About forty years ago I had the opportunity to visit the ordinary of the Orthodox (Russian) Diocese of Chicago, Archbishop John of blessed memory, a very saintly prelate whose sanctity was well known among his people. Although he was a bishop of the Byzantine tradition, he was extremely warm towards the Malankarese Church which is [...]
A Letter from an Orthodox Nun to a Former Calvinist
The following letter from an Orthodox nun to a troubled layman is a warm, sane and usable remedy for anyone troubled with doubts about the mercy and compassion of God.
Dear P.,
[...]
These words from Archimandrite Damian (of Blessed Memory)
By Archimandrite Damian (Hart), October 1984
Orthodox Christians spend a large portion of the year fasting. If all of the fasting days and periods are observed and kept, we fast for about half of each year. By fasting, we mean abstaining from any and all animal or dairy products [...]
By:
Jonathan Gorvett in Istanbu
With news of growing rapprochement between Armenia and Turkey, one community that has been watching this process with a mixture of both hope and trepidation is the Armenian community of Istanbul.
Numbering between 60,000 to 70,000, these are the last descendants of a community that once numbered millions throughout the territory of Turkey’s [...]
By Michael Binyon
The Times
The first two months of the Coptic new year have been a sombre time for Egypt’s ancient Christian community. The new year fell on the inauspicious date of September 11. And a spate of attacks on this large and downtrodden community by Islamist extremists or villagers giving a religious pretext to petty [...]
In an article which appeared a few days ago in the Serbian newspaper Politika (here) Snezana Milkovic, a retired psychologist was also the granddaughter of Patriarch Pavle. Her grandmother was Patriarch’s cousin. The word cousin is not used in Serbian. Instead, I refer to my cousin, for instance, as my brother-from-my-aunt, so that Snezana [...]
By Yuri Maksimov
I have never personally seen Patriarch Pavle, although I have heard about him for a long time. I first visited Serbia in fall 2006. I very much wanted to see His Holiness, especially because, from what I knew, he was normally completely accessible. It was not that I expected to have an audience, [...]
November 18, 2009
Timesonline Article
Visibly devout, humble, diminutive and plain-speaking, Patriarch Pavle led the Serbian Orthodox Church through very difficult years.
On taking office in December 1990 he was thrown immediately into the maelstrom of Serbian and wider Yugoslav politics as the old communist state began to be pulled apart on ideological and ethnic lines.
Pavle’s long [...]
Branimir Anzulovic’s Heavenly Serbia: From Myth to Genocide (1999) discusses the beginnings of the idea/myth of a “Heavenly Serbia” and the establishment of the Kosovo Myth to modern times. The Kosovo Myth (and others) has had a direct impact on Serbian culture up to the present day. The foundation of the Serbian Orthodox Church in [...]
NEAR BARSTOW, CALIFORNIA – As deserts go, the Mojave does not have much to boast about. It’s not the biggest (that’s the Sahara), nor the hottest (ditto), nor the driest (Atacama). But it does seem to have the market cornered on weird.
Along with a few Joshua trees and a fair bit of sand, the Mojave [...]
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