Orthodox Church

Revival of Orthodoxy in Russia

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Back in October, 2011 Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kyrill said:

In 1991, the Russian Orthodox Church had 12,000 parishes, 117 monasteries and convents, two theologian academies, seven theologian seminaries, 16 theologian colleges and four schools. In 2011, we have 30,675 parishes, 29,324 priests, 3,850 deacons and 805 monasteries and convents. The number of theologian educational establishments has increased, too.

Twenty years is not much in the history of a Church on the one hand, but on the other, the achievements made since 1991 are colossal.

Spiritual revival is only at its start.

The exhibit below is being held in Moscow presently.

Christmas Too Commercialized? Bah! Humbug!

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Source: Koinonia

A sermon by Fr. Gregory Jenson.

From both the left and the right then, we hear attacks of the contemporary American celebration of Christmas. Every year about this time you can be certain that someone—and not necessarily a Christian—will write an essay lamenting the secularization or the commercialization of Christmas. And for the last several years I have dutiful read these woeful litanies about how we have lost the true meaning of Christmas.

Typically Christians on the cultural and political right complain about how Christmas has become secularized. These individuals are offended when they hear “Happy Holidays!” rather than “Merry Christmas!” in the stores and malls where they are shopping.

Just as predictably, Christians on the political and cultural left will take others to task for the commercialization of Christmas. In tones as woeful and self-righteous as their opposite numbers on the right, they will express their indignation that Christmas has become about buying useless gifts and consuming too much of the earth’s resources.

To be fair, there is more than a little truth to what is said. But then, to be fair, there is more than a little truth to be found in the secular and commercial rituals that have come to surround how we celebration Christmas.

Something Crass About Christmas

Theologically there is something crass about Christmas. In the best sense of the word, the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity is vulgar. In Jesus Christ, the “creator of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible,” becomes a small child. Whatever might have been Mary and Joseph’s economic and social status it paled beyond words relative to the glory Christ has as God Son.
And yet He who “did not consider it robbery to be equal with God,”

…made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:6-11).

To the powerful of this world, to the sleek and the strong, to the wealthy and the well-born, to those who imagine themselves wise according to the wisdom of this world, the Incarnation is simply in bad taste. At the risk of offending unnecessarily, looked at from the angle of those who imagine themselves to be someone important, Jesus and His followers are just, well, white trash.

For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence. But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption—that, as it is written, “He who glories, let him glory in the LORD” (1 Corinthians 1:26-30).

The Good News that God in Jesus Christ loves and forgives us and that He has joined Himself to each of us is entrusted to those who are weak and despised by those who in their own minds are strong and wise.

A Secularized Christmas — More Than Meets The Eye

“But,” you ask, “what about the secularization and commercialization of Christmas?”

For all that is lacking in our culture’s celebration of Christmas, it points beyond itself to something greater, more sublime, something more angelical and even divine. And it must be so because for their failings our celebrations are so human.

We be wise, discerning, generous and, above all merciful in our criticism of how our culture keeps Christmas. Above all else there must not be any hint or suggestion of condemnation because “God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved” (John 3:17). What I cannot lose sight of in my critique is that what Christmas celebrates above all that “faithful saying … worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief” (1 Timothy 1:15).

From where I sit, the problem with the commercialization of Christmas is not that we are prodigal in our gift giving but miserly. It isn’t that we consume too much but too little. Because you see, or so it seems to me, we give each other every manner of gift except the gift of ourselves in love, compassion, and chastity. And isn’t that some of us eat too much Christmas roast or drink too much beer but that too few of us feast on the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist.

We should be as extravagant as we can in our gift giving, in our eating and drinking because it is in cheerful generosity that we most closely resemble the God Who on Christmas Day is born in poverty and obscurity for us and for our salvation.

God is extravagant, even wasteful, in His love for mankind. There is no sin He does not forgive, there is no sinner He does not bless “for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” commanding us to do likewise telling His disciples “be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect” (see Matthew 5:45, 48).

