President Barack Obama visits Church of the Nativity

(NBC News) - Obama meets Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III (3rd left) during a tour of the Church of the Nativity.

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Met. Tikhon welcomed at Rome’s Russian Orthodox Church

(OCA) - His Eminence, Metropolitan Hilarion [Alfeyev] of Volokolamsk, who chairs the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department of External Church Relations, welcomed His Beatitude, Metropolitan Tikhon, Primate of the Orthodox Church in America, for the celebration of the Great Kanon of Saint Andrew of Crete at Rome’s Russian Orthodox Church of Saint Catherine on Wednesday evening, March 20, 2013. Accompanying Metropolitan Tikhon was Archpriest Eric G. Tosi, OCA Secretary.

Both hierarchs were in Rome for the Installation of Pope Francis, held one day earlier.

Saint Catherine Church was recently built in the vicinity of the centrally located Vatican to serve the city’s growing number of Russian and other Orthodox Christians.

At the conclusion of the service, Metropolitan Hilarion offered formal greetings to Metropolitan Tikhon. The English text, translated by Alexis Liberovsky, OCA Archivist, appears below in its entirety.

Greeting of His Eminence, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk to His Beatitude, Metropolitan Tikhon Saint Catherine Russian Orthodox Church Rome, Italy March 20, 2013

Your Beatitude, Most Blessed Tikhon, Archbishop of Washington, Metropolitan of All America and Canada!

Allow me to greet you warmly today at the Church of Saint Catherine located on one of the hills of the Eternal City. By Divine Providence, you attended the enthronement of the newly elected Pope of Rome. Yesterday, we witnessed this solemn ceremony together and today we together read the Great Penitential Canon of Saint Andrew of Crete, as for our Orthodox Church, it is the first week of Great Lent. It just so happens that another similar event is taking place this week. Tomorrow, the newly elected Archbishop of Canterbury will be enthroned in London and I must depart to go there immediately after this service.

This New Year has also been marked by the elevation of new primates of Local Orthodox Churches - the Patriarchs of Antioch and Bulgaria, in whose enthronements I also had the opportunity to participate.

The year began with the enthronement of Your Beatitude. The Lord deigned you to undertake the primacy of the Orthodox Church in America in a difficult time, when you were chosen as Primate to restore order in your Church and to encourage its flock towards unity.

The Orthodox Church in America stems from the sowing of salvific seeds by missionaries of the Russian Orthodox Church, who brought Orthodoxy to the North American continent in the 18th and 19th centuries. Initially, they preached the Orthodox faith in Alaska, then on the west coast, and finally on the east coast. The great hierarch of the Russian Church, Saint Tikhon, Patriarch of All Russia, whose name that you bear, served on the American continent for a number of years. It is his vision, the vision of a united Orthodox Church in North America, which laid the foundation for the Orthodox Church in America. While Saint Tikhon’s prophetic vision has yet to be realized, the various Orthodox jurisdictions ministering in North America today are striving towards spiritual and internal unity, despite remaining administrative divisions.

This church, erected here in ancient Rome, is also one of the fruits of the outreach efforts of the Russian Orthodox Church. But this church does not exist here for any missionary or proselytizing purposes, but rather for our compatriots—Orthodox Christians living in this country – to provide for them the salvific haven of the Holy Orthodox Church, in which they were nurtured, which they love and to which they remain faithful while living in a heterodox environment.

Today, while I was in the building of the Vatican Secretariat of State awaiting an audience with the Pope, I was shown a view of the city of Rome from the window there. This window is directly below the windows of the papal apartment, where previous pontiffs resided, and where the newly elected Pope will also live. I must say that this panoramic view of ancient Rome is much embellished by the tower and dome of our Saint Catherine Church. Every morning, when the Pope wakes up and looks out the window, he sees the Eternal City, including our belfry. I mentioned this to him today. I hope that he remembers this and will gladly gaze upon our church, which graces the skyline of this beautiful and ancient city.

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EP invites Pope to travel with him to Holy Land

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - The ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople has invited Pope Francis to travel with him to the Holy Land next year to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the embrace between Patriarch Athenagoras and Paul VI, the pioneers of Catholic-Orthodox dialogue. During their private meeting, Bartholomew and Francis explored possible paths towards unity, including theological dialogue, environmental defence, and a visit to the Fanar, after going through proper diplomatic channels.

Earlier, when the pontiff met Christian and other religious leaders, Bartholomew I was the only one who addressed Pope Francis. For the patriarch, Christians must bear witness in a credible way through "Church unity" in order to cope with the world's economic crisis and to counter "worldly trends" that limit life to its earthly horizons. Bartholomew's words reflect the pontiff's notion of stewardship, which he presented yesterday during his inaugural mass.

All this is evidence of the great unity between the two leaders. When Pope Francis introduced the patriarch, he called him, off the cuffs, "my brother Andrew" underscoring the blood ties between the two apostles patrons of the two Churches, Andrew of Constantinople and Peter of Rome, the "first one to be called" and the "first one among the apostles".

