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Unity with Orthodox? Msgr. Charles Pope Question: What is it that separates the Catholic Church from our Orthodox counterparts? What led to these divisions? — Name withheld via email Answer: The separation between the Orthodox Churches of the East and Western Churches united to Rome is a complex issue rooted in culture, language and politics as much as theology or authority. The modern tendency to fix the Great Schism on one event or year is misleading. The first cause of the division was the gradual estrangement of East and West. The East and West increasingly grouped themselves around different centers...

NEW YORK – The Holy and Sacred Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate elected unanimously today the Very Reverend Archimandrite Nathanael Symeonides as Metropolitan of Chicago. Immediately following the election, His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios of America stated: “I express my wholehearted congratulations on the election of Very Reverend Archimandrite Nathanael Symeonides as Metropolitan of Chicago, wishing the abundant blessing of God on the sacred ministry the Church has entrusted him with. The newly-elected Metropolitan has served as Deacon, Priest and Director of the Department of Inter-Orthodox, Ecumenical and Inter-Religious Relations for a number of years, and I am certain that he...

Memory eternal! Память вечная!

It is now well over a year since Vladimir Putin's Russia passed 'anti-missionary' laws and more than 180 cases have since been brought. Activities ranging from prayer meetings in homes, posting worship times on a religious website and praying in the presence of other citizens have been interpreted as 'missionary activity' with Christians making up the vast majority of the law's victims. One case is that of Donald Ossewaarde, an American Baptist preacher living in Oryol, who was expelled for hosting a church meeting in his house. Having lost appeals throughout the Russian judiciary system, Ossewaarde's case is now with...

WASHINGTON — Fifty-seven Orthodox Christian clergymen and lay leaders, including the heads of two leading Orthodox seminaries in the U.S., have issued a public statement calling on church leaders to defend Orthodox teaching on the creation and calling of man as male and female by opposing the appointment of deaconesses in the Orthodox Church. The statement comes in response to a public statement issued in October by nine Orthodox liturgical scholars in the U.S. and Greece, expressing support for the Patriarchate of Alexandria’s November 2016 decision to “restore” the ancient order of deaconesses and its February 2017 appointment of deaconesses...

Merry Christmas everyone. Christ is born! Glorify Him!

ICC Note:One of the women who was killed during last week’s brutal terrorist attack against a church in Helwan died protecting her two daughters, aged 11 and 7. According to her daughters, their mother pushed her children to the ground and sheltered them from the bullets of one of the terrorists. The attack on the church occurred a little over a week before the Coptic Orthodox Christmas, which will take place on January 7th. Tensions are high as Christians throughout Egypt prepare for celebrations with the knowledge that terrorists will likely continue to target their churches during this time. 1/01/18...

Russia’s Orthodox Church has opened 30,000 churches over the last 30 years, although it is expected to take until 2050 to return to what it was before the 1917 revolution, reported The Tablet. “Houses of worship aren’t built as architectural or artistic monuments – they’re there for the people,” Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev, the Moscow Patriarchate’s external relations director told Rossiya-24 TV. “And we don’t build churches to obtain impressive statistics, but because people want them. It shouldn’t be forgotten that the construction or renovation of most churches is financed by the faithful – both small people and big entrepreneurs.” Metropolitan...

All these Saints, some 20,000 in number, were burned alive in the year 303, while they were gathered in church. This came to pass during the reign of Diocletian and Maximian. According to the Synaxarion, this took place on the day of Christ's Nativity. Eusebius (Eccl. Hist. VIII, 6) says that, of the Christians then living in Nicomedia, all were slain by imperial decree - some by the sword, and others by fire, and that, because of their divine and inexpressible ardour, both men and women cast themselves into the fire. Besides those burned in church. the following, who were...

An ancient Orthodox hymn to the Most Holy Theotokos and Ever Virgin Mary commonly chanted at Christmas.

Dear Friends: As leaders of various communities of faith throughout the United States, many of us came together in the past to affirm our commitment to marriage as the union of one man and one woman and as the foundation of society. We reiterate that natural marriage continues to be invaluable to American society. We come together to join our voices on a more fundamental precept of our shared existence, namely, that human beings are male or female and that the socio-cultural reality of gender cannot be separated from one's sex as male or female. We acknowledge and affirm that...

