Month: May 2009

In response to the “First Pre-Conciliar Conference” held in Chambesy, Switzerland (near Geneva) in November 1976, Archimandrite Dr. Justin Popovic composed “On A Summoning of the Great Council of the Orthodox Church.” In this, Fr. Popovic (1894-1979), spiritual father of the monastery of Celie Valjevo (Serbia), expressed his “grievous considerations for the future council.” The Orthodox Christian Information Center has the complete text here.

This letter is “dated” in that, written more than 30 years ago, it could not foresee the fall of communism and the revival of the Russian Church, nor anticipate the expansion of the Holy and Sacred Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate to include members from outside of Turkey. And it is always risky to draw close analogies from one historical moment to the present. But some of the language in the letter reads as if it could have been written yesterday. Here are some selections in which Fr. Popvich gives some thoughts on the “diaspora” and the historical background and justification for a Great Council:

On new local Churches:

The fate of the Church neither is nor can be any longer in the hands of the Byzantine emperor or any other sovereign. It is not the control of a patriarch or any of the mighty of this world, not even in that of the “Pentarchy” or of the “autocephalies” (understood in the narrow sense). By the power of God the Church has grown up into a multitude of local Churches with millions of faithful, many of whom in our days have sealed their apostolic succession and faithfulness to the Lamb with their blood. And new local Churches appear to be rising on the horizon, such as the Japanese, the African and the American, and their freedom in the Lord must not be removed by any “super-Church” of the papal type (cf. Canon 8, III Ecumenical Council), for this would signify an attack on the very essence of the Church. Without their concurrence the solution of any ecclesiastical question of ecumenical significance is inconceivable, not to mention the solutions to questions that immediately concern them, i.e. the problem of the diaspora. The age-old struggle of Orthodoxy against Roman absolutism was a struggle for just such freedom of the local Church as catholic and conciliar, complete and whole in itself. Are we today to travel the road of the first and fallen Rome, or of some “second” or “third” similar to it? Are we to believe that Constantinople, which in the persons of its holy and great hierarchs, its clergy and its people, so boldly opposed for centuries past the Roman protectionism and absolutism, is today preparing to ignore the conciliar traditions of Orthodoxy and to exchange them for the neo-papal surrogate of a “second,” “third” or other sort of Rome?

6. Most Venerable Fathers! All the Orthodox behold and realise how important, how significant today is the question of the Orthodox diaspora both for the Orthodox Church in general and for all the Orthodox Churches individually. Can this question be decided, as Constantinople or Moscow desires, without referring to, without the participation of the Orthodox faithful, pastors and theologians of the diaspora itself, which is increasing every day? The problem of the diaspora, without doubt, is a church question of exceptional importance; it is a question that has risen to the surface for the first time in history with such force and significance. For its solution there would be cause indeed to convoke a truly ecumenical council in which all the Orthodox bishops of all the Orthodox Churches would truly participate. Another question that, in our view, could and should be considered at an authentic ecumenical council of the Orthodox Church is the question of ecumenism. This, properly speaking, is an ecclesiological question concerning the Church as theandric unity and organism, a unity and organism that are placed in doubt by contemporary ecumenical syncretism. It is also related to the question of man, for whom the nihilism of contemporary, and especially atheistic, ideologies has dug a grave without hope of resurrection. Both questions can be resolved correctly and in an Orthodox manner only by proceeding from the theandric foundations of the ancient and true ecumenical councils. For the present, however, I leave these problems aside so as not to overburden this appeal with new discussions and expand it unduly. Continue reading →

From Interfax:

Moscow, May 26 – The 4th all-Orthodox pre-conciliar consultation is to be held in the Constantinople Patriarchate Orthodox center in Chambésy on June 6-13, 2009.

“Participants will touch upon the topic of organizing Orthodox diaspora (Orthodox believers living out of borders of any local Orthodox church),” Acting Secretary of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations Priest Igor Yakimchuk has told Interfax-Religion on Tuesday.

He noted that several centuries had passed after the last seventh Ecumenical Council and “there are a lot of questions that need all-church solution for the sake of strengthening unity and avoiding schisms in one Orthodox Church.”

“To settle these questions it is planned to hold the Holy and Great Council of the Eastern Orthodox Church in foreseeable future,” the priest said.