Like Francis, Bartholomew referred to Benedict XVI "as a mild man who distinguished himself by his theological knowledge and charity."

When he spoke about the "task and huge responsibilities" that await the pope, he said that "the unity of Christian Churches" was "the first and most important of our concerns" in order to ensure that "our Christian witness is seen to be credible near and far." Hence, it is necessary to continue "the theological dialogue" between Catholics and Orthodox, based on the experience and tradition of the first undivided thousand years.

The world's economic crisis is another "imperative," requiring that "those who have more give more" so that "justice can ensure peace".

The pope, Bartholomew said, has a "long and valued ministry as a Good Samaritan in Latin America. [. . .] Like few others, he has known the bitterness and suffering of human misery."

Echoing what Pope Francis said yesterday in his homily, Bartholomew also noted that "We have a duty to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, cure the sick".

The patriarch went on to praise the pope for "his choice of simplicity," a necessity if we want to correct the "worldly notions" that have emerged among Christians and others that weaken the notions of justice, mercy and cooperation among men by encouraging them to remain too attached to the earthly things.

"The Church," said Bartholomew, "blesses earthly life but does not limit its mission to it." We must correct "worldly notions" so that man can return to the "original beauty, that of charity."

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Reading The Scriptures in an Orthodox Manner

From Fr. Ted's blog "Reading The Scriptures in an Orthodox Manner":

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One of the common concerns for devout Orthodox Christians is the desire to read the Scriptures in an Orthodox manner. Especially many converts are concerned about this – they learned the importance of the Scriptures in the Christian tradition from which they came, but now that they have become Orthodox Christians they want to know how to read the Scriptures within Orthodox Tradition. They embraced Orthodoxy welcoming its understanding of Christ, the Holy Trinity, and salvation but now want to make sure they also read the Bible through an Orthodox perspective rather than retaining perspectives on Scripture learned from their days in other Christian traditions.

While Orthodoxy claims to understand the Scriptures through the Patristic Tradition that does not readily translate to a quick and easy interpretive trick or exegetical method. For the Fathers saw the Scriptures as a treasury of the richness of God’s revelation and wisdom, and they used many interpretive tools to reach their understanding of what God is revealing to us.

There is an interesting passage in the writings of St. Isaac the Syrian (7th Century) in which he describes reading the scriptures as one of the ministries of the Church which is also an ascetical path to which some Christians are called. He points out, however, that this ministry of interpreting Scriptures is to be done within the spiritual tradition of the Church. Reading Scripture for St. Isaac is not the same discipline as studying other literature.

“… and if there is someone with the ability, the reading (of Scripture) too, though this person cannot, and is not permitted at all to, perceive the (full) sense of what he is reading, even though he may be very learned and highly educated in the habit of ordinary reading and in the exact rendering of the words. As for the exact meaning, corresponding to the spiritual significance, this is something which, in accordance with the growth of the inner person in the ascetic life and (his) hidden progress, the divine power will cause him to taste—that power which acts as a guide to him on the great and extensive ocean of stillness.” (St. Isaac the Syrian, ISAAC OF NINEVEH: THE SECOND PART, p 138)

St. Isaac equates the reading of Scripture for its exact meaning with finding the spiritual significance of the text. Discovering this exact meaning of what God has placed in the words/text of the Scriptures comes about only as there is spiritual growth in the inner person who is following an ascetic discipline. Understanding the Scriptures cannot come about just by learning the right hermeneutic or exegetical method – it requires one to be growing spiritually and to be following the discipline of a Christian community. Understanding the Word of God is not a matter of getting university degrees, but of becoming a disciple of Christ the Teacher.

Finding the spiritual significance of any text of Scripture is an Orthodox interpretive goal. Following that line of thinking we might consider what spiritual significance St. Andrew of Crete (d. 712AD?) found in some of the early chapters of Genesis. St. Andrew was writing about the same time as St. Isaac or a decade or two after him. St. Andrew’s reading of Scripture comes through in his famous Great Canon of Repentance which is sung in the 5th and 1st weeks of Great Lent in the Orthodox tradition. We can look at a few of the poetic verses which St. Andrew composed to get a sense of his understanding of the spiritual significance of Scriptural narratives.

Complete article here.

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Cypriot Church in the trenches with government

(National Review) - The Irish Independent reports:

A government official said an alternative plan to raise the 5.8 billion had been drafted and was to be presented to the troika. It would raise money from domestic sources, including pension plans and subsidiaries of foreign banks active in Cyprus. One of those domestic sources may be the country’s influential Orthodox church. Its head, Archbishop Chrysostomos II, said he would put the church’s assets at the country’s disposal, saying it was willing to mortgage its assets to invest in government bonds. The church has considerable wealth, including property, stakes in a bank and a brewery.

The Daily Telegraph quotes the archbishop:

The entire wealth of the Church is at the disposal of the country…so that we can stand on our own two feet and not on those of foreigners.

