This is the Church in which Constantinople interfered, to the consternation of the Russian Orthodox Church. Looks like a retreat.

HT: International Orthodox Christian News

Patriarch Bartholomew urged Ukrainian dissenters to join the Orthodox Church

Strelna, May 31, Interfax – Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople urged Ukrainian dissenters to repent and join the canonic Orthodox Church.

“Let them (dissenters – IF) not hesitate, but join the canonic Orthodox Church which is a ship of salvation,” Patriarch Bartholomew said in an interview to Vesti 24 TV which was recorded Sunday in the Constantinovsky Palace in Strelna near St. Petersburg.

He noted that speaking with Metropolitan Vladimir of Kiev and all Ukraine he wished him that “he be honoured by God to see the solution to this problem while alive, and that the schism ceased to exist.”

“Our Church does everything with due respect to the existing canonic order (in Ukraine – IF),” Patriarch Bartholomew commented current standpoint by Constantinople Patriarchate on Ukrainian schism.

He expressed willingness of his Church to pray both for “Russian and Ukrainian people.”

HT: OrthodoxNet.com

Chuck Colson

5/27/2010 – Chuck Colson –
The evidence shows over and over that crime is not caused by deprivation, but by depravity. And the answer is conversion.

The statistics are startling. Across the United States, crime rates are dropping—for the third year in a row. According to the FBI, violent crimes like murder and rape were down 5.5% in 2009. Property crimes were down 4.9%. Amazingly enough, crime rates dropped more in big cities than in smaller cities.

The media is having a hard time explaining why crime rates are dropping. As one major paper put it, the drop in crime is “challenging the widely held belief that recessions drive up crime rates.” But “challenging” puts it too mildly: Since the economic collapse, the rate of decline in crime rates has actually accelerated!

So where does the “widely held” belief that recessions fuel crime come from? Well, as I wrote years ago, society is now reaping the bitter fruits of the misguided theories about crime that began in the 1930s, when Professor Edwin Sutherland of Indiana University argued that crime was the result of sociological factors. A generation of liberals in academia and government accepted the view that if only the evils of society—such as poverty, unemployment, and racism—were overcome, crime would disappear.

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Chris Banescu, occasional contributor to AOI Observer and webmaster of Orthodoxnet.com has an essay published on American Thinker today: How to Cripple the Free Economy. Congratulations Chris!

Although it is history now, the Divine Liturgy held in Moscow on May 24 f by Pat. Kirill and Pat. Bartholomew included a representative of the OCA as a co-celebrant. This is clearly an affirmation of the canonical legitimacy of the OCA and Abp. Demetrios was entirely correct in inviting the OCA to the Episcopal Assembly. The autocephaly of the OCA is the real issue, not canonical legitimacy.

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HT: Orthodox News

MOSCOW, RUSSIA [OCA/St. Catherine Church] — On Monday, May 24, 2010, the Feast of the Holy Spirit, which coincided this year with the Feast of the Holy Equal to the Apostles Saints Cyril and Methodius, was marked with the concelebration of the Divine Liturgy at Moscow’s Christ the Saviour Cathedral by His All Holiness, Bartholomew, Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch, and His Holiness, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, who was celebrating his namesday.

Concelebrating with the Primates of the Churches of Constantinople and Moscow were the Moscow Representatives of the Patriarchates of Alexandria (His Eminence, Metropolitan Athanasius of Kirinis); Antioch (His Eminence, Archbishop Niphon of Filipopolsk); Jerusalem (Archimandrite Stephanos); Serbia (His Grace, Bishop Antony of Moravich); and the Autocephalous Orthodox Churches of the Czech Lands and Slovakia (Archpriest Alexei Yuschenko) and America (Archimandrite Zacchaeus).

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