MOSCOW, Russia, November 2, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — Patriarch Kirill of Moscow opened the seventh church-wide Congress for Social Work with the repeated admonition that ending abortion is priority number one. His Holiness stated emphatically that the fight for innocent human life is, and must remain, the Church’s main social work.   “The problem of abortion in our country … is our highest priority,” he unequivocally stated. Many anti-marriage and anti-family issues have come to the fore in recent years, but Kirill brought the focus back to the source of social division and cultural death.   “A few years ago, I...

The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the spiritual center of Orthodox Christianity which is based in Turkey, is unable to train clergy and potential successors for the position of patriarch. The reason is that the Halki Seminary, the only school for training the leadership of Orthodox Christianity, was forcibly closed down by the Turkish government in 1971. It has been waiting to re-open its doors ever since.The closing of the Halki seminary, which was founded in 1844 on the island of Halki (Heybeliada), has made it very difficult for the Ecumenical Patriarchate to survive. The Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights...

John Anton – OCP News Service – 12/1017 +Memory Eternal+ Cairo-Egypt: A Coptic Orthodox Christian priest was murdered and another was injured in a knife attack this morning in the Capital city of Cairo. Father ‘Samaan Shihata’ (Fr Simon) from Bani Suief, Upper Egypt, was on a visit to Cairo with another priest. They were attacked by some unknown person who killed Fr Simon. Local media reported that police have arrested the culprit and he is currently under investigation. The ancient Coptic orthodox christian community in Egypt face various persecution from religious fanatics . May be the memory of the...

When, why and how did it happen? And when will it come to an end? In 1054, Pope Leo IX of Rome and Patriarch Michael I Kiroularious of Constantinople excommunicated each other. This mutual act crowned a number of East-West disputes, resulting in an East-West schism in the Church. Western dioceses remaining in union with Rome came to be known as Roman Catholic, while Eastern dioceses remaining loyal to Constantinople claimed the banner of Orthodoxy. Nearly 1,000 years went by before a joint Catholic-Orthodox commission was created to study the causes of the division and work toward possible reunification.While...

1. A hypocrite may be influenced by the gospel in every part of himself. He may come to great knowledge of God’s truth (Heb 6:4). His emotions about Christ may be high (Matt 13:20). He may even experience drastic changes in the outward man, like the Pharisee who prayed, “God, I thank You that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, etc.” (Lk 18:11–12). 2. A hypocrite may look to others like he’s a true believer. He might talk of the law and the gospel (Ps 50:16), openly confess his sin to his own shame (1 Sam...

A classical Greco-Roman rhetorical tradition survives in Christian iconography  Have you ever wondered, while looking at religious icons, why the figures of Christ and the saints make certain hand gestures? Each gesture has a specific meaning, but it’s no wonder we can’t always understand them: they’re “written” in Greek! Classical Greeks and Romans developed a well-established, quite complex hand-gesture code, which was used by both orators and rhetoricians alike, when they were giving speeches in the agora or the Senate, during their private addresses, or even in the classroom. The gestures accompanying the oratory, of course, were a matter of public...

n the weekend of July 15–16, 2017, Orthodox faithful from across the country and around the world gathered at two Serbian monasteries: New Gracanica in Third Lake, IL and St. Sava’s in Libertyville, IL to offer glory to God’s new saint, Mardarije. His Grace Bishop Anthony of Toledo attended as the representative of the Patriarchate of Antioch. Libertyville, Illinois is a small village located outside of Chicago. But this small place has long been a deeply important and historical site for the Serbian Orthodox faithful. As the home of the St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Monastery, Libertyville has served as the...

It is perhaps somewhat ironic that the last time Americans were informed this incessantly of the threat Russia posed to the United States, it was called the Soviet Union and the Left was insisting that everything was being overblown. This time, in spite of a glaring lack of evidence, it is the Left that is announcing from its perch in the mainstream media that Donald Trump is Vladimir Putin’s puppet, and that Russia is the evil puppet-master pulling the strings of American democracy. The sinister Russian bear is growling in the East, we are told, and we should all be...

NEW YORK – His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios of America announces with a heavy heart and deep sorrow the passing of Metropolitan Iakovos of Chicago, 89, who fell asleep in the Lord this evening, June 2, 2017, at Chicago’s Weiss Memorial Hospital following a short illness. In accordance with article 12 of the Charter of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America Archbishop Demetrios in consultation with the Eparchial Synod named His Eminence Metropolitan Nicholas of Detroit as locum tenens, until a successor is elected