So if people eat and drink too much at their Christmas dinner how can we who are Christians fail to feel at least some responsibility for this?

Abstinence and Restraint Might Hide A Greater Failing

Our fault isn’t that we haven’t preached abstinence or self-restraint—we have and should continue to do so—but that we have failed to proclaim the Gospel. Are we really so naïve that we are surprised that those who don’t know Christ or live according to the Gospel eat too much and drink too much when all they is “bread that doesn’t satisfy” (see Isaiah 55:2) rather than the Bread which has come down from Heaven, the Holy Eucharist (John 6:41-58)?

If Christmas has become secular, a mere commercial event, a celebration of materialism and conspicuous consumption, it is because Christians have withdrawn from the Public Square into our churches, our families and our increasingly narrowly defined private concerns. If the only songs we hear in the malls and stores are “White Christmas,” “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” and “Blue Christmas,” it’s because we “who mystically represent the cherubim” and our called “to sing the thrice-holy hymn” of the seraphim have failed to sing for people to hear.

And yet, even the most secular and materialistic among us is created in the image of the God. It is incumbent upon those who have been given the gift of faith to see that image in our neighbor and hear the frustrated longing for God that grips them and to do so not just at Christmas but every day.

Yes, I am a fan of secular, commercialized Christmas. Not because I don’t believe in God but because I do. And because these celebrations remind me of how inadequate are my own attempts to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. You see it isn’t that “they” do it poorly and “I” do it well. It is rather that God in Jesus Christ has done it “all on behalf of all for all.”

In one of the Church’s hymns for the Nativity, we are told that, on that first Christmas, humanity offered a Virgin, the earth a cave, the shepherd’s a song and that together they welcomed wise men who followed a star.

So by all means, let our Christmas celebrations be as beautiful and dignified as we can make them; but let them also joyful and merry. And if my neighbor fails to keep Christmas as I think he should, let me open my heart and my home to him in imitation of the God Who opens Heaven to me.

Fr. Gregory Jensen edits the Koinonia blog (“An Orthodox priest’s thoughts on this and that. Mostly that but a little of this”).

OCA Holy Synod of Bishops Expresses Solidarity with Coptic Church in Egypt

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Source: Orthodox Church in America

The witness and mission of the Coptic Church in Egypt have their origin in apostolic times. Today, the Coptic Church of Egypt is the largest Christian Church in the Middle East. Under the leadership of His Holiness, Pope Shenouda, the Coptic Church is a dynamic and active Church, with significant and effective work in education, youth work, and social work.

While the Coptic Church has experienced limitations to its work in the context of the Muslim majority of Egypt, the present time presents special challenges. In the midst of the changes in Egyptian political life during the last months, some of which are positive, there are aspects of current developments which make the Coptic Church vulnerable to discrimination and even violence.

For this reason, the Lesser Synod of the Orthodox Church in America, under the chairmanship of His Beatitude Metropolitan Jonah, has issued a Statement of Support for the Coptic Church of Egypt. This statement will be sent to the Embassy of Egypt in Washington, DC, to the Egyptian Mission to the United Nations, and to government authorities in Egypt. In addition, the statement will be shared with President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The text of the statement reads as follows.

Statement of Support for the Coptic Church in Egypt

The Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in America expresses its solidarity with the Coptic Church in Egypt at this time of significant transition in Egyptian society. This time of transition is a time of hope as well as a time of anxiety. The people of Egypt and Egypt’s religious communities hope for a future of justice and peace. For justice and peace to prevail, all Egyptians must enjoy equality before the law.

The Coptic Church has faced unjust limitations and discriminatory practices. This means that the Coptic citizens of Egypt have been denied justice. One of the examples of this denial of justice is seen in the denial of approval for the building of churches. In such discriminatory practices administrative decisions based on existing regulations play the key role.

There also have been periodic occurrences of violence against Coptic Christians – violence killing and wounding many Copts. In this violence the key role has been played by religious extremism found in some groups of the Muslim majority in Egypt.

The building and maintenance of Justice and peace in Egyptian society will be at great risk if Egyptians and the religious communities to which they belong are not equally protected under the law.

