SOFIA, Bulgaria – Worshippers gather around candles stuck to jars of honey, arranged as a cross, during mass for the “sanctification of honey” at the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin church in the town of Blagoevgrad, some 100 km (62 miles) south of the Bulgarian capital of Sofia, Monday, Feb. 10, 2020. Honey and beehives…

STATEN ISLAND – The Holy Trinity-St. Nicholas community of Staten Island once again honored couples who are celebrating 50+ years of marriage with a moving ceremony held on January 19 at the Church immediately following the Divine Liturgy. The honorees included 13 couples from the community: Christos and Androula Papaiacovou, 63 years of marriage, Constantine…

No one has been more disheartened than I have been by the unfortunate fate of the St. Nicholas Shrine at Ground Zero, which should have been finished two years ago at half the cost of what it will now take to complete it. Everyone who contributed to the delays and the ballooning costs – from…

Asceticism is the branch of medicine that aims at healing the human soul which is eternal and reaching eternal personal perfection. The need of God No one can do this, because of this the good God has mercy on us and does this, but he needs the practical proof that we want this because in…

  BROOKLINE, Mass. – His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros of America has appointed Maria Koulmanda, PhD, to the Hellenic College Board of Trustees. Dr. Koulmanda is Chair of the Maliotis Center Committee of the Board of Trustees of Hellenic College and former Secretary of the Friends of the Maliotis Cultural Center. The committee was formed last…

NEW YORK – Archbishop Elpidophoros and Metropolitan Tikhon met yesterday at the headquarters of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America in an ongoing effort to strengthen the relationship between the Archdiocese and the Orthodox Church in America. As a result, the two leaders set March 31st to serve food to those in need in conjunction…

  Safer Internet Day (SID) is commemorated today, Feb. 11, an initiative proposed by EU Commissioner Viviane Reding. The day aims to promote the safe and moral use of the Internet, smart phones and all types of interactive technologies, which now form part of the daily routine of hundreds of millions of people around the…

Residents on a handful of islands in the eastern Aegean continue to face the ongoing and still unresolved migrant/refugee crisis in the area – which springs from the fact that tens of thousands of third country nationals and would-be asylum seekers have landed or have been smuggled onto the islands from the opposite Turkish coast…

  The memory of St. Ephraim the Syrian was venerated on Monday at the Holy and Great Monastery of Vatopedi, with centuries-old Athonite order. The occasion also marked the name day of the Elder Archimandrite Ephraim, the Abbot of the Holy and Great Monastery of Vatopedi. The Bishop of EumenIa, His Grace Eirinaios, was welcomed…