In our foreword to The Muscovite Schism Lurches toward Outright Heresy we noted that “the Moscow Patriarchate’s move to assume jurisdiction over Turkey’s Russian-speaking Orthodox Christians constitutes the heresy of ethnophyletism writ large;” and in our foreword to Meanwhile, in Holy Mother Russia…, “that, as go the Kremlin’s domestic and foreign policies, so goes the  Russian Orthodox Church. The almost daily escalation of the Muscovite Schism…must be understood solely through the lens of Kremlin geopolitics.” The following very brief report from Georgia serves as yet another case in point in the Kremlin’s and Moscow Patriarchate’s shared, unbridled lust for power and in the absolute pastoral and political need for the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

When will the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) break communion with Moscow to protest its chronically uncanonical, bad behaviour?

Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II of Georgia

Tbilisi Warns Moscow Not to Proceed to Intrusion

The Patriarch of Georgia calls on the Patriarch of Russia to not intrude on the canonical territory of the Georgian Orthodox Church.

According to yesterday’s letter released by the Patriarchate of Georgia, Patriarch Ilia expressed his concern both about the expansionist tendencies of Russian troops in the Tskhinvali region and about the alleged intention of the Patriarchate of Russia to send priests to this region in order to minister. Read More

“Vladimir Putin Pantocrator/Almighty/Ruler of All”

The Slavonic вседержитель (vsederzhytel’) translates the Greek παντοκράτωρ (pantokrator), said of God the Father in the Nicaean Creed and of Jesus Christ in the Orthodox Church’s iconographic tradition. The word is normally rendered almighty in English versions of the Creed (probably from omnipotens in the Latin version), but literally—in both Greek and Slavonic—it means ruler of all or ruler of all things. Read More

At 16, I went through my first spiritual crisis. My faith in Christ came face to face with Darwin’s evolving monkeys. These two points of view clashed in what they told about who I was—an icon of the divine, or a hairy primate governed by natural selection and evolutionary chance.  

I had been taking AP Bio and was on track for a medical program. I had been very faithful all along the course. The vast diversity in the natural world, unified in its life functions, made me step back from the text and do my cross in the Orthodox way. “How magnified are Thy works, O Lord!” Even memorizing the Kreb cycle, looking at the complexity and fragility of ecological webs, only reinforced my faith in God the Great Poet Creator.  Read More

Open Invitation to Hierarchs, Priests, Deacons, Monastics,

Laymen, Laywomen, and Young People

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth. We have beheld His glory, glory as of the Only-Begotten Son from the Father.

During this season of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving in preparation for the Nativity of our Lord, God, and Saviour Jesus Christ, until the Feast of Theophany on January 6, we invite you to share with our readers around the world your reflections on the incarnation of God in human flesh.

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