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Last Updated: 19 February 2013

Rabweh, Lebanon - The Holy Synod opened in Rabweh under the presidency of His Beatitude, Patriarch Gregorios III. Present were some thirty bishops and exarchs from eparchies in Arab countries and other countries throughout the world: Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, the Holy Land, Israel, Egypt and Sudan and Canada, the USA, Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela, Brazil, and Australia and New Zealand, together with some retired bishops.

His Beatitude's opening address focused on Saint Paul and his significance in the life of the Church.

Practical issues for discussion by the Holy Synod included: the question of whether to divide the Eparchy of Beirut into two - in the event, it was decided not to do this - and how to help the Eparchy of Tripoli prepare for the imminent retirement of its bishop.

Other questions concerned: the regulation of the Holy Synod itself with its bye-laws as well as that of the Permanent Synod (Synodos Endimousa;) the scope of the work of the General Moderator for the Administration of Justice for the Patriarchate, including his duties and prerogatives; the management of transition within eparchies upon the retirement at seventy-five years of age of their bishops.

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Last Updated: 19 February 2013

"I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace."

(Acts of the Apostles 20: 32)

 

On the occasion of the closure of this jubilee year celebrating two thousand years since the Apostle Paul's birth, a year dedicated to knowing and venerating him, he is not bidding us farewell, because he is always among us while we hear his voice, especially on Sundays and indeed during every Divine Liturgy.

"I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace." Saint Paul is not saying good-bye, but thanking us for having venerated him over the course of this year. He commends his call and Gospel and God's word of grace, that our faith be not shallow or vain, nor this jubilee year without fruit in our Church.

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Damascus - On Sunday 7^th. June, in the evening, His Beatitude Patriarch Gregorios III, together with four bishops, celebrated the Divine Liturgy at Mismiyeh, where Saint Paul is traditionally thought to have stayed during his three years spent in the Hauran wilderness, meditating on his experience of Christ and working as a tent-maker. Some four thousand people, including troops of scouts, attended the Liturgy.

In the evening of Monday 8^th. June, His Beatitude led a pilgrimage, accompanied by prayers and hymns, from the Melkite Greek Catholic Church of Saint Joseph, Damascus, to the sanctuary of Memorial Saint Paul, not far from Bab Sharqi, where he presided at a service initiated by the Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarchate. The Memorial, which is in the care of the Franciscans, was founded by the late Pope Paul VI after his pilgrimage to the Holy Land and his fraternal meeting with the late Patriarch Athenagoras in 1964. The grotto in the garden of the Memorial is traditionally venerated as the place where Saint Paul rested after escaping in a basket down from the walls of the city.

 

V.C.

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Last Updated: 19 February 2013

Friday 26 June 2009

Delegations arrive. Accommodation in two hotels in the Old City

2000 Concert by the Syrian National Symphony Orchestra in the Greek Orthodox Patriarchal Cathedral


Saturday 27 June

0800 Holy Mass in the Church of Saint Ananias

0930 Hotel breakfast

1030-1230 Study sessions in the Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarchate on the following topics:
Paul, spiritual son of Damascus
Christian remains in Syria: churches and other ancient buildings

1230 Departure for Saidnaya (visiting the Greek Orthodox monastery of the Mother of God) and Maaloula (visiting the Greek Catholic Monastery of Saints Sergius and Bacchus) Restaurant lunch

2000 Recital of Christian music at the Damascus Opera, by different communities in indigenous languages

2200 Dinner at a villa in the Damascus hills


Sunday 28 June

0840 Holy Mass at the Memorial Saint Paul

0930-1015 Hotel breakfast

1030-1230 Study session in the Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarchate:
The Church in Syria today (round table)

1300 Restaurant lunch

1500 Visit to the Umayyad Mosque and the Old City of Damascus (from Bab Touma to Bab Sharqi)

1600 Visit of His Beatitude Ignatius IV (Hazim), Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch

1800 Vespers at the Greek Orthodox Monastery of Tel Kawkab in the presence of the Greek Orthodox and Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarchs and of civil authorities

2100 Dinner hosted by the Minister of Awqaf (Islamic charitable endowments)

2215 Showing of the Syrian film on Saint Paul, Damascus, at the Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarchate


Monday, 29 June

0830-900 Hotel breakfast

0915 Leaving Bab Sharqi for the audience granted by His Excellency the President of the Syrian Arab Republic (1000) to His Eminence Cardinal Antonio María Rouco Varela, Envoy of the Holy Father, and the Representatives of the Episcopal Conferences

Free time

Restaurant lunch (if wished)

1700 Solemn Divine Liturgy in the Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarchal Cathedral of the Dormition, in the presence of His Eminence, Cardinal Antonio María Rouco Varela (Archbishop of Madrid and President of the Spanish Episcopal Conference), Representative of the Holy Father, of the Apostolic Nuncio, the Right Reverend Archbishop Mario Zenari and of Bishops of Syria and other countries (delegated by their Episcopal Conferences), then a procession to Saint Ananias’ and Saint Paul-on-the-Wall.

