Patriarch Theodoros II of Alexandria (second from right) concelebrates with Patriarch Kirill of Moscow (left) in July 2018

(Photo credit: Religion News Service)

By coincidence or not, this time last year Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) thanked Patriarch Theodoros II of Alexandria for his support of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) on the question of Ukrainian autocephaly. Exactly a year later, the Patriarchate of Alexandria (AP) joined the Orthodox Church of Greece (OCG) in recognising the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU). How do Patriarch Kirill and Metropolitan Onuphrius of Kiev* feel? If the initial reactions from the UOC-MP are any indicator, then the answer is betrayed. Read More

Orthodoxy in Dialogue’s readers will recall that the Georgian Orthodox Church hosted the notoriously homophobic World Congress of Families in 2016, which earned Father Josiah Trenham the distinction of coming to the attention of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Hatewatch Staff.

In the 21st century, to what extent—if at all—is the Church in a majoritarian Orthodox country justified in trying to control artistic expression and popular culture?

In Georgia, far right groups and the Orthodox Church join forces against the premiere of the Swedish film And Then We Danced, shot in Georgia and featuring a gay Georgian dancer.

And Then We Danced, which notably will open the 32nd annual Image+Nation Film Festival in Montreal on November 21, is a tender story of the discovery of gay love filmed in Tbilisi, Georgia.  Read More

For the background to the present essay see the articles listed under Archdiocese of Russian Orthodox Churches in Western Europe (AROCWE) in our Archives, as well as Antoine Arjakovsky’s A Way Out of the Orthodox Church’s Present Crisis and Victor Alexandrov’s The Choice Facing the Archdiocese of Russian Churches in Western Europe.

Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and Archbishop John (Renneteau) of Dubna

On November 2 and 3, the Russian news and many church media showed what they have called the reunification ceremony of the Archdiocese of Russian Churches in Western Europe with the Patriarchate of Moscow. Patriarch Kirill has called it “irreversible” and “the closing of a long parenthesis.” Much splendor and pomp were displayed, speeches made, and honors given. Archbishop John (Renneteau) of Dubna (formerly of Charioupolis) spoke of “joy” and “return.” For some, it seemed a triumph; for others, humiliating. I won’t make a secret of the fact that I belong to the latter group.

A chapter seems to be over, the chapter of the politically independent, poor but free, multi-ethnic,  conciliarly organized Archdiocese of rue Daru. The path which lead our former archbishop and those who followed him to this “return” is strewn with dissimulation, confusion, manipulation, fear, and mediocrity. I will try to outline it here. It will be from a subjective angle, but I shall try to be as impartial as possible where the facts are concerned. Read More

Whatever arguments a person may marshal for “an ‘inclusive’ Church” which welcomes everyone unconditionally, and for Holy Communion offered unconditionally to “whoever wants it,” historical and canonical precedent isn’t one of them. It’s sheer fantasy to imagine that such a church and such a practice ever existed from New Testament times to the present.

I write as one who was subjected to an unjust and uncanonically protracted suspension from priestly ministry from 1995 to 2002, a complete farce of a spiritual trial in 2001, an unjust and still largely unexplained deposal from holy orders in 2002 (all of the foregoing in the OCA), and—in a fit of hysteria on the part of two priests and their bishop—an unjust excommunication from the local ROCOR parish in Toronto and the diocese to which it belongs in 2016 after they had read the title and a few lines from A Bed Undefiled.  Read More