Day for the Protection of the Natural Environment

“All of creation is renewed by the Holy Spirit, returning to its original state.” (Anavathmoi, First Tone)

“Blessed are you, Lord, who alone daily renew the work of your hands.” (Basil the Great)

September 1st of each year has been dedicated at the initiative of the Ecumenical Patriarchate – and recently also by the Roman Catholic Church – as a day of prayer for the protection of the natural environment. On this day, we especially beseech the supreme God to gladden creation so that human life therein may be joyful and fruitful. This prayer includes of course the petition that the inevitable natural climate changes may occur and be permitted within tolerable levels both for human survival and for the planet’s sustainability.

Nonetheless, we humans – whether as individual groups or collectively – behave contrary to this very request. For we suppress nature in such a manner that unforeseeable and undesirable changes occur to the climate and environment, which are negatively affected in their normal functions with consequent implications for life itself. The cumulative result of actions by particular individuals as well as by corporate and state activities with a view to reforming the natural environment so that it might produce more resources for those who take advantage of it only leads to the destruction of creation, which was created good by God and thus functions in a balanced way.

Those of us who appreciate the danger of climate change that is only increasing by day for our planet as a result of human actions raise our voice to highlight this crisis and invite everyone to explore what could be done “so that life is not lost for the sake of greed.” (United Nations Declaration)

Therefore, as Ecumenical Patriarch, we have expended years of efforts to inform the faithful of our Church and all people of good will about the grave risks deriving from growing (ab-)use of energy resources, which threatens increasing global warming and threatens the sustainability of the natural environment.

Orthodox Christians have learned from the Church Fathers to restrict and reduce our needs as far as possible. In response to the ethos of consumerism we propose the ethos of asceticism, namely an ethos of self-sufficiency to what is needed. This does not mean deprivation but rational and restrained consumption as well as the moral condemnation of waste. “So if we have food and clothing, with these we shall be content” (1 Tim. 6.8), as the Lord’s Apostle urges us. And after the multiplication of the five loaves and the satisfaction of five thousand people, excluding women and children, Christ Himself ordered His disciples to collect the remainder “so that nothing would be lost” (John 6.12). Unfortunately, contemporary societies have abandoned the application of this commandment, surrendering to wastefulness and irrational abuse to satisfy vain desires of prosperity. However, such conduct can be transformed for the sake of creating resources and energy by more appropriate means.

Brothers and sisters, children in our common Lord and Creator,

Human beings have destroyed creation through greed by focusing exclusively on this earth and its earthly benefits, which we endeavor to increase constantly, like the “rich fool” in the Gospel parable (Luke 12. 13-21). We ignore the Holy Spirit, in whom we live and move and have our being. This signifies that the response to the ecological crisis can only be successfully realized in the Holy Spirit, through whose grace our human efforts are blessed and all creation is renewed, returning to its original state, as it was created and intended by God – namely, “very good.” This is why the responsibility of humanity, as God’s co-creator endowed with free will, is immense for any proper response to the ecological crisis.

This earth resembles “an immense pile of filth.” (Pope Francis, Laudato Si’, 2015) And impurity implies more than simply material things; it primarily includes spiritual things. There are the impurities that essentially stem from the passionate thoughts of humanity. With firm faith in the Pantokrator and Creator of all creation, we Orthodox Christians are called to carry out the work of an evangelist and missionary with regard to the protection of creation. That is to say, we are called to rekindle the joyful gospel message to the modern troubled world and awaken the sleeping spiritual nature of a humanity diversely and multifariously distressed in order to convey a message of hope, peace and true joy – the peace and joy of Christ.

This is what we believe and proclaim from the most holy Apostolic and Patriarchal Ecumenical Throne. And we invite everyone to soberness of life, purification of passionate thoughts and selfish motivations, so that we may dwell in harmony with our neighbors and with God’s creation. Finally, we pray with Basil the Great, “who extolled the nature of things”:

“Blessed are you, Lord, who alone daily renew the work of your hands. Blessed are you, Lord, who created light and darkness, distinguishing between them from each other. Blessed are you, Lord, who created all things and constructed the shadow of death by blackening the day into night. Blessed are you, Lord, who created humankind in your image and likeness, who made the day for the work of light and the night for human nature to rest . . .” (Psalter and Prayer Book, Pantokrator Monastery, Mt. Athos, 2004)

This is our message, conviction and exhortation to you all: Let us stand well; let us stand in awe before God’s creation. May the grace and boundless mercy of our Lord, the Creator of all creation, both visible and invisible, be with you all and with the whole world, now and to the endless ages. Amen.

