Holy Glorious Prophet Elias

July 20, 2025

Feast of the Holy Glorious Prophet Elias

And [Elijah] said to her, “Give me your son,” and he took him out of her arms and carried him up to a loft where he slept and laid him on his own bed. He cried to the Lord and said, “O Lord, my God, have You brought tragedy upon the widow with whom I live by killing her son?” And he stretched himself upon the child three times and cried to the Lord and said, “O Lord, my God, I pray that You let this child’s soul come into him again.”

The Lord heard the voice of Elijah, and the soul of the child came into him again, and he was revived. Elijah took the child and brought him down out of the chamber into the house and returned him to his mother, and Elijah said, “See, your son lives!” (1 Kings 17:19-23)

The icon is of the Holy Glorious Prophet Elias (July 20th).

News

Russian Orthodox leader sees positive change under Benedict XVI

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Moscow, Mar. 5, 2007 (CWNews.com) - The chief ecumenical-affairs officer for the Russian Orthodox Church has remarked on a positive trend in relations between Moscow and Rome.

Speaking to the Interfax news service, Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk said that “positive changes” in dealings with the Vatican had occurred during the pontificate of Benedict XVI.

One significant source of improvement in relations, the Russian prelate said, came from the fact that Pope Benedict had “removed a Moscow visit from the agenda, as he understood that such a visit would be premature.” Pope John Paul II (bio - news) had frequently expressed his desire to make a visit to Moscow.

Under Pope Benedict, said Metropolitan Kirill, the Holy See has concentrated on “cooperation between the Catholic Church and ours in defending Christian values,” particularly in calling for a moral renewal in Europe. The Russian Orthodox Church can fully endorse those plans, he said, without necessarily resolving other questions on which Moscow and Rome remain at odds.

Differences do remain, Kirill told Interfax, including some “major ones.” He complained that Catholics and Orthodox remain in conflict in the western Ukraine, for example. “Not everything goes easy,” the Russian spokesman concluded.