How Eastern Orthodox's ‘Forgiveness Sunday’ could save us from our Facebook feeds

From American Magazine-

As we enter deeper into Lent and continue to abstain from certain foods and habits, even those who have given up constantly checking Facebook and Twitter cannot retreat entirely from our divided, toxic political environment.

Partly because of my work in community and government relations for a Jesuit university, and partly the responsibility of simply being a citizen I will continue to take in news. This means I will inevitably be exposed to the usual mix of “fake news,” political grandstanding and negative partisanship—what the Stanford political scientists Shanto Iyengar and Masha Krupenkin call “a primal sense of ‘us against them.’”

Can our preparations for Easter help us cope with this reality? Can they do so not only now, but throughout the year?

In the Eastern Orthodox tradition in which I worship, the season of Lent begins with a “Forgiveness Vespers.” At the end of the service, each member of the community proceeds to the front of the church to exchange with the priest and fellow parishioners—the whole church—a plea of repentance.

More here-

https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2018/03/15/how-eastern-orthodoxs-forgiveness-sunday-could-save-us-our-facebook-feeds

Can the Churches Be Reunited?

From Commonweal-

In 1967, when Joseph Ratzinger was a thirty-nine-year-old professor at Tübingen, he was the guest of honor at a doctoral colloquium held in Basel by Karl Barth. The topic for discussion was the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (Dei verbum). Barth and his students devised two main questions for their distinguished visitor. Both concerned how, according to the council, the transmission of the Gospel was dependent on the church.

From a theological standpoint, was it really true, the Protestants wondered, that the Gospel depends on the church if it is going to be preserved and actualized, as suggested by the wording of the dogmatic constitution? Weren’t matters really the other way around? Wasn’t it really the church that depends on the Gospel—if the church is to be truly apostolic? In other words, didn’t ecclesial life and witness always need to be tested against the living word of Scripture? And didn’t that word remain sovereign as a critical norm over against the church and its traditions? The priority of the Word over ecclesial tradition was a traditional Protestant concern.

More here-

https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/can-churches-be-reunited

Public Theology in Retreat

From The LA Review of Books-

WHERE IS THE Reinhold Niebuhr for today? What is theology good for? Such questions have become hallmarks in public commentary on the role, past and present, of Christian thought in politics and in the academy. The first has generated a whole subgenre unto itself — call it “O Niebuhr, Where Art Thou?” — marked by an understandable, but usually nostalgic yearning for the halcyon days when serious Christians commanded an audience by dint of their learning, eloquence, and pertinence to the national situation. The second question is less prominent, but no less well meaning: recognizing theology’s profound loss in social and intellectual stature, earnest essays recommend giving it another chance, at least as a sort of instrumental good; it may not be of much value in itself (at least to the unbelieving), but familiarity with theology may help one better understand the history of art, philosophy, and politics in the West, not to mention one’s church-attending neighbors next door.

That such questions must continually be asked, and such essays continually written, tells us all we need to know about the time in which we live. Obituaries, diagnoses, and genealogies have been offered in plenty, the most recent and profound of which is Alan Jacobs’s “The Watchmen” in Harper’s last year. There he chronicles the death of the Christian public intellectual in the United States. Although Jacobs recognizes the manifold external conditions that both gave and took away the possibility for thoughtful religious discourse to have a broad public in the United States, his argument comes at the issue from the inside: what actions on the part of Christians led to their marginalization? It turns out that Christians silenced themselves, at least in part. That is, just as society began to turn its attention away from the Church, the Church turned inward, began to talk primarily to itself; and when it turned outward, moreover, it increasingly and stubbornly used language unfamiliar to an unchurched polis.

More here-

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/public-theology-in-retreat/#!

Pope, Patriarch: ‘Cry of the earth’ and cry of the poor are one voice

From Crux Now-

In a joint statement from Pope Francis and Patriarch Bartholomew to mark the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation on Sept. 1, the two said that what’s happening in the world today reveals a “morally decaying scenario, where our attitude and behavior towards creation obscures our calling as God’s co-operators.”