2000 Cocktail buffet at the Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarchate

2100 Concert at the Citadel of Damascus


Tuesday, 30 June

Departure

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Last Updated: 19 February 2013

GRECO-ROMAN STRUGGLE OF VIKTOR YUSHCHENKO
by Aleksei Shmyrev
NG-religiia, 3 June 2009

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko continues to meet with world religious leaders. On 20 May he met with Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew in Istanbul and on 1 June he had an audience with Pope Benedict XVI during a visit to Rome. As in the past, Yushchenko's main idea is the creation of a united local Ukrainian Orthodox church. The third president of Ukraine wants to go down in history as the unifier of Orthodoxy. However in the past year the visit by Patriarch Bartholomew to Kiev did not produce any results in this matter. It seems, he himself has somewhat cooled to the ecclesiastical initiative of Yushchenko. In any case, this time they discussed only the possible opening of an annex of the patriarchate of Constantinople in Kiev. At present Patriarch Bartholomew's interests in Ukraine are limited to this.

However, the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs let it be known that it does not approve of the idea of creating a representation of the Constantinople patriarchate in Kiev. "Such initiatives on the part of Ukraine do not have legal bases," the newspaper "Aksham" wrote regarding the outcome of the meeting of Yushchenko and Patriarch Bartholomew, citing Turkish diplomatic circles. "Without the permission of Turkey, such a proposal cannot be undertaken by the patriarchate." In the cited article there also was reference to the conditions of the Lausanne treaty of 1923 according to which the Constantinople patriarch is the head of the Greek Orthodox community of the city of Istanbul and northing more. He does not have the right to call himself the Ecumenical Patriarch and to conduct diplomatic activity without permission of the Turkish government.

And so the ecclesiastical politics of the Ukrainian president have clashed with the stern position of Turkey on the question of the status of the patriarch of Constantinople. When he did not get what he wanted in Istanbul, Yushchenko undertook a visit to Rome where he met with Benedict XVI. To speak with the pope of Rome about Orthodox unity (and Yushchenko promised to touch upon this topic) was at least strange. In addition, the present pontificate, in contrast with its predecessor, is not planning to make visits to countries of the former Soviet Union, preferring to maintain good relations with the Russian Orthodox church. The divisions among Orthodox in Ukraine do not bother the Vatican very much, in contrast to the extremely sharp contradictions between the Ukrainian Roman Catholics and Greek Catholics (Uniates) who are under the jurisdiction of the Roman pope.

The Uniate problem, it seems, is the most unmanageable problem in the business of creating a united Ukrainian Orthodox church. After all, Greek Catholics also call themselves Orthodox. At the same time they are as much the expression of Ukrainian identity as the representatives of the other national churches. Briefly stated, without the participation or at least the agreement of Greek Catholics, the unity of the Ukrainian Orthodox church would not be complete. But is such consent possible after four centuries of division (the Brest Union was proclaimed in 1596)? The leader of Ukrainian Greek Catholics, Cardinal Liubomir Guzar, prefers to answer this question with another question. "There may be unity," he stated in his last interview with the magazine "Ukrainskii Tizhden," "But will we exist when it is attained? Unity is also a gift from God. But it seems to me that everybody reckons to get it on his own personal conditions. Nobody wants to change; on the contrary, everybody says 'let the whole world change, but not I!'"

At the same time the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic church has been unable in a year to gain from the Vatican recognition of the title of patriarch which he has already been using, de facto, for a long time. And while Moscow persistently does not recognize the patriarchal title for the former Orthodox exarch of Ukraine, Filaret Denisenko, Rome also persistently does not wish to give such a title to Cardinal Guzar. And what does Yushchenko do in this situation? Judging by everything, he is already convinced of the fruitlessness of attempting to legalize the Kievan patriarchate headed by Filaret; he will not be recognized by either Moscow or Constantinople. And bishops have abandoned him, leading away whole dioceses.

There remains another variant: to try to legalize the Greek Catholic Ukrainian patriarchate headed by Cardinal Guzar. So by hook or by crook Kiev could have its own legal patriarch!  (tr. by PDS, posted 3 June 2009)

Source: http://www.stetson.edu/~psteeves/relnews/0906a.html#03

Stetson University Russian Religous News

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Last Updated: 19 February 2013

June 7, 2009

To the Reverend Clergy and Beloved Faithful of this Diocese:

Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory Forever!

I greet you in the spiritual joy of the Feast of Pentecost, for on this Day, we celebrate the outflowing of the Holy Spirit from God the Father, through Jesus Christ and His Church, and to the entire world.

