✠

Grant rest eternal in blessed repose, O Lord,

to the souls of Thy servants who have fallen asleep,

and may their memory be eternal.

Memory eternal. Αἰωνία ἡ μνήμη. Вѣчная память. Veșnica pomenire.

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~ TOTAL ~

$2500

~ DONORS ~

Grayson Alexander
Fanwood, New Jersey
In Memory of Ted Himlan

John Andres
Whitby, Ontario

Suzette Benson
Jamestown, New York
In Memory of Jerry DeLong

David T. Brown
Central Point, Oregon
In Memory of Carol Shipman

Irene Cassar
Toronto, Ontario
In Memory of Emily Elizabeth Upward and Gabriel Antonio De Sousa

James Chater
Le Mans, France

Rev. Dr. Timothy and Ruth Connor
London, Ontario

Garrison Copeland
Des Moines, Iowa

Gerry Crete
Atlanta, Georgia
In Memory of Jeff Evans

Yvette Cuny
Sacramento, California
In Memory of Charles Cuny, Sr.

William D.
Tampa, Florida

Harry D’Agostino
Lagrangeville, New York
In Memory of Grace D’Agostino

Priest James Graham
Sacramento, California

David and Sarah Habersberger
Columbia, South Carolina
In Memory of Patricia Heriot

Charles Hayter
Toronto, Ontario

Liz Jackson
Toronto, Ontario

Ioanna Karounos
Toronto, Ontario
In Memory of John Keast and Katherine James-Keast

Theodoros Lambros
Sydney, Australia

Yossi Lopez-Hineynu
Chicago, Illinois

Carolyn Mackie
Vancouver Island, British Columbia

Andrew Matthews
Toronto, Ontario

Giacomo Sanfilippo
Toronto, Ontario
In Memory of Joseph SanFilippo, Eugenia Turiansky SanFilippo, and Paul Edward SanFilippo

George Skok
Toronto, Ontario
In Memory of Walter Skok

Bernie Stuckey
Indianapolis, Indiana

Nick Xylas
Bristol, United Kingdom

Anonymous
Bridgeport, Connecticut

Anonymous
Dumfries, Scotland
In Memory of P.R.

Anonymous
Fond du Lac, Wisconsin

Anonymous
Hazleton, Pennsylvania
In Memory of Jesse Alexander Johnson

Anonymous
Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Anonymous
Toronto, Ontario

Anonymous
Toronto, Ontario

Anonymous
Toronto, Ontario
In Memory of L.

Anonymous
Turku, Finland

Anonymous
Washington State, USA

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As we journey to Bethlehem this Nativity Fast, please consider including the hungry and the homeless in your budget for Christmas gifts, decorations, new clothes, parties, and elegant meals.

On Christmas Eve, we will walk the streets of downtown Toronto delivering cash into the hands of our shivering brothers and sisters who wonder if they can afford a cup of coffee to celebrate the birth of Christ.

Since Christmas 2017, Orthodoxy in Dialogue has given tens of thousands of dollars on the streets of Toronto on Christmas, Pascha, and other times of the year—all provided by you, our faithful readers and lovers of Christ. Some years, we collect enough to give everyone $40. One year, we were able to give each person $100. We wish you could be with us to see their faces awash with tears of joy and gratitude, and to experience with us the rush of divine grace from on high as we encounter our newborn God and Saviour over and over again on our frozen sidewalks, who Himself had no home in which to enter the world and be born. Let’s strive together to make this our best year ever.

Send you contribution, whether large or small, to editors@orthodoxyindialogue.com via PayPal. In your message, include your name, place of residence, and—if you wish—the name(s) of the person(s) in whose memory you make your offering. Check back often to see our total collections rise over the next six weeks. Donors’ names and our running total will be updated daily at the top of this post. Please also share this post widely on social media.

Send your offering as a gift, not as payment for a purchase.

Please pray with us that our merciful Lord, who comes to be born of the Virgin, grant success to our project.

We wish you a holy and spiritually fruitful Nativity Fast.

Most who know me know that I am averse to haunted houses and anything with jump scares. It might come as a surprise that I got into the Netflix series Midnight Mass, a limited, seven-episode series by Mike Flanagan (The Haunting of Bly Manor, The Haunting of Hill House) that is billed as both drama and supernatural horror. The script, in my opinion, is excellent, although I can certainly understand if it is not everyone’s cup of tea. For the record, though, I believe that the bulk of its horror is psychological, and when blood is shed, it is typically in very low lighting, making the gore minimal. It reminded me by turns of The Crucible by Arthur Miller, the magic realism of Gabriel García Marquez, the play/film Doubt, a smidge of Perelandra by C.S. Lewis, and a Hitchcockian thriller. But above all, I found the series to be a deeply philosophical, elegant meditation on the nature of faith, certainty, and how we meet our earthly end. Some excellent reviews (which contain spoilers) have already been written of the show, but I am going to do my very best to keep this spoiler-free.

Generally, the series concerns an isolated island community off the coast of New England. The island is predominantly Catholic with the exception of its sheriff, who is Muslim. That alone sets up some tension and human interest in the inner workings of this society. The central plot concerns a new priest who comes to take over the island’s only church after its former priest takes a trip to the Holy Land and mysteriously does not return. Read More

The following report appeared earlier today at RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty. Εἰς πολλὰ ἔτη, Δέσποτα!

Patriarch Bartholomew I, the Istanbul-based leader of the Eastern Orthodox Church, said he was satisfied with his meeting with Joe Biden on October 25, praising the U.S. president as a “man of faith, and man of vision.”

Bartholomew, 81, met with Biden at the White House after resuming his scheduled visit following an overnight stay in a Washington hospital.

“We cannot allow any short-sighted political agendas to interfere with our relationships, that are through, and in Christ Jesus, the Lord and Savior of the world,” Bartholomew said after his visit with Biden.

Bartholomew visited the White House after being released from George Washington University Hospital, where he had been admitted on October 24 after he felt “unwell” due to the long flight the previous day and the busy schedule of events upon arrival, according to the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. Read More