Society of St John Chrysostom

Christians in the Middle East: Debate in Parliament

2011-12-09T14:51:00.000Z

Following a conference at Lambeth Palace, jointly convened in the summer by Their Graces the Archbishop of Canterbury (Church of England) and the Archbishop of Westminster (Catholic), addressed by the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem and the Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem among many others from all faith communities in the Holy Land, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Revd Dr Rowan Williams has today (9th December 2011) initiated a debate in the House of Lords, the Upper House of the United Kingdom Parliament, on the situation of Christians in the Middle East.

It lasted for over four and half hours and included highly informed interventions from Peers and Bishops with direct knowledge of international, Middle East, interreligious and ecumenical affairs. The entire debate has been recorded and archived on Parliament's website and can be watched here.

Archimandrite Serge Kelleher - Memory Eternal

2011-11-13T12:41:00.002Z

Fr Serge in Dublin

Archimandrite Serge Kelleher fell asleep in the Lord in Dublin late in the morning of Friday 11th November. Bishop Hlib Lonchyna, Apostolic Exarch for the Ukrainian Greek Catholics of Great Britain, responsible also for the Ukrainian Catholic flock in Ireland, informs us that the priestly Parastas is planned for Friday evening, 18th November, and the Funeral itself will be on Saturday, 19th November.

Father Deacon Richard Downer writes:

Back in early 1994, when I was a both a member of the Society of St John Chrysostom and of the Melkite-Greek Catholic Community in London, I arranged with Fr Shafiq AbouZayd for Fr Serge and two other Greek Catholic priests (Fr Graham Woolfenden and Fr Elias O’Brien) to come down from Oxford to serve the Divine Liturgy in English for our Melkite Community in London on a monthly basis. However, Carol, my wife, and I first met Fr Serge at Keston College, a research organisation in England that supported persecuted Christians in Communist lands. This was prior to Perestroika, if I remember correctly; perhaps around the time that Ronald Reagan had a meeting with Gorbachev in Iceland. Fr Serge kindly took Carol and myself down to his office in the college, where we had a long discussion about the then plight of the persecuted Greek Catholic Church in the Ukraine. He was unmistakable on our subsequent visits to Keston College, wearing as he did his Kamelevikon and veil at public meetings of the College.

It was while he was at Keston College that Fr Serge published his book about the persecuted Greek Catholics in the Ukraine. He invited Carol and myself to the book launch, which was held in the Church Hall of the joint Russian/Greek Orthodox Church in Canterbury Road in Oxford. Among others, the Rev Michael Bordeaux, head of Keston College, the then Bishop Basil of the Russian Orthodox Church and Metropolitan Kallistos Ware of the Greek Orthodox Church were present. The Orthodox presence in a Church Hall, a Hall that they owned, was quite remarkable considering the fact that Fr Serge’s book was about the suffering/persecuted Greek Catholic Church in Ukraine. Once again Fr Serge stood out, as it were, by wearing his Kamelevikon and veil; neither of the Orthodox Bishops wore theirs. What was even more remarkable, bearing in mind the topic of the book, was that Metropolitan Kallistos was chairing the book launch. Michael Bordeaux, as head of Keston College, spoke about the book and its purpose. At some stage during the gathering Metropolitan Kallistos also spoke. He started his talk in his own very English humorous way as follows: “God is a mystery; therefore because man is made in the image of God, he too is a mystery; but there is no greater mystery than Archimandrite Serge Kelleher!” How could one forget such an opening remark; in a way it was both a telling and an affectionate remark.

Archbishop Joseph Raya and Fr Serge at Madonna House,
Combermere, Canada

In addition, many years ago, when the Society of St John Chrysostom in England had almost ceased to exist, there was a meeting held downstairs in the Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral in London attended by Fr Serge, the late Fr Graham Woolfenden, the late Joe Farrelly, myself and others, in order to see how the Society could be re-started, as it were. Following on from that meeting various things began to happen, and Fr Serge played an important role in this regard. This was some time before the formation of the Society of St John Chrysostom in the USA, a matter that we discussed at some of our Society committee meetings in London, prior to its formation. Another of Fr Serge’s projects was the launching of the Eastern Churches Journal, the first copy of which appeared for Winter 1993/1994, Fr Serge being the editor. Again this was a matter that we discussed on various occasions at Society committee meetings in London prior to the Journal being launched.

The Society is immensely grateful to God for Fr Serge, who not only helped to lay the foundations for the work of the Society today, but also the significant work of our sister Society in the United States and its conferences and publications in furtherance of Catholic-Orthodox unity following the Apostolic Letter of Blessed Pope John Paul II, Orientale Lumen.

May his memory be eternal!

Egypt Prayer Day - Saturday 12 November 2011

2011-10-25T12:39:00.001+01:00

Letter from His Grace Bishop Angaelos

Friday 21 October, 2O11

Your Graces, Revd Fathers, dear Sisters and Brothers,

Grace and peace to you from our Lord Jesus Christ. These last ten months have been filled with excitement, turbulence and tragedy in and for Egypt. This is a formative stage in Egypt's contemporary history, and a time where the country and its people attempt to transition from one era to another.

Egypt is now in need of our support; the government and her people are in need of divine guidance and the wisdom that can only come from God. Over these past months, and especially in these last two

weeks, we have seen the destruction, and even death, that can come about when there is a confused transition that does not encompass a spirit of inclusion and cohesiveness, and a vision that looks to a more equitable and less discriminatory existence.

For this reason we are gathering together on Saturday 12 November, 2011 from 2pm to 4pm, in partnership with our friends from Christian Solidarity Worldwide, to pray together for Egypt, her leadership, her government, her army, and particularly for her people, that as the proposed elections approach, and as these people try to redefine their future, God's guiding hand will be there in their midst and His comforting Spirit of peace will overshadow them.

I ask you to join me on that day in the Cathedral of Saint George to raise all of this in our prayers, as well as remember those who have lost their lives, have been injured, or have lost loved ones. The address is:

Shephalbury Manor, Broadhall Way, Stevenage, Hertfordshire SG2 8NP, United Kingdom

Tel. : +44-(011438-7452 32

Fax : +44-(0)14 38-313 879

Email: Admin@CopticCentre.com

Website: www.CopticCentre.com

Please accept my apologies for the lateness of this invitation but our attention has been focussed on the Maspero demonstration and the resulting death and destruction that has touched our community both here and in Egypt.

I look forward to seeing and praying with you, and leave you in the care of our gracious Lord.

+Bishop Angaelos

General Bishop, Coptic Orthodox Church, United Kingdom

Please RSVP by email to: admin@CopticCentre.com

The Syrian Orthodox Church and its Diaspora: modern history and contemporary challenges

2011-10-25T11:26:00.000+01:00

Centre for Eastern Christianity, Heythrop College, University of London
Wednesday 30 November - Special guest lecture and seminar, 4pm-6pm

The Syrian Orthodox Church and its Diaspora: modern history and contemporary challenges. Dr Sebastian Brock, Reader Emeritus in Syriac Studies, Oriental Institute, University of Oxford
All welcome

What is the Anglican Tradition? The Constantinople Lecture

2011-10-25T11:22:00.000+01:00

Anglican & Eastern Churches Association Constantinople Lecture 2011
What is the Anglican Tradition?

The Bishop of London, Dr Richard Chartres

Orthodox Cathedral of the Divine Wisdom, Moscow Road, London W2 4LQ

24th November 2011, 5-30 pm Vespers, 6 pm Lecture, 7-15 pm Reception

Tickets (£15) from the Secretary, Old Deanery, Dean’s Court, London EC4V 5AA

Fr Maximus' Orthodox Study Day

2011-10-25T11:20:00.000+01:00

Saturday 19th November 2011

Town End House, Hopton, Nr Wirksworth DE4 4DF

Orthodox Study Day - Number 29
11.00 Beyond Religious Careerisms and Obscure Spiritualities - IS THERE SPACE FOR MERE CHRISTIANITY? Archimandrite Maximos Lavriotes
1.00 Lunch (Soup etc. provided)

2.00 Titles of the Mother of God in the Akathist Dr Margaret Barker

4. 00 Tea & Cake

Father Maximus, after 14 years on Mount Athos and 7 years as priest in Cambridge, while Orthodox to his fingertips, has many friends in other denominations. His energies have been devoted to a proper understanding of the Theology of the Early Church as well as to tutoring, lecturing and research. Ring him on 01799513541, or write to 95 Castle St, Saffron Walden, CB10 1BQ, or to mlavriotes@hotmail.com, if you want to know more.

Dr Margaret Barker is a past president of the Society for Old Testament Studies and an expert on the roots of Christian belief, worship and practice in the faith and liturgy of the Temple. www.templestudiesgroup.com

RSVP to Vaila Cochrane, Town End House, Hopton-by- Wirksworth, DE4 4DF. 01629 540349. vaila.cochrane@virgin.net. Contributions up to £15. Maps and bus times on request. All welcome.

Severus of Antioch: Was he a Monophysite?

2011-10-25T11:15:00.000+01:00

Fellowship of St Alban & St Sergius

Severus of Antioch: Was he a Monophysite?

11 am, Saturday 12th November, 2011

Saint Sava’s Serbian Orthodox Church, Lancaster Road, W11 1QQ

With James Lewis, Head of Religious Studies at Kingsdale School and lay reader in the Anglican diocese of Southwark

Severus of Antioch was Patriarch of Antioch 512-518

http://sites.google.com/site/stastslondon/

Relations between The Holy See and the Russian Federation in the last years

2011-10-25T11:12:00.000+01:00

The Society's Annual Christopher Morris Lecture 2011

Relations between The Holy See and the Russian Federation in the last years
HE Archbishop Antonio Mennini, Apostolic Nuncio to the Court of St James

Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral of the Holy Family, Duke Street, London W1

7.30pm, Thursday 10 November

Preceded by the Pontifical Divine Liturgy at 6.15pm and followed by reception.

Admission free, but prior reservation is essential to johnchrysostom@btinternet.com

Eastern Christianity: Modern History and Contemporary Context

2011-10-25T11:07:00.000+01:00

University of Oxford Department of Continuing Education

Eastern Christianity: Modern History and Contemporary Context

Rewley House, 1 Wellington Square, Oxford

Saturday 5th November, from 9-30 am, Fee £55

Lecturers:

Dr Sebastian Brock, Emeritus Reader in Syriac Studies, Oxford
Anthony O’Mahoney, Director of the Centre for Eastern Christianity, Heythrop College
John Flannery, Heythrop College – Georgian Christianity
Fr John Woolley, Catholic Diocese of Westminster – Armenian Christianity

More details and to book - http://www.conted.ox.ac.uk/courses/dayweekend/index.php

Return and Renewal: Themes in 20th-century Orthodox Theology

2011-10-25T11:03:00.000+01:00

Centre for Eastern Christianity, Heythrop College, University of London
Wednesday 2 November - Seminar (with Centre for Christianity and Interreligious Dialogue), 4pm-6pm

Return and Renewal: Themes in 20th-century Orthodox Theology. Charles Miller, Rector of Abingdon, Oxfordshire

All welcome.

Bishop Hlib named Apostolic Exarch for Ukrainians in the UK

2011-06-14T11:41:00.026+01:00

On 14 June 2011 the Roman Pontiff named Kyr Hlib Boris Sviatoslav Lonchyna, a Monk of the Studite Rule, Exarch of the Apostolic Exarchate for the Ukrainian Faithful of the Byzantine Rite residing in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

His Lordship Kyr Hlib was born in

Steubenville, Ohio, USA

on 23 February 1954. His parents emigranted from present-day western Ukraine after the Second World War.

Kyr Hlib attended the Pontifical Urbaniana University in Rome where, in 1979 he completed a licenciate degree in Biblical Theology. He also attended the Pontifical Oriental Institute where he completed a doctoral degree in Eastern Christian Studies (specializing in Eastern Liturgy) in 2001.

In 1975 he entered the Ukrainian Studite monastery at Grottaferrata, where he made his perpetual profession of vows on 19 December 1976. He was ordained to the priesthood on il 3 July 1977 by the late Cardinal Josyf Slipyj.

Father Hlib performed pastoral service at St. Nicholas Parish in Passaic, NJ (USA) and later served as Prefect of Students at St. Sophia College in Rome.

After moving to Ukraine in 1994, he served as Spiritual Director for the seminarians of the Greek-Catholic Major Seminary in Lviv and lectured at the Theological Academy of Lviv. Subsequently he served as local assistant in the Apostolic Nunciature in Kyiv.

On 11 January 2002 e Pope John-Paul II named him titular Bishop of Bareta and Auxiliary-Bishop of Lviv of the Ukrainians. He received the episcopal ordination on 27 February of that same year.

On 14 January 2003 Blessed John-Paul named him Apostolic Visitor for the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Faithful in Italy and confirmed his appointment as Procurator of the Major-Archbishop of Lviv i Rome. On 4 March 2004 he was also named Apostolic Visitor to Spain and the Republic of Ireland.

On 25 March 2006 Kyr Hlib was recalled to Ukraine and named Head of the Patriarchal Commission for Religious Life, while retaining his charge as Apostolic Visitor. On 7 January 2009 he was replaced as Apostolic Visitor in Italy and Spain by Kyr Dionisio Lachovicz.

On 2 June 2009 he was named Apostolic Administrator "sede vacante" of the Apostolic Exarchate for the Ukrainian Faithful of the Byzantine Rite in Great Britain and Northern Ireland while retaining the Apostolic Visitation for the Irish Republic.

Kyr Hlib is the fourth Ukrainian bishop to be named Apostolic Exarch for the Ukrainians the UK. His predecessors were: the Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal William Godfrey (exarch 1957-1963, Father Paul Maluga Vicar General); Bishop Augustine Hornyak (auxiliary 1961, exarch 1963-1987); Bishop Michael Hrynchyshyn (administrator 1987-1989); Bishop Michael Kuchmiak (exarch 1989-2002); Bishop Paul Chomnycky (exarch 2002-2006).

Since arriving in this Country Bishop Hlib has shown himself to be very supportive of the Society of St. John Chrysostom. Last year he delivered the Christopher Morris Lecture following our Annual General Meeting. The same Pontifical Society offers him sincerest congratulations upon his appointment together with ardent prayers for his apostolic mission in this Country.

На многая й благая літа, Владико!

A short history of the Apostolic Exarchate for Ukrainians in the UK

"The Church is Young" The Election of Sviatoslav Shevchuk

2011-03-30T12:42:00.027+01:00

“The Church is Young”
—
Pope Benedict XVI (2005)

The announcement that the Synod of Ukrainian Hierarchs had elected their youngest member, 40-year old Bishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, as Major-Archbishop (Patriarch) hit world news like a lightening bolt. Yet every Ukrainian Greek-Catholic felt this jolt to be a powerful sign from God and more than one of his electors remarked: “we felt the hand of the Holy Spirit” in the selection. His Beatitude Sviatoslav's life journey is a powerful reflection on God's hand upon the Church which Shevchuk has become Father and Head.

Sviatoslav Shevchuk was born in 1970 to pious Greek-Catholic parents in the Western-Ukrainian city of Stryj. At the time, his homeland was part of the Soviet Union and and his family were forced to practice their faith in secret. Pope Pius XII had referred to the underground Church in communist countries as the Church of Silence. When Gorbachov began his glasnost reform, the Church of Silence rose up to loudly proclaim the Faith. After 45 years of state oppression, the Greek-Catholic Church came forth from its catacomb existance and took its rightful place in the public life of Ukraine. During a key period of his youth, Shevchuk experienced both the anxieties and the joys of his fellow Ukrainians and fellow Catholics. He was among the generation of Ukraine’s sons and daughters who entered adulthood in religious freedom in a free country. Recently he remarked that, as one of the last generation to serve the Soviet Army (and the only Major-Archbishop to have done so), his Catholic Faith served as the foundation of his human dignity and that of his people.

Shevchuk’s personality speaks volumes: it reflects youth combined with mature virtue; friendliness and even familiarity with profound gravitas; unfeigned humility coupled with a clear word and a strong will. He is a scholar who naturally speaks the language of ordinary people. He is completely at ease on a sportsfield or in the great pomp of solemn pontifical rites. He also posseses a healthy Ukrainian patriotism, tempered by an understanding of his nation’s role among her neighbours and his Church’s role in the Universal Church and vis-à-vis other Churches. Such awareness comes not only from having lived and studied in East and West (and one could add North and South) but also from a profound contemplation of a single, unified Christian theology which has diverse modes of expression in East and West. If authentically Christian, these must always be complementary; never exclusive of one another. Shevchuk is a man of two ecclesial lungs, combining tradition and modernity, a man of and for today.

Ukraine’s ancestor, the ancient state of Kyivan-Rus’, stood poised between East and West: possessing the spirituality of Eastern Christianity but open to influence from Western European culture, acting as a bridge between the two sides. Svaitoslav Shevchuk has become the successor of the ancient primates of Rus’, the Metropolitans of Kyiv, who re-entered into complete ecclesial communion with the Roman Pontiff and the Church Universal in 1439 at Florence and 1596 at Brest. But a Catholic metropolitan had not been enthroned in Kyiv since the eighteenth century, when another child of ancient Rus’, the Russian Empire, absorbed the Ukrainian lands and eliminated any trace of Eastern Catholicsm. For this reason, in 1807, the Roman Pontiff transferred the Catholic primatial see of Rus' from Kyiv to Lviv, where it remained until 2004. What is now Western Ukraine became a province of the Austrian Empire. Austria gave the Uniate Church (an Orthodox Church in full union with Rome) a new name, Greek-Catholic. With national awakening in the nineeenth century, the old terms Rus’ or Ruthenia gave way to the geographical description Ukraine, so the Ruthenian nation could distinguish itself from Russia.
In the first half of the twentieth century, Shevchuk’s iconic predecessor, Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky, led the Greek-Catholic Church to rediscover its ancient Byzantine identity, in order to take its rightful place among the Oriental Churches. Sheptytsky’s sucessor, Josyf Slipyj, was a confessor of the Catholic Faith, enduring eighteen years of emprisonment under the atheistic Soviet regime. Upon his relase in 1963, Pope Paul VI raised the See of Lviv from that status of metropolia to that of a Major-Archbishopric, in recognition of the autonomous character the Roman Pontiffs had always accorded to the Ruthenian-Ukrainian primates. For this reason, Sheptytsky had begun to discuss the idea of a patriarchate and Slipyj, created cardinal in 1965, brought the discussion to the floor of the Second Vatican Council. In 1975, he began to use the title of patriarch, thereby hoping that the Roman Pontiff would deem the largest of the Eastern Catholic Churches to be fully mature. Pope John-Paul II took the first step by granting synodal, semi-patriarchal structure to the Ukrainian Catholic Church in 1980. The second step was the normalization of the Church in its home territory. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Slipyj’s successor, Cardinal Lubachivsky, was free to return to his see of Lviv and begin the reconstruction of the Church in Ukraine. The next Major-Archbishop, Cardinal Husar, established the patriarchal curia and permanent Synod. In 2004 Pope John Paul reversed the decision his predecessor Pius VII by returning the primatial see from Lviv to Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital. Husar thus became the first Major-Archbishop of Kyiv-Halych, Metropolitan of Kyiv and Bishop of Kamianets Podilsk (the latter a courtesy title historically held by Ukrainain primates).

The enthronement ceremony of Major-Archbishop Shevchuk represented another step in the maturing process of his Church. He was the first Catholic primate to be enthroned in Kyiv since the Russian Empire suppressed the Uniate Kyivan Metropolitante. The ritual itself combined elements ancient and new. Ancient Byzantine ritual was celebrated in the modern Ukrainiann language. The still-incomplete sobor (arch-cathedral) displayed elements of contemporary architecture but was decorated with traditional furnishings and traditional Byzantine vestments were worn by the clergy. Three periods of Ukrainian iconography were present: traditional Byzantine, eighteenth century and twentieth century styles. The musical arrangements also represented a section of compositions by Ukraine's prominent composers of sacred choral music. Historically, Latin-Rite bishops have always been present at such enthronements. This ceremony made another innovation with the presence of the heads of Eastern Catholic Churches, such as the Melchite Patriarch Gregorios III of Antioch and Slovak Metropolitan Jan Babjak. Of profund ecumenical significance was the presence of prelates representing all three Orthodox Churches in Ukraine, each of which received and returned the sign of peace from Patriarch Sviatoslav. Important Ukrainian notables were also present in the church and at the reception, including former President Viktor Yuschenko and former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

Patriarch Sviatoslav has announced an ecumenical strategy, that his Church will be a help, not a hindrance to unity. At the same time, he emphasized that it is only just that the Church which suffered for unity not be be treated simply as an ecumentical object. His Beatitude begins his mandate by manifesting the most important sign of unity. On 30 March, together with the Metropolitans and bishops of his Permanent Synod, he was received in audience by Pope Benedict XVI. A private audience took place the following day. These are historic meetings between the Father and Head of a Particular Church with the Father and Head of the Universal Church. While such meetings are a sign of the maturity of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, they also bear witness to two essential characteristics of this Particular Church: unity and martyrdom. And indeed, at the first papal audience, Pope Benedict called this to mind, that Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church has and must always be an icon of unity with Peter (cum et sub Petro) even unto the shedding of blood.

Christianity in Iraq VIII: The Assyrian Christian Library of Turfan, China

2011-01-23T10:22:00.001Z

The Library of Turfan and its Importance for the Study of the Liturgy of the Church of the East

His Grace Mar Awa, Assyrian Bishop of California

Further details from Dr Erica Hunter at the School for Oriental and African Studies in due course.

St Mary of Egypt and Other Saints

2011-01-23T09:49:00.000Z

Thursday 17th March 2011
St Anselm's Roman Catholic Church, Tooting Bec Road, London SW17 8BS. Nearest tube: Tooting Bec
6.15 pm Mass
7.00 pm Talk by Father George Christidis, followed by light refreshments

A joint meeting of the Society of St John Chrysostom and the Fellowship of St Alban & St Sergius (London branch) to which all are welcome

Association of Interchurch Families

2011-01-23T09:47:00.000Z

London Meeting, Saturday 26 February, St Andrew's Church. Short Street, London SE1 8LJ. Nearest Tube: Waterloo

11 am Welcome and Introduction, with News from AIF and the world of Ecumenism
12 noon Talk by Professor Antoine Arjakovsky, Director of the Centre for Ecumenical Studies, Ukrainian Catholic University, Lviw, Ukraine - a French Orthodox lay theologian married to a Catholic. Followed by picnic lunch
2 pm Talk by Commander Betty Matear, Salvation Army and co-president of Churches Together in England - Reflections on the Papal Visit
3 pm Methodist Communion Service

Representing Religion in the European Union: The Orthodox Perspective

2011-01-23T09:45:00.001Z

The Second Joint Seminar of the Centre for Eastern Christianity and Heythrop College, supported by the Society of St John Chrysostom, on Wednesday 23 February 2011, 4.30-6.00 pm.

Dr. Lucian Leustean

For the first time in the history of the acquis communautaire, the Lisbon Treaty institutionalises an ‘open, transparent and regular dialogue’ between European institutions and ‘churches, religions and communities of conviction’. This paper examines the evolution of religious representation in the European Union from the 1950 Schuman Declaration proposing the establishment of a European Coal and Steel Community to the Lisbon Treaty in 2009. It offers an historical overview of religious representation and discusses the mobilisation of Orthodox churches in dialogue with European institutions.

Lucian Leustean is Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at Aston University, Birmingham. He studied international relations, law and theology in Bucharest and completed his doctorate in the Department of Government at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His publications include Orthodoxy and the Cold War. Religion and Political Power in Romania, 1947-65 (Basingstoke, Palgrave MacMillan, 2009); editor of Eastern Christianity and the Cold War, 1945-91 (London, Routledge, 2010), and co-editor of Religion, Politics and Law in the European Union (London, Routledge, 2010); ‘What is the European Union? Religion between Neofunctionalism and Intergovernmentalism’, International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church, Vol. 9, no. 3, 2009, pp. 165-176. He is currently working on an ESRC project on ‘The Politics of Religious Lobbies in the European Union'.

Heythrop College, University of London, Kensington Square, London W8 5HN. There is no charge for attendance and registration is not required. Enquiries: j.flannery@heythrop.ac.uk

The Triumph of Orthodoxy: The Church of England and the Icon Theology of the 2nd Council of Nicaea

2011-01-23T09:41:00.000Z

Wednesday 16th February 2011
5-30 pm Evening Prayer, followed by light refreshments
6-30 pm Talk by The Revd Stephen Stavrou
St John's Church, Landsdowne Crescent, Notthing Hill, W11 2NN
Nearest Tube: Holland Park

A joint meeting of the Fellowship of St Alban & St Sergius (London Branch) and the Anglican & Eastern Churches Association, to which all are welcome

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

2011-01-18T09:58:00.001Z

In 2011, the materials, prayers and worship for the Week of Prayer have been devised by the Christians of Jerusalem, from the Orthodox Church, the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, the Latin Catholic Patriarchate, the Syrian Orthodox Church, the Armenian Orthodox Church, the Anglican Church and the Lutheran Church, not forgetting the Maronite, Coptic, Ethiopian, Syrian Catholic, Armenian Catholic and various Evangelical communities that also exist in the City and the Holy Land.

Follow this link to the website of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland for the UK & Eire versions of the resources.

As we pray for the peace of Jerusalem, 18 to 25 January, we give thanks to God for the vast contribution made by the Christians of Syriac and Arab ecclesial families to the formation of Christianity's tradition and to its future.

And in the words of Father Paul Couturier, who reanimated the Week of Prayer in the 1930s and caused it to be the universal Church's celebration of faith, hope and love for visible unity and communion that we know today, we pray for the unity of all humanity in the charity and truth of Christ.

Patriarch of the West: Centre for Eastern Christianity

2011-01-11T09:50:00.007Z

The first Joint Theology Seminary of the new Centre for Eastern Christianity and Heythrop College will take place on the afternoon of 26th January 2011. In connection with the current concern of the international Catholic-Orthodox dialogue, the focus will be on the Petrine ministry of the Bishop of Rome and the role of the papacy in the universal Church. Part of the context is the removal by Pope Benedict XVI of the title, "Patriarch of the West". To some on the Catholic side of the dialogue, the title was irrelevant, referring to long historic conditions and thus defunct. Indeed, it has been claimed that it thus stood in the way of a genuine dialogue towards reunion in the conditions of the present. But to others and to many Orthodox, it appeared to disturb the arrangements that obtained before schism set in, especially the pentarchy of the historic patriarchates, and thus made it more difficult to retrace steps in the search for lost unity. The Seminar will look at all these issues as they affect - and are affected by - respective canonical principles and the sense of the Church's identity we have as Catholics and Orthodox.

Canon Law and the Politics of Ecclesial Identity:
The Patriarch of the West:

contemporary Catholic & Orthodox perspectives

Dr Peter Petkoff

Wednesday 26 January 2011, 4.30pm -6.00pm

The Hopkins Room

Heythrop College, University of London, Kensington Square, London W8 5HN.

Please note: there is no charge for attendance and registration is not required. Enquiries:
j.flannery@heythrop.ac.uk. A flyer can be downloaded here.

