Orthodox Churches

Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk meets with Patriarch Abuna Paul of Ethiopia

On September 14, 2010, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s department for external church relations, met with Patriarch Abuna Paul of Ethiopia. In a warm and friendly atmosphere they discussed topical problems of inter-Christian cooperation and made a high assessment of the relations that used to tie the two Churches in the past.

Patriarch Kirill calls for deterring attempts to diminish Soviet people's role in WWII

Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia has urged WWII veterans to remind the world that they saved it from the Nazis.

"The heroic feat of our people is beyond comparison. We must declare it to the whole world. We saved our country, we also saved the whole world," he told the veterans after laying a wreath to the Pole of Glory and the Unknown Soldier's Tomb in Lugansk on Thursday.

"Sometimes we encounter indifference, forgetfulness and even vandalism upon the memory of the heroes. The truth about the war is accompanied with lies, and heroism is presented as an action, which allegedly led to something irreparably bad for the people. Such attempts must be deterred," he said.

Russian Orthodox Church urges OSCE to defend Christians' rights

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe's (OSCE) member states should not turn away from efforts to defend Christian values for the sake of achieving inter-confessional peace, the Moscow Patriarchate said.

"Our voice calling for protection of Christians outside of Europe will sound more confident and authoritative if it is backed by our co-operation in making OSCE states an example of the upholding of Christian rights and freedoms," Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, the chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate's Department of External Church Relations, said at the OSCE's high-level meeting "Preventing and Responding to Hate Incidents and Crimes Against Christians" in Rome on September 12.

DECR chairman meets with Serbian delegation

On 8 September 2011, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations (DECR), met with a Serbian delegation that has arrived for consultations on the project of decoration of the Cathedral of St. Sava in Belgrade.

Floods devastate upstate NY, northeastern PA

As widely reported by the media, massive floods have devastated upstate New York and northeastern Pennsylvania, where many parishes of the Orthodox Church in America are located. In addition to parishes in Binghamton, NY and along the NY-PA border, OCA parishes dot “the Valley,” from Uniondale, Dundaff, and Simpson in the north to Hazleton and McAdoo in the south.  The region traditionally has had one of the largest concentrations of Orthodox Christian parishes in the US.

The region has been declared a disaster zone.

Source: www.oca.org

Eternal Memory

On September 11, 2001, life was forever changed for Americans when terrorists plowed two planes into the World Trade Center, a third into the Pentagon, and downed another in a rural Pennsylvania field. Over 3000 innocent people lost their lives. In New York, terror rained from the sky, as each plane’s impact produced infernos of flame and ash and smoke. The tiny Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church which stood in the shadow of the World Trade Center’s twin towers was the only house of worship destroyed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.