VIDEO: BEAUTY AND MEANING TODAY ~ AN INTERVIEW WITH ANDREW GOULD by Jonathan Pageau

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In this 45-minute video, Jonathan Pageau interviews Andrew Gould, discussing his work and philosophy in the field of Orthodox church design as well as many other areas. It particularly addresses how Andrew adapts historical styles for modern needs, while keeping them fresh and approachable.

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SOURCE: PARISHES LEAVING MOSCOW PATRIARCHATE FOR ORTHODOX CHURCH OF UKRAINE by Paul D. Steeves

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stmikes

St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery, Kyiv. Seat of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

Orthodoxy in Dialogue has just discovered the website Russia Religion News, an unadorned, bare bones goldmine of English-language translations of media reports on religious life in Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union. RRN is curated by Dr. Paul D. Steeves, emeritus professor at Stetson University in DeLand FL. 

Of particular interest to our readers is RRN’s continuously updated archive of articles (here) chronicling the steady transfer of Moscow Patriarchate parishes in Ukraine to the newly autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

For those unfamiliar with the Ukrainian language we offer the following guide to RRN’s two most common acronyms:

PTsU (Pravoslavna Tserkva Ukraïny) = OCU (Orthodox Church of Ukraine)

UPTsMP (Ukraïns’ka Pravoslavna Tserkva Moskovs’koho Patriarkhata) = UOC-MP (Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate)

Scholars and general readers alike who follow ecclesiastical events in Ukraine will find Dr. Steeves’ website to be an invaluable resource. Read More

TOMOS OF AUTOCEPHALY: THE FULL TEXT

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PATRIARCHAL AND SYNODAL TOMOS FOR THE BESTOWAL OF THE ECCLESIASTICAL STATUS OF AUTOCEPHALY TO THE ORTHODOX CHURCH IN UKRAINE

Bartholomew, by God’s mercy Archbishop of Constantinople-New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch:

“You have come to Mount Zion . . . and to the Church of the first-born” (Heb. 12.22–23), as the blessed Paul, apostle to the nations, declares to all the faithful, appropriately likening the Church to a mountain to affirm conviction and recognition as well as steadfastness and stability. For although the Church of God both is and is called one flock and one body of Christ—everywhere sharing the confession of Orthodox faith, the communion through the sacraments in the Holy Spirit, and the constancy of apostolic succession and canonical order—already from the earliest apostolic times it also consists of local and native Churches internally self-administered by their own shepherds, teachers and servants of the Gospel of Christ, namely, their regional Bishops, not only for the historical and secular significance of these cities and lands, but also for the particular pastoral needs of these places.

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EVANGELICALS SUE FOR RIGHT TO DENY SHELTER TO HOMELESS TRANSGENDER PEOPLE by Bil Browning

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Orthodoxy in Dialogue shares this report with the following three caveats:
  1. LGBTQ Nation often has a tendency to create hyperbolic headlines that do not accurately reflect the content of their articles. Their reporting should be read with caution.
  2. While Orthodoxy in Dialogue has published extensively in support of transgender people and their rights, and of the Church’s pastoral responsibility to engage with them in a manner that recognizes their full human dignity and worth, we also acknowledge the concerns of women who have suffered from male-perpetrated sexual assault and simply cannot share intimate spaces (sleeping quarters, washrooms/restrooms, change rooms, showers, etc.) with male-bodied individuals. 
  3. Part of the unfinished (and unfinishable) task of any democratic society consists of negotiating the boundaries where the rights of one are felt to infringe on those of another. Our purpose in sharing this report is not to provide ammunition to the transphobes in our society and the Orthodox Church, but to encourage reasonable, charitable discussion of these difficult questions. Contact us by email if you wish to respond with an article or letter to the editors.

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Alliance Defending Freedom, the far-right evangelical legal group that defended the “right” of a baker to deny service to gay couples before the Supreme Court, has a new target.

This time they’re suing to give a homeless shelter in Anchorage, Alaska, the “right” to deny help to transgender people. The federal court lawsuit seeks to overturn the city’s nondiscrimination ordinance that prohibits discrimination against LGBTQ people.

ADF attorney Ryan Tucker told the court that many of the shelter’s residents are survivors of domestic violence and “they would rather sleep in the woods” in the frigid Alaskan winter than share space with a transgender woman. Temperatures in the city in the past week have hovered around zero degrees Fahrenheit.

Hope Center, a Christian nonprofit that operates the shelter for homeless women, turned away a transgender woman twice in January. While the facility had cause to turn her away (she showed up drunk once and after hours the second time), they couldn’t resist taking a jab at LGBTQ people. Read More