Out of interest, here are two relevant speeches made by Patriarch Gregorios of Antioch the Melkite Greek Catholics at the October 2010 Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops of the Catholic Church to address the concerns of the Churches of the Middle East:

Dr Peter Petkoff has studied law and theology in Sofia, Leeds, Oxford and Rome and his research interests are in the area of law and religion, EC Law, Intellectual Property and Comparative and International Law. His academic appointments include working on research projects at Oxford University (European Company Law and Arms Exports), Exeter University (Comparative European Family Law) and Bristol University (Changing Nature of Religious Rights Under International Law), a visiting fellowship at the Stephan Kuttner Institute of Medieval Canon Law and the Leopold-Wenger-Institute for Legal History at Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich and teaching positions at Bristol, Oxford and Buckingham. He has taught EU Law, International law and Intellectual Property, Canon law and Islamic Law. Dr Petkoff is a honorary fellow of the Centre for the Study of Law and Religion at the University of Bristol, a Fellow of the Centre for Christianity and Culture at Regent’s Park College, Oxford, a Secretary of the Oxford Society for Law and Religion and a convener of the Oxford Colloquium for Law and Religion, a board member of the academic think-tank ‘Focus on Freedom of Religion or Belief’ which studies the dynamics of freedom of religion or belief discourse within the context of the international institutions. Dr Petkoff is also a board member of the research network ‘Church, Law and Society of the Middle Ages’ and a convener of Eastern Canon Law panels at the International Medieval Congress at Leeds. He is currently engaged in research projects which study the coexistence of civic and religious legal systems on national, regional and international level and the formation of Christian, Jewish and Islamic legal harmonisations in the twelfth and the thirteenth centuries.

Recent publications: Legal and Religious Perspectives of the Post-conciliar Vatican Concordats – Minorities, Human Rights, Religious Freedom and International Law, Law and Justice Journal (No 158, 2007); Freedom of Religion or Belief in the Jurisprudence of the Bulgarian Constitutional Court Religion, State and Society [Routledge], Volume 36, 2008; Neutrality in the Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights – coauthored with Malcolm Evans (Religion, State and Society, Volume 36, 2008; Church-State Relations under the Bulgarian Denominations Act 2002: Religious Pluralism and Established Church Religion, State and Society Vol. 33, No. 4, December 2005; The Law on Religion in Bulgaria in the Light of European Integration Orthodox Christianity And Contemporary Europe, Leuven, Peeters, 2003.

Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh Foundation

2010-11-10T07:04:00.001Z

Peace and Love, Divine and Human

Third annual conference, sponsored by the Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh Foundation in the Metropolitan's memory will take place on Saturday, 27 November 2010, from 9-45, ending with Pannikhida at 6 pm, at St Sava's Serbian Orthodox Cathedral Church Hall, Lancaster Road W11 1QQ. To apply, contact Olga Pattison on 01869 347457. Speakers:

Fr Michel Evdokimov
Marina Barabanova Holdsworth
Fr John Lee
Fr John Marks
Irina von Schlippe

"Divine and human love must be summed up first of all inthe establishment of the righ relationship with God, with men and also with oneself." Metropolitan Anthony

Constantinople Lecture, Anglican & Eastern Churches Association 2010

2010-11-09T07:04:00.000Z

The Armenian Genocide: A Way Forward?
The Anglican & Eastern Churches Association Annual Constantinople Lecture will take place on 25 November 2010 at the Church of St Mary at Hill, Lovat Lane, London EC4V 4AA. Speaker: Dr Harry Hagopian KSG
5-30 pm Evensong
6-00 pm Lecture, followed by Reception

Tickets for Reception from Janet Laws, Secretary, AECA, The Old Deanery, Dean's Court, LONDON EC4V 5AA

New Orthodox Church in Kenton takes shape

2010-11-03T08:38:00.000Z

25 years ago the Anglican parish of Kenton took the bold step of entrusting its mission Church of the Holy Spirit to the growing community of Greek Orthodox in northwest London. So was born the Archdiocese of Thyateira's parish church of St Pantaleimon the Healer. In time the community was able to purchase the freehold of the Church, the hall and the house. And two years ago, the old building was demolished to make way for a superb new Byzantine church. The roof is now tiled and the copper is on the domes. See more progress and a video of the inside work so far on the parish's blog of the building work, appropriately named Landmark.

The long-serving parish priest is the learned Very Reverend Oeconomos Protopresbyter Anastasios Salapatas. We promise our prayers and warmly wish Father Anastasios well in his mission towards the beautiful and inspiring building of a new Church on a busy main road in north west London, where it will be a constant witness to Christ in a very religiously diverse part of the world.

The Vatican Synod on Christianity in the Middle East: Professor Herman Teule

2010-10-19T09:45:00.005+01:00

THE CENTRE FOR EASTERN AND ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY

in conjunction with

THE DEPARTMENT FOR THE STUDY OF RELIGIONS,
SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES
THORNHAUGH STREET
RUSSELL SQUARE
LONDON WC1H 0XG

is delighted to announce a lecture by

Professor Herman TEULEDirector, Institute of Eastern Christian Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands

THE VATICAN SYNOD (Oct. 22-29th 2010)
ON CHRISTIANITY IN THE MIDDLE EAST
7pm. G3. Main Building, SOAS, WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 3RD

ALL WELCOME, FREE ENTRY

Please direct enquiries to:

Ms. Pascale Dionnet, Arts and Humanities Office: tel. 0207-8984012 (pd11@soas.ac.uk)

Dr. Erica C.D. HUNTER, Dept. for the Study of Religions, SOAS (eh9@soas.ac.uk)
[abroad 19th October – 1st November]

The Way, an Introductory Course to the Orthodox Faith

2010-10-17T11:56:00.007+01:00

The Way is the new course introducing the Orthodox Faith from the Institute of Orthodox Christian Studies. It draws on the elements of hospitality and human social relations in sharing the Christian faith used in the well known Evangelical programme, the Alpha Course. But it takes a distinctively Orthodox theological approach - for instance on the Liturgy and the sacraments, the Mother of God, the life and structure of the Church and human salvation - and this is integral to the course. The 12 weekly sessions consist of:

a meal together
a talk on a central aspect of Christian belief
free discussion in small groups
a question and answer session and panel discussion

Here is the introductory video:

The course comes in a boxed set of 5 DVDs and, as well as illustrating teaching, worship and spirituality, includes 12 talks by Metropolitan Kallistos, Professor David Frost (Principal of the Institute) and the late Fr Michael Harper. The talks are:

The search for faith
God the Holy Trinty, the "Lover of Mankind"
Being Human: Fully Alive
Why did Jesus Come to Us
Salvation in Christ
The Holy Spirit
What on Earth is the Church? Isn't God enough?
Living the Faith I - The Divine Liturgy, "Pearl of Great Price"
Living the Faith II - The Holy Mysteries
Living the Faith III - The Bible, Prayer and Fasting
Living the Faith IV - Chrisian Behaviour
"Heaven on Earth": Members of the Church and Citizens of Heaven

The story of the course's development has been fascinating, not only involving the fruits of warm dialogue and friendship between Orthodox and Evangelical Christians in England, but also international support, through World Vision International in Romania, where a similar course aimed at introducing children to the Christian faith has been developed, inspired by the Way. World Vision also generously sponsored the publication of the course in multimedia format.

Fr Mark Woodruff, our Vice-Chairman, representing His Grace the Archbishop of Westminster, attended the recent launch at the Parish Hall of St Botolph, Bishopsgate (home to the London parish of the English Deanery of the Antiochian Orthodox Church), and was presented with a complimentary copy of the course. Professor Frost told Fr Mark as he made the presentation, "It is very important that we can share this new development and achievement with our friends in the Roman Catholic Church because the Church aspires to breathe, as Pope John Paul said, on both its lungs."

The Way is published by Gazelle Books and can be ordered direct from the publisher. Or it can be ordered from any bookshop ISBN 9781872897103.

We warmly congratulate the Institute on this magnificent resource, which will not only enable the spirituality and teaching of the Orthodox Church to be better known in the UK, now that increasingly its role in Christian life and mission alongside other Churches here is integral to the endeavours and discipleship of all, but it will also be of great value to the deepening and sharing of the faith when used in other Christian traditions.

World's longest cablecar line to Armenia's Tatev Monastery

2010-10-16T16:32:00.002+01:00

Mariam Harutunian of AFP reports:

Armenia on Saturday launched the world's longest cable car line, a 5.7-kilometre (3.5-mile) engineering feat that spans a spectacular gorge to the country's ancient Tatev monastery. Gathered in Armenia's southern mountains near the border with Iran, guests including President Serzh Sarkisian and the head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Karekin II, took part as the cable car link launched its first official voyage over the Vorotan River Gorge. The link will allow year-round access to Armenia's ninth-century Tatev monastery complex, one of the country's most important religious centres and a major tourist attraction.

At the opening ceremony, Sarkisian said the link was of "exceptional importance for Tatev and the surrounding region" and praised the project for overcoming the many difficulties involved in construction. "This cable car line shows that even dreams that seem unrealistic can be realised with faith and purpose," he said.

Karekin II said the launch of the link was an important step in restoring access to "a centuries-old holy shrine which was a place of pilgrimage from apostolic times." "Through its beauty and stunning construction the monastery at Tatev is among the exceptional creations of Armenian architecture which for centuries has been a vibrant centre of Armenian spiritual life, science and culture," he said.

The reversible cable car line cost 18 million dollars (13 million euros) with much of the funding coming from private donations, according to the National Competitiveness Foundation of Armenia, which oversaw the project. It runs from the village of Halidzor near a highway connecting the Armenian capital Yerevan to the village of Tatev, within walking distance of the monastery.

The cable car travels at a speed of 37 kilometres per hour (23 miles per hour) and a one-way journey takes 11 minutes. At its highest point over the gorge, the car travels 320 metres (1,056 feet) above ground level. It has two cabins, each capable of carrying up to 25 passengers. Local residents will be able to ride the cable car for free while others will have to pay 3,000 Armenian drams (eight dollars/six euros.)

An impoverished ex-Soviet republic bordering Turkey, Iran, Azerbaijan and Georgia, Armenia is keen to develop its tourism industry, showcasing its history as the first country to have adopted Christianity. Residents said they hoped the new link would help restore the economy of the local area, which like much of rural Armenia has suffered from deep poverty and an exodus of young people looking elsewhere for work.

The cable car is part of a 50-million-dollar (36-million-euro) public-private effort to develop tourism at Tatev and in the surrounding region, one of the traditional 15 provinces of the ancient Kingdom of Armenia. The project has also seen the government renovate 26 kilometres (16 miles) of the highway from Yerevan to Tatev and the restoration of parts of the monastery complex.

Blessed Mother Teresa Cathedral, Pristina

2010-09-15T17:22:00.003+01:00

In honour of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, a cathedral has been dedicated in the capital of Kosovo on September 5th 2010, the anniversary of her death. Mother Teresa was an ethnic Albanian. Although Kosovo and Albania are predominantly Muslim, there are significant populations of Orthodox and Catholics.
Several thousand gathered in Pristina for the dedication of the cathedral, which is still partially under construction. According to present plans, it will be the tallest building in Kosovo. It has been financed by the city of Pristina, several European Catholic agencies and a number of private donors.

Metropolitan Hilarion in London - a new Catholic-Orthodox Alliance and hopes that Anglicans will not abandon the Common Tradition

2010-09-13T22:45:00.008+01:00

On 10 September, the Moscow Patriarchate Department of External Relations carried the speech of Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk to the Nikaean Club, concerning Orthodox relations with Anglicanism at the invitation of Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams on 9th September at Lambeth Palace:

Your Grace, ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests,

At the outset, I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to His Grace Archbishop Rowan Williams for inviting me to address the members of the Nicean Club. Your Grace, we highly value your personal contribution to inter-Christian dialogue and your commitment to keep the Anglican Communion unified. We know your love of the Russian Orthodox Church, of its saints and great theologians, of its spiritual tradition. We assure you of our continual support and prayers.

We also highly appreciate the work of the Nicean Club which aims to strengthen relations and to stimulate beneficial co-operation between the churches of the Anglican Communion and other Christian confessions.

The name of the Club – Nicean – takes us back to that blessed era when Christians throughout the world, both in the East and in the West, were united. At the same time, however, that was a period of bitter struggle with heresies and many church schisms. Thanks to the unanimity both of the Western and Eastern Fathers in understanding Church teaching and in standing together with steadfast faith, the Universal Church at its Council in 325 renounced and condemned a heresy that undermined the very foundations of Christian doctrine. At the same time the Church was able to formulate that faith in the Holy Trinity which has survived throughout subsequent centuries. Archbishop Rowan Williams, in his Arius: Heresy and Tradition, has provided us with a profound analysis of Arianism from historical, theological and philosophical perspectives. He describes Arianism as an ‘archetypal Christian deviation’, which tends to rise again and again under various names.

In 325, the Christian Church, which had latterly emerged from a three-century-long period of persecution, proved itself to be strong and mature enough to discern in Arianism a dangerous digression from Orthodox doctrine. By adopting the Nicean Creed the Church did not introduce anything new to her teaching but rather formulated with clarity what she had believed in from the very beginning of her existence. Subsequent Ecumenical Councils continued to clarify church truth without introducing anything fundamentally new to that confession of faith which sprouted from Christ himself and from his apostles.

Why do the Churches, both East and West, still remember the Fathers of the Nicean and later Ecumenical Councils with such gratitude? Why are the great theologians of the past, the opponents of heresy, revered in the East as ‘great universal teachers and saints’ and in the West as ‘Doctors of the Church’? Because throughout the ages the Church believed it to be her principal task to safeguard the truth. Her foremost heroes were those confessors of the faith who asserted Orthodox doctrine and countered heresies in the face of new trends and theological and political innovations.

Almost 1700 years have elapsed since the Council of Nicaea, but the criteria that were used by the Church to distinguish truth from heresy have not changed. And the notion of church truth remains as relevant today as it did seventeen centuries ago. Today the notion of heresy, while present in church vocabulary, is manifestly absent from the vocabulary of contemporary politically-correct theology – a theology that prefers to refer to “pluralism” and to speak of admissible and legitimate differences.

Indeed, St Paul himself wrote that ‘there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God’s approval’ (1 Cor. 11:19). But what kind of differences was he referring to? Certainly not those which concerned the essence of faith, church order or Christian morals. For, in these matters, there is only one truth and any deviation from it is none other than heresy.

At the time of the Council of Nicaea, the Church was united in East and West. But at the present time, there is a multitude of communities each of which claims to be a church even though approaches to doctrinal, ecclesiological and ethical issues among them often differ radically.

Nowadays it is increasingly difficult to speak of ‘Christianity’ as a unified scale of spiritual and moral values, universally adopted by all Christians. It is more appropriate, rather, to speak of ‘Christianities’, that is, different versions of Christianity espoused by diverse communities.

All current versions of Christianity can be very conditionally divided into two major groups – traditional and liberal. The abyss that exists today divides not so much the Orthodox from the Catholics or the Catholics from the Protestants as it does the ‘traditionalists’ from the ‘liberals’. Some Christian leaders, for example, tell us that marriage between a man and a woman is no longer the only way of building a Christian family: there are other models and the Church should become appropriately ‘inclusive’ to recognize alternative behavioural standards and give them official blessing. Some try to persuade us that human life is no longer an absolute value; that it can be terminated in a mother’s womb or that one can terminate one’s life at will. Christian ‘traditionalists’ are being asked to reconsider their views under the slogan of keeping abreast with modernity.

Regrettably, it has to be admitted that the Orthodox Church and many in the Anglican Church have today found themselves on the opposite sides of the abyss that divides traditional Christians from Christians of liberal trend. Certainly, inside the Anglican Community there remain many “traditionalists”, especially in the South and the East, but the liberal trend is also quite noticeable, especially in the West and in the North. Protests against liberalism continue to be heard among Anglicans, as at the 2nd All African Bishops’ Conference held in late August. The Conference’s final document stated in particular, ‘We affirm the Biblical standard of the family as having marriage between a man and a woman as its foundation. One of the purposes of marriage is procreation of children some of whom grow to become the leaders of tomorrow’.

Among the vivid indications of disagreement within the Anglican Community (I am reluctant to say ‘schism’) is the fact that almost 200 Anglican bishops refused to attend the 2008 Lambeth Conference. I was there as an observer from the Russian Orthodox Church and could see various manifestations of deep and painful differences among the Anglicans.

Today the Orthodox-Anglican Dialogue itself has come under threat. It is especially lamentable because this dialogue has had a long and rich history, beginning with the numerous talks at various levels held between Orthodox and Anglicans from the 17th century. In the 19th century, after the Anglicans founded the bishoprics of Jerusalem in 1841 and Gibraltar in 1842, meetings took place and relations were established between representatives of the Church of England and the Episcopal Church in America and the Orthodox Church. The first official message came in a letter of Archbishop Howley of Canterbury (1828-1848) to the Patriarch of Constantinople in 1840, assuring Orthodox hierarchs that the Anglicans would never engage themselves in proselytism and calling for co-operation in a spirit of Christian love.

In 1868, the first Lambeth Conference was held. Acting on behalf of Archbishop Tait of Canterbury, this Conference sent a message, written in a spirit of Christian love and friendship, to the patriarchs and bishops of the Orthodox Church. That same year, at the request of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Patriarch Gregory VI of Constantinople permitted the Orthodox clergy to administer the rite of burial to Anglicans if a priest of the Church of England were not available.

The second such agreement was made in 1874 when Patriarch Joachim II of Constantinople gave permission to the Orthodox clergy to baptize and marry Anglicans. These agreements were exceptional developments in the history of relations between the Churches of East and West.

Between 1874 and 1875, representatives of the Orthodox Church, Anglicans and Old Catholics met for the first time at the Bonn Conferences to discuss issues such as the Filioque, the authority of the Ecumenical Councils and the validity of Anglican priesthood. In 1898, Bishop Wordsworth of Salisbury, in pursuance of a resolution of the 4th Lambeth Conference in 1887 on the need to intensify relations with the Orthodox Church and to set up a special committee for it, visited Patriarch Constantine V of Constantinople and other hierarchs. Patriarch Constantine appointed a special commission for studying the Anglican confession. In the years that followed, Frederick Temple and Constantine V initiated regular correspondence.

At the 1930 Lambeth Conference, after the Anglicans essentially agreed to the Orthodox affirmation that communion in the Sacraments should be preceded by unity in doctrine, it was decided to set up an Anglican-Orthodox Joint Doctrinal Commission, which included representatives of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Church of England. The commission began working in 1931. The 1948 Lambeth Conference gave unanimous support to the further development of relations with the Orthodox.

After World War II, dialogue between our Churches was resumed in 1965. The modern stage in the Anglican-Orthodox Dialogue was opened by a visit of Archbishop Michael Ramsey to Patriarch Athenagoras (Spirou) of Constantinople in 1962. The heads of the two Churches came to an agreement on the need to restore the Joint Theological Commission for studying the doctrinal differences which blocked progress towards unity that had begun in the 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries.

In November 1964, the 3rd Pan-Orthodox Conference on Rhodes discussed, among other things, relations with Western Churches. The question of establishing relations with Canterbury did not raise any difficulties. It was unanimously agreed that ‘an inter-Orthodox theological commission be established immediately, consisting of theological experts from each Orthodox Church’. After preliminary meetings and talks, a dialogue began in 1976. A regular session of the dialogue completed its work only a few days ago.

We are concerned about the fate of this dialogue. We appreciate the proposal Archbishop Rowan Williams made this year to exclude from the dialogue those Anglican churches which failed to observe the moratorium on the ordination of open homosexuals. But we regard this proposal as not quite sufficient to save the dialogue from an approaching collapse. The dialogue is doomed to closure if the unrestrained liberalization of Christian values continues in many communities of the Anglican world.

We are equally concerned about the fate of bilateral relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Church of England. Contacts between the Russian Church and the Anglican Church began as far back as the 19th century. In 1912, the Sacred Governing Synod adopted the statute of a Society of Zealots of Unity between the Eastern Orthodox and the Anglican Churches. In 1914, a Synodal Commission was established for considering interrelations with the Anglican Church. In May 1922, when Patriarch Tikhon was imprisoned, Archbishop Randall Davidson of Canterbury protested to the Soviet government against the persecution of the Church. The archbishop raised this matter twice in the parliament and urged the British government to apply pressure on the Soviet authorities (Kerson’s Note).

The relations between the Russian Church and the Church of England were strengthened by the visit of the Archbishop Cyril Garbett of York to Moscow in 1943. After the end of World War II relations between our Churches intensified and contacts became regular.

The first difficulties in relation to the Church of England emerged in 1992 when its General Synod agreed to ordain women to the priesthood. The Department for External Church Relations of the Russian Orthodox Church came out with an official statement expressing regret and concern over this decision as contradicting the tradition of the Early Church.

One might ask why our Church should have concerned itself at all with this matter? By the early 90s the Protestant world had already ordained many women pastors and even women bishops. But the unique point here was that the Anglican Community had long sought rapprochement with the Orthodox Church. Many Orthodox Christians recognized the existence of apostolic continuity in Anglicanism. From the 19th century, Anglican members of the Association of Eastern Churches sought ‘mutual recognition’ with the Orthodox Church and its members believed that ‘both Churches preserved the apostolic continuity and true faith in the Saviour and should accept each other in the full communion of prayers and sacraments’.

Much has changed since. The introduction of the female priesthood in the Church of England was followed by discussions on the female episcopate. In response to the positive decision made by the Church of England’s General Synod on this issue, the Department for External Church Relations published a new statement saying that this decision ‘has considerably complicated dialogue with the Anglicans for Orthodox Christians’ and ‘has taken Anglicanism farther away from the Orthodox Church and contributed to further division in Christendom as a whole’.

We have studied the preparatory documents for the decision on female episcopate and were struck by the conviction expressed in them that even if the female episcopate were introduced, ecumenical contacts with the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox Churches would not come to an end. What made the authors of these documents so certain? There was a second controversial statement. The same document argued that despite a possible cooling down in relations with Catholics and Orthodox, the Church of England would strengthen and broaden its relations with the Methodist Church and the Lutheran Churches in Norway and Sweden. In other words, the introduction of the female episcopate ‘will bring both gains and losses’. The question arises: Is not the cost of these losses too high? I can say with certainty that the introduction of the female episcopate excludes even a theoretical possibility for the Orthodox to recognize the apostolic continuity of the Anglican hierarchy.

We are also extremely concerned and disappointed by other processes that are manifesting themselves in churches of the Anglican Communion. Some Protestant and Anglican churches have repudiated basic Christian moral values by giving a public blessing to same-sex unions and ordaining homosexuals as priests and bishops. Many Protestant and Anglican communities refuse to preach Christian moral values in secular society and prefer to adjust to worldly standards.

Our Church must sever its relations with those churches and communities that trample on the principles of Christian ethics and traditional morals. Here we uphold a firm stand based on Holy Scripture.

In 2003, the Russian Orthodox Church had to suspend contact with the Episcopal Church in the USA due to the fact that this Church consecrated a self-acclaimed homosexual, Jim Robertson, as bishop. The Department for External Church Relations made a special statement deploring this fact as anti-Christian and blasphemous. Moreover, the Holy Synod of our Church decided to suspend the work of the Joint Coordinating Committee for Cooperation between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Episcopal Church in the USA, which had worked very successfully for many years. The situation was aggravated when a woman bishop was installed as head of the Episcopal Church in the USA in 2006 and a lesbian was placed on the bishop’s chair of Los Angeles in 2010.

Similar reasons were behind the rupture of our relations with the Church of Sweden in 2005 when this Church made a decision to bless same-sex “marriages”. And recently the lesbian Eva Brunne has become the “bishop” of Stockholm.

What can these churches say to their faithful and to secular society? What kind of light do they shine upon the world (cf. Mt. 5:14)? What is their ‘salt’? I am afraid the words of Christ can be applied to them: If the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men (Mt. 5:13).

We are aware of the arguments used by proponents of the above-mentioned liberal innovations. Tradition is no authority for them. They believe that to make the words of Holy Scripture applicable to modernity they have to be ‘actualized’, that is, reviewed and interpreted in an appropriate, ‘modern’ spirit. Holy Tradition is understood as an opportunity for the Church to be continually reformed and renewed and to think critically.

The Orthodox, however, have a different understanding of Holy Tradition. It is aptly expressed in the words of Vladimir Lossky: ‘Tradition is the life of the Holy Spirit in the Church – the life giving to every member of the Body of Christ the ability to hear, accept and know the Truth in its inherent shining, not in the natural light of human reason’.

It is impossible to pass silently by the liberalism and relativism which have become so characteristic of today’s Anglican theology. From the time of Archbishop Michael Ramsay of Canterbury, the Church of England saw the emergence of so-called modernism which rejected the very foundations of Christianity as a God-revealed religion. Among its most eloquent representatives was the Anglican Bishop of Woolwich, Dr. I. A. T. Robinson, the author of the sensational book Honest to God. The Bishop of Woolwich’s worldview can be described as ‘Christian atheism’. Indeed, he rejected the existence of a personal God, of the Creator of the world and of Providence. He also denied the existence of the spiritual world in general and of the future life in particular. It should be admitted that these views provoked protests on the part of some Anglican bishops, led by Archbishop Michael Ramsey of Canterbury.

It is appropriate to recall here the words of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia at the Bishops’ Conference in February 2010. Concerning the liberal novelties introduced by some Protestant communities, he stated: ‘What has happened reveals only too clearly a fundamental difference between Orthodoxy and Protestantism. The principal problem lying at the basis of this difference is that Orthodoxy safeguards the norm of apostolic faith and order as fixed in the Holy Tradition of the Church and sees as its task to actualize this norm continually for the fulfilment of pastoral and missionary tasks. On the other hand, in Protestantism the same task allows for a theological development that can remodel this same norm. Clearly, the search for doctrinal consensus, as was the case with regard to Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry in the multilateral dialogue initiated by the World Council of Churches, has lost its meaning precisely because any consensus may come under threat or may be destroyed by innovation or interpretation that will challenge the very meaning of these agreements’.

Regrettably, what His Holiness the Patriarch says about Protestantism can be applied equally to many Anglican communities. In the 19th and 20th centuries, Orthodox communities discussed seriously the recognition of Anglican priesthood based on its recognized apostolic continuity. Now we are very far from this. And the gap between the liberal Anglicans and the Orthodox keeps growing.

One of the priorities in the work of the Russian Church today is to bear witness to the eternal significance of Christian spiritual and moral values in the life of modern society. In 2000 our Church already made a considerable contribution to the systematization of Orthodox tradition in this area by adopting a Basic Social Concept and, in 2008, a Basic Teaching on Human Dignity, Freedom and Rights. Today the Church is engaged in major work to compile a Catechesis which will give a clear exposition of Christian doctrine, on the one hand, and will respond to the burning problems of today on the other.

We are not alone in our concern for the preservation of Christian values. Liberal tendencies in Protestant and Anglican communities present a challenge to those Christians and churches that have remained faithful to Gospel principles in doctrine, church order and morality. Certainly, we seek and find allies in opposing the destruction of the very essence of Christianity. One of the major tasks in our inter-Christian work today is to unite the efforts of Christians for building a system of solidarity on the basis of Gospel morality in Europe and throughout the world. Our positions are shared by the Roman Catholic Church, with which we have held numerous meetings and conferences. Together we are considering the possibility of establishing an Orthodox-Catholic alliance in Europe for defending the traditional values of Christianity. The primary aim of this alliance would be to restore a Christian soul to Europe. We should be engaged in common defence of Christian values against secularism and relativism.