Before Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came down upon only a few individuals. But after Pentecost, the Holy Spirit visited all who believe in Christ and are baptized in His Church. The Holy Mystery of Chrismation is the individual Pentecost for every Orthodox Christian.

The Holy Spirit began a healing revolution in the entire world on the fiftieth day after the Resurrection.

One of the Stichera for Pentecost Vespers says this about the revolutionary gifts of the Holy Spirit: "The Holy Spirit gives all things: makes prophesies flow, perfects priests, taught the unlettered wisdom, revealed fishermen to be theologians, welds together the whole institution of the Church. Advocate, consubstantial and equal in majesty with the Father and the Son, glory to You!".

Prophecy is the proclamation of God's transforming wisdom to the world, and the Holy Spirit makes such prophecy flow. "Your young men shall see visions," the Prophet Joel said, speaking of Pentecost, "and your old men shall dream dreams" (Acts 2:17; Joel 2:28).

The perfection of priests is accomplished only by the Holy Spirit, Who draws the priest into deeper righteousness, and inspires the priest with prayer and vision. The uneducated fishermen are taught wisdom by the Holy spirit, and they are transformed into theologians, who have taught the world that God is One in Essence, Three in Person....that Jesus Christ is One Person, but Two in Nature, completely God.

And the song for Vespers proclaims that the Holy Spirit welds together the whole institution of the Church. The church is unified and inspired, guided and empowered by the Holy Spirit. In fact, the Church is made real by the Spirit. There is no Church without the Holy Spirit. It is impossible to think so.

Listen to what we read in the liturgical commentary The Year of Grace of the Lord: "We cannot enter into Pentecost without preparation. We need first to have assimilated the whole spiritual substance that the fifty days between Easter and Pentecost have offered us......They were all with one accord in one place. Some other verses in Acts picture for us the eleven assembled in the 'upper room' with Mary, mother of Jesus, and the women. It was the Church being born. They all prayed together. We find in this the necessary conditions for receiving the Holy Spirit. At certain moments we need to retire from the world and to shut ourselves in the upper room of our soul.....we must be together with the Apostles and with the mother of Jesus. Whoever seeks to ignore the authority of the Apostles, or to do without the maternal presence of Mary, cannot receive the Holy Spirit".

Through the Church, the Holy Spirit has invaded the world and continues to do so. There was a long and glorious millennial reign of the Byzantine Empire. For over eleven centuries, the Kingdom of Constantinople brought the spiritual gifts of the Orthodox Church to the world at large. It was the only Christian Empire that ever existed. And indeed, the Byzantine Empire lasted longer than any other realm.

In the West, the Catholic Church gave European Christendom many of the same gifts. From the fourth century until the Reformation, the Roman Church kept the light of humanity and civilization burning brightly, even during the so-called "dark ages".

In both places - East and West - the Church brought gifts to civilization that had not been seen before. The Church labored with zeal for the liberation of slaves. It crusaded against the brutality of gladiator combat. It provided liberal care for the widows, the orphans, the poor and destitute. It constructed hospitals: indeed, the Church invented the concept of the hospital. The entire tradition of Western medicine is not from pagan Rome or from the Arab world (as is usually taught in schools). Western medicine, as we know it, was established and flourished in the Byzantine Empire....and after the Moslems invaded the Middle East, the doctors that spread throughout the Arab world were Christian, far more so than any other.

Everything that we know today about philanthropy and social generosity is really a legacy of the Christian Church. Welfare, health care, universal education, and equal justice under the law are all ideas that are rooted deeply within the Christian revolution that started at Pentecost.

I wish the Western world would take notice of its Christian roots. There would be no Western Civilization without the Church, and without the Gifts of Pentecost. The church is salt and light to the world, in America, in Europe and beyond. Without the Church, and without her Pentecostal witness to Orthodoxy, there is no salt, there is no light, and the world will be left in decay. Indeed, this is what is happening as we speak.

Let us, at least, in this time when the West is becoming less, make the most of our Orthodoxy. Let us wait, as the Apostles did, in the Upper Rooms of our prayer and the Sacraments. Let us be fed at the Table by Our Lord with His Eucharist. Let us listen to His Voice, echoing in the Spirit, and let our minds be filled with the Wisdom of the Trinity and the Incarnation.

Let us be welded together by the Holy Spirit in humble prayer and compassionate service. Let us look back to the days before the fall of Constantinople, before the Reformation and the Renaissance, and let us look to the gifts of the Church and return to her wisdom. Let us pray and learn, let us pray and serve, let us pray and love each other. Let us learn wisdom and become theologians and servants. Let us carry on the healing Revolution of Orthodoxy, started at Pentecost, and waiting to begin another day.

With blessings to you and your house on this Feast of Pentecost, I remain

Most sincerely yours in Christ,

+ Metropolitan Nicholas

Metropolitan Nicholas is the Bishop of the Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese of Johnstown, PA - www.acrod.org