Archive for March, 2008
…are on the Australian Antiochians’ website, quite a fascinating collection.
The Antiochian Archdiocese in Australia has recently announced it expects to receive into its ranks members and prospective clergy from two denominations in The Philippines, who a Wiki author reports to number approximately 6,000 in 35 congregations / missions (link probably won’t last forever). They’ve already got an interesting English-language website for mission in that [...]
…has been key to the growth of the Faith in Indonesia, as illustrated by one of the newer converts and priests there in this interview with Orthodox.cn, the Chinese Orthodox website.
“Martin Luther once remarked that he believed the pure Faith of primitive Christianity is to be found in the Orthodox Church,” according to this very informative UK site on Orthodoxy. I’ve also read that some early Lutheran leaders in Germany corresponded with a Patriarch of Constantinople over a number of years. But in the end, [...]
The impending arrival of St. Raphael (Hawaweeny) of Brooklyn (1860-1915) as a priest-monk to serve Arab Orthodox in North America was announced on page 16 of the NY Times on September 15, 1895. In true human-interest fashion, the “lede” is buried down in paragraph 11, although the preceding grafs provide interesting Victorian-Era-style information about the Arabs [...]
The main meaning of the Greek verb baptizo, from which the English word baptism is ultimately derived (as Mr. Portokalos advised us!), is to dip, as in water.
Christianity as such didn’t invent the practice of dipping converts in water. The Old Testament Church sometimes baptized proselytes, and so did some other Near Eastern religions. But dipping [...]
I just found an intriguing ‘inside look’ in a public letter to his priests by then-Ruling Hierarch of the OCA’s Diocese of San Francisco and the West, Bishop TIKHON (Fitzgerald). I can’t offer any more about it than His Grace does, though.
You may have heard an episode of the TV sitcom Seinfeld (fan transcript) featured a religion - a supposed version of diaspora Eastern Orthodoxy - which the writer claims he thought he’d made up,* Latvian Orthodoxy. In fact, TV-Jerry’s sidekick, George Costanza, converted to the Faith - apparently from a lapsed or merely-cultural Catholicism, but with [...]
Archimandrite Sebastian (Dabovich) (1863-1940) was the first person ordained to the Orthodox priesthood who had been born in what was, at the time of his birth, United States territory, to wit, San Francisco, California, the son of Serbian immigrants.* He was one of the pioneers in the service of the Moscow Patriarchate to Orthodox immigrants of many ethnic backgrounds in [...]
has a website! They’re an Orthodox, largely-African-American fellowship with a mission:
“The Brotherhood of St Moses the Black is a pan-Orthodox nonprofit organization. Its mission is to minister to Americans the gift of Orthodoxy. In an effort to be good stewards of the manifold grace of God (I Peter 4:10), the organization presents an annual conference that targets those [...]
I just came upon the NY Times obituary for Fr. David Kirk of Emmaus House/Harlem in New York City, who reposed last May 23, the week before Pentecost. The obit is reproduced at Wikipedia. More details at The OCA. This seems to be a website archive/homage of him. There’s quite a bit about him through Google, [...]
An Akathist (sometimes spelled Akafist or Acathistos, etc.) is a poetic or quasi-poetic devotional service dedicated to a Saint or God Himself, or themed around a Feast day, a need being prayed for, possibly other things. It’s divided into stanzas, each of which is called an Ekos (Ikos, Oikos) or a Kontakion. Several times during the [...]
This was Pope Gregory XIII’s idea of Spring? Even in Rome it’s a bit colder than usual right now, according to the Weather Channel.
It’s a shame people in the Midwest had their Good Friday services cancelled owing to the snow in the north and the flooding in the south. This year Orthodox Pascha (Easter) is 5 [...]
From an article featured in the new newsletter from US-based International Orthodox Christian Charities. Remember they’re outnumbered something like 90 to 1 just now, with most Serb residents still refugees farther north in Serbia and independent Montenegro. IOCC and the big Serbian Orthodox monastery in Kosovo, Decani (pronounced “deh-CHAH-nee”), are trying to help people of all [...]
Yes, the Southern Continent has its first two official permanent(?) Orthodox chapels. Go here, and scroll down to the word Mundo, about 3/4 of the way down the page, in red in the middle of the page (or text-search it). The picture on the left is the Patriarchate of Bulgaria’s chapel (the Ohridski in the name of [...]