Today, European countries as never before need to reinforce moral education, since its absence leads to dire consequences such as accelerating extremism, a decline in the birth rate, environmental pollution and violence. The principles of moral responsibility and of freedom should be consistently implemented in all spheres of human life – politics, economics, education, science, culture and the mass media.

We should not remain silent and look with indifference at a world that is gradually deteriorating. Rather, we should proclaim Christian morality and teach it openly not only in our churches, but also in public spaces including secular schools, universities and in the arena of the mass media. We do not presume to impose our views on anybody but we wish that our voice be heard by those who want to hear it. Unfortunately, we cannot convert the whole world to God, but we should at least make people think about the meaning of life and the existence of absolute spiritual and moral values. We are obliged to bear witness to the true faith always and everywhere so that at least some may be saved (1 Cor. 9:22).

Summing up, I wish to assert that today we have new divisions in Christendom, not only theological but also ethical. Regrettably, many Christian communities, which once maintained fraternal relations with the Orthodox Church for many years and were in dialogue with it, have shown themselves to be incapable or unwilling to assume obligations stemming from our dialogue. We accompany our reactions to these developments with assurances of respect for the right of all churches and communities to make decisions which they deem to be necessary. Yet, at the same time, we state with sadness that neither the official dialogue nor the most valuable relations and contacts in the past have kept some of our Anglican brothers and sisters from steps which have taken them even farther away from our common Christian Church Tradition.

On behalf of the Russian Orthodox Church I would like to stress that we continue to be fully committed to the dialogue with the Anglican Church and will do our utmost to keep this dialogue going. We do not betray our commitment to the dialogue. However, we feel that many of our Anglican brothers and sisters betray our common witness by departing from traditional Christian values and replacing them by contemporary secular standards. I very much hope that the official position of the Anglican Church on theological, ecclesiological and moral issues will be in tune with the tradition of the Ancient Undivided Church and that the Anglican leadership will not surrender to the pressure coming from liberals.

Our faithful cherish the memory of the visit made by the Church of England’s delegation led by Archbishop Cyril Garbett to Moscow in 1943. Then Patriarch Sergiy, who had been enthroned a few days earlier, remarked, ‘The English have come defying the dangers of travelling at a time of war and the entire insidiousness of the enemy’. Addressing himself to Archbishop Garbett, he said, ‘The old archbishop teaches us by his example to forget one’s own interests and conveniences and one’s own life when the truth of Christ and the welfare of our neighbours… call us to serve higher values’.

Today, too, we do not abandon Christian love for our Anglican brothers and sisters. We do not abandon the hope that they, who once defied every danger during the hard years of war, will share with us that trust in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, which rests on the solid foundation of the faith of holy apostles, the Fathers of the Nicean Council and the tradition of the Undivided Church.

Iraq to the Holy See: We Need our Christians

2010-08-25T16:21:00.003+01:00

Habbeb Mohammed Hadi Ali Al-Sadr, the Ambassador of Iraq to the Holy See has asked Pope Benedict XVI "to encourage Christians to return to their country with a willing spirit for its reconstruction, being the cultural, technical and economic part which Iraq cannot do without in its new growth." Iraq will need to rely on its historic Christina communities to rebuild itself, but is aware that the number of Christians in the country has collapsed from 3% of the population owing to massive emigration and persecution from some elements in the Kurdish, Sunni and Shia Muslim constituencies. "For its part, the government has committed itself to all those who return, to give them a job, a plot to rebuild their homes and 1.5 million Iraqi dinars," he promised, because the Constitution guarantees full equality for Christians, and even allows them "wherever they so wish, to create a region with a special status, such as that of Kurdistan, where they can adopt Syriac or Aramaic as the official language."

There are also five seats in parliament allocated exclusively to Christians, in addition to posts that will eventually be created at regional and provincial government levels.

"Today Iraqi Christians fully enjoy liberty of worship, as well as civil and political rights: Many of them are fully inserted in the political world carrying out important tasks. [...] Recently three ambassadors were appointed". Free speech, the free press and Christian television channels, he said, also demonstrate that Christians' place in the future Iraq is assured.

"Considerable sums" are also being devoted to the protection of Christian historic and cultural patrimony, he noted. And funds are allocated for the training of "dozens" of Iraqi priests each year through studies in Rome.

Turning to the anti-Christian violence plaguing Iraq, the ambassador observed that terrorists have realised that the blood of Iraqi Muslims is of less interest to the Western media than that of Christians. Without intending to, the media have played into the hands of terrorists by "being interested in the Christians, in their future and in the lack of development of the society, thus turning the spotlight on terrorist acts," lending credence to the belief that Iraqi society can never achieve democracy. But he pointed out that "the first to condemn all the attacks against Christians have always been Iraqis of all the communities that make up the country."
So, linking terrorism to Islam is a "mistaken prejudice and an illogical judgment that Western media fuels, stressing only the work of fundamentalist groups, without saying anything about the goodness of the actions and community life of so many other Muslims who live peacefully among non-Muslims desirous of being open to the other."

He called on all governments, rich and poor, Muslim and non-Muslim, East and West "to promote a true and fruitful dialogue between the various cultures and religions," to address the present challenges all face alike, including terrorism, unbelief, failures in public trust, family and social divisions, environmental problems and the emerging water crisis.

Europe's Brothers: Catholic and Orthodox Bishops Embrace at Communion & Liberation Meeting in Rimini

2010-08-24T17:09:00.003+01:00

Zenit.org reports (August 24, 2010:

High-ranking representatives of the Catholic and Russian Orthodox Churches embraced on Monday in a moment reflecting a will for unity between the two Churches. It was a highlight of the 31st Meeting for Friendship Among Peoples, an annual event sponsored by the Catholic Communion and Liberation Movement in Rimini, Italy. The cardinal and metropolitan made their embrace of unity as they joined in a debate on the topic "Can An Educated Man, a European of Our Days, Actually Believe in the Divinity of the Son of God, Jesus Christ?"

Cardinal Erdo is the archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest, Hungary, and the president of the Council of European Bishops' Conferences (CCEE). Filaret is the metropolitan of Minsk and Sluzk and Patriarchal Exarch of All Belarus.

The Catholic and Russian Orthodox Churches are already united in their common stance on many issues affecting Europe: challenges to life and family and religious freedom among them. Recently, an apostolic nunciature was opened in Moscow, and there is ever greater insistence on a meeting between Benedict XVI and Orthodox Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia.

To this end, Metropolitan Filaret said that "the time is ripe for a meeting between the Pope and the Patriarch. It might even be possible in 2011; in principle I see no obstacles. We have been in dialogue with the Catholic Church for some time, at times with moments of exhilaration, at others with a fall in tensions," he added. "Now we are in a moment of stability, but between us, we, the parties, are open to dialogue. I hope this atmosphere will continue."

Cardinal Erdo pointed to Catholic-Orthodox union in dogmatic issues. "Hence, for me," he said, "the circumstance that we are not in full and complete communion is a physical pain."

The searching discussion (for further details, see the full Zenit report here) concluded with these words from Cardinal Erdo:

God is only one, and only one is the mediator between God and men: the man Jesus
Christ," stressed Cardinal Erdo. Because of this, "we must be messengers and
missionaries of the new evangelization of Europe. We must be united with our
other Christian brothers, because unity can reinforce our testimony.

Catholic Archbishop of Minsk on Belarus Society and Relations with the Orthodox Church

2010-08-21T16:46:00.001+01:00

On 20 August 2010, Zenit carried an interview with Roman Catholic Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz of Minsk on the challenge of secularism to Christians following the end of communism and the rise of Western-style consumerism in the new Belarus. He also discusses the positive relations between the Orthodox Church and the Latin Roman Catholic Church in Belarus.

Two Syrian Orthodox Churches reopen in Turkey after 30 years

2010-08-06T17:44:00.004+01:00

Hundreds of Syrians from all over the world attended the inaugural Liturgies yesterday of the 4th century Mor Eşayo and the 6th century Mor Kuryakuş churches, reopened after 30 years, having been closed since the 1980s. The buildings were restored by 72 Syrian families, at a cost of 600,000 Turkish lire (about 300,000 euros). They were reopened yesterday in the village of Midyat's Yemişli in the region of Mardin, south-eastern Turkey. Presided at the Liturgy was Mor Timetheos Samuel Aktaş, Metropolitan Bishop of Tur Abdin. In Turkey, the Syrian Orthodox church has 5,000 faithful.

Tuma Çelik vice-president of the European Syriac Association, spoke at the ceremony: "The Syrians who live in countries far from their land actually live here in mind and spirit. Want to return to rest in this land. The existence of the Syrians in Turkey is not recognized by the Constitution; it should be. If the government build infrastructure to improve social, cultural and economic conditions, the Syrians who return will grow quickly".

In eastern Turkey, the Syrian Orthodox community is very active and the government in Ankara is making positive overtures towards them.

Bishop Andreas Abouna - Eternal Memory

2010-07-27T15:53:00.006+01:00

Bishop Andreas Abouna of Baghdad has died in Erbil, aged 67 having suffered from kidney failure. The bishop, who had served as priest in charge of Chaldean Catholics in Ealing, west London, for more than a decade, died on Tuesday morning in the city of Erbil in Kurdish northern Iraq. He was buried in St Joseph’s Cathedral, Ankawa, near Erbil, later the same day after a funeral presided over by Chaldean Patriarch Emmanuel III Delly, reports the Catholic Herald.

Bishop Abouna, a Chaldean Catholic, became one of the best known Church leaders in Iraq following his ordination as bishop by Pope John Paul II on January 6 2003 – less than three months before the US-led invasion of his country to oust Saddam Hussein.

Throughout the war years Bishop Abouna ministered to the Christian people of the Iraqi capital who were often afflicted by sectarian attacks from Islamic militants.

Chaldean Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil said that the bishop was a pastor who was “always smiling, even in difficult situations”.

“He was a very close friend not just to me but to so many others,” he told Aid to the Church in Need, a charity for persecuted Christians which had helped to fund Bishop Abouna’s healthcare.

Archbishop Louis Sako of Kirkuk also paid tribute: “Bishop Abouna was a very good and humble man, very open-minded,” he said.

“He really took care of each one of his priests and he always worked for the unity of the Church. I hope he can pray for us from heaven.”

Marie-Ange Siebrecht, the charity’s projects coordinator for Iraq, said: “I had the pleasure to meet Bishop Abouna many times during my visits to northern Iraq.

“He was a very spiritual person and had great concern for the priests and seminarians he was in charge of. Especially in Baghdad he played a great role among the priests to try to show them that there is a future in their country.”

Bishop Abouna was born on March 23 1943 in Bedar, a village outside the northern Iraqi town of Zakho. He entered St Peter’s Seminary, then based in Mosul, and was ordained a priest on June 5 1966. A year later he was appointed to a parish in Basra, southern Iraq, and four years later became pastor of St Joseph the Worker, Baghdad, where he served for 20 years. In 1989 he became secretary to Chaldean Patriarch Raphael I Bidawid of Baghdad. About two years later he moved to London to serve as priest in charge of the Chaldean and Syrian-Catholic Mission in England, a role in which he remained for 11 years.

On November 11 2002 he was appointed by Pope John Paul II as Auxiliary Bishop of Baghdad and he returned to his native country the following year. In the aftermath of 2003 invasion he had to deal with bomb attacks on churches and witnessed an exodus of Christian refugees fleeing Islamist violence.

He responded to a shortage of priests by serving at the parish of Our Lady of the Assumption in the city’s Al Mansour district.

An appreciation of his life and courageous witness by Fr John Salter, Chairman of the Society, will be carried in the next issue of Chrysostom.

Russian Federation and Holy See: Full Diplomatic Relations

2010-07-27T15:39:00.005+01:00

Archbishop Antonio Mennini, up until now the Pope's representative to the Russian Federation, has now been appointed the Holy See's first apostolic nuncio to the country.

The archbishop presented his letters of credence to Foreign Affairs Minister Sergej Lavrov on July 15. This follows the agreement in December 2009 between Pope Benedict XVI and President Dmitry Medvedev to upgrade relations to full diplomatic ties between the Holy See and Russia, which raises the level of representation to apostolic nuncio and embassy respectively. Since 1990 representation has been maintained at the level below that of ambassador.

In greeting the new Nuncio, Alexander Krusko, the vice-minister of Foreign Affairs, observed how relations between the Vatican and Russia are "characterized by a growing understanding and spirit of collaboration." He called for "a fruitful collaboration in the great moral and ethical challenges posed to man today."

Archbishop Mennini in response conveyed the Pope's greeting to the Russian president, promising the Holy See's "collaboration for a further reinforcement of relations with the government, as well as for the spiritual and moral growth of the Russian people."

On June 26, His Excellency Mikolay Sadlichov in Rome had first presented his letters of credence as the first Russian ambassador to the Holy See.

Patriarch Kirill in Ukraine - Catholics and Orthodox Together can Sustain the Spiritual Identity of Europe

2010-07-20T15:08:00.007+01:00

Billboards announcing Patriarch Kirill's visit in Kyiv

Patriarch Kirill of Moscow says that he and Benedict XVI often see eye-to-eye on many issues, especially with regard to those of a moral nature, according to statements reported on July 19th by Interfax as the Patriarch was about to visit Ukraine.

"The position of the present Pope, Benedict XVI leaves room for optimism," he said in an interview on Ukrainian television channels, observing how the Pope is often criticized by "liberal theologians and the liberal mass media in the West" for his opinions. "However, in his approach on many public and moral issues, the Pope coincides fully with the approach of the Russian Orthodox Church. This gives us an opportunity to promote Christian values with the Catholic Church, in particular in international organizations and in the international arena," he asserted.

At the same time, the patriarch discerned "dangerous phenomena" in contemporary Protestantism, in which Christians "let sinful elements of the world enter their interior and justify these elements that the secular society offers them."

As a result, he said, "liberal secular philosophical slogans are repeated within the Protestant churches and grow roots in religious thought." In this connection, Patriarch Kirill referred to the question of the ordination of women, which he said appears in the West because "the secular notion of human rights is incorporated to theology".

Patriarch Kirill went on to stress the importance of the integration of both Russia and Ukraine in Europe for preserving their "national, cultural and spiritual identity" and Erurope's too. "It is a great challenge in conditions of globalization. We must preserve the diversity and beauty of God's world and at the same time promote good international cooperation and peaceful relations between nations."

He said that if Russians, Ukrainians and Belorussians reject their "basic values," they would lose their national bearings, causing "a great catastrophe of civilization, the same as with other nations that have lost their identity."

Without their essentially Christian fundamental identity the nations of the world could be "easily manipulated, because this traditional spiritual culture in the majority of the population is the main criterion for them to distinguish good from evil."

2011 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity - Jerusalem

2010-07-20T14:44:00.003+01:00

The Churches from all round the world will focus their attention on their "Mother Church", the church of the first Christians, in Jerusalem as they observe the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity in January 2011.

Recalling first century harmony as well as experience of historical and contemporary challenges to unity, the Churches and communities of Jerusalem have prepared material with the theme, "One in the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread and prayer," a phrase from the Acts of the Apostles.

Zenit reports (14 July 2010) that the retired Patriarch Michel Sabbah of Jerusalem of the Latins was among those who collaborated with Orthodox, Lutheran and Episcopal officials and other Christian leaders to prepare the resources.

In the introduction they explain, "The call for unity this year comes to churches all over the world from Jerusalem, the mother church. ... Mindful of its own divisions and its own need to do more for the unity of the Body of Christ, the churches in Jerusalem call all Christians to rediscover the values that bound together the early Christian community in Jerusalem, when they devoted themselves to the Apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

"This is the challenge before us. The Christians of Jerusalem call upon their brothers and sisters to make this week of prayer an occasion for a renewed commitment to work for a genuine ecumenism, grounded in the experience of the early Church."

The Week of Prayer began as the Church Unity Octave, an Anglican-Papalist initiative in 1908 led by Father Paul Wattson in the US and the Revd Spencer Jones in England. When Fr Paul and his Franciscan community entered the Roman Catholic Church, the Octave became established in the Catholic world. In 1933 it was re-imagined as the Week of Universal Prayer for the Unity of Christians by Fr Paul Couturier in Lyons and gained in popularity among Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans, Anglicans and Reformed Christians, as well as people of other faiths. After Couturier's death, in the wake of the Second Vatican Council, the Week of Prayer was entrusted to the World Council of Churches and the Secretariat (now the Pontifical Council) for Promoting Christian Unity as a joint venture.

The international resources for the 2011 Week of Prayer can be found here on the Vatican website. The UK version, developed by Churches Together in Britain and Ireland is available here.

New Apostolic Visitor for the UK's Syro-Malankara Catholics

2010-07-20T14:04:00.003+01:00

Zenit reports, 14 July 2010:

Pope Benedict XVI has erected an Apostolic Exarchate for the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church in the United States, and appointed Father Thomas Naickamparampil, 49, of the Major Archieparchy of Trivandrum as its first bishop. He will also serve as apostolic visitor for the Syro-Malankara Catholics in Canada and Europe.

Mar Thomas (left) was born on June 6, 1961 at Mylapra in Pathanamthitta District of the Eparchy of Pathanamthitta. After completing high school, he joined St. Aloysius Minor Seminary, Pattom, Trivandrum, and then later completed his priestly formation at the Papal Seminary in Pune. He was ordained on December 29, 1986. He has a doctorate degree in philosophy from the Pontifical University Gregorian in Rome.

The Syro-Malankara Catholic Church traces its roots back to St. Thomas the Apostle. The Church split from the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church in 1930, and then entered into communion with Rome. In 2005, the Eastern Church was elevated to a major archiepiscopal Church. It is currently led by Major Archbishop Baselios Cleemis, and currently has eight eparchies and some 500,000 faithful.

The community of Syro-Malankara Catholic Church began to organize in 1984 in New York. Today there are an estimated 10,000 members, 16 parishes and 15 mission stations of the Church in the United States and Canada. It numbers 30 priests, and 34religious. The new Apostolic Exarchate will have its headquarters in New York City, and the main parish will be the Malankara Catholic Church in Long Island. The Syro-Malankara Catholic community in the United Kingdom is co-ordinated from St Anthony's Church in Forest Gate, Diocese of Brentwood, by Fr Daniel Kulangara, who is Special Pastor for five missions in the UK.

Amidst the Violence of Iraq, Two Chaldean Priests and Four Deacons Ordained

2010-07-16T18:01:00.000+01:00

Layla Yousif Rahema on Asianews reports (16 July 2010):

"A sign of vitality and hope." Thus, the Chaldean archbishop of Kirkuk, Msgr. Louis Sako, describes the ordination of two new priests held today, July 16, in the cathedral of his diocese. It can be said that July saw a real flowering of priestly ordinations which have infused new life into the Christian community, prostrated by continuing sectarian violence and the political instability that plagues Iraq.

Together with the two priests, four permanent deacons were ordained today. Before them, on July 9, it was the turn of another priest consecrated July 9 in Dohok, in the north, while a fourth priest will be ordained on July 23 in Karamless in the diocese of Mosul. Even the Syro-Catholic Church of Bartella and Karakosh were gifted with new priests this month.

"It 's a sign of vitality and hope to see these young people consecrated to the Lord and to the service of their brothers living in great suffering, in this time of tribulation and darkness," said Msgr. Sako to AsiaNews.

Today, the mass celebrated by Msgr. Sako, was attended by many faithful, united in prayer and joy, "so that these new priests may bring the message of God who is love and peace to all without distinction" the prelate said. In his homily, the Archbishop reminded the new priests to live the gift of God as Mary did, as a personal relationship that changed her life: "Like Her, we must 'keep all these things, reflecting on them in our heart' (Lk 2 19:51). Prayer is a true shield of protection, provided that it is done in humility. Mary said, 'I am the handmaid of the Lord', we too are servants of the Lord. Prayer is the distinctive characteristic that allows people to see Christ in our apostolate".

Monsignor Enrico Benedetti (1874-1941)

2010-07-09T21:48:00.004+01:00

Among History’s Vanished

The archivist of the Oriental Congregation, Gianpaolo Rigotti’s recent article “Uomini e attività della Congregazione per la Chiesa Orientale tra i motu proprio Dei providentis (1917) e Sancta Dei Ecclesia (1938)” deals with key figures that served the Congregation of the Oriental Church(es). However, one person is conspicuously absent from among these figures: Monsignor Enrico Benedetti. For twenty years, Benedetti was one of the most important employees of the two oriental departments of the Roman Curia, from 1904 to 1924. After this date he largely vanishes from history and obtaining his biographical data continues to be difficult. There are few overt references to his person and activities in the archives of the Oriental Congregation but, surprisingly, more significant information is to be found in other archives of the Apostolic See and in works dealing with Ukraine and the Greek-Catholic Church. Recently, Benedetti’s memory was brought back to life by the research of Monsignor Giuseppe M. Croce. In his now famous edition of Cyrille Korolevskij’s autobiography and correspondence, there are significant references to Benedetti, a protagonist of Byzantine Catholicism in the Roman Curia. Croce’s work has finally lifted the veil from the mystery of aspects of Benedetti’s curial career. This brief biography, based on what appears to be left of Benedetti’s personal file and supplemented by other archival sources, is intended as a modest addition to such research.

Enrico Benedetti was born in Rome in 1874 and was ordained for his native diocese in 1897, at the age of twenty-three. He subsequently obtained a teaching degree, as well as degrees in theology and in canon law, the latter for which he received top marks. In 1899 he was taken on provisionally at the Congregation of the Council [of the Clergy]. On 13 January 1900, he was given the chair of letters at the schools of the Pontifical Urban College run by the Sacred Congregation De Propaganda Fide where he later taught ecclesiastical history. It was in this teaching capacity that Angelo Roncalli (future Blessed John XXIII) remembered Benedetti in his famous memoirs, Journal of a Soul.

Propaganda Fide called Benedetti to additional responsibilities in 1904. At that time the minutante for the Ruthenian, Romanian, Bulgarian and Georgian Rite affairs received another posting and resigned his charge at the Congregation. According to the custom of the time, Italian priests were asked to submit their names for the vacant post. Among the eighteen contestants, Benedetti ranked among the top three for “the best physical, intellectual and moral requisites.” Benedetti was further prized for his knowledge of Greek, French and a little English and German. On 4 July 1904, the cardinals selected Benedetti and Pope Pius X approved the selection the following 12 July. The new minutante was informed of his appointment in a letter from the Assessor of the Sacred Congregation De Propaganda Fide for the Affairs of the Oriental Rite, Monsignor Savelli Spinola, dated the following day.

When Pope Benedict XV suppressed the old Congregation De Propaganda Fide for the Affairs of the Oriental Rite, in 1917, Benedetti passed over to the newly created Congregation Pro Ecclesia Orientali [for the Oriental Church]. In the new department, his past faithful service and expertise earned him the promotion from simple minutante to official, in which capacity he could co-sign documents with the cardinal-secretary or the bishop-assessor. Additionally, Don Enrico was granted the honourary distinction of papal chamberlain which carried with it the title of Monsignor.

The new Congregation was charged with demonstrating a more sympathetic image to Eastern-Rite Christians and its modus operandi was to be exclusively attuned to their needs. For this purpose the Pope chose Cardinal Marini, who had a certain interest in oriental scholarship, as the Congregation’s head. As second-in-command the Pope chose a Greek-Catholic, Bishop Isaias Papadopulos.

Among those who showed the greatest interest in the Christian East was Monsignor Benedetti himself, especially in his area of competency, the Greco-Slavic Churches, the largest among which was the Byzantine-Ruthenian, which comprised several of what we now call ecclesiae sui iuris. Benedetti soon began publishing material about the history of the Ruthenian Churches. In 1916 he published Punti di storia religiosa del popolo ruteno (Notes on the Religious History of the Ruthenian People) in Cardinal Marini’s journal Bessarione. The article was later printed as a booklet. Another important work appeared in 1922, entitled Le Chiese Orientali (The Oriental Churches).

One of the early issues that the new Oriental Congregation had to tackle was the Ukrainian problem. Benedetti had developed a relationship of trust with the Ukrainian Catholic hierarchs, the most senior of which was Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky. Ukrainian political leaders, Catholic and Orthodox, also reached out to the Apostolic See to secure political recognition. In exchange for which they promised freedom for Catholicism in Ukraine, especially for the Eastern-Rite variant. The Congregation, however, was not authorized to address political questions. These were the responsibility of the papal Secretariat of State and the Sacred Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, which dealt with any religious questions connected with state governments. The Ukrainian question was, in the language of the Curia, a questione politico-religioso (a political-religious mix). The religious values that the Apostolic See intended to promote were intertwined with the political questions of the day. And therein lie the seeds of conflict over Ukraine within the Roman Curia.

With Europe in flux, Benedict XV and his secretary of state Cardinal Gasparri showed significant openness to Ukrainian independence. In 1919 an extraordinary Ukrainian diplomatic representation was received at the papal court. In turn, the Oriental Congregation recommended a papal representative to the Ukraine. Such a pontifical liaison was to assess the situation and present the religious goals of the Apostolic See to Ukrainian notables. The Pope accepted these recommendations and appointed Father Giovanni Genocchi as apostolic visitor to Ukraine.

But who recommended Genocchi to this post? According to his friend and biographer Vincenzo Ceresi: “Enrico Benedetti was a faithful admirer of the religious and devoted to him like a son.” Genocchi’s charming personality had made him many friends in Italian social and intellectual circles but these associations had made him enemies in the Curia, especially during the Modernist Crisis. As had been his predecessor Pius X, so too was Benedict XV an admirer of Genocchi and recognized his fidelity. Pope Benedict sought Monsignor Benedetti’s counsel to find a way to remove Genocchi from the climate of curial suspicion. Benedetti proposed the apostolic visitation to Ukraine and Eastern Galicia at the beginning of February 1920 and, according to Ceresi, the Pope accepted the proposal a week later, naming Genocchi on 13 February.

The instructions that Genocchi received from the Oriental Congregation in March 1920 had been composed by Benedetti and contained a long and sympathetic summary of the history of Ruthenian-Ukrainian questions. Don Enrico’s sympathy was keenly felt by Ukraine’s religious and political men, who, together with Genocchi, corresponded privately with him, seeking counsel and encouragement.

Benedetti also helped many Ukrainian priests. Through the mediation of Ukrainian diplomatic representative Father François-Xavier Bonne, in January 1920 Don Enrico arranged for the future Cardinal Josyf Slipyj to further his studies in Rome. Slipyj received funding through the Congregation for which he wrote to thank Benedetti in November. Two years later, with the Ukrainian diplomatic cause going badly, Bonne himself received a stipend through Benedetti’s intercession.

The turning point in Enrico Benedetti’s curial career occurred at the beginning of 1922 regarding political ramifications to the Ukrainian religious question; namely, the restoration of the ancient Byzantine bishopric of Lutsk.

Metropolitan Sheptytsky had ordained Josyf Botsian Bishop of Lutsk (Volyn) in 1914, using special powers granted him secretly by Pius X. But when Botsian attempted to begin his mission in Volyn he was blocked by Polish civil and religious notables. They feared that the restoration of the illegally suppressed Greek-Catholic Eparchy of Lutsk would help the Ukrainian independence movement and block centuries-old Polish hegemony over the territory. Following his release from Russian captivity in 1917, Sheptytsky made repeated attempts to have Botsian’s appointment legitimized. Finally in 1921, Metropolitan Andrei was able to prove to Benedict XV the existence of the secret faculties granted by Pius X. Thus on 21 February 1921, Pope Benedict did not hesitate to confirm Botsian’s appointment. However, due to the extreme opposition to Botsian in Poland, the Pontiff added the reservation that, although truly Bishop of Lutsk, until a modus vivendi with the Polish government could be achieved, Botsian was not to exercise episcopal jurisdiction.

