Category: Inter-Orthodox
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How Did Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem Respond to the Council of Florence?
Most Orthodox accounts, at least in English, of why the Union of Florence was rejected center on St Mark of Ephesus’ singular stand against the council, and the rallying of the laity of Constantinople against the union. Equally important, however, is the response of Orthodoxy outside the Byzantine Empire and the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The…
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How Did Orthodoxy Get Into This Mess?
It almost goes without saying that the Orthodox world is a mess right now. The situation in Ukraine alone is a disaster: a Russian invasion of the country backed by Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) by the state, and a recognized-by-only-some Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) that was created…
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The Nine Years that Almost Destroyed the Orthodox Church
Back in March, I published a 9-part series on the global Orthodox crisis of 1917-1925. I’ve made a few revisions to that account and added an Epilogue and a partial bibliography. Today, I’m publishing all of that — 9,000+ words, altogether. Orthodoxy is currently facing a global crisis of unity. While we might be tempted…
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The Biggest Pan-Orthodox Event in American History
In 1963, between 11,000 and 13,000 Orthodox youth, from seven jurisdictions, came together for a pan-Orthodox festival in Pittsburgh. Ten bishops and more than 150 priests celebrated Vespers in an arena, and a thousand-person pan-Orthodox youth choir sang. This was the biggest pan-Orthodox event in American history, and most Orthodox Christians today are completely unaware…
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The Pan-Orthodox Council of 1998
Beginning in the post-Communist era in the early 1990s, a faction of schismatics emerged in Bulgaria, breaking away from the canonical Bulgarian Orthodox Church. These schismatics — known as the “Alternative Synod” — elected their own Patriarch in 1996, with the backing of the Bulgarian government. Under immense pressure, the canonical Bulgarian Church appealed to…
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Was Crete really the first “Pan-Orthodox Council” in centuries?
In the run-up to what was hoped to be a Great and Holy Council in 2016, many church leaders and commentators emphasized that this was a monumental event, the first time in X years that representatives from all of the world’s Orthodox Churches had met in a council. “X years” kind of varied — some…
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Patriarch Athenagoras Clearly States How Autocephaly Must Be Granted
Editor’s note: On Friday, Orthodox History published a 1970 letter by Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras in response to the Moscow Patriarchate’s decision to grant autocephaly to the “Orthodox Church in America.” After posting the letter, we received the following article by “Petrus Antiochenus.” Today, the Ecumenical Patriarchate is on the verge of creating an autocephalous…
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1970 Letter from Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras on Autocephaly
Editor’s note: In 1970, the Patriarchate of Moscow issued a Tomos of Autocephaly to its former archdiocese in North America, which was commonly known as the “Russian Metropolia” and is now the “Orthodox Church in America.” Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras protested against this act in multiple letters to the leaders of the Moscow Patriarchate. The correspondence between…
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Plans for an English-speaking seminary & an Orthodox census in 1943
Back in the early 1940s, several of the Orthodox jurisdictions briefly came together to form an organization with the unwieldy name, “The Federated Orthodox Greek Catholic Primary Jurisdictions in America.” That’s ridiculous, so we’ll just call it “the Federation.” Anyway, the Federation was a precursor to SCOBA, which morphed into the present-day Assembly of Bishops.…
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The Early History of Orthodoxy in Chicago
In 2011, I gave a talk at Holy Apostles Greek Orthodox Church in Westchester, Illinois, on the early history of Orthodoxy in Chicago. Here’s the text of that lecture, basically unedited since I wrote it 7+ years ago. ******* The story of Orthodoxy in Chicago really begins in the 1880s. In 1885, a Greek couple,…