In this regard work on the constitution of Egypt is critically important for the future of the country, and indeed for the future of the Middle East. Equality of Egyptian Christians under the law does not undermine the religious faith of Muslims. Rather, equality under the law protects all citizens and opens the road to peace, justice, and mutual respect between Muslims and Christians.

The Orthodox Church in America will remain in solidarity with the yearning of Egyptians for peace and justice and will continue to offer prayerful support and solidarity to the Coptic Church.

Russian Orthodox Church Asserts Role in Civil Society

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The Church of the Fedorovskaya Icon of the Virgin Mary, at the central Moscow campus of the Russian State Social University, was consecrated in 2006 after debate about religion’s place.

Source: New York Times (HT: The Orthodox Church) | Sophia Kishkovsky

MOSCOW — Just over 20 years ago, any religious education outside church walls was still banned in the Soviet Union. Today, churches are being built on state university campuses, theology departments have opened around Russia, and the Russian Orthodox Church has built its own educational network with international contacts and even become something of a model for the secular system.

Still, state universities struggle on many levels to integrate into the international system; the Bologna Process, an agreement streamlining higher-education standards across Europe, has upset many Russian academics who contend that it undermines the achievements of the Soviet system, where a standard specialist degree required five years of study.

But the Russian Orthodox Church, which started building its education system virtually from scratch in the post-Soviet era, has applied international standards from the outset, said Archimandrite Cyril Hovorun, deputy chairman of the church’s education committee. Speaking of the state education system, Father Hovorun said, “It is more concerned about finding compromises between the old Soviet system and the new European standards.”

At the same time, the church is proposing its vision of educational reform.

“Education is not a personal matter but a sphere of public life on which the existence of society and the state depend,” Patriarch Kirill I, the church’s leader, said in September in a speech at Voronezh State University. “It is the backbone of the existence of society, and that’s why the transfer of education exclusively into the sphere of rendering of market services is, in my view, a big mistake.”

Yulia Rehbinder, 30, who received a degree in social pedagogy this year from St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University, which was founded in Moscow in 1992 as a theological institute, said she had chosen the university because she thought it offered a more sophisticated humanities program than state universities. It received state accreditation as a university in 2004.

“In Soviet times, everything connected with Christianity, its history and culture, was purposely removed from humanitarian education,” said Ms. Rehbinder, who is now working with orphans and doing graduate research on Russian émigré teaching methods in France. “As a result, it ended up that specialists couldn’t understand the essence of works of art, of many historical events, or the motives of human actions, since a Christian worldview was alien to them.”

While the church has helped create over 30 theology faculties at secular state universities, Father Hovorun said, the state education authorities still refuse to recognize theology as a stand-alone doctoral-degree subject.

Archpriest Vladimir Vorobiev, rector of St. Tikhon’s, told Pravoslavie i mir, an Orthodox news Web site, that he objected to the state authorities’ refusal to recognize theology as a social science at the doctorate level. He asserts that some people in high levels of Russian academia are still influenced by a Soviet mind-set that cannot accept a social “science about God.”

“In Europe, they would only laugh at the phrases we have heard here about theology not being a science,” Father Vorobiev said. “To them, it’s the equivalent of saying that math is not a science.”

But while the Orthodox Church has become an increasingly powerful presence in Russia, speaking out on morality, economics, international relations, and most recently the Russian elections, critics say it has failed to adequately fill a post-Soviet ideological and moral vacuum.

The attempt to unite the church’s ideological and practical potential is illustrated vividly at the Russian State Social University. The university has more than 100,000 students on campuses across Russia and a branch in Kyrgyzstan.

Last June, its central Moscow campus, hosted an anti-abortion conference that drew American activists. Student volunteers wore anti-abortion T-shirts and distributed anti-abortion literature. The university, where smoking is banned, encourages student marriages and babies, and students are unusually polite.