One of Monsignor Benedetti’s duties was to correct the drafts of the papal Catholic directory, the Annuario Pontificio. In doing so, he added the name of Josyf Botsian under the resident diocese of Lutsk. Shortly before his death in January 1922, Benedict XV had examined these notations, but had made neither comment nor objection. During the sede vacante, Polish prelates in the Curia put pressure on the papal secretariat of state to have the entries removed. Monsignor Borgongini Duca ordered the head of the Annuario to remove Botsian’s name; but the priest in charge replied that, since the late Pope had approved the drafts, he required a written order. Borgongini complied with the request and the name was removed from the list of resident bishops (page 161). However, the priest-in-charge apparently forgot to remove the name from the index (page 902). Several copies of the first and second editions had already gone into circulation, before the third and final edition removed Botsian’s name altogether.

News about the original versions of the Annuario reached Ukrainian diplomatic representatives resulting in a series of articles in the Italian journal Il Popolo Romano, written by the secretary of the Ukrainian Legation in Vienna, Volodymyr Bandrivsky. A diplomatic incident occurred, resulting in vehement protests from the Polish Legation to the Holy See. Following an internal investigation, Cardinal Gasparri wrote a strong letter to Cardinal Marini blaming Monsignor Benedetti for divulging confidential information. Gasparri argued that, Benedetti, who had added the entries by hand, could not possibly be free from blame because he was aware that the late Pope had ruled that Botsian was not to exercise episcopal jurisdiction. “Mons. Benedetti put the Holy See in a very embarrassing position before the Polish Government.”

Benedetti ardently denied the charge but someone had to take the blame. Recently uncovered archival sources point to the fact that Ukrainian priests in Rome had been the source of the information, especially Basilian Father Lazar Berezovsky who carried on written correspondence with the Ukrainian diplomatic representatives. Pius XI was very annoyed by the incident, especially by the fact that Ukrainian politics seemed to be limiting the Church’s freedom of action. As a result, Cardinal Gasparri summoned Father Berezovsky, informing him that the Pope did not want to hear of “Ukrainians” but only “Ruthenians”. The rector retorted that they were indeed Ukrainians and that no one had the right to take away their name.

The upshot was that the Apostolic See had to give strong assurances to the Polish Government that Bishop Botsian (at least for the time being) would remain a bishop in name only. Enrico Benedetti received a reprimand in kind: his name was also removed from one section of the Annuario, the list of papal chamberlains. This honour, once conferred, remained in force only during the lifetime of the reigning Pope but had to be reconfirmed by his successor. Father Cyrille Korolevskij recounted the affair to Metropolitan Sheptytsky three months later, ended his letter by stating that “Today, the incident has calmed down but Benedetti was not confirmed in his title of “Monsignor” by the new Pope, who said: “We’ll see about it later.”

Even though he was soon restored to his monsignorial title, the Lutsk-Annuario incident had marked Benedetti’s curial career at the very inception of the new pontificate. In Korolevskij’s words: “Benedetti [...] is not in the [new] Pope’s good graces.” The Polish legation was especially on guard against any initiatives of Bendetti and his department, whose attempts to protect Eastern Catholics were regarded as inimical to Poland. Ambassador Skrzyński complained to Genocchi that "as long as Msgr. Benedetti is there, nothing good will be done" by the Oriental Congregation. Leading Polish curialist Monsignor Kazimierz Skirmunt suggested that Botsian’s title be changed without the knowledge of the Congregation so that it "and with it the whole Oriental universe" would not be given the opportunity to protest. Benedetti earned further papal displeasure in 1924, due to his participation in that year's Velehrad Congress. Pius XI complained that he did not want members of the Congregation to participate at such events in an official capacity.

The Oriental Congregation’s wings had been clipped in March 1922. Shortly after the Annuario incedent, its head, Cardinal Marini, became ill and was replaced by Cardinal Tacci. Marini had not demonstrated any remarkable capacity and Tacci turned out to be even worse, particularly due to an undiscovered brain tumour. During the latter’s term, many affairs were left unresolved and a number of important documents were mislaid, only to be found among the cardinals papers after his death. By 1924, in the words of Korolevskij, Benedetti had become “disgusted”. He left the Congregation on 31 December 1924 and passed to the Vatican Library the following year.

Although he ceased active service, Enrico Benedetti was well respected in the Roman Curia for his erudition and for many years of service he had given in no less than three Vatican departments. As a result, following his curial retirement, Don Enrico was called upon to serve as consulter to the Consitorial and Oriental Congregations; charges which he fulfilled until his death.

The Ruthenian bishops would have been devastated to see one of their few overt sympathizers retire from the Roman Curia. The relationship of trust that they had formed with Benedetti induced Metropolitan Sheptytsky to propose him for yet one more service. At their Episcopal Conference of 1928, the Ruthenian hierarchs of Poland (Ukrainians) and Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia (Carpatho-Ruthenians) and Bulgaria agreed to Sheptytsky’s proposal to appoint Benedetti as their man in Rome. On 8 July 1928, Sheptytsky wrote to Monsignor Giuseppe Pizzardo, head of the Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, asking him if the Curia had any objection to the bishops’ recommendation: The Bishops “considered Msgr. Enrico Benedetti, whom all have known for a long time, and who has always shown great devotion to the interests of their Churches and possesses all the necessary experience.”

Pizzardo asked the opinion of Monsignor Eugène Tisserant, a co-worker of both Benedetti and Korolevskij at the Vatican Library. Tisserant replied that he could not see any difficulty with the appointment. The matter was then forwarded to the Oriental Congregation, which also found no objection. Cardinal Sincero wrote to Sheptytsky on 19 July 1928 that “This Sacred Congregation is very happy to inform Your Lordship that it has nothing against your wish [...] as it has nothing against the person chosen for this office.” Once he had received Benedetti’s consent, Sheptytsky formally presented him to the Apostolic See on 27 November 1928 as procurator of the Ruthenian Episcopate in Rome for the affairs of the Ruthenian Churches.

Being familiar with both worlds, Benedetti was perfectly suited to act as a liaison between the Roman Curial offices and the Ruthenian hierarchy. Among notable affairs handled, in 1929 he made important oral clarifications regarding the candidates for auxiliary bishop to Metropolitan Sheptytsky. Two years later, in 1931, he rendered an important service when, together with Korolevskij, he was consulted by the Congregation on the history and status of Sheptytsky’s title Metropolitan of Halych, as distinct from to that of Archbishop of Lviv and Bishop of Kamiamets-Podilsk.

In his final years, Benedetti endured a long illness. Shortly before his death, which occured on Monday, 10 March 1941, he received a special blessing from Pope Pius XII. Monsignor Professor Enrico Benedetti’s funeral took place three days later, on Thursday, 13 March 1941, at the Roman parish church of the Sacred Heart on the Lungotevere Prati. The funeral rites were attended by numerous officials of the Oriental Congregation, among whom many counted themselves as admirers of their former colleague. Eugène Tisserant, now the cardinal-secretary of that department, subequently paid high tribute to Benedetti’s example of generous and loyal service to the Church.

Benedetti's memory continued to endure in the tiny community of Ukrainian priests and religious in the Eternal City, especially among those whom he had known and helped. As late as 1998, Ukrainian historian Liliana Hentosh identified his photograph, still displayed in the corridors of Piazza Madonna dei Monti, the seat of the Ukrainian procurature. The photo had been displayed at the orders of Cardinal Slipyj, whose first Roman sojourn had been arranged by Benedetti. Sadly, with recent renovations to the Madonna residence, even this last vestige of his memory has vanished.

Inaugural Meeting of the Pan-Orthodox Assembly for the British Isles

2010-06-25T05:40:00.001+01:00

The Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain has issued this communique on behalf of the new Pan-Orthodox Assembly of Bishops in Britain and Ireland, 22 June 2010:

The Inaugural Meeting of the Pan-Orthodox Assembly of Bishops with Churches in the British Isles was held on 21st June 2010 at Thyateira House, the centre of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain. The Assembly operates in accordance with the Decision reached at the 4th Pre-Conciliar Pan-Orthodox Conference Meeting at Chambésy (Switzerland) on 13th June 2009.

The following bishops were present:

His Eminence Archbishop Gregorios of Thyateira & Great Britain (Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople)
The Most Revd Metropolitan John of Western & Central Europe (Patriarchate of Antioch)
His Eminence Archbishop Elisey of Sourozh (Patriarchate of Moscow)
The Rt Revd Bishop Dositej of Great Britain & Scandinavia (Patriarchate of Serbia)
The Most Revd Archbishop Iossif of Western & Southern Europe (Patriarchate of Romania)
The Rt Revd Bishop Zenon of Dmanisi & Great Britain (Patriarchate of Georgia)
The Most Revd Archbishop Mark of Berlin , Germany & Great Britain (Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia)
The Most Revd Archbishop Anatoly of Kerch (Diocese of Sourozh)
The Most Revd Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia (Archdiocese of Thyateira)
The Rt Revd Bishop Chrysostomos of Kyanea (Archdiocese of Thyateira)
The Rt Revd Bishop Athanasios of Tropaeou (Archdiocese of Thyateira)

The Most Revd Metropolitan Simeon of Central and Western Europe (Patriarchate of Bulgaria) and The Rt Revd Ioan of Parnassos (Ecumenical Patriarchate’s Ukrainian Orthodox Diocese in Great Britain ) were unable to attend. All those present noted the importance of this Meeting: until now in the British Isles there has been no kind of Inter-Orthodox Episcopal Committee.

The bishops discussed the future organisation of their work, and an Executive Committee was set up, with Archbishop Gregorios as President, Metropolitan John and Archbishop Elisey as
Vice-presidents, Bishop Dositej as Treasurer, and Archbishop Iossif as General Secretary. Bishop Zenon, Archbishop Mark and Metropolitan Kallistos were also appointed Members of the Executive Committee. The Secretariat of the Committee is made up of Archimandrite Vassilios Papavassiliou and Protopresbyter Samir Gholam.

Three Committees were set up:

Theological Committee, Chairman: Metropolitan Kallistos (For the time-being, this will also deal with liturgical, canonical and ecumenical questions, and with the preparation of an agreed list of Saints of the British Isles)
Pastoral Committee, Chairman: Archbishop Elisey (This will also deal with inter-Orthodox relations and with the organisation of Pan-Orthodox events)
Educational Committee, Chairman: Archbishop Gregorios (This will be concerned, among other things, with chaplains to universities, catechetical work and publications)

In the case of each committee, each Orthodox diocese will appoint a representative from either the clergy or the laity.

In the course of the discussion, the bishops mentioned in particular the need to keep children and young people within the Church. They spoke of pastoral problems arising in connection with marriage, and canonical issues involving the transfer of clergy from one diocese to another. They noted that there was a need to discuss current issues in bio-ethics and questions connected with the theology of the human person. It was decided that a further Meeting would be held in December 2010. The Meeting concluded with a festal meal provided by Archbishop Gregorios at Thyateira House.

On 22nd June, the Orthodox Bishops were received by His Grace Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams at Lambeth Palace and were entertained to dinner.

Bishop Rodrigo of Soddo - The Ethiopian Catholic Church

2010-06-13T19:55:00.007+01:00

Bishop Rodrigo Mejia Saldarriaga SJ

Zenit carries an interview by a journalist from Aid to the Church in Need (Marie-Pauline Meyer) with Bishop Rodrigo Mejia Saldarriaga SJ, apostolic vicar of Soddo, Ethiopia. It is entitled "Championing Women's Rights in Ethiopia", but it is a more wide-ranging discussion discussing modern society in the federal republic, educating the population, the spreading of human rights and Christian values, hopes for closer ecumenical relations with the Ethiopian Orthodox Tawahedo (One Nature) Church, plans for a Catholic University in Addis Ababa, and the work of Catholic evangelisation among remoter tribes practising African traditional religion which have not been evangelised before.

At the end reference is made to the Ethiopian Catholic Church. Bishop Mejia is a Latin, but strcitly speaking the ECC is not an Eastern Catholic Church sui juris. The Catholics of Ethiopia of both the Ge'ez rite and the Roman rite constitute a unified Church (naturally, being in full ecclesial communion) and share common structures nationally. The archdiocese of Addis Abeba and Ethiopia to the north, including the two eparchies, use the Ge'ez rite. To the south of the capital, there are no permanent dioceses and the needs of the faithful are served by the specially constituted apostolic vicariates and prefectures of the Latin Church. There are also Ge'ez rite parishes and faithful in these territories.

Patriarch Kirill of Moscow visits the graves of Katyn

2010-06-11T22:30:00.006+01:00

Prime Ministers Putin and Puck in April 2010 at the Katyn Memorial

The Russian Orthodox patriarch has visited the graves of the 22,000 Poles near Smolensk, who were massacred under the rule of Stalin during the Second World War. In April 2010, it was recently the site of a ceremony involving Russian and Polish leaders sharing the commemoration in a spirit of truth and reconciliation. Unfortunately, on the way to the ceremony, the plane carrying President Kaczincki of Poland and many leading figures of Polish life and society - including Archbishop Miron, the Orthodox ordinary for the Polish Army - crashed, making the commemoration especially sorrowful for the people of Poland. The tragedy was met with an outpouring of grief and sorrow from people in Russia and the adversity has since served to sustain a desire for greater reconciliation and friendship on both sides since.

Patriarch Kirill saw the model of the Church of the Resurrection which is being built on the site, and whose foundation stone was laid in April by the Prime Ministers of Poland and Russia together.

May 15th 2010 - Orientale Lumen 15 Years On

2010-05-15T12:06:00.002+01:00

May 15th will see our first major Conference for some time, to celebrate 15 Years since the Apostolic Letter, Orientale Lumen.

This will take place in the academic space of Heythrop College, University of London. It will be the opening event of their new Centre for the Study of the Eastern Churches, whose founding director will be Anthony O'Mahoney.

But the conference itself is sponsored and supported by the Society of St John Chrysostom, the Institute of Orthodox Christian Studies at Cambridge and the Monastic East-West meetings hosted by Minster Abbey.

The key conference participants will be

Our president, the Archbishop of Westminster, the Most Revd Vincent Nichols
Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia
Anthony O'Mahoney, director of the new Centre for the Study of the Eastern Churches
Mother Nicola of St Mildred's Priory, Minster Abbey
Archimandrite Demetrios Sharbaq of the Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch (whose paper on the Petrine Primacy in the current edition of One in Christ is well worth reading)
Dr Aidan Nichols OP, of Blackfriars, Cambridge
Dr Iwan Dacko, President of the Centre for Ecumenical Studies, Ukrainian Catholic University, Lviv
Dr Simon Marincak, Director. Michael Lacko Centre for East-West Spirituality, Kosice, Slovakia
Dr Marcus Plested, Academic Director, Institute of Orthodox Christian Studies, Cambridge

The aim of the day is to 'capture' in an academic space the progress, challenges and achievements of Orthodox-Catholic relations since Patriarch Athenagoras and Pope Paul VI began the current move towards reconciliation in the 1960s, and the progress of the joint theological commission, especially in its present phase. We will also look at the particular contexts for Catholic-Orthodox ecumenical engagement and moves towards recovering full communion, in Antioch, Ukraine and the interpenetration of the Latin Catholic and Byzantine Orthodox and Greek Catholic diaspora.

Participation is by invitation owing to restrictions on space. If you would like to be invited, please email the Society

Patriarch Gregorios in India

2010-03-13T21:52:00.004Z

His Beatitude Moran Mor Baselios Cleemis, Catholicos and Major Archbishop of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church

Gregorios III Laham, the Patriarch of Antioch of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, arrived in India on a five-day visit on Wednesday, 10 March. A linguist, the Patriarch is the author of several works and founder of charitable institutions in Jerusalem. He is visiting to attend the ordination of four new bishops of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church.

Vincent Kulappuravilai, Samuel Kattukallil, Stephanos Thottathil and Antony Valiyavilayil will be ordained bishops at the Mar Ivanios Vidya Nagar at Nalanchira on Saturday, Catholicos Moran Mor Baselios Cleemis of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church said.

Patriarch Gregorios III will call on Cardinal Varkey Vithayathil of the Syro-Malabar Church at Ernakulam on his arrival there on Wednesday. Later, the Patriarch will attend the installation of the new bishop at Marthandam.

On Saturday, the public function that follows the ordaining of the new bishops will be attended by Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor, Opposition Leader Oommen Chandy, Thrissur Archbishop Mar Andrews Thazhath and Mayor C Jayan Babu.

Here is the Patriarch's speech on the occasion of his visit to His Beatitude Moran Mor Baselios Cleemis, Catholicos, Major-Archbishop of the Syro-Malankara Church, attending the consecration on 13 March 2010 of the four bishops.

Patriarch Gregorios III appeals for forgiveness between Christians and Muslims in Iraq

2010-03-10T22:18:00.002Z

Appeal for Prayer and Forgiveness for the victims of violence and fanaticism in Iraq: Christians and Muslims together for the rejection of violence and fanaticism

Violence, fanaticism, terrorism, enmity, dislocation, or rather persecution, continue incessantly to decimate our beloved brothers, the few Christians especially, in that dear country Iraq, which has descended into chaos, rout, licentiousness, tribalism, laxity, massacre, destruction and terrorism in all its ugliness.

This is the confirmed state of affairs borne out by the following facts:

From 2003 to 2010, about two thousand Christians have been killed in different districts, following successive waves of violence.

Between 17 February and 1 March, eight hundred and seventy Christian families, numbering some four thousand four hundred persons, have left Mosul because of confessional violence.

During the month of October 2008, twelve thousand Christians left Mosul, fleeing violence.

Forty per cent of Iraqi refugees are Christian. In all, there are one million six hundred thousand Iraqi refugees.

Forty-four per cent of Iraqi refugees in Syria are Christian. Our Churches in Syria receive them and offer them help as best they can.

The number of Christians is declining and diminishing in a tragic way. In 1987, they numbered one million four hundred thousand: in 2003, they were fewer than one million two hundred thousand. Now, in 2009, they are just six hundred thousand, representing three per cent of the twenty-seven and a half million total population of Iraq.

The drop in the numbers of Iraqi Christians, their expulsion and massacre is a tragedy for Iraq’s Christians and Muslims alike. That is why we are making an appeal to foreign governments and to that great spiritual leader, His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, to make every effort to speak up in defence of Christians and of all victims of violence. We call upon all Iraq’s sons, especially Sunni and Shi’a Muslims, who make up the majority of the population and appeal to their noble - for so it is! - Iraqi nature, beseeching and imploring them to protect Christians. He who murders a Christian is no Muslim, but a renegade to his Islamic faith.

We call everyone to solidarity, harmony and national unity in lovely Iraq. Christians are an integral part of that national unity and of the rich, pluralist Iraqi social fabric. We call upon them: all you Christians and Sunni and Shi’a Muslims, you are equally responsible for the unity of your country. We entreat them: let us Muslims and Christians stay together and God be with us. He wants us to stay together, as we have always done throughout history, with our common culture, heritage, faith and values. For our future and the future of the faith values of our Muslim and Christian Iraqi citizens are one and the same, and there is a single, common future for all Iraq’s children.

Let us not forget those specialists in terrorism who love to create schemes and disturbances and are the enemies of Christianity and Islam alike: they are the ones behind most of the attacks and acts of terror in more than one Arab country.

In conclusion, we invite all our sons and daughters, the faithful of our Melkite Greek Catholic Church, pastors, priests, monastics, deputies, ministers, members of institutes and confraternities from all walks of public life, to take part in great numbers in the Day of Solidarity with Iraq’s Christians on March 13 2010, at Our Lady of Rihan in Harissa. There we shall pray together to our Lord God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, Prince of Peace, imploring the intercession of our Holy Mother, the Mother of God and ever-Virgin Mary, for security, peace, compassion, solidarity and stability for all our brothers and sisters of Iraq.

On that day, I shall be on a brotherly visit to India, staying with our dear brother St. Thomas Christians in Kerala. We shall be meeting in great numbers for prayer, forgiveness and peace in Harissa. And may the God of Peace fill us to the brim with his Peace, his security and his Love.

+ Gregorios III
Patriarch of Antioch and All the East,
Of Alexandria and of Jerusalem

Rabweh 10 March 2010

Cardinal Sandri appeals for the Church in the Holy Land

2010-03-08T22:30:00.000Z

Here is the letter the prefect of the Congregation for Eastern Churches, Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, sent to the bishops regarding the collection for the Church in the Holy Land, which traditionally takes place on Good Friday.

Your Excellency,

The preparation for Easter once again launches the appeal to the Pastors of the universal Church to support the Holy Land by offering prayers, attentive participation and practical generosity.

Sensitivity to the needs of the Church in Jerusalem and in the Middle East finds its motivation in the "we" of the Church. This sensitivity becomes help, like the relief sent to the brethren who l ived in Judea (Acts 11:29-30); remembrance, like St Paul's invitation in his Letter to the Galatians (2:10), and a collection that responds to precise practical instructions (1 Corinthians16:1-6) and is described as the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints (2 Corinthians 8-9 and Romans 15).

Our appeal this year is inspired by the pilgrimage "in the historical footsteps of Jesus" which the Holy Father Benedict XVI made last May. I had the honor of accompanying him and of sharing the pastoral, ecumenical and interreligious concern that enlivened his words and actions.

Together with the ecclesial community of Israel and Palestine I listened to "a voice" of brotherhood and peace. Strongly emphasizing the ceaseless problem of emigration, His Holiness recalled that "in the Holy Land there is room for everyone"! And he urged the authorities to support the Christian presence but at the same time assured the Christians of this land of the Church’s solidarity.

At Holy Mass in Bethlehem, he then encouraged the baptized to be "a bridge of dialogue and constructive cooperation in the building of a culture of peace to replace the present stalemate of fear, aggression and frustration" so that the local Churches might be "workshops of dialogue, tolerance and hope, as well as of solidarity and practical charity".

The Year for Priests involves the beloved priests and seminarians of the whole Church, together with their respective Bishops, in a commitment to the Holy Places. Let us, therefore, return in our hearts to the Upper Room in Jerusalem where the Teacher and Lord "loved us to the end"; to that place where the Apostles with the Holy Mother of the Risen Crucified One experienced the first Pentecost. We firmly believe in the "flame" of the Holy Spirit "which is never extinguished" and which the Living One sp reads in abundance. And let us work tirelessly to guarantee a future to Christians in the place where "the kindness and humanity" of Our God and Father first appeared.

The Pope has entrusted to the Congregation for the Eastern Churches the task of keeping alive interest in that blessed Land. In his name I urge everyone to reinforce the solidarity that has been shown so far. In fact, the Christians of the East have a responsibility that belongs to the universal Church, in other words the responsibility to preserve the "Christian origins", the places and people who are the sign of them, so that those origins may always be the reference of the Christian mission, the measure of the ecclesial future and its security. They therefore deserve the support of the entire Church.

I enclose an informative document that illustrates all that the Custody of the Holy Land has been able to achieve with the 2009 Collection. And I recall that it is always thanks to the annual Collection that various interventions can be carried out by the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem and by the Eastern Catholic Churches in Israel and in Palestine.

I pray the Lord that he may lavishly reward those who love the Land that gave birth to him: it must remain, thanks to the "lively and youthful Church" which works there, a witness down the centuries to the great works of salvation.

In communion with the pastors and Christians of the Holy Land, I wish you an Easter filled with divine blessings.

Yours most devotedly in the Lord,

Leonardo Card. Sandri
Prefect

+ Cyril Vasil, S.J.
Archbishop Secretary

Patriarch Bartholomew I's Environmental Work honoured

2010-03-04T22:39:00.001Z

Anita Bourdin of Zenit reports

Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople has been honored by the Cardinal Poupard Foundation, which has been established to build bridges between cultures and religions. Based in Crema the Foundation chose the Ecumenical Patriarch as the first recipient of the "Cardinal Poupard Prize," which was awarded to him 4th March 2010 in Monaco. The Orthodox patriarch was recognized for his action and teaching to safeguard creation.

Cardinal Paul Poupard, who formerly served as president of both the Pontifical Council for Culture and the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, underlined the "exemplary action" of the Orthodox patriarch. The prize acknowledges his efforts to preserve the environment, coupled with his particular evangelical vision of creation. The patriarch has affirmed that "to safeguard the planet" implies a "cultural renewal" and the expression of a "new solidarity between the Creator, creatures and creation."

For the past 15 years, he has organized multi-disciplinary symposiums worldwide on the theme "Religion, Science and the Environment." At one of them, on June 10, 2002, Bartholomew I signed a joint declaration with John Paul II in Venice's Ducal Palace. This dialogue between cultures and religions is something that the foundation aims to foster, Cardinal Poupard explained.

He added that it encourages dialogue especially by creating links between universities in different countries, focusing on educating youth. "Confrontations happen because the other is not known ... At present we are facing a new situation and we must find means of coming closer so that we get to know one another in order that others will recognize themselves in the image I have of them and that I will recognize myself in the idea they have of me."

He identified two dangers to dialogue: on one hand, "being shut-in on oneself, isolation and even violence," and on the other, "skepticism." "How can one dialogue if there are not a set of fundamental common values as an invariable, namely, the human being, as Paul VI would say, the whole man and all men, and respect for the human person?" The key to transmit this "invariable" is education. "There is no culture without memory, and memory is transmitted through education," the prelate said.

The cardinal decided with a group of friends to begin the foundation named in his honour to continue his work and teaching. To foster dialogue, the foundation is helping to create a "Religion and Public Space" chair in the French Senate, and it has contributed to the translation of the "Dictionary of Religions" into Arabic. The foundation's projects "are abundant," Cardinal Poupard said, mentioning, for example, the relations established with St. Tikhon's Orthodox University in Moscow.

Orthodox-Catholic Accord in Poland, Ukraine, Belarus and Russia

2010-03-03T22:53:00.001Z

Jonathan Luxmoore, for Ecumenical News International, reports:

Poland’s Roman Catholic Church has launched its first dialogue with Russian Orthodox leaders, in a bid to rebuild relations between the two countries.

“Although these were introductory talks, key problems of mutual interest were discussed, and it was agreed to start work on a joint document about our churches’ contribution to the labor of reconciliation,” church representatives said in a joint statement. “Both sides stressed the historic significance of this initiative and the conversations now begun, which are an important first step towards bringing our local churches closer and reconciling our nations.”

The statement was issued after the Feb. 26 meeting in Warsaw between Poland’s Roman Catholic primate, Archbishop Henryk Muszynski, and a delegation headed by Filip Riabych, deputy chairperson of the Moscow Patriarchate’s external relations department.

It said themes had also been agreed for future dialogue, which would be handled by a bilateral commission of both churches, including representatives of Russia’s small Catholic Church and the Orthodox church in Poland.

The statement noted that the head of the the Russian Orthodox church’s external relations section, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, had been unable to attend the talks for “reasons beyond his control,” although Poland’s Catholic information agency KAI reported that the 43-year-old official had missed his flight from Moscow.