That’s the spirit.

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Pope of Rome to Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, et al.

(Vatican Radio) On Wednesday, March 20 2013, Pope Francis received several dozen representatives of the various Christian Churches and other world religions, who attended the Pope’s inauguration.

Among them were several leaders from the Orthodox Church, Orthodox Oriental Church, the Anglican Communion, and various Protestant churches, including the Lutheran, Baptist and Methodist churches. Representatives from the Jewish and Muslim faiths were also present.

Please find below Vatican Radio's translation of the Pope's discourse:

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

First of all, heartfelt thanks for what my Brother Andrew told us. Thank you so much! Thank you so much!

It is a source of particular joy to meet you today, delegates of the Orthodox Churches, the Oriental Orthodox Churches and Ecclesial Communities of the West. Thank you for wanting to take part in the celebration that marked the beginning of my ministry as Bishop of Rome and Successor of Peter.

Yesterday morning, during the Mass, through you , I recognized the communities you represent. In this manifestation of faith, I had the feeling of taking part in an even more urgent fashion the prayer for the unity of all believers in Christ, and together to see somehow prefigured the full realization of full unity which depends on God’s plan and on our own loyal collaboration.

I begin my Apostolic Ministry in this year during which my venerable Predecessor, Benedict XVI, with true inspiration, proclaimed the Year of Faith for the Catholic Church. With this initiative, that I wish to continue and which I hope will be an inspiration for every one’s journey of faith, he wished to mark the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council, thus proposing a sort of pilgrimage towards what for every Christian represents the essential: the personal and transforming relationship with Jesus Christ, Son of God, who died and rose for our salvation. This effort to proclaim this eternal treasure of faith to the people of our time, lies at the heart of the Council's message.

Together with you I cannot forget how much the council has meaning for the ecumenical journey. I like to remember the words that Blessed John XXIII, of whom we will soon mark 50 years since his death, when he gave his memorable inauguration speech: "The Catholic Church therefore considers it her duty to work actively so that there may be fulfilled the great mystery of that unity, which Christ Jesus invoked with fervent prayer from His heavenly Father on the eve of His sacrifice. She rejoices in peace, knowing well that she is intimately associated with that prayer ".

Yes, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all be intimately united to our Saviour's prayer at the Last Supper, to his invocation: ut unum sint. We call merciful Father to be able to fully live the faith that we have received as a gift on the day of our Baptism, and to be able to it free, joyful and courageous testimony. The more we are faithful to his will, in thoughts, in words and in deeds, the more we will truly and substantially walk towards unity.

For my part, I wish to assure, in the wake of my predecessors, the firm wish to continue on the path of ecumenical dialogue, and I thank you, the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity, for the help it continues to offer in my name, for this noble cause. I ask you, dear brothers and sisters, to bring my cordial greetings to the Churches and Christian communities who are represented here. And I ask you for a special prayer for me so that I can be a pastor according to the heart of Christ.

And now I turn to you, distinguished representatives of the Jewish people, to whom we are bound by a very special spiritual bond, from the moment that, as the Second Vatican Council said, "thus the Church of Christ acknowledges that according to God’s saving design, the beginnings of her faith and her election are found already among the Patriarchs, Moses and the prophets".(Decree Nostra Aetate, 4). I thank you for your presence and trust that with the help of the Almighty, we can continue that fruitful fraternal dialogue that the Council wished for. And that it is actually achieved, bringing many fruits, especially during the last decades .

I greet and thank cordially all of you, dear friends belonging to other religious traditions; firstly the Muslims, who worship the one living and merciful God, and call upon Him in prayer. I really appreciate your presence, and in it I see a tangible sign of the wish to grow in recipricol trust and in cooperation for the common good of humanity.

The Catholic Church is aware of the importance of the promotion of friendship and respect between men and women of different religious traditions – this I wish to repeat this: the promotion of friendship and respect between men and women of different religious traditions – this is attested evident also in the valuable work undertaken by the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. The Church is equally aware of the responsibility that each of us bring towards our world, abd to the whole of creation, that we must love and protect. And we can do a lot for the good of the less fortunate, for those who are weak and suffering, to promote justice, to promote reconciliation, to build peace.. But above all, we must keep alive in our world the thirst for the absolute, and must not allow the vision of the human person with a single dimension to prevail, according to which man is reduced to what he produces and to what he consumes: this is one most dangerous threats of our times.

We know how much violence has been provoked in recent history by the attempt to eliminate God and the divine from the horizon of humanity, and we feel the need to witness in our societies the original openness to transcendence that is inherent in the human heart. In this we feel the closeness also of those men and women who, while not belonging to any religious tradition, feel, however the need to search for the truth, the goodness and the beauty of God, and who are our precious allies in efforts to defend the dignity of man, in the building of a peaceful coexistence between peoples and in the careful protection of creation.

Dear friends, thank you for your presence. To all, I offer my cordial and fraternal greetings.

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Chalcedon 28 - controversial barbarian lands

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