What’s a Patriarch?

January 27, 2009 in Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Tags: bishops, Byzantine theology, Catholic Church, Catholicism, Christianity, church councils, church elections, church governance, church jurisdiction, church organization, church patriarchs, church polity, church primates, church unity, collaborative ministry, collegiality, conciliarism, conciliarity, Eastern Christianity, Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, Eastern patriarchs, eastern religion, Eastern theology, ecclesiastical jurisdiction, episcopacy, episcopal churches, first among equals, Greek Church, Greek Orthodox, greek orthodox church, Greek Orthodoxy, High Church, High Churches, holy tradition, honorary seniority, icons, ikons, Metropolitan Kyrill, miracles, miraculous icons, modern church councils, Moscow Patriarchate, myrrh, myrrh-streaming icons, national churches, Orthodox bishops, Orthodox Christianity, Orthodox Church, Orthodox church councils, Orthodox Church polity, Orthodox Churches, Orthodox theology, Orthodox Tradition, orthodoxy, papacy, papal claims, Patriarch of Alexandria, Patriarch of the West, patriarchal election, patriarchal structures, Patriarchate of Alexandria, Patriarchate of Moscow, Patriarchate of Russia, patriarchs, Petrine ministry, Pope Benedict XVI, Pope of Alexandria, primacy, primates, religion, religious icons, Roman Catholic Church, Roman Catholicism, Rome, Russian Orthodox Church, Russian Orthodoxy, Russian patriarchate, sobornost, synodal church government, synodality, theology

if you’ll permit me, I’ll start off by saying that an Orthodox Patriarch is not normally a “little Pope” whose word is law among those whose Patriarch he is.

Icons of Western Orthodox Saints

December 21, 2008 in Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Tags: Christianity, Eastern Christianity, Eastern Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, icons, icons of saints, medieval saints, Orthodox Christianity, Orthodox Church, Orthodox icons, orthodoxy, religion, religious icons, religious images, saints, Western Orthodox saints, Western Orthodoxy, Western saints

I just learned of the demise last year of the Milan Synod’s St. Hilarion Monastery in Texas, and of their website, odox.net.  This group was not in communion with the Orthodox Church, but the Wayback Machine seems to have stored at least their images of Western Saints icons, which I have always found edifying.

New ROCOR Bishop consecrated with Old Rite

July 5, 2008 in Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Tags: Anglophone Orthodox, bishops, blessings, Christianity, converts, Eastern Christianity, Eastern Orthodoxy, English-speaking Orthodox, Erie, icons, Old Believers, Old Rite Orthodox, Old Ritualists, Orthodox converts, Orthodox icons, orthodoxy, Pennsylvania, raskol, raskolniki, religion, religious icons, ROCOR, Russian Christianity, Russian Orthodox Church, Russian Orthodox Old Rite, Russian Orthodoxy, Sign of the Cross

Bishop JOHN (Berzins) of Caracas, (temporary) administrator of the Diocese of South America, of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, is one of ROCOR’s newly-elected and -consecrated hierarchs.  Many Years, Master!
Interestingly, as their news release with lots of interesting photos mentions, he was consecrated a couple weeks ago at, and according to, what I believe is [...]

Another myrrh-streaming icon on Long Island

June 25, 2008 in Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Tags: Christianity, Divine Energies, Divine Energy, Eastern Orthodoxy, Greek Orthodoxy, icons, images, Long Island, miracles, New York, Orthodox Christianity, orthodoxy, religion, religious icons, religious images, saints, Santa Claus, St. Nicholas

The homepage of St. Paul’s now reports that although the Theotokos has stopped weeping, St. Nicholas has started, so they’re continuing twice-a-day Paraklesis with hymns to him also.
Recall that the original instances in 1960 were also in quick succession, as they mention.
This icon of “St. Nick” demonstrates the Orthodox experience that even store-bought print-icons (mounted [...]

Weeping Icons on Long Island, NY

June 18, 2008 in Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Tags: Christianity, Eastern Orthodoxy, icons, ikons, miracles, miraculous icons, Orthodox Christianity, orthodoxy, religion, religious icons, weeping icons

On Sunday – Pentecost, Trinity Sunday - it’s reported that an icon of the Theotokos, the Birth-Mother of God, began weeping myrrh at St. Paul Greek Orthodox Cathedral on Hempstead, Long Island, NY, after a hiatus of some years.  Read all about it!  It’s one of two icons of the Virgin Mary there with a history [...]