Polish politicians and historians have frequently criticized Russia’s lack of public regret for mass deportations and executions which followed the occupation of their country by the Soviet Army during the Second World War, and for later decades of communist oppression.

However, Polish church leaders welcomed a conciliatory “Letter to Poles” from Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in September and predicted closer ties could be achieved between the two countries’ predominant churches.

Archbishop Muszynski, who succeeded Cardinal Jozef Glemp as Polish primate in December, told the KAI agency on March 2 that the Warsaw talks had been arranged at the “personal initiative” of Moscow Patriarch Kirill I, and had focused on the “special duties of both churches towards their societies” as majority denominations in their countries.

“The problems lie at another level — including an uneasy mutual history which has many times divided us,” the archbishop said. “Both churches must recognize that the Polish and Russian nations are divided by very difficult, unresolved issues from the past, as well as by great misunderstandings ... I am sure we will nevertheless be able to prepare a joint historic document together which will serve as a common testimony of our churches.”

In a separate interview with KAI on March 1, Riabych said both churches shared the experience of communist-era sufferings and held a “common position” on social and moral issues.

Eastern Christian Media - Eparchy of Parma, Ohio

2010-01-31T23:33:00.001Z

See the new museum of Carptho-Rusyn heritage and the Bishop Emil Mihalik Byzantine Catholic Cultural and Media Centre at the Cathedral of St John the Baptist in Parma, Ohio.

Excellent resources, and interesting and informative teaching videos on Eastern Catholicism - and Byzantine Christianity - in the contemporary US.

The Centre is due to open on February 3rd and has the promise of the Society's support and prayers.

European Court reprimands Romania over Greek Catholic minority

2010-01-30T23:11:00.005Z

Palace of the Greek Catholic bishop of Oradea Mare, Romania, by night

Ecumenical News International reports, 28th January 2010:

In a ruling that could affect similar disputes, a European court has ordered the government of Romania to compensate a Greek Catholic parish for failing to return to the parish properties seized from it under communist rule. "Legislative shortcomings have helped create a drawn-out preliminary procedure capable of hindering the applicant parish's access to a court," the European Court of Human Rights said in a January 15 judgment. The court said the Romanian government had violated articles of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights. It ordered Romania to pay 23,000 euros to the Greek Catholic parish to cover damages and expenses.

The ruling concerned a case brought by Greek Catholics at Sambata in Romania's northern Transylvania region, whose church was placed in Orthodox hands when their community was outlawed in 1948. The Catholics said the local Orthodox parish had refused to allow them to share the building when their church was re-legalized in 1990, or to form a joint Orthodox-Catholic committee, as required by law, to discuss property issues. "Accordingly, the applicant parish was treated differently from other parishes involved in similar disputes, without any objective or reasonable justification," the Strasbourg-based European court ruled. "This was a violation of human rights regulations which prohibit discrimination."

The Greek Catholic Church is loyal to Rome but shares an eastern liturgical and spiritual heritage with Orthodox churches. In Romania, the post-war communist regime forced the church to surrender 2,588 places of worship to state institutions or Orthodox parishes.

Inter-church ties in Romania have been tense since the 1989 collapse of communist rule because the Romanian Orthodox Church, which claims the loyalty of 87 percent of the country's 22 million inhabitants, has refused to return confiscated Catholic properties. These include 1,504 parish houses, and 2,362 schools and cultural centers. Although a Catholic-Orthodox commission was set up in 1998, a year before Pope John Paul II visited Romania, it made little progress and only 160 Greek Catholic churches were returned.

In February 2009, Greek Catholic leaders protested a draft law that would confirm Orthodox ownership over still-disputed Catholic places of worship. In a letter to Romania's President Traian Basescu, the leaders said their church, "reserves the right to use all the legal means, domestic and international," to obtain redress. In an early January 2010 statement, Romania's Orthodox patriarchate said it believed concerns about Greek Catholic properties were "artificial and exaggerated.” It said it was again seeking dialogue with the Greek Catholic Church.

The Greek Catholic bishop of Oradea, Virgil Bercea, told Ecumenical News International that ecumenical ties had deteriorated since the 2007 election of Patriarch Daniel Ciobotea. Bercea said he was worried Catholic Church members could also be denied access to Greek Catholic cemeteries, which could now be reserved for Orthodox burials. "Even now, the Orthodox are waging a psychological war against us; it seems our government leaders do not appreciate the situation's gravity," said Bercea, whose church, according to government data, currently has 654,000 members compared with 1.5 million in 1948.

Week of Prayer for Christian Unity: Conclusion at St Paul's Basilica, Rome

2010-01-30T22:27:00.000Z

Homily of His Holiness Benedict XVI on the Feast of the Conversion of St Paul at the
Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls, Monday, 25 January 2010

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Gathered together in this fraternal liturgical assembly, on the Feast of the Conversion of St Paul, today we conclude the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. I greet all of you warmly, in particular Cardinal Walter Kasper, President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, and the Archpriest of this Basilica, Archbishop Francesco Monterisi, along with the Abbot and the Community of monks whose guests we are. I also extend my cordial thoughts to the Cardinals here present, to the Bishops and to all who represent the Churches and ecclesial Communities of this City who are here today.

Only a few months have passed since the conclusion of the Year dedicated to St Paul, which gave us an opportunity to deepen our awareness of his extraordinary work as a preacher of the Gospel and also of our call to be missionaries of the Gospel, as the theme of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity reminds us "You are witnesses of these things" (Lk 24: 48). Paul, although he retained an intense memory of his own past as a persecutor of Christians, did not hesitate to call himself an Apostle. For him, the basis of that title lay in his encounter with the Risen One on the road to Damascus, which also became the beginning of his tireless missionary activity. In this he was to spend every ounce of his energy, proclaiming to all the peoples the Christ whom he had met personally. Thus Paul, from being a persecutor of the Church, was in his turn to become a victim of persecution for the sake of the Gospel to which he witnessed: "Five times I have received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I have been beaten with rods; once I was stoned.... On frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brethren; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure upon me of my anxiety for all the churches" (2 Cor 11: 24-25, 26-28). Paul's witness reached its culmination in his martyrdom when, not so far from here, he was to give proof of his faith in Christ who conquers death.

The dynamic of Paul's experience is clearly expressed in the pages of the Gospel that we have just heard. The disciples of Emmaus, after having recognized the Risen Lord, return to Jerusalem and find the Eleven gathered together with the others. The Risen Christ appears to them, comforts them, overcomes their fear and doubts, and eats with them. Thus he opens their hearts to the intelligence of the Scriptures, recalling what had to happen, which would constitute the nucleus of the Christian proclamation. Jesus affirms: "Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem" (Lk 24: 46-47). These are the events to which the disciples of the first hour were to bear witness, followed by believers in Christ of all times and places. It is important, however, to emphasize that this witness, then just as now, is born from the encounter with the Risen One, is fed by a constant relationship with him and animated by a profound love for him. One can only be his witness if one has had the experience of feeling Christ alive and present "See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself" (Lk 24: 39) of sitting at table with him, of listening as he sets one's heart aflame! For this, Jesus promises his disciples and each of us a powerful aid from on high, a new presence, that of the Holy Spirit, gift of the Risen Christ, who guides us to the whole truth: "And behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you" (Lk 24: 49). The Eleven were to spend their whole lives proclaiming the Good News of the death and Resurrection of the Lord. Almost all of them were to seal their witness with the blood of martyrdom, a fertile seed that has produced an abundant harvest.

The choice of the theme of this year's Week of Prayer for Christian Unity the invitation, that is, to a common witness of the Risen Christ in accordance with the mandate he entrusted to his disciples is linked to the memory of the 100th anniversary of the Edinburgh Missionary Conference, in Scotland, widely considered a crucial event in the birth of the modern ecumenical movement. In the summer of 1910, in the Scottish capital, over 1,000 missionaries from diverse branches of Protestantism and Anglicanism, who were joined by one Orthodox guest, met to reflect together on the necessity of achieving unity in order to be credible in preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In fact, it is precisely this desire to proclaim Christ to others and to carry his message of reconciliation throughout the world that makes one realize the contradiction posed by division among Christians. Indeed, how can non-believers accept the Gospel proclamation if Christians even if they all call on the same Christ are divided among themselves? Moreover, as we know, the same Teacher, at the end of the Last Supper, had prayed to the Father for his disciples: "That they may all be one... so that the world may believe" (Jn 17: 21). The communion and unity of Christ's disciples is therefore a particularly important condition to enhance the credibility and efficacy of their witness.

Now a century after the Edinburgh event, the intuition of those courageous precursors is still very timely. In a world marked by religious indifference, and even by a growing aversion to the Christian faith, it is necessary to discover a new, intense method of evangelization, not only among the peoples who have never known the Gospel but also among those where Christianity has spread and is part of their history. Unfortunately, the issues that separate us from each other are many, and we hope that they can be resolved through prayer and dialogue. There is, however, a core of the Christian message that we can all proclaim together: the fatherhood of God, the victory of Christ over sin and death with his Cross and Resurrection, and faith in the transforming action of the Spirit. While we journey toward full communion, we are called to offer a common witness in the face of the ever increasingly complex challenges of our time, such as secularization and indifference, relativism and hedonism, the delicate ethical issues concerning the beginning and end of life, the limits of science and technology, the dialogue with other religious traditions. There are also other areas in which we must from now on give a common witness: the safeguard of Creation, the promotion of the common good and of peace, the defense of the centrality of the human person, the commitment to overcome the shortcomings of our time, such as hunger, poverty, illiteracy, and the unequal distribution of goods.

The commitment to unity among Christians is not the work of a few only, nor is it an incidental undertaking for the life of the Church. Each one of us is called to make his or her contribution towards the completion of those steps that lead to full communion among the disciples of Christ, without ever forgetting that this unity is above all a gift from God to be constantly invoked. In fact, the force that supports both unity and the mission flows from the fruitful encounter with the Risen One, just as was the case for St Paul on the road to Damascus, and for the Eleven and the other disciples gathered at Jerusalem. May the Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church, grant that her Son's desire may be fulfilled as soon as possible: "That they may all be one... so that the world may believe" (Jn 17: 21).

Archpriest Michael Harper - Memory Eternal!

2010-01-30T20:22:00.000Z

The Society wishes to extend its loving prayers and fraternal wishes to the family of Father Michael and to all his many friends in the Antiochian Orthodox Deanery of the UK and in the Church of England, who died on the Feast of the Theophany. At his Funeral, the Society was represented by Father Deacon Richard Downer.

Father John Salter, chairman, will write an appreciation in the next edition of Chrysostom. In the meantime, here is the obituary carried in The Times on January 27th.

Father Michael Harper was one of the first priests to leave the Church of England for the Eastern Orthodox Church, in protest at the decision to allow women to enter the priesthood.

The vote was the last straw for him in his growing dissatisfaction with the Church, after 40 years as a leader on the Charismatic wing of Anglicanism during which he earned an international regard and following. He said later that his decision had surprised many of his friends, who were ignorant of the Orthodox Church.

In his 15 years as an Orthodox priest he set about trying to dispel some of this ignorance, continuing to describe himself as a charismatic and charting his journey to Orthodoxy in his book, The True Light.

Michael Harper was born in 1931 in London. He was baptised, although he recalled that his parents were not very devout Christians. His father was an entrepreneur at Smithfield Market and his mother a beautician with Elizabeth Arden. His first real exposure to Christianity was through his evangelical nanny, who took him to Baptist churches and encouraged his prayer life. He once said he would write a book about the influence of evangelical nannies, citing Winston Churchill as another who enjoyed that benefit.

He won a scholarship to Gresham’s School, Cambridge, and then went to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, to read law and theology.

It was there that he experienced his adult conversion to Christianity, in a revelation during a Eucharist at King’s College Chapel. The following year he put himself forward for ministry in the Anglican Church and after graduating spent two years training for ordination at Ridley Hall, Cambridge.

His first parish was St Barnabas, Clapham Common, London, before he was invited by John Stott to join the staff of the leading evangelical church of All Souls, Langham Place, where he was given special responsibility for the shops along Oxford Street.

While at All Souls he experienced the second turning point along his faith journey, which he described as his “baptism in the Spirit”, the start of his journey as a charismatic. This experience led to a rift between him and Stott for some years.

Harper and his wife Jeanne, a talented musician whom he had married in 1956, left All Souls and dedicated themselves to the renewal movement worldwide. They formed the Fountain Trust, which organised charismatic conferences all over the world at which he addressed thousands of people. Jeanne co-edited the hugely influential songbook, Sound of Living Waters, which is still used by charismatic churches today.

Harper then went on to found Soma (Sharing of Ministries Abroad), which was committed to sharing ministries between the developed and developing world. He was involved for many years with the World Council of Churches. Colleagues remember him as a man with the ability to build friendships across the Christian traditions, and to encourage vocations. A gentle and humble man, Harper was nevertheless a dynamic speaker and networker, able to draw people in whatever their background or differences from himself.

His ministry was recognised in the Roman Catholic renewal; he spoke at several Catholic meetings and he met Popes Paul VI, John Paul and John Paul II. During this time he also edited Renewal, the longest-established charismatic magazine in the world, and he was a canon of Chichester Cathedral. He wrote 18 books, including the bestseller Equal and Different, which set out his views on women’s ordination and the gender debate.

Harper’s final spiritual step was to join the Eastern Orthodox Church. His first experience of Orthodoxy had been 20 years earlier in 1975, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He said he knew even then that Orthodoxy was very important and he would meet it one day. In 1989 he went to his first Byzantine liturgy at the New Valamo monastery at Heinävesi in southeastern Finland, and that, he later described in an interview, it was the “real answer”.

While the ordination of women in the Anglican Church prompted some clergy to convert to Roman Catholicism, Harper was never tempted by this, believing they would find too many problems in Rome. He described himself as “being led to Orthodoxy”, and in 1993 he was made president of the Pilgrimage to Orthodoxy. Two years later he and his wife were received into the Orthodox Church.

When he was first ordained into the Orthodox Church in 1995 he did not have a parish, so he set about forming an English-speaking Orthodox parish in London. Initially it was attached to the Arabic-speaking Antiochian Cathedral parish, and Harper started an English-language liturgy there on Saturday afternoons. This became the core of the now thriving St Botolph’s parish in the City, near Liverpool Street Station.

He was appointed dean of the new Antiochian Orthodox Deanery of the UK and Ireland, and on its tenth anniversary he was raised to become Archpriest. He was committed to educating about Orthodoxy at all levels, and was involved with the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies at Cambridge from its beginnings a decade ago.

He resigned as dean a few months before his death. He had suffered from cancer, but continued to minister at St Botolph’s until a few months ago.

He is survived by his wife, Jeanne.

Pontifical Council on Orthodox-Catholic Dialogue

2010-01-27T22:43:00.002Z

The Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity published the following communique on January 26th 2010, following the unhelpful leak by an Italian journalist-blogger of an unadopted document currently under discussion in the Orthodox-Catholic dialogue commission:

The council has learned with disappointment that a media outlet has published a text currently being examined by the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church.

The document published is a draft text consisting of a list of themes to be studied and examined in greater depth, and has been only minimally discussed by the said commission.

In the last meeting of the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, held in Paphos, Cyprus, last October, it was specifically established that the text would not be published until it had been fully and completely examined by the commission.

As yet there is no agreed document and, hence, the text published has no authority or official status.

Vera Rich RIP - Memory Eternal

2010-01-26T23:21:00.000Z

Here is The Times obituary, which appeared on 25th January 2010:

Vera Rich was an accomplished translator of Ukrainian and Belarussian literature and poetry. Born Faith Elizabeth Joan in 1936 in Canonbury, North London, but widely known as Vera — the direct Ukrainian translation of Faith — she came into contact with Ukrainian refugees who settled in Britain after the Second World War through her mother's work with the Red Cross.
As a schoolgirl, by now living with her mother and maternal grandparents in their newly built house in Enfield, she saved up pocket money to buy Virgil’s Latin poetry from a secondhand bookshop in Palmers Green. Touring local churches with a Catholic worship group based in Cockfosters, she developed a particular affinity with a Belarussian chapel in Finchley, where Father Ceslaus Sipovich introduced her to the nation’s poetry. A glamorous yet eccentric teenager, she and her quickwitted mother became popular figures in the Ukrainian émigré community in the early 1950s, when the older Ms Rich persuaded nearby factory bosses to accept January 7, the Orthodox Christmas, as an official holiday.

At the age of 20, the younger Rich, who had already started translating French poetry, was encouraged by Wolodymyr Mykula, a Ukrainian friend she met at the University of Oxford, to translate Ukrainian poems into English for a literary magazine. The smitten young translator began to learn Ukrainian, using dictionaries and poetry anthologies as her tools. She juggled these interests with formal studies at St Hilda’s College, Oxford, where she studied, from 1955-57, Old English and Old Norse, and Bedford College, London, from 1958-61, where she read mathematics with an optional course in Ukrainian.

Her first published translation in 1957, of the prologue to the poem Moses by Ivan Franko, was considered such an important milestone in Ukrainian culture that 40 years later the Union of Ukrainian Writers in Kiev presented Rich with a special award in memory of Franko. He was the first of 47 Ukrainian poets and authors she tackled, but it was her translations of one of Ukraine’s most famous sons, the folk poet Taras Shevchenko, who founded the fledgeling people’s literary tradition, that confirmed her credentials.

When her seminal volume, Song out of Darkness, the translation of a collection of Shevchenko’s most influential poems, was published in London in 1961, academics noticed how Rich’s dedication to the feel and rhythm of the poetry distinguished her from the competition. A staged version was presented at the Cripplegate Theatre, London, and an extract from her translation of The Caucusus appears on the monument to Shevchenko in Washington, which was unveiled on June 24, 1964.

A collection of her own poetry, Portents and Images, was published by the Mitre Press in London in 1963. It also included translations of the Belarussian poets, Jakub Kolas and Maksim Bahdanovic. Her translation of the latter’s Zimoj was published the following year in the US poetry magazine, The Muse, and reprinted in her anthology of Belarussian poetry, Like Water, Like Fire (1971), although it was banned by Soviet censors after initial publication under the auspices of Unesco. Rich was no stranger to brushes with heavy-handed authorities behind the Iron Curtain, experienced during her journalistic activities, and she began to distance herself from her wider family, whom she felt might be under threat. In 1969 working as a freelance translator of Russian and Ukrainian physics texts, she met John Maddox, editor of the scientific weekly magazine Nature (obituary April 14, 2009). After a “friendly conversation and a few glasses of sherry”, he appointed her Soviet and East European correspondent, paid per line, plus a £5 weekly retainer. The appointment, which was meant to be for six months, lasted 20 years.

She recalled being “roughed up” by security police in Poland, where her articles supported Lech Walesa’s Gdansk-based Solidarity, the trade union movement suppressed in 1981 by the imposition of martial law. Under pseudonyms, she contributed to dissident journals in Poland and Hungary and supported youth groups planning to overthrow communism in both countries. Rich’s appetite for clandestine escapades led her to slip across the Polish-Soviet border, disguised as a headscarf-wearing Belarussian peasant, to meet fellow activists.

For Nature, she wrote about the abuse of psychiatry in “treating” political prisoners in the Soviet Union such as Leonid Plyushch, a Ukrainian mathematician declared insane and imprisoned together with psychotic patients in Dnipropetrovsk in 1972. After it gained independence from Moscow in 1991, she began to visit Ukraine and her contribution to the country’s culture led to her award, by presidential decree, of the Order of Princess Olha in 2007. She regarded this as the “peak moment” of her life. Friends say she was disappointed not to have been officially recognised by the Belarussian Government, which continued to see her as a thorn in its side.

Despite a meticulous approach to her work, Rich led a chaotic personal life, never marrying despite several romances. She frequently called publishers with extended rambling excuses for unfiled copy, often related to computer “emergencies”. Her indexed 40-year archive, together with 60 years of files from her late mother, was trashed by burglars in 1993 and she carried on with a “huge mass of papers, stuffed into boxes all higgledypiggledy.” Yet she remained a prolific contributor to publications including New Scientist, the Times Higher Education Supplement, Physics World, The Tablet and Index on Censorship.

When travelling to cover stories, Rich would sleep in deserted railway stations and bus depots, constrained by both a lack of funds and a disregard for luxuries and material trappings. Her stamina for twice-weekly official functions came from years on the road with the East European press corps, where late-night vodka-fuelled card games, interspersed with anecdoteswapping and singing of traditional folk songs, were very much the norm.

From 2006 until her death she contributed a weekly column to Ukrainska Dumka (The Ukrainian Thought), a newspaper for the UK-based Ukrainian diaspora. In 1998 she resurrected her poetry magazine, Manifold, which she had previously edited from 1962 to 1969, combining commissioning duties with free drop-in advice clinics for young, aspiring poets.

Through her illness and treatment, she continued to attend weekly conversation classes at the Ukrainian Institute in Holland Park, West London, where she also performed her translations of Ukrainian poetry in her multi-media event, inspired by the Orange Revolution, From Mazepa to the Maidan. Her lectures on Slavonic literature at the Universities of Birmingham, London and Edinburgh were always well attended.

Rich’s later years were characterised by a passion for analysis of the aftermath of the Chernobyl accident. Through her role in Nature magazine, she had identified contaminated areas. Co-operating with a nuclear physicist, Dr Alan Flowers of Kingston University, she was the driving force behind the eventual establishment and British-led funding of the International Environmental University, bearing the name of the Soviet dissident and Nobel prizewinner Andrei Sakharov, in the Belarussian capital of Minsk. She described the nuclear reactor’s explosion in 1986, and the subsequent pollution and social consequences, as a “tragic sore”, yet to be healed, running through recent Ukrainian and Belarussian history.

At the time of her death, Rich was working to complete the translation of Shevchenko’s Kobzar collection of poetry in time for the 150th anniversary of the poet’s passing in 2011. Led by Shevchenko’s most famous poem, Testament, she wrote: “Then in that great family,/A family new and free,/Do not forget, with good intent /Speak quietly of me.”

Vera Rich, translator, journalist, poet and human rights activist, was born on April 24, 1936. She died of cancer on December 20, 2009, aged 73. She had no regard for material trappings and slept in railway carriages. Rich was a founder of the International Sakharov Environmental University.

French court rules Orthodox cathedral in Nice belongs to Russia

2010-01-25T22:35:00.001Z

Associated Press reports on January 20th 2010:

A French court ruled Wednesday that a Russian Orthodox cathedral built on the French Riviera nearly a century ago under Czar Nicholas II now belongs to Moscow. The ruling by the Nice court is the latest development in Russia's bid to obtain ownership of Orthodox edifices around the world; Italy last year amicably returned to Russia a church in the southern city of Bari.

Wednesday's ruling was a defeat for an association founded by Russians who fled the Bolshevik Revolution that has been fighting to maintain its control over the Saint Nicholas Cathedral in Nice, and its archbishop is accusing the Russian government of a land grab as part of a national pride campaign.

Father Jean Gueit, the cathedral's archpriest, said the ornate cathedral has become a "political tool" - and he vowed to appeal the court decision. But Russian Orthodox Church spokesman Archpriest Nikolai Balashov said, "We see the ruling of the Nice court as the restoration of historical justice," according to RIA Novosti news agency. Russia said the only change it plans is to stop charging an admission fee to people visiting the building.

The cathedral, with its two pointed spires and five crucifix-topped onion-shaped domes, was built under Nicholas II in 1912 - nearly 50 years after his grandfather, Alexander II, bought the land it sits on. The cathedral was designed to serve Russian holiday-makers and a growing Russian expatriate community.

After a schism in the Russian Orthodox Church during the revolution, the Orthodox community in Nice opted in 1931 to adhere to the Constantinople Patriarchate, said Gueit. He was named along with the Russian Orthodox Cultural Association of Nice in the lawsuit filed by the Russian government.

The association's 99-year lease on the cathedral and its land expired in 2007. The group had argued a statute of limitations had run out - thereby preventing any Russia state claim to the site. The association argued in court that Alexander II made a personal purchase of the land. Russia countered that it was imperial and thus state property.

"Why does the Russian state want this?" said Gueit, whose grandfather, he says, served as a colonel in Russia's Imperial Army. "It is well known they are simply engaged in a policy of domination and reaffirmation of Russian identity."

Russia says the faithful in Nice have little to fear. "Our ambassador has said many times that nothing is going to change at this church - aside from abolishing the entrance fee," said Russian Embassy spokesman Andrei Klimenev. "It's not normal that people are forced to pay to communicate with God." Gueit said between 80,000 and 85,000 tourists visited the cathedral last year. It charges an entrance fee of euro3 ($4.25) per person, though children under age 12 get in free.

Moscow considers the Nice cathedral, the church in Bari and another Orthodox church in Jerusalem among the important symbols of Russia's global presence and influence. Russia has been on a steady march to retrieve holdings in the Russian Orthodox Diaspora. In October, Israel's Cabinet recognized Russia's claim on Sergei's Courtyard, a site in downtown Jerusalem built in 1890 to accommodate Russians making pilgrimages to the Holy Land. That site was named for Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, Nicholas II's uncle. Other religious sites, such as the Alexander Nevski church of 1884 in Copenhagen, always remained Russian. It was built on a request by Czarina Maria Feodorovna, the Danish-born mother of Nicholas II.

The French Riviera is steeped in Russian history. Russian aristocrats began flocking there in the 19th century, and other emigres came after the 1917 Revolution. More than 5,000 Russians were estimated to live in the region in the 1930s, including Nobel Prize-winning author Ivan Bunin. After the 1991 Soviet collapse, the Riviera quickly became popular with Russia's nouveau riche who bought some of the most expensive villas there and held lavish parties.

Pope Benedict's Angelus Meditation for Christian Unity

2010-01-25T21:56:00.001Z

Towards the close of the 2010 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, on January 24th the Holy Father reflected with pilgrims praying the Angelus that the multiplicity of charisms in the Church enrich it, because Christ is the centre of all:

Among the biblical readings in today's Liturgy is the famous text from the First Letters to the Corinthians, in which St Paul compares the Church to a human body. The Apostle writes: "For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body Jews or Greeks, slaves or free and all were made to drink of one Spirit" (1 Cor 12: 12-13). The Church is perceived as a body, of which Christ is the head, and with him she forms a whole. Yet what the Apostle is eager to communicate is the idea of unity among the multiplicity of charisms, which are the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Thanks to these, the Church appears as a rich and vital organism not uniform fruit of the one Spirit who leads everyone to profound unity, because she welcomes differences without eliminating them and thus bringing about a harmonious unity. She extends the presence of the Risen Lord throughout history, specifically through the Sacraments, the word of God and the charisms and ministries distributed among the community. Therefore, it is in Christ and in the Spirit that the Church is one and holy, that is, that she partakes in an intimate communion that transcends and sustains human intelligence.

I wish to emphasize this aspect as we are currently observing the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, which will conclude tomorrow, the Feast of the Conversion of St Paul. In keeping with tradition, I will celebrate Vespers tomorrow afternoon in the Basilica of St Paul Outside-the-Walls, at which Representatives of other Churches and ecclesial Communities present in Rome will participate. We will ask God for the gift of full unity for all the disciples of Christ and, in particular, in keeping with this year's theme, we will renew our commitment to be witnesses together of the crucified and Risen Lord (cf. Lk 24: 48). The communion of Christians, in fact, makes the proclamation of the Gospel more credible and effective, just as Jesus himself affirmed while praying to the Father on the eve of his death: "That they may all be one... so that the world may believe" (Jn 17: 21).

