My Beloved Ones, I greet you with love and joy as we approach the end of the first week of Great Lent! This first Sunday of Lent is known as “The Sunday of Orthodoxy” when the veneration of icons was restored to the Church in the year 843, after decades of Iconoclasm. I pray that…

To the Sacred Clergy, the Monastic Brotherhoods and Sisterhoods, and the blessed laity of the Sacred Metropolis of Chicago. Beloved fathers and brethren, Beloved children in the Lord, Every morning we ask ourselves, “What shall I wear?” As we put on our bodily garments, however, we should ask even more urgently each day, “How is…

The newly enthroned Patriarch of Serbia, His Holiness Porfirije, this week concluded his tour of the Kosovo and Metohija province, the cradle of Serbian civilization, with a visit to the historic Visoki Decani Monastery. His Holiness was greeted by the Elder Archimandrite Sava, the Abbot of the monastery, who underlined that the presence of the…

Brothers and Sisters in the Lord, In a few short days, we will begin Great Lent and our journey to the celebration of the Resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. With Clean Monday, we will begin the Great Fast, as Lent is often called, and turn our focus to our spiritual and religious…

In the presence of Their Royal Highnesses Crown Prince Alexander and Crown Princess Katherine, His Holiness Serbian Patriarch Porfirije consecrated the restored Holy Cross that adorns the dome of the Royal Chapel of St. Andrew the First-Called, patron saint of the Karadjordjevic family. After the consecration of the Holy Cross, Crown Prince Alexander and Crown…

On the occasion of the forthcoming Sunday of Orthodoxy, which based on the Lenten calendar for 2021 will be commemorated this Sunday, March 21, the St. Maxim the Greek Institute and the online platform Pemptousia will host an online theology synaxis with several Orthodox primates, hierarchs, elders and academics, including the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople,…

An Athens-based Orthodox missionary organization, “Enotis” (unity), has filed a motion against the Greek government with the European Court of Human Rights against a pandemic-related decision by the former prohibiting the presence of worshippers during Church services in areas of high Covid-19 concentrations. The group charges a violation of freedom of religion and freedom to…

The Patriarchate of Jerusalem on Thursday celebrated the first week of Great Lent with the transference to the commemoration of St. Gerasimus of the Jordan at the Holy Monastery dedicated to the saint, in the desert of the river Jordan, a short distance from the river’s estuaries towards the Dead Sea. This Monastery was founded…

The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, His All Holiness Bartholomew I, on Friday received the visiting Mayor of Athens, Kostas Bakoyannis, as well as the Mayor of the Bosporus metropolis, Ekrem İmamoğlu, who has shot to the political limelight in Turkey as a rival to authoritarian Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The two mayors arrived at…