The following apology by Bishop Stephen Andrews, principal of Wycliffe College in the University of Toronto, appeared earlier today in The Morning Star in response to our Anglicanism, Christian Unity, and Same-Sex Love: Responding to Catherine Sider Hamilton and Ephraim Radner.

The episcopate of the Orthodox Church in the United States and Canada would be well served to follow the example of Christian humility, sensitivity, and dialogue set by their brother bishop—especially as the countdown to the Sunday of Forgiveness and the beginning of Great Lent has begun.

Bishop Stephen Andrews, Principal, Wycliffe College

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Building Community

by Stephen Andrews

Dear Friends,

The last week in January an article appeared in the Morning Star which some found objectionable and others found personally hurtful. I want to apologise to our community. We should have been more careful in asking ourselves whether the community newsletter was the right place to publish something that had the potential of causing pain. We want to maintain an environment of charity and mutual respect at the College, and we regret that publishing the article in that format did not contribute to these ends. I would invite anyone who was hurt to speak to me personally, and I want our community to know that we are reviewing the mandate and the protocols of the Morning Star. Read More

In 1956, Professor George Forsyth, of the University of Michigan, invited Kurt Weitzmann, of Princeton University, to join him on an exploratory trip to Sinai. From 1958 to 1965, the University of Michigan, Princeton University, and the University of Alexandria carried out four research expeditions to the remote Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai—the oldest continuously inhabited Orthodox Christian monastery in the world, with a history that can be traced back over seventeen centuries. The documentation collected by the Michigan-Princeton-Alexandria Expeditions to Mountain Sinai, under the direction of Professor George Forsyth (below, right) and Professor Kurt Weitzmann (pictured below left), is a profoundly important resource for Byzantine studies. Read More

Editor’s Preface

I lived in the Canadian prairie provinces as a university student and seminarian from 1973 to 1976, and as a priest from 1989 to 2001. Wide swaths of countryside in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta have so many Orthodox and Eastern Catholic church structures, in various states of repair and disrepair, that you find it easy to imagine yourself mystically transported to 19th- and early 20th-century Eastern Europe.

These churches are not only Ukrainian: a smaller presence of Romanian Orthodox churches stretches from the Roblin-Russell area in northwestern Manitoba to the Kayville-Assiniboia area in southern Saskatchewan, close to the Canada-US border. I spent most of my priesthood surrounded by Ukrainian churches such as those pictured below while I ministered to the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of Romanian immigrants who arrived in Canada to homestead between the 1890s and the 1910s. The Ukrainian Orthodox church in Wroxton sits a short 15- or 20-minute drive from my last parish. My family and I passed it all the time to and from Yorkton, the closest major shopping destination an hour from our home. 

Unremarked in the text below, Orthodox Slavs who immigrated from Austro-Hungary or Poland to Canada during the period in question were served by the existing North American diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church. The parishes they founded over 100 years ago now belong, for the most part, to the Archdiocese of Canada of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA). The much larger Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada—canonical for only some 30 years now—has its roots in the return from Uniatism to Orthodoxy for the same reasons that motivated St. Alexis Toth and his followers, i.e., the Vatican’s prohibition of married clergy outside of the Unia’s original territories.

For additional context see the Canadian Orthodox History Project.

Giacomo Sanfilippo, Editor 

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This welcome announcement appeared earlier today on the website of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East, to which the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America belongs. It responds to the initiative of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem to sidestep the Ecumenical Patriarchate to resolve the matter of the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine as granted in January 2019. For additional context see the extensive Ukraine section in our Archives 2017-19 and Archives 2020.

Patriarch John X of Antioch

A Statement by the Antiochian Orthodox Media Center
Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East
Balamand, February 22, 2020

Following the generous invitation of His Beatitude Patriarch Theophilos III of Jerusalem to His Beatitude Patriarch John X of Antioch, to participate in a consultative meeting of Church leaders in Amman, Jordan, on the twenty-fifth of this month, the Antiochian Church declares that She will not participate in this meeting. Read More

Orthodoxy in Dialogue publishes this report for informational purposes and without editorial comment. You may wish to read it in conjunction with our Editorial: Orthodox Popery Comes to America? or Time for a Greek Orthodox Revolt in America? We urge you to do your own research and form your own conclusions.

Hundreds of faithful Orthodox Christians and clergy throughout the Archdiocese of America are now calling for Archbishop Elpidophoros to immediately resign as Archbishop of America.

Archbishop Elpidophoros of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America

This past Sunday the Archdiocese witnessed an act of bravery by Metropolitan Nicholas of Detroit, who had the courage to be transparent with the faithful about information concerning the condition and past transgressions of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. You can read more about that statement here.

Most of the information shared by His Eminence had previously been provided by the detailed reports of federal investigators who are still investigating the corruption at the GOA.

But there is now a new development.

Earlier today, Metropolitan Nicholas of Detroit publicly released a letter addressed to Archbishop Elpidophoros apologizing for attempting to be transparent with the faithful in his God-saved Metropolis.

Think about this.

A Metropolitan of the Church “willingly” and unnecessarily offered a letter of apology because his transparent actions resulted him in speaking openly with the faithful about what was happening in New York. A Metropolitan wanted to be honest and instead is now being forced to offer an apology. How can we not automatically assume that this letter came at the insistence of the Archdiocese? It is classic letter of retraction to force someone back in line with the company message. Read More

Archbishop Elpidophoros of America and John Catsimatidis, Vice Chairman of Archdiocesan Council

Orthodoxy in Dialogue occasionally publishes articles and letters critical of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, Patriarch Bartholomew, and Archbishop Elpidophoros. Are we next among the “low-life people…writing negative conversations on Web Sites about…the Archbishop, and the Archdiocese” after whom Mr. Catsimatidis will decide to “go after?” 

Read More

Bishop Thomas Paprocki

Bishop Thomas Paprocki of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield IL has issued a directive entitled PASTORAL GUIDE: Regarding Policy §650 Gender Identity, which became binding throughout the diocese and its institutions on January 13, 2020:

It is the policy of the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois that all Catholic agencies, including parishes, schools, institutions, departments, or other entities, shall respect the biological sex with which a person is born and shall apply all policies and procedures in relation to that person according to that person’s biological sex at birth. 

We share below some of the more salient excerpts from the Pastoral Guide. Only seven pages long, it can be read in its entirety here. 

If you wish to communicate your concerns to Bishop Paprocki on this matter—whether you are Catholic, any other kind of Christian, not Christian, LGBTQ, or an ally—the contact information for phoning, faxing, emailing, and an online contact form can be found on the diocesan website. Read More