Serbian Orthodox Patriarch Irenej: Message of Welcome from Pope Benedict

2010-01-23T22:01:00.004Z

To His Holiness Irinej
Archbishop of Peč
Metropolitan of Belgrade Karlovci
Patriarch of Serbia

I was glad to learn of your election as Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church and I pray that the Lord may grant you abundant gifts of grace and wisdom for the fulfilment of your high responsibilities in the service of the Church and the people entrusted to you.

You succeed Patriarch Pavle, our brother of happy memory, who was a Pastor both fervent and esteemed, and who bequeathed to you a spiritual inheritance that is rich and profound. As a great pastor and spiritual father, he effectively guided the Church and maintained its unity in the face of many challenges. I feel bound to express my appreciation of his example of fidelity to the Lord and of his many gestures of openness towards the Catholic Church.

I therefore pray that the Lord will grant Your Holiness the inner strength to consolidate the unity and spiritual growth of the Serbian Orthodox Church, as well as to build up the fraternal bonds with other Churches and ecclesial communities. Let me assure you of the closeness of the Catholic Church and of her commitment to the promotion of fraternal relations and theological dialogue, in order that those obstacles which still impede full communion between us may be overcome. May the Lord bless our common efforts in this regard, so that the disciples of Christ may again be united witnesses before the whole world to his salvific love.

From the Vatican, 22 January 2010

BENEDICTUS PP. XVI

Radio Free Europe reported:

The bells at Belgrade's Cathedral Church rang out to announce that Bishop Irinej of Nis had been elected patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church, signaling that 79-year-old Irinej would be the Serbian Orthodox Church's 45th patriarch. The veteran bishop, known to be relatively moderate, was picked at a gathering of dozens of bishops and other clergy at the Patriarchate in Belgrade on January 22.

“What is most important now is that we all show love, respect, and gratitude for getting the new patriarch so quickly and in such a miraculous way," Bishop Irinej Bulovic said in announcing the result.

Irenej of Nis was then enthroned on January 23 in a ceremony broadcast on television, with the second part of a new two-step ritual slated for Pec, in western Kosovo, at a date that has yet to be announced.

Irenej will replace Patriarch Pavle, who died in November following a long illness at the age of 95. Pavle had headed the church for almost 20 years, a period that included the ethnic wars of the 1990s, which accompanied the breakup of Yugoslavia.
In a statement issued by the Belgrade patriarchate, Irinej said he would carry the "burden and all the problems of my awesome and difficult duty together with my fellow bishops." The new patriarch will have to face long-lasting issues such as relations with the Vatican and churches in Macedonia and Montenegro that are seeking independence. Observers see Irinej as seeking compromise between conservatives - who are opposed to openness to other churches and Western influences in Serbian society - and reformists, who want the church to be more open and modern. In a recent interview, Irinej said he would not oppose a visit to Serbia by the Roman Catholic pope. The hard-liners of the church have long opposed such a visit.

Bishop Amfilohije Radovic, who is seen as an anti-Western hard-liner,
has served as caretaker for much of the past two years, during Pavle's long
hospitalization.

Church historian Milorad Tomanic gave his reaction to Irinej's election in an interview with RFE/RL's Balkan Service, saying, "I have to admit that he is not one of those bishops who have been in the spotlight. Beside such 'loud' people as [Bishop] Artemije, [Bishop] Amfilohije, not to mention [Bosnian Bishop] Vasilije Kacavenda, Irinej is truly a man who ordinary people know as someone who does not cause conflicts, a man no one associates with any incident."

Today's election was held behind closed doors amid reports of feuding and jostling among the voters. Under the complex system, each member of the Holy Assembly of Bishops chooses three preferred names from the list of potential candidates. Any names selected by more than half the assembly members then move to a short list limited to three candidates. The process can be slow. For the election of Patriarch Pavle in 1990, the vote was taken nine times before a short list was achieved. Once the list is in hand, the names of the final three candidates are put in three unmarked, sealed envelopes and placed inside a Bible. A monk selected by the assembly then takes the three envelopes from the Bible, selects one at random, and gives it to the presiding bishop, who announces the name of the new patriarch. The so-called apostolic vote was introduced in 1967 to prevent Yugoslavia's secular authorities from meddling in church affairs. Church leaders said it was the Holy Spirit that guided the monk in selecting an envelope, thereby eliminating human interference from the final stage of the process.

The Serbian Orthodox Church is the second-oldest Slavic Orthodox Church in the world and the westernmost Eastern church in Europe. It is believed to have between 7 million and 14 million followers, located primarily in the republics of former Yugoslavia.

Pope Benedict XVI - "When He Wishes and When We Are Prepared, God Will Create Unity"

2010-01-21T21:38:00.002Z

At the general audience on 20th January 2010, Pope Benedict gave this address in the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity:

Dear brothers and sisters,

We are in the middle of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, an ecumenical initiative, which has been in the making now for more than a century, and which every year attracts attention to a topic: that of the visible unity between Christians, which calls to consciences and stimulates to commitment for all those who believe in Christ. And it does so above all with the invitation to prayer, in imitation of Jesus himself, who prays to the Father for his disciples: "That they may all be one ... so that the world may believe" (John 17:21).

The persistent call to prayer for full communion among the followers of the Lord manifests the most authentic and profound orientation of the whole ecumenical quest, because unity, before anything else, is a gift of God. In fact, as the Second Vatican Council affirms: "Human powers and capacities cannot achieve this holy objective -- the reconciling of all Christians in the unity of the one and only Church of Christ" (Unitatis Redintegratio, 24). Hence, what is necessary, beyond our effort to carry out fraternal relations and to promote dialogue to clarify and resolve the differences that separate the Churches and ecclesial communities, is confident and concordant invocation of the Lord.

The theme of this year is taken from the Gospel of St. Luke, from the last words of the Risen One to his disciples: "You are witnesses of these things" (Luke 24:48). The proposal of the theme was requested by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unit y, in agreement with the Faith and Order Commission of the Ecumenical [World] Council of Churches, from an ecumenical group of Scotland. A century ago, the World Mission Conference for the consideration of problems in reference to the non-Christian world took place in fact in Edinburgh, in Scotland, June 13-24, 1910.

Among the problems discussed then was that of the objective difficulty of Christians divided among themselves credibly proposing the evangelical proclamation to the non-Christian world. If Christians present themselves disunited, moreover, often in opposition, will the proclamation of Christ as the only Savior of the world and our peace be credible to a world that does not know Christ or that has distanced itself from him, or that appears indifferent to the Gospel?

The relation between unity and mission since that moment has been an essential dimension of the whole ecumenical effort and its point of departure. And it is because of this specific contribution that the Edinburgh Conference remains as one of the firm points of modern ecumenism. At Vatican II, the Catholic Church took up and reaffirmed vigorously this perspective, affirming that the division between the disciples of Jesus "openly contradicts the will of Christ, scandalizes the world, and damages the holy cause of preaching the Gospel to every creature" (Unitatis Redintegratio, 1).

Situated in this theological and spiritual context is the theme proposed in this week for meditation and prayer: the need of a common witness of Christ. The brief text proposed as theme, "You are witnesses of these things," must be read in the context of the whole of Chapter 24 of the Gospel according to Luke.

Let us recall briefly the content of this chapter. First the women go to the sepulcher, see the signs of the resurrection of Jesus and announce what they have seen to the apostles and to the other disciples (verse 8); then the Risen One himself appears to the disciples of Emmaus along the road, he appears to Simon Peter and, successively, to "the Eleven and those with them" (verse 33). He opens the mind to the understanding of Scriptures on his redeeming death and his resurrection, affirming that "repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name to all the nations" (verse 47). To the disciples who are "gathered" together and who have been witnesses of his mission, the Risen Lord promises the gift of the Holy Spirit (cf. verse 49), so that together they will give witness of him to all peoples. From this imperative -- "of these things" you are witnesses (cf. Luke 24:48), which is the theme of this Week for Christian Unity -- two questions arise for us. The first: What are "these things"? The second: How can we be witnesses of "these things"?

If we look at the context of the chapter, "these things&q uot; means above all the cross and resurrection: The disciples have seen the Lord's crucifixion, they see the Risen One and thus begin to understand all the Scriptures that speak of the mystery of the passion and of the gift of the resurrection. "These things," therefore, is the mystery of Christ, of the Son of God made man, who died for us and was resurrected, is alive forever and thus the guarantee of our eternal life.

However, by knowing Christ -- this is the essential point -- we know the face of God. Christ is above all the revelation of God. In all times, men have perceived the existence of God, an only God, but who is far away and does not show himself. In Christ this God shows himself; the distant God becomes close. "These things," therefore, above all with the mystery of Christ, is that God has become close to us. This implies another dimension: Christ is never alone; he came in our midst, died alone, but resurrected to attract everyon e to himself. As Scripture says, Christ created a body for himself, gathers the whole of humanity in his reality of immortal life. And thus, in Christ who gathers humanity, we know the future of humanity: eternal life. All this, therefore, is very simple, in the last instance: We know God by knowing Christ, his body, the mystery of the Church and the promise of eternal life.

We now come to the second question: How can we be witnesses of "these things"? We can be witnesses only by knowing Christ and, knowing Christ, also knowing God. But to know Christ certainly implies an intellectual dimension -- to learn what we know of Christ -- but it is always much more than an intellectual process: It is an existential process, it is a process of an opening of my "I," of my transformation because of the presence and strength of Christ, and thus it is also a process of openness to all others, who must be body of Christ. In this way, it is evident that know ing Christ, as an intellectual and above all an existential process, is a process that makes us witnesses. In other words, we can be witnesses only if we know Christ first hand, and not only through others -- from our own life, from our personal encounter with Christ. Finding him really in our life of faith, we become witnesses and can contribute to the novelty of the world, to eternal life.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church also gives us an indication for the content of "these things." The Church has gathered and summarized the essential of what the Lord has given us in Revelation, in the "creed called Niceno-Constantinopolitan, (which) draws its great authority from the fact that it stems from the first two Ecumenical Councils (in 325 and 381)" (CCC, No. 195). The Catechism specifies that this Symbol "remains common to all the great Churches of both East and West to this day" (ibid.) Hence, in this Symbol are found the truths of the faith which Christians can profess and witness together, so that the world will believe, manifesting, with the desire and commitment to overcome existing differences, the will to walk toward full communion, the unity of the Body of Christ.

The celebration of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity leads us to consider other important aspects for ecumenism -- above all, the great progress made in relations between Churches and ecclesial communities after the Edinburgh Conference of a century ago. The modern ecumenical movement has developed so significantly that, over the last century, it has become an important element in the life of the Church, recalling the problem of union among all Christians and also supporting the growth of communion among them. This not only favors fraternal relations between the Churches and ecclesial communities in response to the commandment of love, but it also stimulates theological research. Moreover, it involves the concrete life of th e Churches and of the ecclesial communities with topics that touch upon pastoral care and the sacramental life as, for example, the mutual recognition of baptism, the issues relating to mixed marriages, the partial cases of comunicatio in sacris in well-defined particular situations. In the wake of this ecumenical spirit, contacts have spread also to Pentecostal, evangelical and charismatic movements, for greater reciprocal knowledge, though serious problems are not lacking in this sector.

Since Vatican II and thereafter, the Catholic Church has entered into fraternal relations with all the Churches of the East and the ecclesial communities of the West, organizing, in particular, with the majority of them, bilateral theological dialogues, which have led to the finding of convergences and even consensus on several points, thus deepening the bonds of communion.

In the year that just ended, these dialogues have achieved positive steps. With the Orthodo x Churches, the Mixed International Commission for Theological Dialogue has begun, in the 11th Plenary Session held in Paphos (Cyprus) in October of 2009, the study of a crucial topic in the dialogue between Catholics and Orthodox: the role of the Bishop of Rome in the communion of the Church in the first millennium, that is to say, at the time in which Christians of the East and West lived in full communion. This study will be extended later to the second millennium. I have already asked Catholics many times for prayer for this delicate and essential dialogue for the whole ecumenical movement. Also with the Ancient Orthodox Churches of the East (Coptic, Ethiopian, Syrian, Armenian), the similar Mixed Commission met from the 26th to the 30th of January of last year. These important initiatives attest that at present there is a profound dialogue rich in hopes with all the Churches of the East not in full communion with Rome, in their own specificity.

Examined during last year, with the ecclesial communities of the West, were the results reached in the different dialogues over the past 40 years, reflecting in particular on those held with the Anglican Communion, with the World Lutheran Federation, with the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and with the World Methodist Council. In this regard, the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity made a study to see the points of convergence that have been reached in the respective bilateral dialogues, and to point out, at the same time, the remaining problems, about which a new phase of meeting will have to be initiated.

Among the recent events, I would like to mention the commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, celebrated by Catholics and Lutherans together on Oct. 31, 2009; to stimulate the continuation of dialogue, as well as the visit to Rome of the archbishop of Canterbury, Doctor Rowan Williams, who has also held conversations on the particular situation in which the Anglican Communion finds itself. The common commitment to continue relations and dialogue are a positive sign, which manifest how intense the desire for unity is, despite all the problems that oppose it. Thus we see that there is a dimension of our responsibility to do everything possible to really attain unity, but that there is another dimension, that of divine action, because only God can give unity to the Church. A "self-made" unity would be human, but we want the Church of God, made by God, who -- when he wishes and when we are prepared -- will create unity.

We must also keep in mind the real progress reached in collaboration and fraternity in all these years, [and] in these last 50 years. At the same time, we must know that the ecumenical endeavor is not a lineal process. In fact, old problems, born in the context of another time, lose their weight, while in the present context new problems and new difficulties arise. Therefore, we must always be ready for a process of purification, in which the Lord will make us capable of being united.

Dear brothers and sisters, because of the complex ecumenical reality, because of the promotion of dialogue, and also so that Christians of our time can give a new common witness of fidelity to Christ before this world of ours, I ask for everyone's prayer. May the Lord hear our invocation and that of all Christians, which in this week is raised to him with particular intensity.

Special Synod for the Middle East

2010-01-19T21:26:00.001Z

Zenit.org carries here the Lineamenta, or Guidelines, now agreed for the Special Synod on the Catholic Churches in the Middle East, which will take place in October 2010. The theme will be "The Catholic Church in the Middle East: Communion and Witness".

Codex Pauli Furthers Ecumenism

2010-01-13T21:04:00.002Z

A 424-page Codex Pauli dedicated to Benedict XVI is honouring the Apostle to the Gentiles with illustrations and writings in the spirit of the ancient monastic codices. The work will be presented in Rome on Wednesday 13th January, in preparation for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Only 998 copies of the volume will be created. A special font, called “Paulus 2008,” was designed for the work. The font mirrors the handwriting of the scribe who copied the 9th century Carolingian Bible.

The "Codex Pauli" includes original contributions from the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I; Patriarch Kyrill of Moscow; Gregorios III Laham, patriarch of Antioch for the Greek Melkite Church; and Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams.

The book’s first part, "Annus Pauli," considers the year dedicated to the 2,000th anniversary of the Apostle's birth. There are reflections by Cardinals Tarcisio Bertone, Ennio Antonelli, Raffaele Martino, Jean-Louis Tauran, Jozef Tomko, Antonio Rouco Varela, André Vingt-Trois and Walter Kasper.

The second part, "Roma Pauli," is a look at the spiritual, liturgical and artistic tradition of the Benedictine monks who for three centuries have been the caretakers of the sepulcher of St. Paul in Rome.

"Evangelium Pauli," the book’s third part, presents the figure and message of the great Apostle in dialogue with the cultures and sensibilities of our time. Cardinal Kasper considers the figure of St. Paul between East and West; and other scholars reflect on St. Paul's relation to Europe's Christian roots, Judaism and Islam. Other reflections look at St. Paul as cosmopolitan, traveller, missionary, apostle and model of interreligious dialogue.

The next part, "Vita Pauli," focuses on the identity of Saul/Paul after 2,000 years of interpretation, exaltation, aversion and instrumentalization.

The texts of Paul's 13 epistles, the Acts of the Apostles, the Letter to the Hebrews and a selection of little-known apocryphal works about St. Paul or attributed to him make up the final section. Each of these texts begins with an exegetical presentation and concludes with a page of lectio divina, following the ancient monastic practice.

According to Abbot Edmund Power, of the Benedictine Community of the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, the codex is both a tribute to St. Paul and an invitation to approach God. For him, Paul is

a man who knows how to be ironic, even sarcastic, and yet there is always an affectionate, inspired, majestic element that makes us see in him a man 'obsessed with Christ'. Thus the Codex Pauli is also a magma of human creativity from which beauty and love flow.

According to the monastic tradition, art is the effort to incarnate an interior vision, an attempt to express a Beauty that is inexpressible in itself. Not everyone succeeds in being able to clearly perceive it: This is why every work of art tries to move those
who contemplate it to turn toward the one God, who is the source of all beauty.

Those who seek and love beauty through the language of art are moving toward the Divine. This work proposes the same goal.

Patriarch Gregorios III Visits Alexandria

2010-01-12T21:47:00.001Z

The visit of His Beatitude Patriarch Gregorios III to Alexandria, 8-11 January 2010

His Beatitude arrived on the evening of Friday 8 January at the Patriarchal Residence in Fleming, Alexandria. He went on to meet on some forty-eight young people from Alexandria, and congratulated them on having successfully graduated from university.

On the morning of Saturday 9 January, His Beatitude visited the Sanctuary of the Blessed Mary of Jesus Crucified in the Patriarchal Cathedral of the Dormition in the presence of Fathers Joseph Andraos, Georges Behnan and Deacon Mario Abou Daher. He then visited the Patriarchal School in the presence of Fathers Samir Saadeh, principal of the school, Joseph Andraos, Georges Behnan and Deacon Mario Abou Daher. His Beatitude was then invited by Mr. Edward Dallal to dine at the Sheraton Montazah Hotel, together with Fathers Samir Saadeh, Joseph Andraos and Deacon Mario Abou Daher.

In the evening after Vespers, His Beatitude met a group of Catholic priests from various confessions and religious orders on the occasion of the Year for Priests. This was followed by a presentation by His Beatitude, a discussion and a meal at the Patriarchate.

On the morning of Sunday 10 January, His Beatitude, accompanied by Father Joseph Andraos and Deacon Mario Abou Daher, visited the Church of the Immaculate Conception (Al Ibrahimia) where he was received by the parish priest, Father Samir Saadeh and preached a sermon. Next, His Beatitude, still with Fathers Joseph Andraos and Deacon Mario Abou Daher, visited the Governor of Alexandria, Mr. Adel Labib.

Afterwards, His Beatitude presided at the Divine Liturgy at the Church of Saint Peter (Debbaneh) with concelebrant Fathers Joseph Andraos and Georges Bannah and Deacon Mario Abou Daher.

His Beatitude then dined at the Azur Hotel with two couples (Mr. and Mrs. George Iskander and Mr. and Mrs. Paul Farahat) and Fathers Joseph Andraos, Samir Saadeh and Deacon Mario Abou Daher. His Beatitude, with Father Joseph Andraos, went on to visit three families (those of Edward Fakahany and his brother, and Jamil Genadri and Adel Rabaah.)

On the morning of Monday 11 January, His Beatitude returned to Cairo.

2010-01-12T21:14:00.002Z

Coptic Bishop Suriel

From Ecumenical News International:

Australian Christians from many denominations are set to rally with the country's Coptic community against violence directed towards Christians in Egypt.

A specially-organised liturgy and demonstration is to start on 14 January at St. Paul's Anglican Cathedral in Melbourne, Australia's second largest city, process to the Egyptian consulate and then on to offices of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs.

"We want the whole world to know what is happening in Egypt to the Christian community: that every week, every month, there are continuing attacks against Christians and it's escalating," Coptic Bishop Suriel of Melbourne and Affiliated Regions told Ecumenical News International.

The prayer service and demonstration are being held in response to the reported killing of six Coptic Christians and a Muslim security officer who were sprayed with gunfire in a drive-by attack in the southern Egyptian city of Nag Hamadi, on 6 January, the Coptic Christmas Eve.

Australia has an estimated 20 000 Coptic Christians, "and about 10 000 of them will be there" at the rally, Bishop Suriel said. After the service, the congregation will follow six black coffins through the streets of Melbourne to the Egyptian consulate. A delegation of ecumenical leaders will call on the consul-general, "demanding that the Egyptian Government act against the persecution against Christians", Bishop Suriel said. The bishop said he was "very shocked" at the killings, "especially as people were leaving church so happy on Christmas Eve only to be met with bullets and violence".

The Associated Press news agency reported that the attack may be to avenge the alleged rape of a 12 year old Muslim girl by a Christian man in Nag Hamadi. Bishop Suriel described the slayings as the latest in a string of attacks on Copts, "which amounts to religious persecution and harassment - but these attacks are not taken seriously" by the Egyptian police, he said.

Leaders of Protestant, Anglican and Orthodox churches are planning to join the Coptic Christians at the Melbourne church service and rally in the Australian state of Victoria. "It will be far better that justice and peace comes with integrity rather than authorities 'turning the other way' as if nothing was happening," the president of the Victorian Council of Churches, the Rev. Jason Kioa, told ENI. Kioa, a leader of the protestant Uniting Church in Australia, said, "We offer our prayers for peace, justice and goodwill for all. But for that to occur, people of peace, justice and goodwill must act together, to bring these things into reality."

Patriarch Gregorios III’s visit to Egypt

2010-01-10T20:32:00.001Z

His Beatitude arrived on the evening of 23 December at Cairo airport where he was welcomed by H.E. Mgr. Georges Bakar and Rev. Frs. Amer Tawil and Boulos Koureit.

On 24 December, His Beatitude met with a delegation of the Patriarchal School’s management team at the office of H.E. Mgr. Georges Bakar. His Beatitude also met Sr. Marcelle and Sr. Roula from the congregation of Salvatorian Basilian Sisters who look after the retirement home of the Holy Immaculate Virgin.

On the morning of 24 December, HIs Beatitude celebrated the Royal Hours of the Nativity at the Chapel of the Archangel Michael in the Cathedral, in the presence of H.E. Mgr. Paul Antaki and Rev. Frs. Boulos Koureit, Georges Fayek and Deacon Mario Abou Daher.

He then received a telephone call from H.E. Shaykh Akl of the Druzes of Lebanon. He also received a call from former President Mr. Emile Lahoud and another call from the current President of the Lebanese Republic Mr. Michel Sleiman.

On the evening of 24 December, His Beatitude celebrated Matins and the Divine Liturgy at midnight in the presence of H.E. Mgr. Georges Bakar and the Rev. Frs. Boulos Kourait and Deacons Nabil Ishaaya and Mario Abou Daher. The Divine Liturgy was to be broadcast on Sat-7 on 6 January.

On the morning of 25 December, His Beatitude received congratulations in the reception hall of the Patriarchate from 11 until 14 hours.

On the morning of 26 December, H.E. Mgr. Georges Bakar was obliged to go to hospital for an operation, so was unable to participate in visits or accompany His Beatitude. In the afternoon, His Beatitude met a number of priests individually.

On the evening of 26 December, His Beatitude celebrated the Divine Liturgy on the occasion of the Jubilee of the School of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour, in the presence of the Superior General of the Paulist Congregation, Fr. Elia Aghia, Fr. Rafiq Greish and Deacon Mario Abou Daher.

On the morning of 27 December, His Beatitude celebrated the Divine Liturgy on the occasion of the Feast of St. Joseph at the Church of St. Joseph, Zeitoun, in the presence of the parish priest Rev. Fr. Cyril (Alexios) Moushantaf and Deacon Mario Abou Daher, and commemorated Mgrs. Joseph Kallas, Joseph Absi and Joseph Zerey on their patronal feast.

On the evening of 27 December, His Beatitude celebrated the Divine Liturgy at the Church of the Holy Immaculate Virgin in the presence of the parish priest Fr. Maurice Khoury and Deacon Mario Abou Daher.

On 28 December, His Beatitude was invited to dinner with Mr. Roger Shakal, one of the dignitaries of the Syriac Catholic Church in honour of Syriac Catholic Patriarch Ignace Joseph III Younan, the Apostolic Nuncio in Egypt, H. E. Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, H.E. Mgr. Youssef Hannoush and Rev. Fr. Rafiq Greish were present. Then His Beatitude met individually Rev. Frs. Rafiq Greish, Farid Ata and Joseph Andraos.

On 28 December, at 17 hours, His Beatitude attended a show at the School of Our Lady of Perpetual Help.

The 29 to 30 December, His Beatitude participated in the Meeting of the Council of Patriarchs and Bishops at the Coptic Catholic Church – Maadi.

On the morning of 29 December, Rev. Fr. Xavier Eid died in hospital. At midday on 31 December, His Beatitude celebrated the funeral of Fr. Xavier Eid at the Church of St. Mary of Peace, Garden City. Also present were Mgrs. Joseph-Jules Zerey, Patriarchal Vicar in Jerusalem, Francois Eid, Bishop of the Maronites, Joseph Hannoush, Bishop of the Syriac Catholics, together with all the priests of the Eparchy and of other confessions. His Beatitude accompanied the body to the cemetery.

His Beatitude then went to the Patriarchal School – New Egypt with Mgr. Joseph Zerey and Rev. Fr. Amer al Tawil, principal of the school. There he met with the teachers and employees at the Patriarchal School and proclaimed the school’s first centennial jubilee, then dined at the school.

In the evening, His Beatitude celebrated Vespers at the Church of the Sisters of Our Lady of Perpetual Help on the occasion of the end of 2009. Mgr. Joseph Zerey and Fr. Amer al Tawil also took part, in the presence of the sisters.

On 1 January, His Beatitude participated in the Divine Liturgy for peace in the presence of Coptic Catholic bishops.

His Beatitude, with Mgr. Joseph Zerey, was invited to dinner on St. Basil’s Day at the School of the Holy Family with the Jesuit Fathers, the Maronite Fathers and the Syriac Catholic Fathers. In the evening, His Beatitude celebrated the Divine Liturgy at the Church of St. Mary of Peace, Garden City and at the end of the Liturgy a panikhida for the late Fr. Xavier Eid.

On 2 January, His Beatitude laid the foundation stone for the School in New Cairo of the Sisters of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, in the presence of the Mother General of the Order, Christiane Mezaaber, all the sisters, some teachers, Fr. Amer al Tawil and Deacon Mario Abou Daher.

The same day, at noon, His Beatitude participated in the funeral of Mgr. Joseph Sarraf, Bishop of the Chaldean Catholics, celebrated by Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Emmanuel III (Delly), with the participation of several other bishops and priests.

On the evening of 2 January, His Beatitude attended a show prepared by the young people of the St. Cyril’s Church and proclaimed the centennial Jubilee of the Church of St. Cyril (1910-2010.)

On 3 January, His Beatitude celebrated the Divine Liturgy at the Church of Our Lady of the Annunciation in the presence of Fr. Farid Ata and Deacons Nabil Ishaaya and Mario Abou Daher.

At midday on the same day, His Beatitude visited Mr. Hamdi Zakzouk, Minister of the Awqafs, accompanied by Frs. Maurice Khoury and Farid Ata.

