Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

On January 8, 2019 the BBC reported that Patriarch Kirill of Moscow—formerly known as KGB agent Mikhailov (see Paul A. Goble’s article of November 6, 2018 among other sources)—warned his flock that their use of smartphones could hasten the advent of the Antichrist. Co-authors Anastasia Clark and Chris Bell write:

Speaking to Russian state TV, Patriarch Kirill said smartphone users should be careful when using the “worldwide web of gadgets” because it represented “an opportunity to gain global control over mankind”.

“The Antichrist is the person who will be at the head of the worldwide web, controlling all of humankind,” he said.

Speaking to Russian state TV, Patriarch Kirill said smartphone users should be careful when using the “worldwide web of gadgets” because it represented “an opportunity to gain global control over mankind”.

“Every time you use your gadget, whether you like it or not, whether you turn on your location or not, somebody can find out exactly where you are, exactly what your interests are and exactly what you are scared of,” Patriarch Kirill told Rossiya 1.

“If not today, then tomorrow methods and technology could appear that will not just provide access to all information but will also allow the use of this information. Read More

Canonically this makes perfect sense. When will the other autocephalous Churches—especially the Moscow Patriarchate—renounce their extra-territorial dioceses and parishes and urge them to form proper, canonical, territorially demarcated Churches in every region around the globe? 

Metropolitan Epiphanius of Kyiv

The tomos on the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) says that the central church of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) will be located in Kyiv, the Church is not authorized to appoint bishops and establish parishes outside the country.

“With this signed patriarchal and synodal tomos, we recognize and proclaim the established autocephalous Church within Ukraine as our spiritual daughter and call upon all global Orthodox churches to recognize her as a sister… as such, which has the historical city of Kyiv as the [See] and cannot appoint bishops or establish parishes outside the state,” the text of Tomos, translated into Ukrainian, posted by the Ukrainian Ambassador to Turkey Andrii Sybiha in his Twitter account, says.

According to the document, the already existing parishes of the OCU [i.e., those outside of Ukraine that had belonged to the now defunct Kyiv Patriarchate (KP) or Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC)] are now subject to the [Ecumenical] Throne, which has canonical powers in the diaspora, since “the jurisdiction of [the OCU] is limited to the territory of the Ukrainian state.” Read More

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Sunday of Zacchaeus or Sunday of the Canaanite Woman

February 10

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Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee

February 17

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Sunday of the Prodigal Son

February 24

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Sunday of the Last Judgment / Meatfare

March 3

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Sunday of Forgiveness / Cheesefare

March 10

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Read More

This marks Giacomo Sanfilippo’s third op-ed for the Kyiv Post. It appeared shortly after midnight Kyiv time on January 7. His articles at the Kyiv Post are archived here.

Patriarch Bartholomew hands Tomos to Metropolitan Epiphanius January 6, 2019

Every year on January 6 a paradoxical confluence occurs between the Orthodox Church’s two liturgical calendars. Most autocephalous and autonomous Orthodox Churches around the world celebrate today as Theophany, the culmination of the Nativity. Yet the Churches of Jerusalem, Russia, Serbia, Georgia, and Ukraine observe today as Christmas Eve—the very beginning of the Nativity.

Whether the Church of Constantinople is seen to deliver the Tomos of Autocephaly to the Church of Ukraine on the day of Theophany, as in the eyes of the grantor, or on Christmas Eve, as in the eyes of the recipient, it seems hard to miss the perhaps providential significance that this historic event should coincide with the Church’s commemoration of the divine-human epiphany embodied in the birth and baptism of Jesus Christ.

The timing of the Tomos with the inaugural acts of the invisible God’s self-disclosure in visible human form invites the Primate, hierarchs, priests, deacons, monastics, theologians, and laity of Ukraine to contemplate two facts as their Church receives her long-awaited autocephaly as a gift of the Holy Spirit: first, the sole purpose of the Incarnation as that of drawing the triune Creator and His creation—both human and nonhuman—into an everlasting communion of love; and second, the sole purpose of the Church as that of manifesting, perpetuating, preaching, and especially living this all-embracing communion of love in every concrete time and place where she finds herself planted like a vine by divine grace. Read More