Orthodox Churches

Conference in honor of St. Herman of Alaska to be held in Moscow

The great Russian missionary to America St. Herman of Alaska will be honored with a three-day conference in Moscow December 22-24. The Second Annual St. Herman Readings will be held at the Moscow podvoriye of Valaam Monastery, St. Herman himself having originated from the northern Russian Valaam Monastery.

The conference, which will include lectures and conversations with missionaries, a round table on modern missions, and the First Congress of Missionary Societies, promises to be one of the major missionary events of the year, according to the podvoriye’s website.

Among those invited to the readings are Archpriest Oleg Stenyaev, Archpriest Christopher Hill, Andrei Solodkov, Athanasius Zoitakis, and a host of active missionaries and preachers. Topics will include the asceticism of the missionary, problems of missionary polemics, the history and modern condition of Orthodox missions, the organization of parish missionary programs, the rehabilitation of people coming to the Church from other religions, and the missionary heritage of St. Herman of Alaska.

Met. Onuphry of Kiev honors memory of heroes of Chernobyl

His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine honored the memory of the heroes of the 1986 Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant tragedy yesterday, the day of their memory.

Metropolitan Hilarion completes his visit to Mount Athos

On 13 December 2017, the commemoration day of St. Andrew the-First-Called, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations, officiated at the Divine Liturgy at the cathedral of the Russian St.Panteleimon Monastery. Concelebrating with Metropolitan Hilarion on the last day of his stay on the Holy Mountain were Archimandrite Evlogy, hegumen of the monastery, the brethren, and the ordained members of the pilgrims’ group from Russia.

First official celebration of Elder Iakovos (Tsalikis) to take place in June

The first official celebration of the recent glorification of Elder Iakovos (Tsalikis) of Evia will take place on June 3, reports Romfea.

The celebration will be held on the Sunday of All Saints, with the participation of His Beatitude Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens and all Greece and the members of the Holy Synod of the Greek Orthodox Church.

Priest of Russian Orthodox Church sanctifies shelter for homeless in New York

The charitable foundation “Saint John Give Hope,” working closely with the patriarchal parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church in the United States and with the Orthodox Church in America, opened its own homeless shelter in New York. On November 11, the building was consecrated by the clergyman of the St. Nicholas Russian Cathedral Igumen Nicodemus (Balyasnikov).

Chechnya’s third Orthodox church to open in summer 2018

An Orthodox church in the village of Shelkovskaya in the northeastern Chechen region of Shelkovskoy, construction on which began in April, will open for parishioners in the summer of 2018. The interior decorating work in the church will soon begin, assistant to the head of Chechnya Daniel Martinov reported to TASS yesterday. The church will be the third Orthodox parish in the republic which is 95% Muslim.