It was decided to get ready for the Great Council by way of convening all-Orthodox pre-council consultations and inter-Orthodox preparatory commissions.

Three all-Orthodox pre-conciliar consultations (Chambésy 1976, 1982, 1986) and five inter-Orthodox preparatory commissions (Geneva, 1971, Chambésy 1986, 1990, 1993 and 1999) were held in the past.

Ten-year break in holding meetings and preparatory commissions was caused by complications in inter-Orthodox relations connected with disagreements between the Moscow and Constantinople Patriarchates on church structure in Estonia. The Istanbul meeting of primates and representatives of Orthodox Churches in October 2008 made it possible to resume inter-Orthodox cooperation for getting ready to the Council.

Next session of the inter-Orthodox preparatory commission is planned for December 2009.

Good coverage in the New York Times about the dedication on Sunday of the Church of the Great Martyr Saint Catherine on the grounds of the Russian Embassy in Rome.

From Russian Orthodox Consecrate Parish in Rome:

“Today is a special event,” said Andrey Shumkin, a priest with the delegation from the Moscow Patriarchate, “and the presence of two cardinals here is a visual sign of collaboration.”

Cardinal Kasper said that “a lot of progress” between the Vatican and the Russian Orthodox church had been made in the last 10 years. Both sides have demonstrated a willingness to discuss, as have the pope and Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, he said. A meeting between the two will come “when the time is mature,” he said.

And, from the advance story, Relations Warm Between Russian Orthodox Church and Vatican:

Reflecting Russia’s geopolitical dance with Europe, the Moscow Patriarchate has found common ground with Benedict, and since Patriarch Kirill was enthroned, he has appointed church officials who portray the pope as a like-minded man of the church, not politics.

“This pope, in contrast to the previous one, doesn’t strive to always be politically correct,” said Archbishop Hilarion of Volokolamsk, an Oxford-educated theologian who was until recently the Russian Orthodox Bishop of Vienna and Austria and the Russian Church’s representative to European institutions. “He believes he must speak of the teachings of the Catholic church. The task of such a church figure, especially of such rank, is to clearly state the teaching of the church, even if it doesn’t correspond to contemporary standards of political correctness.” Continue reading →

A really interesting video from the Greek Heritage Society of Southern California, a nonprofit organization established in 1985, which is raising funds for a documentary project (HT: Daily Frappe). This short talks about the formation of a Greek Battalion in the U.S. Army during WW II. You also see the rapid integration of an immigrant community into American institutional and civil society because of this service. And this applied to not just the Greeks but to all Orthodox Christian communities.

I also had to laugh about the comments about wearing the foustanela, later on in the video. I vividly recall, as a schoolboy, my recitation of patriotic poetry at a Greek Independence Day program in the hall of St. George Greek Orthodox Church in Pontiac, Michigan (the old building on Mariva Street). They gave me a little slip of paper, a cheat sheet, from which I read the poem in Greek. A big hit with the audience. Lots of bravos! Fortunately, I didn’t have to do it dressed up like an evzone.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wK76Nny8SF0[/youtube]

Among Your saints give rest, O Christ, to the souls of Your servants, in a place where there is no pain, or sorrow, or grieving, but only life everlasting. Now and ever, and to the ages of ages. Amen.

The American Battle Monuments Commission oversees 24 permanent American burial grounds on foreign soil in places like Ardennes, Belgium; Brittany, France; Cambridge, England; Flanders Field, Belgium; Florence, Italy; Manila, Philippines; Meuse-Argonne, France; Normandy, France; North Africa, Tunisia; Sicily-Rome, Italy; and Somme, France. Presently there are 124,909 U.S. war dead interred at these cemeteries, 30,921 of World War I, 93,238 of World War II and 750 of the Mexican War. Additionally 6,177 American veterans and others are interred in the Mexico City and Corozal American Cemeteries.

Brief video tours of a number of these cemeteries are posted online. Here is the video tour of the American Cemetery in Henri-Chapelle, Belgium.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2TG63peMqo[/youtube]

Visit the military resources page on the SCOBA site where you can order the New Testament and Psalms for Orthodox Christians: Military Edition.

In conjunction with the American Bible Society, SCOBA plans to offer service men and women a free audio Bible. Military personnel will be able to play the audio of the New Testament from a web browser as well as download it onto an iPod or MP3 player while deployed. SCOBA hopes to have the audio New Testament online by June 1.