hours only and will NOT be live-streamed. The exception will be Great Vespers on Saturday night at 6:30pm and Hours & Liturgy on Sunday at 9:00am, both of which will be broadcast. As of Thursday, July 29 multiple members of the brotherhood have tested positive for COVID-19 and almost everyone has fallen ill. Therefore Fr. Seraphim has decided to close the monastery to visitors temporarily, and unfortunately we will have to cancel the public celebration of St. Panteleimon's Day on August 8/9. Because we are very shorthanded, orders are being fulfilled more slowly than normal. Please allow us at least a few additional days to get your orders shipped. Thank you for your understanding, and please keep us in your prayers during this time.

( UOC-USA ) - TO:  ALL CLERGY, PARISH BOARDS OF ADMINISTRATION AND ALL FAITHFUL OF OUR HOLY UKRAINIAN ORTHDOX CHURCH OF THE USA RE:  Changing Metrics Associated With the Covid-19 Pandemic and the Necessity of Responsible and Measured Means to Combat Them Dearly Beloved Brothers and Sisters in our Loving Lord, CHRIST IS AMONG US!  HE IS AND ALWAYS SHALL BE! We had not expected the necessity of writing to you once again concerning necessary responses to the COVID-19 PANDEMIC because of the seemingly positive numbers of people getting vaccinated.  Perhaps the initial success throughout the early months of this year convinced us all that the greatest danger had passed and that “normal” life could, step by step, return.  Obviously, however, the new and far more dangerous variant(s) of the virus have changed the perspective of not only the medical and scientific communities, but most of the general population of our nation that we are far from “normal” and that “norma...

I really loved the first book (The Typikon Decoded) and consider it an almost essential text to have at hand. The book is already in the mail to me and I hope to review it soon. ( SVS Press ) - The Euchologion Unveiled describes and explains the sacramental services of the Orthodox Church. The Euchologion is the liturgical book that priests use to serve all the mysteries, or sacraments, of the Church. Archbishop Job “unveils” the history, meaning, and structure of these services, and the Orthodox understanding of the sacraments, through which believers receive grace and become partakers of the divine life. Though most people have heard of “the seven sacraments” –baptism, chrismation, the Eucharist, confession, marriage, ordination, and unction—this is a later western schema, and the Orthodox Church performs several other sacramental rites, which are also explained here: monastic tonsure, the funeral, the sanctification of chrism, the consecration of a church, and the blessing of water...

( Jerusalem Patriarchate ) - Around 1921, at the beginning of work at a construction site in a neighbourhood of south Azotos (present Ashdod), the digging machine uncovered mosaics of an old Byzantine Holy Church, with the result that the Archaeological Service of Israel intervened and prohibited the continuation of the works. Ever since the specific plot remained empty and fell under the ownership of the state. In 2009, the Archaeological Service assigned the responsibility of the excavations to the specific plot to archaeologist Dr Alexander Fantalkin, Lecturer at Tel Aviv University, who specializes in Ancient Greece in the 8th century BC. The excavations were postponed and continued this year. A building complex with a central temple and chapels of unique spiritual and historical value were discovered during the excavations. There is a possibility that it is associated with the existence of an early form of a Hesychastic Monastery for an Order of Virgin Women with the title Deacone...

From the blog Handwritings on the Wall, a post entitled " For Whom Does Elpidophoros Speak? " What I have seen as the primary criticism was not the overly broad acceptance of many ways to live (which was read by some as a level of plurality unacceptable to Orthodoxy), but his rather biting criticism of the Russian Church. It left the EP open to cries of hypocrisy as it has very openly aligned itself with the US State Department on many fronts. Difficult to decry church-state relations on the heels of the Ukraine kerfuffle. Archbishop Elpidophoros has caused consternation among the Orthodox faithful by the speech that he gave at the International Religious Freedom Summit held in Washington D.C., 15 July 2021. I posted the entirety of his speech a few post back. In the speech he stated: When you elevate one religion above all others, it is as if you decide there is only one path leading to the top of the mountain. But the truth is you simply cannot see the myriads of paths tha...