Beloved Brothers and Sisters in the Lord, On September 1, our Church begins a new ecclesiastical year. We are given the opportunity to start anew. This sense of turning a page, starting again, is a much needed opportunity for us and our parishes. Most of us, I am certain, would like to have 2020 behind…

  Οn August 31 the Greek Orthodox Church commemorates The Placing of the Cincture (Sash) of the Most Holy Mother of God. The event is honoured by the Greek Orthodox Church on the last day of August, which is the month dedicated to Panagia. The Placing of the Venerable Belt of the Most Holy Theotokos…

On this day, August 31, in 1056 AD, Byzantine Empress Theodora Porphyrogenita passed away. Theodora was the youngest daughter of Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII and Empress Helena, born in 980 AD. “Born in purple” (a term that refers to babies born during the reign of their parent) with strong, ambitious traits, Theodora at the age…

Canberra’s only Greek Orthodox church has received a $1 million makeover after hail ravaged the 50-year-old building in January. As much as 80 percent of the roof of St Nicholas Church in Kingston was damaged in the unprecedented hailstorm. Tiles and stained glass windows smashed during the storm led to flooding throughout the church. “It…

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  The feast day of the Dormition of our Most Holy Lady the Theotokos, and Ever Virgin Mary, was celebrated on Friday throughout the semi-autonomous Orthodox monastic community of Mt. Athos, based on the Julian calendar. A divine liturgy was celebrated on Friday morning at the church of Protatos, in Mount Athos’ administrative seat in…

The memory of St. Joseph the Hesychast was commemorated this year in his birthplace for the first time since his canonization last year by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. St. Joseph the Hesychast was born in the village of Lefkes, on the Cyclades island of Paros, in 1898.         

  This month’s decision by Islamist Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to convert the Chora Church into a mosque is an act of intolerance and symbolic violence, the President of the Hellenic Republic, Katerina Sakellaropoulou, stressed. In a post on Facebook on Friday, Sakellaropoulou spoke of an act that blatantly violated the UNESCO conventions but…

  Some 500,000 voters will head to the ballot boxes on Sunday in the small Adriatic country of Montenegro, in order to elect a new government. The situation in the country remains fluid, given months of tension due to the state’s persecution of the Orthodox Church, its clergy and faithful. In a particularly inflammatory and…