The centerpiece of the campus, which used to be an institute of Marxism-Leninism, is the Church of the Fyodorovskaya Icon of the Mother of God. It was consecrated in 2006 after much debate on whether it was appropriate to build an Orthodox church in the center of the campus, said Vasily Zhukov, who is rector of the university and said all of its campuses also had prayer rooms for Muslims and other non-Orthodox students.

The construction or restoration of churches on university campuses has become such a trend that there is now an association of university churches in Russia. Yaroslav Skvortsov, chairman of the department of international journalism at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, is co-chairman of the association.

While the study of church history is an elective, Mr. Skvortsov said he regarded it as essential for better relations among Russians and others.

“A true understanding of this Orthodox component of state diplomatic service is what will without a doubt help our future diplomats to have a proper sense of themselves,” he said.

Cooperation with the Russian Orthodox Church, Mr. Zhukov said, is a practical decision to create a moral foundation for students. “We are interested in allies,” he said, “not in religious obscurantism, not in the idealization of the church as such, not in the use of force to bring a person to church. We don’t need any of this. But we need the church as a bearer of huge knowledge.”

He added, “We are located on a spot that used to be a theoretical focal point of aggressive atheism.”

In October, Mr. Zhukov was honored for his work in academia and for the church by Metropolitan Hilarion, chairman of the Department of External Church relations, who has a doctorate from the University of Oxford and has been promoting ties between the two sectors.

Still, some Russian Orthodox leaders and commentators report growing alienation among student-age youths from the church and resentment that the religion is being forced on them. What’s more, several years ago, a number of prominent Russian scientists accused the church in an open letter of imposing ignorance and clerical rule on Russian society.

But Archpriest Vladimir Shmaliy, a theologian and vice rector of the Saints Cyril and Methodius Postgraduate and Doctoral School of the Russian Orthodox Church, said a growing dialogue between the church and academia in fields like philosophy and biology had become an example of civil society in Russia.

The church and the Higher School of Economics, Russia’s most Western-style state university, will soon sign an agreement that will include cooperation of their philosophy and history departments, said Sergey Roshchin, vice rector and professor at the school.

“Of course there are many problems in the relations between church and society, church and the state,” he said. “But this is a subject for expert dialogue that includes academia as well.”

Cultural Legacy of Communism: Armenian Women Still Have Average of 8 and as High as 20 Abortions in Lifetime

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When the Berlin Wall fell everyone pondered the ramifications as East Germany rejoined their Western brothers and presumably in a few short years catapult Germany to even higher economic prominence. It didn’t happen. As it turned out, all it takes to weaken a culture is one generation. Sixty years can wipe values and habits that took generations to accrue. Russia proves the same point. Cultural rebuilding is a slower process than we would like, which also compels us to protect the things that remain. If the first things are lost they take a long time to restore, if ever.

In the essay below writer Ben Johnson examines the abortion rates of once Christian Armenia after the call of Communism and reveals that the restoration of human value will be hard fought. Fortunately the Orthodox Church is starting to speak out. Orthodox writer and ethicist Vigen Guroian is quoted:

“I cannot understand why the Armenian people are committing genocide against themselves now, when they’ve endured it.” During the Armenian genocide (1915-1923), 1.5 million of the Ottoman Empire’s 2 million Armenian Christians were exterminated by Muslim Turks.

“What’s even more sad is that the news comes out at this time of the year, at Advent and at the time of the birth of the Lord.”

If the Virgin Mary had been in Armenia at this time, she probably would have been encouraged to have an abortion.”

Source: Lifesite News | Ben Johnson

YEREVAN, ARMENIA, December 20, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The practice of sex-selective abortion has become so deeply ingrained in the former Soviet republic of Armenia – where the median number of abortions obtained by women over 40 is a staggering eight – that the nation will soon face “a deficit of women,” according to a United Nations health official.

A new report produced by the United Nations Population Fund, the Armenian ministry of health, and the Institute of Perinatology found that 7,000 Armenian women – or 0.8 percent of all Armenian women of child-bearing age – had elected to have sex-selective abortions since 2006. Armenia has the world’s second worst ratio of boys-to-girls in the world, second only to China, according to a World Economic Forum report. The average nation has a ratio of 106 boys to 100 girls; Armenia’s average is 112 to 100.