2010-01-09T20:51:00.001Z

The Pope received the new Ambassador of Turkey to the Holy See, Kenan Gursoy, and impressed on him and his government the need for religious liberty and freedom of worship (including the ownership of Church buildings) in the Republic, a desire shared by all Christian communities and other religious minorities. Pope Benedict especially noted the Catholic Church's lack of juridical recognition and the importance of Turkey as a bridge between East and West, not only between Islam and the West, but also the importance of Constantinople as the seat of the Oecumenical Patriarchate at the heart of Eastern Chrisianity in a long history and into the present day.

For the full text of Zenit's report, see here.

Christmas Message of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia

2010-01-06T20:45:00.001Z

Here follows the Christmas Message of Patriarch Kirill I of Moscow, thanks to Interfax:

Beloved of the Lord archpastors, all-honourable presbyters and deacons, God-loving monks and nuns, dear brothers and sisters! On the radiant of the Nativity of Christ I cordially congratulate you on this great feast day.

For two thousand years Christians throughout the world have turned, with joy and hope, their mental gazes to the event which has been decisive for the history of mankind. Our contemporary reckoning of time, which begins with the Nativity and is the reckoning of time for the Christian era, testifies to the exceptional meaning of the coming of Christ the Saviour.

The cave in Bethlehem, where the animals took refuge from the cold of the winter night, has become the image of a world that has abandoned its Creator and felt the pain and darkness of being abandoned by God. However, the radiant night of the Nativity filled with light not only the cave which gave refuge to the Most Pure Virgin Mary, but also all creation, for through the birth of the Son of God every man that comes into the world is illumined by the Light of truth, as witnessed by St. John (Jn 1: 9).

We may ask: what does the Light of truth mean? We find the answer to this question in the same Gospel narrative of John. The Light of truth is the Lord, the Divine Word who was made flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth (Jn 1: 14).

Through the Saviour's birth people have been given the chance to possess grace and Truth (Jn 1: 17). Grace is the divine power granted to man by God for salvation. It is through this power that people vanquish sin. Without grace it is impossible to vanquish evil, and so we cannot vanquish all that darkens our lives.

Truth is the fundamental value of existence. If at the foundation of our lives there is untruth, error, then our lives are not realized. Of course, the life of a person who has gone astray may outwardly seem to be a successful one. Yet this does not mean that error is without consequence: sooner or later it will manifest itself, including in the tragedy of human destinies.

The Light of truth is the Divine light; it is the righteousness of God. It is immutable and eternal, and does not depend upon whether we accept it or not. When we accept God's truth it defines in the first instance the nature of our relationship with others, the ability to bear, as St. Paul says, one another's burdens (Ga. 6: 2), that is, to show solidarity by sharing both their joy and pain. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another (Jn 13: 35), says the Lord. However, these eternal Divine truths, which can but only transform our lives, today have ceased to be ideals. They are persistently expunged from modern man's consciousness by the propaganda of moral irresponsibility, egoism, consumerism and the negation of sin as the fundamental problem of human existence.

It is the substitution of true values by false values that largely explains the ever-growing significance of the so called 'human factor' in tragic events that take away hundreds of lives. It is this that explains the crises which have had a global impact on the economy, politics, the environment, family life, the generation gap, and many other things.

To celebrate Christ's Nativity is to bring us closer to the Saviour, to help us seen more clearly his countenance, to be immersed in his good news. The Lord is born ever anew mysteriously for us in the depths of our souls so that we may have life more abundantly (Jn 10: 10). The event of that night in Bethlehem enters our life today, helps us to see it from another perspective, at time unusual and unexpected. That which seemed important and great suddenly becomes trivial and transient, making way for the majesty and beauty of eternal Divine truth.

It is with especial power that the words of the Saviour today resound: I am with you always, even unto the end of the world (Mt 28: 20). These words give hope based on the firm conviction that no matter what temptations befall us in this life the Lord will never abandon his inheritance.

The past year in the life of the Church has been highlighted by many important events. The Local Council convoked in Moscow in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour elected the successor of the late His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II. Fortified by the prayers and support of the episcopate, clergy and numerous flock, I placed my hopes in the Lord and accepted the lot of the Patriarchal ministry. Worshipping in Moscow, in a number of Russian dioceses, as well as in Ukraine, Byelorussia and Azerbaijan, I experienced the joy of prayerful communion with our pious Orthodox people, with the young and the elderly, with the middle aged and with children. Everywhere I saw the radiant faces of people, the sincere expression of deep faith. This was a powerful spiritual experience for me and a visible testimony to the unity of Holy Russia, which through the strength of the faith of its multinational people is overcoming the restrictions of society, property, age, ethnic origin and so on to preserve its spiritual unity in the conditions of contemporary political realities.

This unity is strengthened by the one Church in which all that is temporary and transient is overcome by the grace of God. It is here that before human eyes the majesty of unchanging values appears. This is why the Divine truth ought to be the main compass for all human activity, for growth and movement forwards.

It is a joy to see that an ever greater number of our contemporaries are becoming aware of their spiritual roots, are valuing their religious and cultural tradition. The festive solemnities today are shared not only by the faithful who are firmly rooted in the Orthodox Church but also by those who find themselves on the path to the discovery of saving faith and who may cross the threshold of the church for the first time, their hearts responding to the call of the Gospel.

In prayer I wish you, your Graces, all-honourable fathers, dear brothers and sisters, the abundant mercies of the Divine Infant Christ who was born in Bethlehem so that your joy is increased by the grace of God, that your infirmities are healed and your pain comforted. May the light of the star of Bethlehem be the guide of each and everyone of us, and may the Lord bless your labours in the field of building up the life of the Church and countries where we live, our societies, and may he grant that we abide constantly in the Gospel Truth.

+ KIRILL
PATRIARCH OF MOSCOW AND ALL RUSSIA
The Nativity of Christ, 2009/2010

French Seminary Trains for Orthodox Resurgence

2010-01-05T20:01:00.000Z

Ecumenical News International reports from Epinay-sous-Senart, France, January 5th 2010:

Inside a plain stone building that was once a Catholic convent in the center of town, a dozen black-robed seminarians struggle over French theological phrases. The nuns are long gone, their Catholic crucifixes replaced by Russian icons and incense that form the trappings of a bold experiment: the Russian Orthodox Church's first seminary outside the former Soviet Union.

Officially launched in November, the small Paris-area school nurses big ambitions: to train a new generation of Orthodox priests capable of serving Russia's growing Diaspora. Even more, the school hopes to foster exchanges between Europe's Christian East and West; and, more specifically, help nurture warming ties between Moscow and the Vatican.

"The Russian Orthodox Church needs good specialists who know foreign languages and the life of Christian churches in the West and how they face secularization," said the Rev. Alexander Siniakov, the seminary's affable young director, who is also the Russian church's point person for interchurch relations in France. "Our seminary," he added, "is sort of a bridge between the Western Christian culture and the Eastern Orthodox one."

The pupils enrolled in the school's five-year program hail mostly from Russia and former Soviet republics. There are plans to diversify and grow the student body to 40 over the next few years, with the seminarians also earning master's degrees in theology from the Sorbonne in Paris. "It's a nice possibility to study French and to know how Western people live in France and in other Western countries," said Andrew Serebrych Anekcandroviych, a 25-year-old seminarian from Ukraine, who sports a dark ponytail and spectacles.

Some graduates will return to parishes in their home countries. But others are being groomed to serve Russia's far-flung Diaspora that has ballooned since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The seminary is the brainchild of Patriarch Kirill, who was elected head of the Moscow Patriarchate last February. "When the Iron Curtain fell, the Russians went everywhere," said the Rev. Stephen Headley, a Russian Orthodox priest and researcher on Russian Orthodoxy at the French National Center for Scientific Research. Kirill's idea was to "follow our people and open Orthodox churches for them wherever they are," said Headley, who also teaches at the seminary. That meant training priests qualified to serve them.

Millions of Russians settled in western Europe, bringing their newly rediscovered faith with them. But their culture and practices often clashed with Russia's more established expatriate population, who fled the 1917 Bolshevik revolution. Many of the earlier ex-pats joined the New York-based Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, which formally reconciled with Moscow in 2007 after 90 years of mutual suspicion. But others switched allegiance to the rival Patriarchate of Constantinople, based in modern-day Istanbul, which is seen as the spiritual heart of much of Eastern Orthodoxy.

Tensions between Moscow and Istanbul peaked a few years ago in London, home to some 200,000 new Russian expatriates. Kirill's hardline predecessor, Patriarch Alexy II, forcibly retired the head of the Russian Orthodox Cathedral in London, after he indicated he wanted to join the Constantinople branch. "They are Russian nationalists, basically," said Michael Bourdeaux, president of the Keston Institute in Oxford, England, and an expert on Russian Orthodoxy. The new emigres "want Russian services for Russian people. They don't want to make any compromises with local languages." Relations between the ex-pat groups are also bumpy in France, where a large slice of the Russian community hails from the Soviet era and is affiliated with Constantinople.

But at the Epinay-Sous-Senart seminary, Siniakov appears to be trying to heal the rift. Instructors of a Constantinople-affiliated institute in Paris now teach at the seminary. And, Siniakov said, the seminary is open to students from all Orthodox churches. "It offers the possibility for them to know more about our Russian Orthodox tradition," he said. Anton Sidenko, a tall, lanky seminarian in his early 20s, said he was particularly interested in learning about the history of other Orthodox churches. Speaking shyly in French, he described an earlier stint in France where he studied engineering. "There's a big respect for the church in Russia," Sidenko said. "Here, the view of the church is more based on tradition."

Divisions between Moscow and the Vatican are far more sizable and stretch back centuries. Even so, Moscow reached out to French Catholic bishops for help establishing the seminary, a gesture underscoring warming ties between the two churches, particularly under their current leaders, Kirill and Pope Benedict XVI. The French bishops put the Russians in touch with elderly nuns in Epinay-Sous-Senart, who were moving out of their convent. The nuns now return to teach the seminarians French. "We need, as Europeans, as Christians, to gather all the Christian churches of all European countries," said Catholic Bishop Michel Dubost, who leads the local Evry-Corbeil-Essonnes diocese. Dubost has visited the seminary and will host the students at his cathedral in the coming weeks. "Clearly there are differences," he added. "But we need to know each other, to build something together."

The foundations are being reinforced on a larger scale. Kirill and Benedict, who have met several times in the past, hold similarly conservative views on matters like euthanasia, abortion and homosexuality. Both have urged Europeans to reclaim their Christian heritage at a time when secularity and immigration are transforming the region. "I think there was a conscious decision on the part of the Vatican and the Moscow patriarchate to try to cooperate on the social level, which talks about the ... Christian roots of western Europe," said Headley, the Orthodox priest. "There's a political side to this," Headley added of Kirill and Benedict. "They both have strong lobbies at the Council of Europe and the European Union ... when key issues come up, they can lobby together and have more influence."

Bourdeaux, the Oxford scholar, agreed. "If the Catholic and Orthodox churches came closer together," he said, "they would form a huge beacon for conservatism in the world today."

Introduction to Liturgical Services and their Symbolism in the Eastern Church, by Patriarch Gregorios III

2010-01-04T19:30:00.000Z

Introduction to Liturgical Services and their Symbolism in the Eastern Church
by Patriarch Gregorios III (Laham)

This book, hitherto only available in Arabic, is a wonderful educational summary of many traditions of the Eastern Christian Churches by Patriarch Gregorios III, head of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church. He covers liturgy, sacraments, feast day celebrations, church architecture, iconography, religious vessels, vestments, foods and other topics, in an informative way to educate and inspire. This edition contains a completely new section on the development of liturgy from its Antiochian roots, a revised section on liturgical music and many new illustrations.

Paperback. 204 pages. US $20.00

Available from Eastern Christian Publications

Synod on the Middle East, October 2010

2009-12-15T19:09:00.004Z

Archbishop Nikola Eterovic

Preparations continue for next October's special synod on the Middle East. The working document is nearing completion and emphasizes communion within the Church.

The pre-synodal council met in late November, and a communiqué regarding its work was released Monday by the Vatican press office:

The participants in the meeting dedicated ample space to the topic of the deepening of communion in the Catholic Church and, in particular, between the Patriarchal Churches and the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, as well as the episcopal conferences of the countries of the Middle East.

The statement stresses the importance of communion with other Churches and the importance of dialogue and collaboration with Jews and Muslims in the social and cultural activities.

In line with Pope Benedict's suggestion, the theme of witness will be important. The secretary-general of the synod of bishops, Archbishop Nikola Eterovic, remarked in his opening address to the Pre-Synodal Council:

In this vast region that encompasses the land in which the mysteries of our
salvation were fulfilled, Christians are called to give witness to the death and
resurrection of Christ in virtue of the gift of the Spirit, who inspires
believers to act in communion and unity with the whole Church and not
individually. ... New generat ions must come to know the great patrimony of
faith and witness in the different Churches....

Cardinal Ivan Dias, prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of the Peoples, and Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, prefect of the Congregation for Eastern Churches, were joined by eight Eastern patriarchs in the meeting. Also taking part were the presidents of the episcopal conferences of Iran and Turkey.

The Exodus of Christians from the Holy Land: A Challenge for a Sustainable Peace

2009-12-11T11:25:00.008Z

Last week on December 4th, Cardinal John Foley, the cardinal protector of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre, delivered an address at a conference at the Norwegian School of Theology in Oslo on "The Exodus of Christians from the Holy Land".

Here is his full address, courtesy of Zenit.org.

In summary:

Christianity & the Middle East's Culture
Christians in the Middle East must build bridges with the cultures around them rather than emphasizing differences. Indeed for Christians to thrive in the Middle East, they must integrate more into the culture.

"Christianity is trans-national, trans-ethnic and trans-cultural... It should not be tied to an ethnic group" or "any one culture... It is for the whole world," he affirmed.

"The tendency of Christians in the Middle East is to identify with Western ways and Western styles," but that they "must not cling" to this identity. "One of the problems in the Middle East is that Christians have asserted Western culture against Islamic culture ... It's a sense of, we have to be us and they have to be them."

Cardinal Foley acknowledged that this is "understandable," but that "Christianity doesn't have to be -- and shouldn't be -- tied to the Western way of doing things." And "Christianity is not tied to geography ... Judaism is focused on one piece of land ... the small strip of land, the Holy Land, because of the promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, because of the ancient kingdoms of Judah and Israel." And "Islam is very tied to territory, ... "shrine-bound" to places like Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem. But Christianity is different, as "Jesus is not buried in the Holy Sepulchre ... We find him everywhere ... Christianity can flourish anywhere."

Yet Christians, especially from the Western world, are a "bridge to the future for the Muslim Arab world." "Christians from the Western world have learned certain things and bring certain values and perspectives that are vitally important for the growth and maturation of the Arab world." Among these ideas are the understanding of the separation between church and state, the prelate pointed out, or the value of reconciliation and forgiveness. "If the Islamic world is to join fully into modern society, it has to integrate these values into its daily life," he said.

Migration
While he expressed concern about dwindling numbers of Holy Land Christians, their emigration is not necessarily negative. Cardinal John Foley said, "I think that we can say without qualification that the presence of Christians in the Holy Land today is a source of hope for understanding, peace and reconciliation." "In the entire traditional Holy Land area you are looking at a population of over 10,000,000 peo ple, and a total Christian population of less than 200,000 [or 2%], the smallest percentage of Christians of any country in the region ... Christians are leaving the Holy Land, leaving the Arab world, leaving the Middle East." "Socially, among Christians, there is a sense of exclusion, if not discrimination, in many countries."

"However, if it should happen that there be not one single Christian left in the Holy Land, it will not hurt Christianity fundamentally, as ... Christianity can flourish anywhere." "When we talk about migration, we need to remember that fundamentally Christianity is a movement. Christians have always spread throughout the world. The mission of Christians is to spread throughout the world. Evangelization is all about spreading the Kingdom of God." "Don't think that the movement of Christians is necessarily bad; the fact that a lot of Christians leave one place and go to another doesn't mean it is an evil, although they may move with regret. It's also a fact of life ... When Christians from Bethlehem emigrate ... they bring their values and history to other lands.

But while emigration is "not necessarily an evil ... it does involve a loss." "There's a patrimony and a culture that is being lost with the exodus of the Christians." "On the other hand, it is understandable that Christians and other people in the Middle East want to seek a better life ... It takes a valiant minority to stay simply for the sake of maintaining the Christian presence when there are jobs, educational opportunities, a future and freedom in other parts of the world." "Migration, by the way, doesn't mean you can't come back. One of the challenges, it seems to me, is to create a climate for safe migration. "

"If we are truly concerned with that part of the world, we need to use some of our influence on the governments of the lands in which we live to affect their national policies about the Middle East," he said. Thus "we help ensure that Christian values, Christian ethics, Christian criteria of judgment are being brought to the table, either directly through our home countries or through the advocacy and work of the local church." "A very practical thing we can do is help those who wish to migrate: Welcome them, facilitate their arrival and the presence and establishment of Middle Eastern Christians who wish to come to our home countries."

The New Rome-Moscow Alliance to Fight Secularism in Europe

2009-12-10T17:31:00.002Z

Archibishop Hilarion of Volokolamsk

Robert Moynihan, the seasoned "Inside the Vatican" journalist who authors the blog, The Moynihan Report, detects in the recent establishment of full diplomatic relations between Russia and the Holy See and in the recent publication by the Moscow Patriarchate of a collection of writings by Pope Benedict on the theme of Christianity and its role in shaping civil society in Europe's future "a new alliance on the world stage between two powers that have long distrusted each other: Rome and Russia."

Archbishop Hilarion Alfeyev of Volokolamsk, 43, the head of the Moscow Patriarchate's department for external Church relations, wrote the introduction for the book, in which he sets forth his vision for Europe and the new "alliance" needed to realize that vision.

Sandro Magister, another highly regarded Vatican journalist and author of the Chiesa blog, was so impressed by this introduction that he wrote:

Those who expect an Orthodox Church removed from time, made up only of remote traditions and archaic liturgies, will come away shaken from reading the introduction to this book. [...] The image that emerges from it is that of a Russian Orthodox Church that refuses to let itself be locked up in a ghetto, but on the contrary hurls itself against the secularist onslaught with all the peaceful weapons at its disposal, not excluding civil disobedience against laws 'that oblige the commission of a sin in the eyes of God.'

Those in the West, both in Europe and in the United States, who feel that unjust laws have been passed that cannot be countenanced by Christians, will find a kindred spirit in Archbishop Hilarion. The title he uses is, The Help That the Russian Orthodox Church Can Give to Europe.

Robert Moynihan (for whose analysis below we are indebted and gratefully acknowledge) describes how it begins with a very candid, and deeply felt, lamentation by an Orthodox leader for the closing of Catholic and Protestant churches in Western Europe:

When traveling in Europe, especially in the traditionally Protestant countries, I am always astonished at seeing not a few churches abandoned by their congregations, especially the ones turned into pubs, clubs, shops, or place of profane activities of yet another kind," Archbishop Hilarion writes. "There is something profoundly deplorable in this sad spectacle.

I come from a country in which for many deca des the churches were used for nonreligious purposes. Many places of worship were completely destroyed. […] Why has the space for religion in Western society been reduced in such a significant way in recent decades?

Then Archbishop Hilarion makes his main point, that Russia and its Orthodox Church, after years of being aided and supported by the Christians of the West, is back on its feets and is ready in return to come to the rescue of the West:

The Russian Orthodox Church, with its unique experience of surviving the harshest persecutions, struggling against militant atheism, reemerging from the ghetto when the political situation changed, recovering its place in society and redefining its social responsibilities, can therefore be of help to Europe.

"The totalitarian dictatorship of the past cannot be replaced with a new dictatorship of pan-European government mechanisms. […] The countries of Orthodox tradition, for example, do not accept laws that legalize euthanasia ... drug trafficking ... and so on.

In short, the archbishop is saying that the Orthodox, including the Russian Orthodox Church which he represents, are ready to fight for Christian values in the West, alongside Catholics and Protestants.

John Thavis, the distinguished Vaticanist for Catholic News Service (of the U.S. bishops' conference) wrote on December 11th:

The Russian Orthodox Church has come forward to propose a strategic alliance
with the Catholic Church aimed, in effect, at saving Europe's soul from 'Western
post-Christian humanism.' The offer came in an introduction written by Russian
Orthodox Archbishop Hilarion to a book of speeches by Benedict XVI on Europe's
spiritual crisis, published in Russian by the Orthodox Moscow Patriarchate. In
an unusual move, the Vatican newspaper published almost the entire introduction
in its December 2nd edition.

St. Gregory of Nazianzus Foundation
Archbishop Hilarion has spoken publicly a number of times of such an alliance. In fact, in May 2006 the Vatican and the Moscow Patriarchate held a weeklong conference in Vienna, oulining the framework for such cooperation.

In November 2009, Moynihan reports his travel to Russia and meeting Archbishop Hilarion and his close associates. One of them was Leonid Sevastianov, 31, the executive director of the Russian Orthodox St. Gregory of Nazianzus Charitable Foundation, established with the blessing of Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill to help carry out Archbishop Hilarion's vision of working with Western Christians on behalf of Christian values.

"We want your help, the help of Catholics, and of Western Europeans and Americans," Sevastianov told Moynihan. "Patriarch Kirill has called for the moral renewal of Russia, through a return to the deep values of the Christian faith. This is our vision."

The reason St. Gregory of Nazianzus was chosen as patron of the alliance of Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant Christians in Europe is because, as a theologian in the 300s, well before the division of the Church into East and West, and because he is venerated both by the Catholics and by the Orthodox, he is a Father of the Church for all Christians. The co-founders of this new foundation are Archbishop Hilarion and Vadim Yakunin, one of the wealthiest businessmen in Russia.

Other wealthy Russians are also prepared to support this foundation. But participation by Americans and Western Europeans would also be very much appreciated, say Archbishop Hilarion and Sevastianov:

We want to try to attract the attention of religious believers, in Russia and abroad, who believe in traditional Christian values, and who want to contribute to making society more just and more moral. We want to promote the idea of the unity between the West and Russia on the basis of common Christian roots.

Pope Benedict XVI praises the spiritual renewal of Albania

2009-12-10T15:15:00.001Z

The Vatican Information Service reports, 4th December 2009:

The Holy Father today received in audience His Beatitude Anastas, archbishop of Tirana, Durres and All Albania, who was accompanied by other representatives of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Albania.

"As is well known", said the Pope in his English-language address to the group, "Illyricum received the Gospel in apostolic times. Since then, Christ's saving message has borne fruit in your country down to our own day. As the very earliest writings of your culture bear witness, through the survival of an ancient Latin baptismal formula along with a Byzantine hymn about the Lord's Resurrection, the faith of our Christian forefathers left wonderful and indelible traces in the first lines of the history, literature and arts of your people.

"Yet", he added, "the most impressive witness is surely always found in life itself. During the latter half of the past century, Christians in Albania, both Orthodox and Catholic, kept the faith alive there in spite of an extremely repressive and hostile atheistic regime; and, as is well known, many Christians paid cruelly for that faith with their lives".

The Holy Father went on: "The fall of that regime has happily given way to the reconstruction of the Catholic and Orthodox communities in Albania". In this context he praised the archbishop's missionary activity, "particularly in the reconstruction of places of worship, the formation of the clergy and the catechetical work now being done, a movement of renewal which Your Beatitude has rightly described as 'Ngjallja' (Resurrection).

"Since it acquired its freedom, the Orthodox Church of Albania has been able to participate fruitfully in the international theological dialogue between Catholics and Orthodox. Your commitment in this regard happily mirrors the fraternal relations between Catholics and Orthodox in your country and offers inspiration to the entire Albanian people, demonstrating how it is possible for fellow Christians to live in harmony.

"In this light, we would do well to emphasise the elements of faith which our Churches share: a common profession of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan creed; a common Baptism for the remission of sins and for incorporation into Christ and the Church; the legacy of the first ecumenical councils; the real if imperfect communion which we already share, and the common desire and collaborative efforts to build upon what already exists".

Benedict XVI then went on to mention two initiatives currently underway in Albania: the establishment of the Inter-confessional Biblical Society and the creation of the Committee for Inter-religious Relations, describing them as "timely efforts to promote mutual understanding and tangible co-operation, not only between Catholics and Orthodox, but also among Christians, Muslims and Bektashi".

Closing his remarks the Pope expressed his joy at the "spiritual renewal" of the Albanian people, and gave assurances to Archbishop Anastas that the Catholic Church "will do all she can to offer a common witness of brotherhood and peace, and to pursue with you a renewed commitment to the unity of our Churches".

Archbishop Anastasios called the meeting a historic event because for the first time the Orthodox Autocephalous Church of Albania was officially represented in a visit to the Roman Catholic Church, making clear that today’s world needs new ties between Christians, because theological dialogue and reconciliation are a basic obligation for leaders of the Churches. Archbishop Anastasios also described how the Orthodox Church in Albania was persecuted and rebuilt from ruins.

On December 9th in Naples, the Pontifical University of Southern Italy awarded Prof. Doctor Archbishop Anastasios with the title Doctor of Theology Honoris Causa for Theology for his long and very scientific contribution as a missionary and pastor. The chancellor, Cardinal Creshenzio Sepe, Archbishop of Naples, also invited His Beatitude to give the Lectio Magistralis, the main speech for the official opening of the new academic year in the Aula Magna of San Tomaso.

Melkite Patriarch Gregorios III of Antioch sends his Christmas Greetings

2009-12-10T07:21:00.003Z

Patriarch Gregorios sends his greetings to all for the coming Feast and for 2010.

Read the Apostolic Letter here.

Christmas Greetings to Priests from His Beatitude Patriarch Gregory of Antioch of the Melkites

2009-12-10T07:09:00.007Z

The Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarch of Antioch, His Beatitude Gregory III sends greetings for the coming Feast to all the Church's priests

Here is the Apostolic Letter.

And here is his Encyclical Letter to Priests in the Year of Priests.

Defining Mary as "Spiritual Mother of All Humanity" - Lambert Beauduin and False Mariology

2009-12-09T15:36:00.006Z

Pentecost by Duccio di Buoninsegna, Duomo, Siena

On 8th December 2009, the retired Archbishop of San Juan, Puerto Rico, Cardinal Luis Aponte Martinez, wrote to the cardinals and bishops of Latin America on the petition to the Pope to define the Blessed Virgin Mary as the "Spiritual Mother of All Humanity, under her threefold aspects of Coredemptrix, Mediatrix of All Graces, and Advocate."

Here is the Cardinal's letter:

My Dear Brother Cardinals and Bishops,

On January 1, 2008, five cardinals wrote to all bishops of the world to notify them of the petition made by an international group of cardinals and bishops assembled at Fatima to His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI, in humble request for the solemn definition of the Blessed Virgin Mary as the Spiritual Mother of All Humanity, under its threefold aspects of Coredemptrix, Mediatrix of All Graces and Advocate. Already in the past, hundreds of bishops and millions of faithful have made this appeal. Again many bishops have recently responded. As one of those five cardinals who sent this global petition, I now wish to provide you with an update concerning this universal Church request.

Recently the Philippines submitted to His Holiness a petition for this solemn definition from Cardinal Vidal, Archbishop Lagdameo, President of the Philippine Conference of Catholic Bishops, and several other archbishops and bishops. The petition was accompanied by a personal letter from Philippines President, Madame Gloria Arroyo, in which she strongly supported the request of the bishops.