“Orthodoxy: Ancestors you can’t remember are part of our Church”

June 8, 2008 in Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Tags: angels, bumper stickers, Christian humor, Christianity, Eastern Christianity, Eastern Orthodoxy, geek orthodox, humor, icons, liturgy, Orthodox Christianity, Orthodox humor, orthodoxy, religion, religious humor

One proposed bumper sticker in this compilation of Orthodox humor!  Alot of oldies-but-goodies (What else? We’re Orthodox – even Geek Orthodox [sic]!!), but one or two I hadn’t seen before.  Funny, wise, ironic, self-deprecating, it’s all there!
Some are insiders, like the last one about the (mostly-Lenten) Liturgy of St. Basil the Great.  The actual text [...]

Future U.S. Saint’s relics repatriated to California

March 27, 2008 in Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Tags: Christianity, Eastern Orthodoxy, icons, Orthodox Christianity, Orthodox mission, orthodoxy, relics, religion, Russian Orthodoxy, saints, Serb Orthodoxy, Serbian Orthodoxy

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 [...]

Orthodox Iconography in Italy

March 15, 2008 in Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Tags: art, basilicas, Blessed Mother, cathedrals, Catholicism, Christianity, deification, Divine Light, Divinization, Eastern Orthodoxy, glorification, iconoclasm, iconography, icons, images, Italy, Mary, miracles, Orthodox Christianity, orthodoxy, painting, religion, Roman Catholicism, Rome, saints, salvation, theology, Theosis, Theotokos, Uncreated Light, Western Orthodoxy

Italy’s former Orthodoxy is attested by the ancient icons and Greek icon-style murals and mosaics to be found in many old Latin churches there to this day.  Rome itself has at least one icon said to have been painted by St. Luke the Evangelist (like a few in Orthodox hands, or rather, graced to Orthodox [...]

Rich Russians Pursue Better Wealth

February 10, 2008 in Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Tags: icons

This Washington Post feature story will become unavailable to those of us without the money to sign-up (ironically). But the quoted remark of a museum curator in Russia in favor of Russian tycoons buying-back the nation’s Orthodox Christian religious heritage, including Holy Icons, from abroad, where it had been taken, stolen, or sold after the [...]

January 15: Another Saint in the Family

January 1, 2008 in Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Tags: icons, Ireland, Western Orthodoxy

6th-century hermitess and foster-mother of saints,* Ita (Ida) of Killeedy in Southwest Ireland, was born into the ruling clan of the regional kingdom of Decies in Munster Province (Irish Deise Mumhan), which at its height covered roughly County Waterford and much surrounding territory. (Killeedy is actually in County Limerick, well northwest of The Decies.)
Weirder yet, [...]

"Icons as Proof of the Existence of God"

September 21, 2007 in Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Tags: existence of God, icons, theology

I offer this one from Fr. Stephen Freeman not because I get it, but because I don’t get all of it. Let me ponder it….

How Orthodoxy reflects

November 17, 2005 in Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Tags: deliberation, Eastern Orthodoxy, Fathers of the Church, feast days, gender, iconography, icons, liturgy, OCA, Orthodox Christianity, Orthodox Church in America, orthodoxy, Patristics, relationships, saints, sex, theology, women, women in the church, women saints

What follows is an extended quote (from pp. 9-10) from Women and Men in the Church, a 1980 work/study by a committee of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA). I’m still wrestling with all its implications, myself, but thought I’d offer it here as an example of an Orthodox approach to questions and issues:
Sacraments and [...]

"Holy Stillness"

June 20, 2005 in Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Tags: Eastern Christianity, Eastern Orthodoxy, feminism, Hesychasm, icons, Jesus Christ, Jesus Prayer, Logos, Orthodox Christianity, orthodoxy, Septuagint, Shekinah, sophia, theology, Trinity, visions, wisdom, Word of God

is the name of this entirely Orthodox icon.

If she kind of looks to you like Jesus’ twin sister if he would’ve had one, you’re not far off! The “IC” and “XC” at the top are abbreviations for Iesous Christos, Jesus Christ in Greek, meant to leave no doubt as to the iconographer’s intentions. But why [...]