They call on those “in positions of social and economic, as well as political and cultural, responsibility to hear the cry of the earth, and to attend to the needs of the marginalized.”

Those leaders, Francis and Bartholomew write, are called to “respond to the plea” of millions, and support “the consensus of the world for the healing of our wounded creation.”

One point stressed by Francis and Bartholomew is that care for the environment, and care for the poor, are inextricably linked.

More here-

https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2017/09/01/pope-patriarch-cry-earth-cry-poor-one-voice/

The Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation: Joint message

From Vatican Radio-

The Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation is being marked today September 1 and has special importance in this its third year.

It is a Joint Message which was released on Friday morning from Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, who for the first time are writing together on Themes of the Day, inviting all the faithful and men of good will to prayer and to reflect on how to live in a simple and solid manner, responsibly using earthly goods.

The Day of Prayer for the Creation of the Creation was instituted by Pope Francis in 2015. The Orthodox Church has commemorated the Day since 1989. 

Below find the English Language translation of the Joint Message from Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew.

More here-

http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2017/09/01/the_day_of_prayer_for_the_care_of_creation_joint_message/1333983

Fate of Orthodox Christianity's Great and Holy Council Hangs in the Balance

From Sightings-

During the meeting of Christian Orthodox Primates (heads of local Orthodox churches), which begins today in Switzerland, the participants will show the world whether the unity of the Orthodox Church is more important than their particular agendas.

The issue facing the Primates is whether to convene, as planned, a “Holy and Great” Council of the Orthodox Church, or Pan-Orthodox Council as it is also called, around the feast of Pentecost, in June of this year.

The Holy and Great Council (if it takes place) will have historical momentum, not only for Orthodox believers, but also for the global religious landscape.

Given increasing religious pluralism on the international scene, the fall of the Soviet Union, and growing secularization in developed countries, the convocation of a Pan-Orthodox Council is, in part, intended to signal the continued unity of communion among the fourteen independent, or autocephalous, Orthodox Churches.

 More here-

http://us6.campaign-archive2.com/?u=6b2c705bf61d6edb1d5e0549d&id=4fed084a07

Archbishop of Canterbury to visit Ecumenical Patriarch in Istanbul

From Ecumenical News-

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, is traveling to Istanbul on Monday to visit the man considered by many as the spiritual head of Eastern Orthodox Christians, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew.

A statement on the Anglican Communion website says, "Archbishop Justin hopes that the visit will help to develop greater fellowship between the two churches and contribute to the goal of Christian unity."

The two day visit will include the first meeting in Istanbul between the Ecumenical Patriarch and Welby, who once worked in the banking and oil industry, since he became Archbishop of Canterbury.

Welby was enthroned as spiritual head of the Church of England and symbolic head of the 80-million strong Anglican Communion in March 2013.

"As Archbishop of Constantinople and New Rome, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew occupies the First Throne of the Orthodox Christian Church," says the Anglican Communion website.

More here-

http://www.ecumenicalnews.com/article/archbishop-of-canterbury-to-visit-ecumenical-patriarch-in-istanbul-22675

Bishop's service a first since 1066

From The Oxford Mail-

OXFORD’S Keble College played host to a very special ceremony when it welcomed Bishop Jerome of Manhattan, of the Russian Orthodox Church.

When His Grace celebrated a Western Orthodox Episcopal Liturgy on Friday, it was the first time the service had been held in the UK since 1066.

Before then the church in the UK was Orthodox, but the Norman Conquest saw the Roman church take over.

Father Stephen Platt, parish priest at the Russian Orthodox church St Nicholas the Wonderworker in Marston, Oxford, said: “Orthodox services generally have an Eastern origin, while Catholic and Anglican churches have services which originate in Ancient Rome.”

Philip Pughe-Morgan, who came from Weston-super-Mare for the service, said: “Many people are put off by what they see as a form of worship which doesn’t relate to their traditional culture.
More here-

http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/10235903.Bishop_s_service_a_first_since_1066/