Orthodox Christianity

Roundtable Publisher: Times-Picayune (New Orleans)

By: Bruce Nolan

Storm-damaged New Orleans families continued to receive gifts of private, faith-based aid Thursday, including $400,000 that Catholic school children around the country raised for school children here.

The $400,000 was New Orleans’ share of $1 million that children in Catholic schools raised for other children across Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, said the archdiocesan schools superintendent, the Rev. William Maestri.

Separately, a representative of a Greek Orthodox organization arrived in New Orleans on Friday to distribute $50,000 raised by the American Hellenic Education Progressive Association for 50 Greek families in the area. The money is in addition to more than $100,000 already distributed to New Orleans families by Philoptochos, the philanthropic arm of the Greek Orthodox church in the United States, and another agency, the International Orthodox Christian Charities. Another $400,000 is expected to arrive from other Orthodox sources.

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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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MSNBC December 6, 2005

The US State Department statement said that President Bush had requested the re-opening of the Greek Orthodox seminary in the Heybeliada during a meeting in June with Prime Minister Erdogan.

WASHINGTON – The United States has said it recognised the Greek Orthodox Patriarchy in Istanbul as having ecumenical status, a written statement issued late Monday said.

The statement, released by State Department spokesman Sean McCormack in response to a question raised in the department’s daily briefing, said that they saw the Greek Orthodox Patriarch as a religious leader of a global position.

The statement stressed that in the US’ religious freedoms report for 2005, that the issues of ecumenical patriarchy, the re-opening of the Orthodox seminary on the Turkish island of Heybeliada and rights of other religious minorities were covered.

Ankara does not acknowledge the ecumenical status of the Patriarchy, deeming incumbent Patriarch Batholomew II as being the leader of Turkey’s Orthodox community, rather than being the head of the Orthodox church world wide.

Zenit News
Pontifical Council Invites Russian Church for More Talks

MOSCOW, NOV. 30, 2005 (Zenit.org).- The Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace has invited officials of the Russian Orthodox Church to meet in Italy to continue discussions on social and religious topics.

That was one of the fruits of the visit of Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the pontifical council, to Orthodox Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad.

Their meeting, which took place Tuesday in the office of the Department of Religious Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, showed clearly that both the Catholic and Russian Orthodox Churches share the same viewpoint on topics such as the family, abortion, homosexuality and euthanasia.
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In Message for Publication of Facsimile of “Menologion of Basil II”

VATICAN CITY, NOV. 17, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI says that a “new stage” has been reached in the path of reconciliation between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church of Greece.

In a message to the archivist and librarian of the Holy Roman Church, the Pope invites Orthodox Archbishop Christodoulos of Athens to the Vatican. He also appeals to Catholics and Orthodox to work together on the new challenges posed to the proclamation of Christ to the contemporary world, “which so needs it.”
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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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Zenit News

Catholics and Orthodox Alike Dispute Findings

MOSCOW, NOV. 10, 2005 (Zenit.org).- A Russian Catholic representative publicly expressed his disagreement with a U.S. State Department report that contends there is a lack of respect for religious freedom in Russia.

Father Igor Kovalevsky, secretary-general of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Russia, said that “Russian power makes no discrimination whatsoever against the freedom of religious minorities.”

According to the report on religious freedom around the world, presented in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Russia is one of the countries that practices a preconceived policy in its relationship with representatives of minority religions.

In the opinion of U.S. experts, the Russian authorities and the Russian Orthodox Church, as well as the Federal Security Service (formerly the KGB), limit the freedom of religious minorities.
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