Orthodox Churches

Bishop Irinej attends Name Day Celebration of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I at The Phanar

While visiting The City of Constantinople and The Great Church of Christ, 10-11 June 2009, His Grace Bishop Irinej of Australia and New Zealand attended the Name Day Celebration of His All Holiness the Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I.

Representatives from throughout the Orthodox world gathered at the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople to honour Patriarch Bartholomew on the celebration of his patronal feast, the Holy Apostle Bartholomew. The distinguished list of delegates and guests, which included representatives of the various local Orthodox Churches, as well as members of the Diplomatic and Consular Corps and Archons of the Ecumenical Throne, was headed by His Beatitude Hieronymos II, Archbishop of Athens and All Greece and Primate of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Greece.

Russian Orthodox Church opposed the secular monopoly for social world order

The Moscow Patriarchate believes that the secular humanistic society model should not be imposed on the world as the only correct and forward-looking.

"In my view, the secular project has been exhausted. It gives people no vigor, it fails to inspire them in emergency, and it is unable to teach them self-denial and self-control," head of the Synodal Church and Society Department Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin said at a Moscow conference dedicated to relationships between religion and the state.

Message by His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew for World Environment Day (June 5, 2009)

Today's World Environment Day is an opportunity as well as an invitation for all of us, irrespective of religious background, to consider the ecological crisis.

In our time, more than ever before, there is an undeniable obligation for all to understand that environmental concern for our planet does not comprise a romantic notion of the few. The ecological crisis, and particularly the reality of climate change, constitutes the greatest threat for every form of life in our world. Moreover, there is an immediate correlation between protection of the environment and every expression of economic and social life.

Patriarch Kirill to visit Turkey in July

Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia will start visiting other local Orthodox churches in early July, a spokesman for the Secretariat for Inter-Orthodox Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations, said.

"These visits will be performed in line with the authorized list, the diptych," he told Interfax-Religion on Wednesday.

Geo Orthodox Church Marks St. Nino day

On June 1, Orthodox Church of Georgia marks the day of entrance of St. Nino, Equal to the Apostles, to Georgia.

St. Nino was born in the small town of Colastri, in the Roman province of Cappadocia. She was the only child of the famous Roman general Zabulon. On her father's side, Nino was related to St. George and on her mother's, to the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Houbnal I. St. Nino had a vision where the Virgin Mary gave her a Grapevine Cross and told her to preach in Iberia, the ancient Georgia.

Sermon of His Beatitude Daniel, Patriarch of Romania, delivered at the Holy Liturgy celebrated with His Holiness Bartholomew I,

Sermon of His Beatitude Daniel, Patriarch of Romania, delivered at the Holy Liturgy, Sunday, 31 May 2009, in Cappadocia:

THE HOLY FATHERS - DEFENDERS OF
ORTHODOX FAITH AND OF THE CHURCH UNITY

On the first Sunday after the Great Feast of the Ascension of the Lord, the Orthodox Church decided to commemorate the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council, in 325. The theological-spiritual meaning of the celebration of the 318 Holy Fathers, who came to the city of Nicaea at the call of Holy Emperor Constantine is that the teaching of faith on Christ, the Lord, and on the Holy Trinity is established on the basis of the Holy Scriptures and of the Apostolic Tradition, only by the Church in its fullness, represented through the voice and common expression of her bishops all over the world. Thus, the Church does this work of fixing the dogmas and interpretation of the Orthodox faith through the mysterious inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, namely the Spirit of Christ, the Lord, the One Who from the Pentecost day forward has never left the Church He established through His sending into the world by God the Father at the Son's request.