Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew Addresses the Issue of Homosexual Marriage
The Church, my beloved parents and children, and subsequently the family, which consists lawfully and by the command of God of men and women, and the children acquired, is not a foundation or association or a simple organization, but a Body, as it is wonderfully depicted by the Apostle Paul. And this parallelism is accurate and true. Church and marriage. Husband and wife. Body and its members.
Famous Composer was Named an Archon of the Ecumenical Patriarchate
His All Holiness, the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, induced the acclaimed composer Arvo Pärt into the Order of Archons of the Ecumenical Throne. The ceremony took place on Sunday,September 8th after the divine liturgy celebrated by the Ecumenical Patriarch at the Cathedral of Pärnuο in Estonia.
An Orthodox Reflection on Truth and Tolerance
Orthodox Christianity is committed to the truth claim of the Christian Faith. This claim includes the Biblical truth that all human beings are created by God in His image and that Christ is the only Savior of the world. Consequently, Orthodoxy is strongly committed to Christ as the Messiah and to the tolerance of other religious expressions. In this double commitment lies the source of a creative tension for Orthodox Christians involved in the interfaith dialogue and attitudes of the non-Christian religions.
An Explanation of the Icon of the Birth of the Theotokos
Just as September in Byzantium was the first month of the ecclesiastical year and the first of this month was new years day and the beginning of the Indiction, so also is this feast and celebration, the Birth of the Mother of God, the first according to our recall and recreation, since, as Saint Gregory Palamas says: “This sacred feast and celebration that we are keeping is the first to commemorate our recall and recreation according to grace, for on it all things began to be made new, enduring precepts began to be brought in instead of temporary ones, the spirit instead of the letter, the truth instead of shadows.”
Saints Joachim and Anna: the Most Fortunate Parents
The most fortunate parents in the history of the world are those of the Mother of God, Joachim and Ann. The Church hymns them as the happiest of all progenitors. “Fortunate couple! you have surpassed all other parents in that you begot her who was superior to all creation” (doxastikon, Vespers, 9 September). Joachim and Ann are the most fortunate of parents because they begot the most beautiful and holy child in the world. They begot her, the Mother of God, who is superior to all creation. Let’s put the whole of creation, all the stars, all the people, all the saints onto one side of a pair of scales and the Mother of God on the other, and she’ll outweigh them all.
God’s “Breathing Upon” Adam was the Holy Spirit
A very broadly propagated misconception is that the ‘blowing upon” referred to in the Book of Genesis (Genesis 2:7), was supposedly the ‘giving’ of a soul to a pre-fabricated, earthen, inanimate statue of a man. This cacodoxy (heretical opinion) has its roots in ancient Hellenistic ‘dualist’ anthropology, where the soul was considered as something pre-existent to the body, given that –by nature– the soul is timeless and immortal. This ‘life-giving’ to a body and soul within a time frame is idolatrous and absolutely anti-Christian, as is every other dimension generally pertaining to body and soul.
On the Nativity of the Theotokos
According to the ancient tradition of the Church, the Theotokos was born of barren and aged parents, Joachim and Anna, about the year 16 or 17 before the birth of Christ. Joachim was descended from the royal line of David, of the tribe of Judah. Anna was of the priestly tribe of Levi, a daughter of the priest Matthan and Mary, his wife.
Saint John the Damascene: On the Chaste Couple Joachim and Anna
Anna was to be the mother of the Virgin Mother of God, and hence nature did not dare to anticipate the flowering of grace. Thus nature remained sterile, until grace produced its fruit. For she who was to be born had to be a first born daughter, since she would be the mother of the first-born of all creation, in whom all things are held together. Joachim and Anna, how blessed a couple! All creation is indebted to you. For at your hands the Creator was offered a gift excelling all other gifts: a chaste mother, who alone was worthy of him.
整全的洗禮: 三合一的入門聖事
人們慣稱的洗禮實屬入門聖事，這是成為教會成員的必要條件。在東正教的傳統，入門聖事是包括三合一的洗禮-傅油禮-聖餐禮。從洗禮歷史上，我們可清晰看見這個儀式是包括上述所說的三個層份，且為一不可分割的整體。正教會回應1984年的利馬文件時，清楚確認這個三層的結構：「對正教而言，不論是為成人或嬰孩所施行的洗禮-傅油禮-及聖餐禮，都是在單一個的慶祝禮儀內進行。」[i] 1987 年的巴利文告(Bari Statement, 第 37-51項) 亦再強調這個儀式為不可分割的整體，儀式亦見証着東西方教父在這重要的教義上的詮釋。[ii] 莫斯科聖統於2000年出版的洗禮禮儀程序，把洗禮和傅油禮放回在聖餐禮儀之內。那不是革新的創舉，乃是努力恢復洗禮之應然面貌。[iii]「教會施行聖禮的形式其實是源於早期教會，儀式顯示教會理解進入教會的不同階段，從神學上及禮儀上，聖禮的形式是透過領受基督的身體和血，使初信者藉進入教會、與基督融合及在祂裏面成長。」(巴利文告，第39項)
The use of Incense in Church
During our Church Services, the priest burns incense in a censer, which is a metal vessel suspended on three chains about two feet long, and provided with a cover to regulate the burning of a small disk of charcoal placed therein. On the chains are twelve small bells, signifying the voice of the twelve Disciples of our Lord. Grains of incense are placed on the burning charcoal.