Tag: History
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Obama and Moral Imagination
Newly elected President Obama, writes John Couretas, Executive Director of AOI in his essay “Obama and the Moral Imagination” frequently makes use of the phrase “common story.” This phrase “may sound strange to the ears. But it is impossible to understand the new president unless his brilliant use of narrative is first grasped,” Couretas says.…
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Disarray, Disunity and the Metropolitans
AOI has published an article by George C Michalopulos titled “The Role of Metropolitan and Its Relationship within the Episcopate: A Reappraisal.” This original work looks at the historical antecedents of the office of the Metropolitan from early Christianity to today. Along the way, we discover that although the office arose out of the episkopos…
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‘Work to Eat, Steal to Have’
What a beautiful country and what a heartbreaking spectacle of anarchy and self-hatred. A friend forwarded me this note that he received from a relative in Athens. The matter-of-fact closing line is revealing. Athenians have been coping with this malaise for a long, long time: Every person you ask will have his own take on…
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Alexy II: A ‘Transitional’ Patriarch
Vladimir Berezansky, Jr., a U.S. lawyer with experience in Russia and former Soviet republics, recalls an interview with Patriarch Alexy II in 1991. Like many Russians at the time, the Patriarch was coping with a “disorienting change” following the fall of the Soviet Empire, Berezansky writes. At the time, he seemed overcome by the changes…
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The Church and the Terror State
The Moscow Times reports on the funeral of Russian Patriarch Alexy II: Candles flickered and white-robed elders chanted prayers as the country bade farewell Tuesday to Patriarch Alexy II, who guided the country’s dominant Russian Orthodox Church through its remarkable recovery after decades of Communist-era repression. Nuns, believers and government officials looked on as prayers…