The study, “Prevalence and Reasons of Sex-Selective Abortions in Armenia,” estimated a loss of 1,400 future mothers. UNFPA Armenia Assistant Representative Garik Hayrapetyan told reporters Monday, “In ten to 20 years,” he said,” we will face a deficit of women.”

He was surprised to learn that “highly educated women” with a comfortable salary were the most likely to choose to abort unborn female children.

Dr. Vigen Guroian, professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia told LifeSiteNews.com, “I cannot understand why the Armenian people are committing genocide against themselves now, when they’ve endured it.” During the Armenian genocide (1915-1923), 1.5 million of the Ottoman Empire’s 2 million Armenian Christians were exterminated by Muslim Turks.

“What’s even more sad is that the news comes out at this time of the year, at Advent and at the time of the birth of the Lord,” he said.

“If the Virgin Mary had been in Armenia at this time, she probably would have been encouraged to have an abortion.”

Dr. Guroian, who is of Armenian descent, said the debate became personal for him after the birth of his granddaughter five months ago, when he realized she may never have been born in her family’s homeland.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, (PACE) passed a resolution in October stating that aborting unborn girls “reinforces a climate of violence against women,” and the coercion young mothers undergo constitutes “a form of psychological violence.” It particularly highlighted Armenia’s situation. However, the resolution deemed the practice “justified for the prevention of serious sex-linked genetic diseases.” Its author, Doris Stump, instructed, “We should be careful, however, not to use prenatal sex selection as a pretext to limit legal abortion.”

Armenia’s abortion rate, although lower than it was in the 1990s and only one-third the rate of the 1980s, remains staggeringly high. The median number of abortions for women over 40 is eight, and some women have as many as 20 abortions in a lifetime.

Experts attribute this to the lingering influence of the Soviet Union, when abortion became the nation’s primary means of birth control. Similar rates persist in the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Azerbaijan. “This is now a deeply culturally set pattern. I don’t think the church could solve the problem tomorrow by speaking up,” Dr. Guroian said.

“I’ve voiced my anguish at the church’s reticence to address this in the past,” he said. “Perhaps it had an excuse during the period of Soviet rule, but it’s had no excuse for the past 20 years.”

A spokesperson for the Western Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church of North America declined to comment on this story. Representatives from the Eastern Diocese were not immediately available by deadline.

However, some voices within Armenia have articulated the Christian Church’s opposition to abortion. Fr. Kyuregh Talyan, a parish priest in the Kotayk Diocese, held a press conference last month to say, “A human being begins life from the moment of conception. To me, an emotionless concept like ‘artificial termination of pregnancy’ is nothing more than homicide.” Its widespread tolerance “comes from a new religion prevailing in Europe – the religion of ‘human rights.’”

The conscious decision to abort unborn girls now pervades the globe. The British medical journal The Lancet estimated some 12 million sex-selection abortions had taken place in India from 1980 to 2010. The shortage of women has become so acute it has led to “wife-sharing.” A study of the sex imbalance in India, China, and South Korea links the absence of potential wives to increased aggression, violence, and criminal behavior among men. The Parental Non-Discrimination Act aims to end the practice in the United States.

Armenian legislators have proposed a law forbidding doctors from disclosing the child’s sex until after the cut-off time when abortions are forbidden under law. Like much of Europe, Armenia restricts abortions to the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. However, many later abortions take place, often chemical abortions induced at home without a doctor’s supervision.

Yet some within Armenia emphasize the real danger is not “gendercide,” but abortion itself. The head of the Department of Gynecology at the Armenian-American Wellness Center, Dr. Marina Voskanyan, warned, “Women have to know that discontinuing any pregnancy…will lead to serious health issues. An abortion is a very negative phenomenon.”

Dr. Vahe Ter-Minasyan, an ob-gyn in Armenia, agreed: “To opt for an abortion is merely a question of ignorance. If women and their husbands knew how much damage an abortion causes to a woman’s health, they would never choose it.”

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