Orthodox Christianity

Bishop Robert F. Waggener will trade his bishop’s mitre for a priest’s biretta in the Western Rite.

Bishop Waggener, who until recently served as bishop of the Diocese of the Holy Cross, has become the first Continuing Anglican bishop to convert to the Antiochian Orthodox Church’s Western Rite Vicariate.

Fr. Michael Keiser will receive Bp. Waggener and his parishioners at Christ Church of Lynchburg, VA, as catechumens on March 5. Deo volente, Bp. Robert Waggener will then be ordained to the priesthood within the Orthodox Church.

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Note how an Orthodox leader presumes to speak for all Orthodox.

Institute on Religion and Democracy Alan Wisdom

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil-Delegates representing U.S. denominations at the Ninth Assembly of the World Council of Churches issued a letter February 18 begging God’s forgiveness for their nation’s policies relating to war, the environment, and poverty. “From a place seduced by the lure of empire we come to you in penitence,” they said, “eager for grace, grace sufficient to transform spirits grown weary from the violence, degradation, and poverty our nation has sown, grace sufficient to transform spirits grown heavy with guilt, grace sufficient to transform the world.”

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CWNews Feb. 27

Pope Benedict XVI (bio – news) told a visiting Greek Orthodox delegation that Catholic and Orthodox believers should work together to restore the Christian heritage of Europe.

The Holy Father met on February 27 with 30 students and teacher from the Apostoliki Diakonia theological school, administered by the Orthodox archdiocese of Athens. The Pope said that East and West should unite against “the challenges that threaten the faith.”

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Marine Corp News Cpl. Joseph Digirolamo January 31, 2006

When was a Marine infantry officer, he never thought that duty would call upon him to lead Marines in a special way.

He is now a 42-year-old lieutenant in the U.S. Navy and the chaplain for 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, Camp Lejeune, N.C., which is deploying with about 20,000 other Marines and Sailors to Iraq this year.

Wozniak, from Newton, N.J., graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1985 and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps. After going through The Basic School and the Infantry Officers Course he made his way to California to serve as a platoon commander for 1st Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment. He even maneuvered through the difficult Range 400 at MCAGC, an experience that has allowed him to quickly connect to the Marines as they go through the same training themselves.

“I loved being in the infantry,” Wozniak said. “I really couldn’t see myself doing anything else until one day I was called to do ministry for the Lord.”

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Philadelphia Inquirer David O’Reilly

Tikhon drifted away from the Episcopalianism of his boyhood, but found faith in a Chicago church.

A curious thing happened to Marc Mollard on his way to veterinary school.

He decided to join the Orthodox Church.

Then he entered an Orthodox monastery, where his spirituality earned him the admiration of church leaders.

Now he is the newly ordained Bishop Tikhon, head of the Diocese of Philadelphia and Eastern Pennsylvania of the Orthodox Church in America.

Yet he is just 39 – young enough to remember what it was like to be young and searching. And he hopes his journey into Orthodoxy might encourage other Americans to follow.

“People today are looking for something real – for deeper reality and the meaning of life,” he said during a recent visit to St. Stephen pro-Cathedral in the Northeast. “I was looking as well, and I think I was led providentially to Orthodoxy.”

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Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew is in Tarpon Springs, Florida for the feast day of Epiphany this week. I was up there yesterday for a welcoming Doxology at St. Nicholas Cathedral, the church in Tarpon. He will lead liturgy tomorrow, throw the cross into Spring Bayou during the blessing of the waters, and make the usuals rounds of meetings, banquets, etc. that accompany these visits.

Some of the events will be televised: Patriachal visit.

By Rich Barlow | December 31, 2005

Bishop Nikon Liolin wears several miters. He had been archbishop for the Albanian Orthodox Archdiocese. Then earlier this month, the Southbridge resident was enthroned as bishop of New England for the Orthodox Church in America, which counts several ethnic Orthodox parishes as members and has its regional headquarters in Boston. Both elevations were milestones: The diocese of New England had been without a bishop for 13 years, the Albanian archdiocese for 23 years, he says. Liolin attributes the lengthy vacancies to a shortage of candidates because bishops are banned from marriage. (Liolin is a widower.)

It has been almost a millennium since Eastern Christian churches split from Western ones (today, the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches) over doctrine. ”All of the faiths are under attack by some of society’s changing morals and mores,” the new bishop says. ”And the churches and the faiths have to be bastions of morality. . . . There is a moral stance that God has revealed to us.” Excerpts from a recent interview follow.
…
Q: Your goal is to increase converts?

A: To increase the number of converts to the church by having more visibility. Without a resident bishop, that made it difficult, because pastors had to work on their own without the on-site direction of a resident hierarch.
…
Q: Why should [people] consider being an Orthodox Christian?

A: We want to begin with a relationship with God, a relationship with Christ. When I’m talking about outreach, I’m not talking about trying to reach people that are churched. Many people in the United States attend churches; however, there are more unchurched in the United States than there are churched. So we’re trying to reach people that really have no relationship with God, do not have any faith. The Orthodox do not proselytize for those who already have a Christian base.

Yes, there was a separation between the east and the west churches. However, there are continually dialogues to see how we can come closer. A few years ago, it was an Orthodox priest who was president of the World Council of Churches.
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Ecumenical News International David Fines

Montreal, Canada, 28 November (ENI)–One of the world’s top spiritual leaders has issued a warning about climate change as representatives from more than 180 nations gather for a United Nations’ conference in Montreal on global warming.

“Climate change is more than an issue of environmental preservation,” said Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomeos I who is seen by many as the spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians. “Insofar as human induced, it is a profoundly moral and spiritual problem.”
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MOSCOW, November 14 (Itar-Tass) – It is highly desirable for the Christian Church to avoid two extremities, one of which is succumbing to the laws of the secular world and the other is plunging into apocalyptic hysteria, Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia Alexy II said Monday in a speech at a
major international theological conference.

The title of the conference, Eschatological Teachings of the Church, indicates that it is entirely focused on eschatology, or the complex of Christian theories about “last things,” including the end of the world.

Teachings in that area of theology have always intensively attracted the minds of theologians and clerics, on the one hand, and secular scholars, on the other, sources at Moscow Patriarchate’ press center said.
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