+ BARTHOLOMEW
Archbishop of Constantinople-New Rome, Ecumenical Patriarch and Fervent Supplicant of all before God

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Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos

Shroud (плащаница) of the Mother of God in Monastery Chapel

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Transfiguration: The Spirit of God

As a contemplative religious community, the Feast of the Transfiguration especially resonates with us.  Like Elijah, who, standing on the mountain before the Lord, did not experience the Spirit of God in the wind or the earthquake or the fire but rather, in a still, small voice. It is in the monastic silence of the heart that one encounters and experiences the same transfiguring grace of the Spirit of God.

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Feast of the Transfiguration

Greetings on the Feast of the Transfiguration of our Lord! 

Поздравляемъ съ Праздникомъ Преображенія Господня!

We pray that each one of you be graced with the divine light that our Lord revealed on this day to His disciples on Mount Tabor. A wonderful moment of this feast is Saint Peter’s exclamation “Lord, it is good for us to be here!” It is evident that Peter clearly comprehended the importance of that moment when the Savior’s clothing shined like the sun, prophets who had long left the world conversed with Him, and the “Glory of the Lord” enveloped the mountain.

“Добро есть нам зде быти!“

“It is good for us to be here!”

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The Procession (Carrying-forth) of the Venerable Wood of the Life-Creating Cross of the Lord

Commemorated on August 1 (ns) / 14 (os)

In the Greek Chasoslov (Horologion) of 1897 is explained thus the derivation of this feast:

“By reason of the sicknesses, often everywhere occurring in August, from of old customarily it was done at Constantinople to carry out the Venerable Wood of the Cross along the roads and streets for the sanctifying of places and for the driving away of sicknesses. On the eve, carrying it out from the imperial treasury, they placed it upon the holy table of the Great Church (in honour of Saint Sophia – the Wisdom of God). From this feastday up to the Dormition of the Most Holy Mother of God, making litia throughout all the city, they then placed it forth for all the people to venerate. This also is the Issuing-forth of the Venerable Cross.”

In the Russian Church this feast is combined also with a remembrance of the Baptism of Rus’ in 988. In the “Account about the making of services in the holy catholic and apostolic great church of the Uspenie-Dormition”, compiled in 1627 by order of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus’ Philaret, there is provided suchlike an explanation of the feast:

“And on the day of the procession of the Venerable Cross there occurs a church-procession for the sanctification of water and for the enlightenment of the people,throughout all the towns and places”.

Knowledge of the day of the actual Baptism of Rus’ was preserved in the Chronicles of the XVI Century: “The Baptism of Great-prince Vladimir of Kiev and all Rus’ was in August.”

In the practice now of the Russian Church, the service of the Lesser Sanctification of Water on 1/14 August is done either before or after Liturgy. Together with the Blessing of Waters, there is conducted a Blessing of Honey “Медовый Спас” (apparently in place of the vinegar and gall offered Him on the Cross?). And from this day the newly harvested honey is blessed and tasted.

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The Seraphimo-Diveyevo “Tenderness” (УМИЛЕНІЕ) Icon of the Mother of God

The Seraphimo-Diveyevo “Tenderness” (Умиленіе/Umilenie) Icon of the Mother of God belonged to the Monk Saint Seraphim of Sarov and was his cell icon. With the oil from the lampada which burned before this holy icon, the Monk anointed the sick, who received healing after the anointing. The ascetic called the icon “Умиленіе” (Tenderness) – “Joy of All Joys” and in front of it he died at prayer on 2 January 1833. After the death of the Holy Monk Saint Seraphim of Sarov, the monastery abbot Father Niphont gave the holy icon “Joy of All Joys” to the sisters of the Diveyevo-Seraphimovsky monastery.

Commemorated on August 10/July 28

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Dormition of the Righteous Anna, the Mother of the Most Holy Theotokos

According to the Julian (Old) Calendar, the Church commemorates today the Dormition (repose) of the Righteous Saint Anna, the daughter of the priest Matthan and his wife Mary. She was of the tribe of Levi and the lineage of Aaron. According to tradition, she died peacefully in Jerusalem at age 79, before the Annunciation of the Most Holy Theotokos.

During the reign of St Justinian the Emperor (527-565), a church was built in her honor at Deutera. Emperor Justinian II (685-695; 705-711) restored her church, since St Anna had appeared to his pregnant wife. It was at this time that her body and maphorion (veil) were transferred to Constantinople.

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The earliest known prayer to the Theotokos*

The earliest known prayer to the Theotokos (Greek, Θεοτόκος, meaning “Bearer of God”) is a prayer found on a fragment of papyrus dating back to approximately AD 250. In 1917, the John Rylands Library in Manchester, England, acquired a large panel of Egyptian papyrus. The prayer is located on the fragment recorded as reference number Greek Papyrus 470. The prayer appears to be from a Coptic Christmas liturgy or vespers written in Koine Greek although the fragment in question may be a private copy of the prayer. The prayer is still chanted in the Orthodox Church to this day at the end of nearly every Vespers service during Lent. It is also found in the worship services of the Roman Catholic and Oriental Orthodox Churches.