Also representative groups of cardinals and bishops from India and nearby countries, including Cardinal Vithayathil, President of the National Conference of the Bishops of
India, have submitted their own petition for this fifth Marian dogma to Pope Benedict XVI. A similar petition has been sent from Africa by Archbishop Felix Job, President of the Catholic Conference of the Bishops of Nigeria, and various other African bishops. Bishops from Eastern Europe, including Archbishop Kramberger of Slovenia, have likewise sent in their own petition for this Marian papal proclamation. Along with bishops from numerous countries from Latin America, I have sent in our own petition to Pope Benedict for the papal definition of Our Lady’s Spiritual Motherhood.

All over the world, lay faithful have joined their bishops. Numerous prayer days, conferences, individual prayers and petitions to the Hol y Father from the laity constitute a positive manifestation for this potential Marian dogma from the sensus fidelium.

We all perceive a worldwide urgency for the greatest possible intercession of our heavenly Mother for the unprecedented crises of faith, family, society, and peace, which marks the present human condition. We see the papal definition of Holy Mary's Spiritual Motherhood of all peoples as an extraordinary remedy to these global crises which today threaten a great part of humanity. The more we freely acknowledge Mary’s intercessory power, the more she is able to exercise this power for the peoples of the world entrusted to her care at Calvary.

I therefore invite you, dear brother, to join your brother cardinals and bishops from throughout the world in this renewed petition to our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, by sending in your own letter for his prayerful discernment of what might constitute a next positive step for the solemn proclam ation of the Spiritual Motherhood of Mary. Thank you for your own prayerful discernment of this most important work in honour of Our Lady, which we believe could constitute a historic benefit of grace and blessing for all humanity.

+Luis Cardinal Aponte Martinez
Archbishop-Emeritus,
San Juan, Puerto Rico,
email:cardinalaponte@gmail.com

There is nothing new under the sun. In November 1915, the faculty of theology at Louvain, the oldest Catholic University in the world, wrote to Rome supporting the dogmatic definition of the universal mediation of Mary. By 1921, the Belgian Redemptorists persuaded Cardinal Mercier to lend his weight to the campaign, which he did, out of a kind of theological romanticism.

Yet he was also actively encouraging the work of the Benedictine monks at Mont-Cesar (Keizersberg) in promoting the Liturgical Movement, to transform and deepen the spirituality and participation of the people in the worshipping life of the Church at the Mass and the Divine Office. This movement had formally begun in 1909 and central to its work was the distinction between true and false devotion - that based on the Liturgy, the Scriptures, the Church's Doctrine and Tradition, as opposed to that based on merely private devotionalism and its risk of slender resources based on feeling, opinion and current culture. The applied no less to Marian devotion. So piety towards the Mother of God must be above all be liturgical from its roots.

At the heart of the Liturgical Movement stood Dom Lambert Beauduin. For him, a liturgically faithful Marian theology was crucial designing people’s active participation in the Church’s worship to the cultivation of a “true devotion” that could nourish their faith, discipleship, proclamation and mission. And the problem for him was that the devoutly proposed titles, conveying a substantial development of the doctrine concerning Mary's role in the work of redemption - such as "Co-Redemptrix" and "Mediator of all Graces" or "Universal Mediatrix" are not found anywhere in Scriptures, or the Liturgy of the Latin Rite, or in any of the decrees of the Councils of the Church. At stake was therefore the propsect of reconciliation between the Latin Catholic and Orthodox Churches, as well as the "deviation" of the doctrine of the Latin West from the norms of the 900 years since the so-called Great Schism in the 11th century. He wrote:

In the liturgy we find that we have but one way – none other than Jesus Christ.

Whether in our liturgy or our personal devotions, we must never allow the priesthood of Christ to get too far away, he insisted:

He is our chargé d’affaires … every thing to be done we leave to him.

Otherwise, the temptation is to seek an advocate elsewhere. Beauduin believed that, lacking receptivity to the dogmatic balance of the East, which ensured a Christocentric devotion to Mary, pre-eminently in its liturgy as the fount of popular piety, the thinking of nineteenth century Latin Christianity possessed no counterweight to an exaggerated view concerning God the Son. This left the humanity of Christ in the shade of his divinity, and it had caused people to let Jesus slip away from them. The reaction in both theological circles and popular devotion was a disproportionate recourse to Mary. Beauduin’s work on the Liturgical Movement directly confronted such “false devotion” because it was harmful to the faith of the people and the proclamation of the Gospel that the world could accept. He wrote:

No creature at all can intervene to add any efficacy whatever to the
Redemption of the Eternal Priest alone.

But he had his work cut out, as we have seen. A theologically ambiguous devotion – the Universal Mediation of Mary – enjoyed wide popular appeal at the time. A whole generation of priests, religious and theologians had been formed by it and there was now a movement to have it recognised it as a necessary dogma of the Faith. But it was not in the liturgy; it was not in the Scriptures; it was not in the common tradition – these were the grounds on which Beauduin with all his strength tried in vain to prevent those zealous petitions going off to Rome.

Rome kept to the tradition, of course, not least because successive popes had now committed the Church to the direction set by the Liturgical Movement. But the devotion had got under the skin and it has continued to surface in various forms from time to time. The year after the 1950 dogmatic definition of the Assumption Beauduin reflected:

To assign “an essential role to Mary – the role par excellence – in God’s work of redemption – co-redeemer, co-mediator (where will it end?) – it may be pious,
but it is dangerous. It risks modifying the Christian mystery to its depths.

And he lays the blame firmly at the feet of those whose responsibility it is more than anyone else’s to ensure that the people’s faith and prayer is orthodox - the bishops:

“The Word incarnate is still so far from us because he is God. But Mary, being human, is much nearer to us.” That is a phrase from a bishop’s pastoral letter! … And yesterday I read this phrase: “The best way to be children of the Father is to be children of Mary.” This is a blasphemy to the Sole Mediator.

He did not spare his friends and supporters. In 1951, Léon-Joseph Suenens, auxiliary of Malines and his keen disciple, published The Theology of the Apostolate of the Legion of Mary. Beauduin wrote him a severe letter, singling out this phrase:

“Through her are distributed for us all gifts, all virtues, all graces, to
whom she wishes, as much as she wishes and the way she wishes.”

He makes it clear to Suenens that, in abandoning the Catholic Church’s fidelity to the tradition it has received, he is distorting the faith it is bound to hand on. He reminds him that it is necessary always to distinguish the mediation of redemption - to know that the priesthood of Christ is what unites humanity to the Father - on one side from the mediation of intercession on the other. And thus in the whole of the ancient tradition:

Mary is always in the first rank of the mediation of intercession.

By placing her firmly within the mediation of redemption, Suenens was accused by Beauduin of insinuating an invisible new priesthood above the visible ministerial priesthood of the Church.

At the Second Vatican Council, it is well known that many of the Fathers had been pressed by their faithful to secure a new doctrinal definition on the Virgin Mary, and the long standing movement for the declaration of the Mother of God as Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix of all Graces was prominent. But in the discussions the led to the formulation of the Dogmatic Constituion on the Church, Lumen Gentium, it was clear that this was not the only avenue for honouring her. The refreshed doctrine of the Church placed Mary at the heart and so a popular understanding from antiquity and the Middle Ages was revisited - "Mary, type of the Church". But although it intended to sum up the whole of humanity in her as the New Eve, some Fathers felt that it fell short of her due honour. So the title "Mary, Mother of the Church", with its scriptural and liturgical, as well as devotional, resonances, was preferred. It was not left to stand on its own in a separate decree, but integrated into Lumen Gentium.

The community which Lambert Beauduin founded (Chevetogne), however, prayed that the new title would not secure final approval. for the straightforward reason that “Mother of the Church” is nowhere to be found in the Liturgy and therefore posed an additional obstacle to rapprochement with the Orthodox Church. In any case it was open to significant doctrinal misconception. The Orthodox theologian Alexis Kniazeff has handily outlined the reservations, while constructively examining how the new title, drawing from his own inventive tradition, could be understood positively:

This formula seems to place the Mother of God above the Church. But she is in the Church and not above the Church, considered as a distinct entity. One could even say that she is the Church in that, by dint of her role as Mother towards all the redeemed, she bears within her the mystery of the Incarnation, which is also that of the Church. So she is the mystical centre of the Church, its archetype, its personification, the Mother of the living people called to be the Church, but not the Mother of the Church.

Cardinal Aponte Martinez' campaign to have the Blessed Virgin Mary defined formally as "Spiritual Mother of All Humanity" is devout, but it also stands in a long tradition of exaggeration of the tradition the Latin West has received in common with the East. It risks, at least in the mind of those whose liturgical and doctrinal formation is not well developed, taking Mary out of her true context within the Church. It further risks placing her role within the mediation of redemption, rather than at the head of the mediation of intercession, thus risking the Christian belief in the mystery of Christ.

And even where the devotional titles cannot be said or seen to distort the mystery of redemption - after all Pope John Paul discussed Mary's motherhood and intercession for all humanity (General Audience, 24th September, 1997) - the Orthodox Church, together with the Eastern Catholic Churches, and the Latin tradition of the Church of Rome itself, asks - why define such things as doctrines and add to the accretions that mark our differences while we are trying to understand and overcome them? Why, when we already believe she shares in Christ's work of redemption and mediation for all humanity, is Mother of God and Mother in and of the Church, define what we live and experience in any case through our worship, our veneration, our faith and our discipleship?

For a full treatment of this matter see Arca Foederis (Mark Woodruff) in Further Prospects of Mary, Ecumenical Marian Pilgrimage Trust, 2009 Walsingham Pilgrimage, to be published in 2010.

Homily for the Feast of St John Damascene, Westminster Cathedral, 4 December 2009

2009-12-05T08:10:00.004Z

It is not May that is "Mary's Month", but Advent. And it is no accident that we keep today in its first week the feast of St John of Damascus - St John Damascene. Nor is it an accident that the Church provides for today's Gospel the story of the blind men who see by faith (Matthew 9.27-31); but I shall come back to that.

St John was a Syrian monk who had worked as an economic official in the court of the Muslim Caliph. When he entered the monastery of St Saba near Jerusalem around the year 700, he gave up not only earthly fame, power and influence in the empire of a relatively tolerant Islam, but also the wealth of his own Christian family. His Christian spirit of renunciation of worldliness will thus have been impressed by the absolute submission of the many Muslims he knew and worked with to the spiritual life, to God who is Spirit, to God who cannot - must not - be tied down to a merely human way of looking at things.

Too often, we think of God as simply a vastly larger version of us; so the way we imagine him actually diminishes him. (This is the spiritual blindness which today's Gospel contrasts against.) Here St John - like all orthodox Christians - was at one with the Jewish people and the Muslims all around him.

But then he parts company with Islam, with Judaism and the "Puritan" tendency in Christianity. It was over the question of the veneration of our sacred images of Christ and the saints in this world, and our need for them as an intimate link to the mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God, his taking real physical flesh right from in the midst of the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary, truly the Mother of God.

A great controversy about all this disturbed the Church through much of the eighth Christian century; it has bubbled up occasionally ever since. It poses the questions whether it is right or wrong to depict Christ in his Passion on his Cross, Christ in his Power, the Mother of God and indeed any of the saints. Do these statues and icons not merely cut our God down to our size? Do they not merely make the great mysteries of the Incarnation and the Resurrection bite-sized? Do they not merely make the saints into objects of admiration and devotion at the level of basic fellow-human attraction? Should we not tear them aside as barriers to God in heaven?

No, says St John Damascene: it is essential that we have these images. They are not mere snapshots of people long dead, or events long past. They are there to make an impression on us in this world, from the life of the world that is beyond us. Did not Christ say, "The Kingdom of God is among you"? So it is with icons and statues and images. Behind and within them are the great cloud of witnesses, surrounding us, pressing on us with the life of heaven, making an impact upon us with the imminent reality of the Resurrection itself. Our eyes, which are for this world, may be blind to the world that is to come; but our faith sees what and who is bearing upon us.

So we cannot fail to speak to Christ's image on the crucifix. We cannot fail to adore Christ making contact with us through the image of the Lord in his Power that you see in every Orthodox Church and many of our own too. You cannot fail to address the image of the Mother of God wherever you see her, holding her Son to us and bearing his life into our midst.

Rightly we love these images and pour out our prayers and praises, our griefs and hopes before them, not because we are deluded, but because they are evidence - hard, tangible evidence - that the Incarnation is more than an event in history: it is a fact of nature. God takes real, physical things and unites them with heaven, so that they can become holy in the world and thus conduct us into the next. In the same way, he took the humanity of the Virgin and united it with the Divine Nature of his Son. She is truly Mother of God, not only because of her relation to her Son and his work of redepemption on the Cross and the Emptied Tomb, but because she as Mother of the Church, is the instrument of our own union with her Son in that Church too.

Thus it was that above all St John Damascene defended the veneration of the image of the Mother of God. More than all the saints, it is she who brings through the icon and the statue this immediate, imminent presence of the Kingdom of God itself -it is in her womb, it is her very life. No saint can be considered "dead" or coming to us from the past. They are all participants in the Resurrection and above all it is the Mother of God, assumed into heaven, whose purpose it is to see us assumed into heaven's Kingdom too, as she brings to us her Son with every glance of ours at her image and at every Advent, the true "Month of Mary".

So with our Orthodox and Eastern Catholic fellow-Christians, in the words of a hymn for St John's feast,

Let us sing praises to John, worthy of great honour,
the composer of hymns,
the stare and teacher of the Church, the defender of her doctrines:
through the might of the Lord's Crss he overcame heretical error
and as a fervent intercessor before God
he entreats that forgiveness of sins may be
granted to all.

And may the Mother of God pray that this be so.

Fr Mark Woodruff
Vice Chairman of the Society

Holy See and Russia Establish Full Diplomatic Relations

2009-12-04T15:08:00.003Z

The Press Office of the Holy See Press Office released the following communique yesterday evening (3rd December 2009):

This afternoon, 3 December 2009, His Holiness Benedict XVI received in audience
Dimitri Medvedev, president of the Russian Federation. The president had previously met with Cardinal Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone S.D.B. who was accompanied by Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, secretary for Relations with States.

During the cordial discussions pleasure was expressed on both sides at the cordial relations that currently exist between them, and it was agreed to establish full diplomatic relations between the Holy See and the Russian Federation.

Following an exchange of opinions on the international economic and political situation - also in the light of the Encyclical Caritas in veritate, of which the Holy Father presented the president with a copy in Russian - attention turned to the challenges currently facing security and peace. The talks then turned to cultural and social questions of mutual interest, such as the value of the family and the contribution believers make to life in Russia.

Pope Benedict thanks the Russian Orthodox Church

2009-12-03T12:01:00.003Z

Zenit.org reports, December 3rd:

Pope Benedict XVI is expressing gratitude to the Russian Orthodox Church and all those who collaborated in publishing a book with texts from the Pontiff on European culture. The book, Europe, Spiritual Homeland, marks the first time the Moscow Patriarchate is publishing a compilation of texts from a Pope. It contains addresses that Joseph Ratzinger wrote over the past decade regarding Europe.

The presentation of the work, which was published in Russian and Italian, took place Wednesday in Rome in connection with the Italian-Russian Civil Society Dialogue Forum. A message from the Holy Father, sent through his Secretariat of State, was read at the event. It affirmed Benedict XVI's gratitude "for the devout and significant gesture, toward all those who have contributed, and for the sentiments that gave rise to it."

Pierluca Azzaro, professor of politics at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, and the book's editor, announced that the Vatican Publishing House now plans to publish a book by Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and of All Russia titled, Liberty and Responsibility in the Search of Harmony (Liberta e Responsabilita alla Ricerca dell'Armonia). The book will be presented next April at that university in Milan, in the presence of the chairman of the Department of External Affairs of the Moscow Patriarchate, Archbishop Hilarion Alfeyev of Volokolamsk.

At Wednesday's presentation, the Italian minister of culture, Sandro Bondi, affirmed that the newly published book shows how "the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church are great sources of meaning, sources of the spiritual bread that man needs to live, so much more than material bread." The Russian minister of culture, Mikhail Shvydkoi, said that "without the values of Christian humanism, Europe is lost."

He added, "This book speaks to us of the importance of integrating into Europe the different ways in which one can and must honor the presence of God in society. Europe, Spiritual Homeland affirms that "it is possible to honor God in society without the plurality of creeds and confessions of Europe becoming a reason for conflict."

Lorenzo Ornaghi, rector of the Sacred Heart university, pointed out that this volume indicates clearly the path to be followed so that a truly creative culture will again be able to make Europe flourish. "Faith is the source of a living culture and of life, that which most corresponds with man's truest desires," he said.

Jesuit Father Milan Zust, secretary of the Catholic committee for cultural collaboration with Orthodox and Eastern Orthodox Churches at the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, said that the book is "a most important step for building that trust and mutual esteem that makes clear and limpid our common witness in Europe."

Letter of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI to His Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew I on the Feast of St Andrew the First-Called, 2009

2009-11-30T09:16:00.000Z

To His Holiness Bartholomaios I
Archbishop of Constantinople
Ecumenical Patriarch

Your Holiness,

It is with great joy that I address Your Holiness on the occasion of the visit of the delegation guided by my Venerable Brother Cardinal Walter Kasper, President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, to whom I have entrusted the task of conveying to you my warmest fraternal greetings on the Feast of Saint Andrew, the brother of Saint Peter and the protector of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

On this joyful occasion commemorating the birth into eternal life of the Apostle Andrew, whose witness of faith in the Lord culminated in his martyrdom, I express also my respectful remembrance to the Holy Synod, the clergy and all the faithful, who under your pastoral care and guidance continue even in difficult circumstances to witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The memory of the holy martyrs compels all Christians to bear witness to their faith before the world. There is an urgency in this call especially in our own day, in which Christianity is faced with increasingly complex challenges. The witness of Christians will surely be all the more credible if all believers in Christ are “of one heart and soul” (Acts 4:32).

Our Churches have committed themselves sincerely over the last decades to pursuing the path towards the re-establishment of full communion, and although we have not yet reached our goal, many steps have been taken that have enabled us to deepen the bonds between us. Our growing friendship and mutual respect, and our willingness to encounter one another and to recognize one another as brothers in Christ, should not be hindered by those who remain bound to the remembrance of historical differences, which impedes their openness to the Holy Spirit who guides the Church and is able to transform all human failings into opportunities for good.

This openness has guided the work of the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue, which held its eleventh plenary session in Cyprus last month. The meeting was marked by a spirit of solemn purpose and a warm sentiment of closeness. I extend once again my heartfelt gratitude to the Church of Cyprus for its most generous welcome and hospitality. It is a source of great encouragement that despite some difficulties and misunderstandings all the Churches involved in the International Commission have expressed their intention to continue the dialogue.

The theme of the plenary session, The Role of the Bishop of Rome in the Communion of the Church in the First Millennium, is certainly complex, and will require extensive study and patient dialogue if we are to aspire to a shared integration of the traditions of East and West. The Catholic Church understands the Petrine ministry as a gift of the Lord to His Church. This ministry should not be interpreted in the perspective of power, but within an ecclesiology of communion, as a service to unity in truth and charity. The Bishop of the Church of Rome, which presides in charity (Saint Ignatius of Antioch), is understood to be the Servus Servorum Dei (Saint Gregory the Great). Thus, as my venerable predecessor the Servant of God Pope John Paul II wrote and I reiterated on the occasion of my visit to the Phanar in November 2006, it is a question of seeking together, inspired by the model of the first millennium, the forms in which the ministry of the Bishop of Rome may accomplish a service of love recognized by one and all (cf. Ut Unum Sint, 95). Let us therefore ask God to bless us and may the Holy Spirit guide us along this difficult yet promising path.

Yet even as we make this journey towards full communion, we should already offer common witness by working together in the service of humanity, especially in defending the dignity of the human person, in affirming fundamental ethical values, in promoting justice and peace, and in responding to the suffering that continues to afflict our world, particularly hunger, poverty, illiteracy, and the inequitable distribution of resources.

Furthermore, our Churches can work together in drawing attention to humanity’s responsibility for the safeguarding of creation. In this regard, I express once again my appreciation for the many valuable initiatives supported and encouraged by Your Holiness which have borne witness to the gift of creation. The recent international symposium on Religion, Science and the Environment dedicated to the Mississippi River, and your encounters in the United States with distinguished figures from the political, cultural and religious spheres, have exemplified your commitment.

Your Holiness, on the solemn Feast of the great Apostle Andrew, I express my respectful esteem and spiritual closeness to Your Holiness and to the Ecumenical Patriarchate, and I pray that the Triune God may bestow abundant blessings of grace and light on your lofty ministry for the good of the Church.

It is with these sentiments that I extend to you a fraternal embrace in the name of our one Lord Jesus Christ, and I renew my prayer that the peace and grace of our Lord may be with Your Holiness and with all those entrusted to your eminent pastoral leadership.

From the Vatican, 25 November 2009

BENEDICTUS PP. XVI

Divine Liturgy by Peter Michaelides: New CD from Capella Romana

2009-11-25T11:43:00.002Z

Completed in 1960, this outstanding choral setting of the Divine Liturgy is also one of the first to have been written in English. Greek-American composer Peter Michaelides perceptively combines elements of Byzantine chant with modern neo-classicism to create unaccompanied liturgical music of uncommon elegance and spiritual depth.

Included is the Christmas favorite "H Parthenos Simeron" (Today the Virgin) for the Forefeast of the Nativity in Greek, and selections of the Antiphons in Arabic.

The CD comes with a deluxe 20-page booklet with extensive essays and full color photography of the stunning St. Barbara Greek Orthodox Church in Santa Barbara, California, for whose choir Dr. Michaelides wrote several liturgical works, including the Apolytikion in honor of St. Barbara included on this present recording. The priest's part is sung by the Very Rev. Archpriest George A. Gray III, pastor of St. Nicholas Orthodox Church in Portland, Oregon.

Order from Cappella Romana.

Anglicanorum Coetibus: A New Uniatism?

2009-11-20T00:36:00.005Z

Patriarch Bartholomew I with Cardinal Kasper

When the Apostolic Constitution to provide for ordinariates - ecclesial structures like dioceses - for Anglicans coming into full communion with the Holy See, there was immediate and misleading comment that this was the revived system of so-called Uniatism. The Roman Catholic Church, it is claimed, is proselytising Anglicans like the Orthodox of yesteryear.

Thus writes Dr Timothy Bradshaw, Tutor in Doctrine at Regent’s Park College, Oxford, in The Times of 21 October 2009:

Rome’s move looks like a Western version of the Eastern Orthodox groups that accepted the primacy of Rome, the largest being the Ukrainian. The so-called Uniate churches keep their liturgical local custom and practice, as the Anglican body would be allowed to do under the new offer.

As an Anglican Evangelical member of the Anglican Orthodox Theological Commission, he ought to know that this will not do, unless it is an expression of an old desire for affinity with Orthodoxy because of its coincidence with an Anglican apologetic that it too is historic, apostolic, but non-Papal.

It is clear, however, that the provision of the ordinariates are within the Latin rite, of which the Anglican liturgical and ecclesiastical patrimony is a version. The ordinariates are to be particular churches like dioceses, but non-territorial like the military vicariates. Furthermore, their formation comes as a response by the Holy See to formal, repeated and insistent requests from Anglican bishops and bodies for admission to full Catholic communion by the inclusion of a distinctively Anglican church and liturgical life. So the comparison with Catholic Churches of Eastern Rite is inaccurate.

Secondly, Eastern Catholic Churches - specifically those of Byzantine Rite, such as the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, or the Melkite Greek Catholic Church - are not properly seen as the result of proselytism away from Orthodoxy. They see themselves as Orthodox Churches which historically came into restored communion with the Roman See. Both the Ukrainian and Melkite Churches, furthermore, have a strong record of efforts towards reconciliation with their Orthodox neighbours. In Ukraine, for instance, Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky was highly regarded by members and leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church for his practical support and concern during its dark hours after the Russian Revolution. And the Patriarchates of Antioch - Melkite and Greek Orthodox - are renowned for their progressive efforts towards imaginative reconciliation, notably in the famous Balamand initiative. So, again, the misrepresentation of the complex history of Catholic-Orthodox relations and of the real circumstances concerning Eastern Catholic Churches is a false comparison for the forthcoming provisions of Anglicanorum Coetibus.

Professor Nicholas Lash, writing in The Tablet of the 14th November, makes this very clear too:

It has been suggested that the new structures, established by the apostolic constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus, ... should be considered as analogous to those of the Eastern Catholic Churches. Aidan Nichols OP proposed something along these lines in 1993, in The Panther and the Hind and, in 2006, in an article in New Blackfriars entitled: “Anglican Uniatism: A Personal View”. I would make two comments on this. The first concerns the need not to speak of “Uniates”. The schism between Western and Eastern Christianity was not so much a single event as a lengthy process of mutual alienation, culminating in the formal breaking of relations between the patriarchate of Constantinople (drawing the four other, far less powerful, eastern patriarchates in its wake) and the papacy. Over time, many Eastern Churches (of more than 20 types or families) were reconciled into full communion with the Holy See. Their Orthodox brethren, seeing this as betrayal, coined the highly pejorative term “Uniate” to describe them. It is a term that Eastern Catholics therefore find offensive. (And, of course, the term is not only offensive but inaccurate when applied to those Churches, such as the Maronites, which never broke off communion with Rome.) Many British Catholics seem unaware of this, perhaps because there are so few Eastern Catholics in this country to complain....

In the second place, the analogy simply does not stand up. Each of the Eastern Catholic Churches is, precisely, a Church: a distinct, episcopally and presbyterally structured body with its own identity, history and character. The proposed ordinariates, however, are not Churches, but groups of disaffected Anglican lay people.

Here is the account of an interview in L'Osservatore Romano of the 15th November with Cardinal Kasper, President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, by the commentator Sandro Magister:

Cardinal Kasper was in Cyprus because the island was hosting, from October 16-23, the second round (after the first in Ravenna in 2007) of theological dialogue between Catholics and Orthodox on how to understand papal primacy. An ecumenical dialogue of capital importance, in which Kasper led the delegation from Rome.

...

In Cyprus, the news that the Catholic Church is ready to incorporate groups coming from Anglicanism also put the Orthodox on alert. Their fear is that a "Uniate" Church of the Anglican rite will be established and added to the "Uniate" Churches of the various Eastern rites: these are Churches obedient to the pope of Rome but in everything else the equals and rivals of the Orthodox.

In this regard, Kasper says in the interview:

"In Cyprus, in order to avoid misunderstandings, I immediately told our Orthodox counterparts that this is not a matter of proselytism or a new Uniatism. [...] Uniatism is an historical phenomenon involving the Eastern Churches, while the Anglicans are from the Latin tradition. The Balamand document of 1993 is still valid, according to which this is a phenomenon of the past that took place in unrepeatable circumstances. It is not a method for the present or the future. The Orthodox were mainly interested in understanding the nature of the personal ordinariates for the Anglicans, and I clarified that this is not a matter of a Church 'sui iuris', and therefore there will not be the head of a Church, but an ordinary with delegated powers."

In simpler terms: while a "Uniate" Church has its own structured hierarchy, with a patriarch and territorial dioceses, none of this will apply to the former Anglican "personal ordinariates," which will provide pastoral care for the faithful but without their own ecclesiastical territory, a little bit like the military ordinariates.

The new ordinariates will be characterized by the preservation of the Anglican rite for the Mass and the other sacraments – with liturgical books that were approved for the United States in the 1980's by the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship.