May 23, 2013

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Bartholomew I: “Peace is a Matter of Choice”

May 10, 2011 11:19 PM
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This is sure to warm the heart of religious liberals who are always on prowl looking for new ways to establish their righteousness. Global warming is disintegrating like the Death Star penetrated by Luke Skywalker's missile and another cause has to be found quick. Maybe they can dust off the 'peacemaker' jargon. It has a relatively short shelf-life (except when conservatives are in power) but the recycling potential is tremendous. I mean no disrespect to the WCC, but hearing the same old cant from the same old boomers is like listening to a car alarm that won't shut off. Why is the Ecumenical Patriarch buying into it? It carries no moral weight or real cultural import. No one is for war. But it is foolish to think that the WCC will have any bearing on war or peace whatsoever. No one apart from their fellow-travelers takes them seriously. And why should they? Nothing about them ever changes. In an encyclical letter intended to be read in congregations of the Church of … [Read more...]

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Met. Hilarion: Our concern is to preserve and consolidate unity of Russian Orthodox Church

July 20, 2010 9:58 AM

On July 17, 2010, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s department for external church relations, speaking in Church and World talk show, answered questions from anchorman Ivan Semenov concerning the work of the DECR as a church external policy department. - Does an Orthodox Christian in his everyday life ever encounter the work of the DECR and fruits of your efforts? - Of course, they do, especially those who live in the far-abroad countries and some neighbouring countries. Take for instance relations between the Orthodox and the Catholics or between the Orthodox and the Protestants. These are not only relations existing on official level. Many Orthodox believers live in countries with the predominant Catholic Church or in the countries where most people confess Protestantism. It means there are mixed marriages, communication at work places with people of other faiths or other Christian confessions. We do not live in a world where we are … [Read more...]

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Russian Orthodox Church raises fears over pro-gay Protestant Churches

July 6, 2010 5:09 AM

Virtue Online Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia has told the head of the World Council of Churches of his concerns over the position of some Protestant Churches towards homosexuality. WCC General Secretary Dr Olav Fykse Tveit met the Patriarch in Moscow today as part of his first visit to the Russian Orthodox Church since taking up office last September. According to the WCC, Kirill expressed a "serious concern" about some of the challenges facing ecumenical dialogue in view of what he termed the "new positions of some Protestant churches" on several important moral issues, including their understanding of homosexuality. … [Read more...]

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Progressive Christianity’s habit of ‘Embracing the Tormenters’

May 26, 2010 10:52 AM

The Institute on Religion & Democracy’s Faith McDonnell: Conducting “truth commissions” to denounce American armed forces and organizing divestment campaigns to cripple Israel are vital issues to some American church officials. Raising the banner of Intifada and expressing solidarity with Palestinians are also very important to this collection of liberal leaders. They “spiritualize” the Democratic immigration and health care reform agendas with pompous prayer, but their social justice-focused prophetic vision has strange blind spots. Leftist church leaders hardly ever see, let alone condemn, the imprisonment, enslavement, torture, and murder of Christians in the Islamic world, North Korea, and China. Church officials and partner organizations such as the National Council of Churches (NCC) and the World Council of Churches (WCC) issue strident policy statements on such topics as “eco-justice,” broadband access for “economically … [Read more...]

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Orthodoxy trivialized in WCC public relations stunt

November 12, 2009 10:15 AM

From Brietbart: The World Council of Churches on Thursday called on churches around the world to ring their bells 350 times during the Copenhagen climate change summit on December 13 as a call to action on global warming. The leading council of Christian and Orthodox churches also invited places of worship for other faiths to join a symbolic "chain of chimes and prayers" stretching around the world from the international date line in the South Pacific. "On that Sunday, midway through the UN summit, the WCC invites churches around the world to use their bells, drums, gongs or whatever their tradition offers to call people to prayer and action in the face of climate change," the council said in a statement. "By sounding their bells or other instruments 350 times, participating churches will symbolise the 350 parts per million that mark the safe upper limit for CO2 (carbon dioxide) in the atmosphere according to many scientists," it added. Read the entire … [Read more...]

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Bp. Hilarion: Russian Orthodox Must Stay in WCC

July 3, 2008 5:54 AM

Moscow, June 30, Interfax - Withdrawal of the Russian Orthodox Church from the World Council of Churches should weaken positions of Moscow Patriarchate in the inter-Orthodox dialogue, the representative of Russian Church in European international organizations believes. "This withdrawal may only weaken our positions today in defending the Church teaching which we consider traditional, which for many centuries was the basis of relations among the Orthodox Churches, and which is now challenged by the Patriarchate of Constantinople," Bishop Hilarion said Monday to Interfax-Religion. He also mentioned that the last Bishops' Council discussed "the claims of the Patriarchate of Constantinople to the jurisdiction of the whole diaspora" and the Patriarch of Constantinople's seeking to receive the position "which is somewhat equal to that of Pope in the Catholic Church." "Today, the Russian Orthodox Church is the major opponent of Constantinople, therefore, the Patriarchate of … [Read more...]

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Orthodox Women in the Ecumenical Movement

June 27, 2008 6:42 AM

An Inter-Orthodox Consultation, under the auspices of the World Council of Churches, held a program titled, "Participation of Orthodox Women in the Ecumenical Movement: Past, Present, Future” at the Volos Academy for Theological Studies, Greece, from June 8-12. The meeting brought together some 45 women from Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Australia and North America. They discussed the participation, ministry and concerns of Orthodox women in the church and in the ecumenical movement. According to the WCC report, participants at the consultation recommended undertaking a full assessment of the current situation and needs of Orthodox women, given the many changes that have taken place over the last decade, as well as the development of a framework for future action. "We see the need to identify, together with our church leadership, the ways and instruments to implement decisions and recommendations of women's consultations in our … [Read more...]

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