The early date of this prayer is important for a number of reasons, one of which is that it supports our understanding that the term Theotokos was not just a theological concept defended at the Third Ecumenical Council in AD 431, but was already in popular use and well-known several centuries before the Nestorian heresy. As St. Gregory of Nazianzus stated in AD 379, “If someone does not uphold that the holy Mary is Theotokos, he is separated from divinity.” (Letter 101, PG 37, 177C).

Early Christians recognized the Theotokos as a powerful intercessor for those who are suffering and in need of protection. Christians have been seeking her intercessions from the time of the ancient Church and well over a thousand years up to this very day.

“Beneath thy compassion,
 We take refuge, O Mother of God:
 do not despise our petitions in time of trouble,
 but rescue us from dangers,
 only pure one, only blessed one.”

*Originally posted by Trisagion Films on Sep 9, 2014

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St. Seraphim of Sarov: A Wonderful Revelation to the World

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Our Mother: The Syriac Orthodox Church

In southeastern Turkey, the area known as Tur Abdin (Syriac for “Mountain of the Servants of God”) remains the heartland of the Syriac Orthodox Church. Every Saturday night, in a small chapel of the Saffron Monastery, a liturgy is celebrated to commemorate the 53 patriarchs and more than 100 bishops who pastored the area’s flock between the fifth and twentieth centuries. The seat of the patriarchate was moved from Tur Abdin to Damascus in 1932.

The Orthodox-Catholic Church of America (OCCA) traces our apostolic succession back to the Syriac (Jacobite) Orthodox Church through our founding Metropolitan Archbishop Mar Timotheus, through India, to Syria, and ends in the foundation of Antioch where Saint Peter was bishop before he moved to Rome.  Most immediately, the apostolic succession of our OCCA Synod of Bishops can be traced back to His Holiness Ignatius Peter III/IV, Jacobite Patriarch of Antioch, who authorized three of his bishops in South India, Mar Athanasius Paulos, Mar Ivanios Paulos, and Mar Gregorios Gewargis (Gevarghese) to consecrate our first Metropolitan Archbishop Mar Timotheus (Joseph René Vilatte).

Resilient best describes the Syriac Orthodox Church. Persecuted by Byzantines, murdered by Mongols, massacred by Ottoman Turks and caught in the Kurdish-Turkish crossfire, Syriac Orthodox Christians [also known as Assyrians and Chaldeans] have managed to endure, preserving their legacy while enriching the entire church.The Syriac Orthodox Church shares in the heritage of ancient Antioch, the commercial, cultural and political center of Rome’s eastern Mediterranean province of Syria. Founded by St. Peter and nurtured by St. Paul, the church in Antioch emerged as the center of the church of the East, stretching beyond the borders of the Christian Roman (or Byzantine) Empire.The development of the church of Antioch coincided with the confluence of cultures in the eastern Mediterranean world. Debates raged as Antioch’s Christians explored the nature of Jesus, which prompted councils, the decrees of which drove a wedge between Antioch’s Syriac-speaking Christians and Greek-speaking Christians allied with Byzantium.Syriac Christians generally welcomed the Muslim Arabs invaders, who accepted them as “People of the Book.”

Safe from Byzantine authorities, Syriac scholars flourished. Poets fashioned hymns that simplified complex ideas. Scholars translated Greek texts and wrote biblical commentaries. Monks explored grammar, medicine, philosophy, rhetoric and science. Theologians and poets continued the tradition of composing liturgies, borrowing elements from other Christian traditions.Drawn by this erudition, the Arabs employed Syriac scholars, who are largely responsible for the Arab world’s familiarity with ancient Greek astronomy, chemistry, mathematics and philosophy — disciplines that eventually reached Europe via Arab Sicily and Spain.

At its height in the mid-14th century, the Syriac Orthodox Church stretched from the Mediterranean to Afghanistan and included 20 metropolitan sees and more than a 100 eparchies. This golden age ended violently with the invasion of the Middle East by Timur the Lame in the 15th century. Those Syriac Christians who escaped death or enslavement retreated into the mountains, huddling in fortress-like monasteries and villages. Though scholarship did not vanish completely, isolation intensified, poverty set in and generation after generation of Syriac Orthodox families abjured their Christian faith. Scholars estimate that by the beginning of the 20th century, fewer than 270,000 Syriac Orthodox Christians remained in Mesopotamia.

The trials for the church have only intensified in the last 100 years, even as membership has recovered: The church now counts as many as 5 million members, although two thirds live in India. In 1915 — the “Year of the Sword” — soldiers affiliated with the Ottoman authorities murdered more than 13,000 families and 150 priests. Survivors were deported or fled, many seeking refuge in Beirut, Damascus and Mosul. Some later settled in North America’s burgeoning industrial cities.

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