Orthodox Churches

Patriarch John X Celebrates Christmas in Aleppo

His Beatitude Patriarch John X arrived in Aleppo on Saturday, December 24, 2016 to celebrate Christmas with the children of this steadfast diocese, who are wounded by the absence of their shepherd, His Eminence Metropolitan Paul.

Orthodox volunteers bring more than 1,000 Christmas gifts to Syria

A Russian delegation has arrived in Damascus with humanitarian aid and more than 1,000 children’s Christmas gifts in tow, for families that have lost parents in the war, reports life.ru.

The cargo of medicine, grains, sugar, salt, pasta, canned foods, candy, stationery, and children’s toys was delivered by participants from the “Forty Times Forty” Orthodox public organization, the Apostle Paul Foundation, and the Orthodox social network “Elitsy.”

Georgian Church canonizes two kings, two abbesses, and a Catholicos who ruled 1932-1955

The Holy Synod of the Georgian Orthodox Church, at a December 21 meeting, has numbered among the ranks of the saints two kings—Bargrat III and Solomon I, two abbesses—Nina (Amilakhvari) and Tamar (Mardzhanishvili), and Catholics-Patriarch Kallistrat (Tsintsadze) who lead the Church in the difficult years of 30s-50s of the previous century, reports Interpressnews.

Bagrat III (960-1014) was glorified as a king-unifier. He managed to unite under his authority almost all of Georgia, except Tbilisi which remained under the authority of the Arabs.

Message of Patriarch Theophilos III of Jerusalem for Christmas

The Father has acquiesced. The Word became flesh. And the Virgin bore the Incarnate God. The star calls. The Wise Men venerate. Shepherds admire and the universe rejoices. (Troparion of Christmas Hymns)  

The One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church of Christ celebrates today a “strange and paradoxical” mystery and this it proclaims “in great joy” across the world. The Church celebrates the extraordinary event that God the Father, Creator and Ruler of the universe, acting on extreme love and compassion, recreated and reshaped man impaired by sin, in the face of His Only-Begotten Son and Logos. “But when the set time had fully come” (Galatians 4,4) during the reign of Cesar Octavian August, the Son and Word of God was born in flesh, in Bethlehem, Judea, incarnate through the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary in Nazareth, Galilee. Jesus Christ, “though in the form of God, took the form a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Phl. 2, 6-7). “Made of woman, made under the law, that we might receive adoption” (Galatians 4,4) and “become children of God” (John 1, 12).

Alexandrian Primate visits Primate of the Coptic Church in Cairo

On 19th December 2016, His Beatitude Theodoros II, Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa, visited in his See in Cairo the Patriarch of the Coptic Church in Egypt, Tawadros II, in order to express to him in person his deepest condolences for the innocent victims of the terrorist bomb attack on 11th December, at the Coptic Cathedral of St. Mark in Cairo.

The Holy Mountain: virtual tour now online

Thanks to an expansive site launched earlier this year, Mt. Athos, the Holy Mountain, is now open to all “visitors,” whether man, woman, or child.

The site, MountAthos360°, developed over the past three years, offers a unique and breathtaking online view of life on the Holy Mountain, with sections dedicated to the twenty main monasteries as well as the main sketes and cells, and even caves of the ascetics. Undertaken with the blessings of the monks and elders, the site aims to “display Athonite monasticism and Orthodox monastic spirituality, for the glory of God.”