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Pope Francis has declared Gregory of Narek to be a "Doctor of the Church." This is one of the highest honors conferred by the Catholic Church on saints. Only a handful have been so honored. The only problem is that as far as I am able to tell, Gregory of Narek was not Catholic. He was a monk of the Armenian Apostolic Church, which is part of the non-Chalcedonian (Oriental Orthodox) communion. The Armenian Church has not been in communion with the Pope of Rome since at least the sixth century. The very small Armenian Catholic (Eastern Rite) Church did...

The 21 Egyptian men who were kidnapped and eventually beheaded on a beach in Libya knew they were living in danger. But they felt they had little choice other than to sojourn in the tumultuous country in order to send money home to their impoverished families. Many went with a sense that God would look over them. Now, their families are in greater poverty, knowing the men will never come home. The World Post’s Middle East correspondent Sophia Jones visited grieving families in the village of Al Aour, about three hours south of Cairo, where 13 of the men...

The mass martyrdoms we are seeing in the Middle East will be followed, as they always are, by a remarkable rise of Christianity that will change the course of history. St. John Paul the prophet said so. “The Church has become once again a Church of martyrs,” he said, as he looked ahead at the coming of the Third Millennium of Christianity. Then, as the new millennium dawned, he recalled how the blood of the martyrs had built the early Church despite the “trials of history.” “Will this not also be the case of the century and millennium now...

Today is the first day of Lent for Orthodox Christians. During Clean Week there are many special services of which one of the most important is The Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete, also known as The Great Canon of Repentance. It is a penitential hymn, the longest ever composed, that is chanted in monasteries on Clean Monday. Because of its great length it is usually broken up in parishes and chanted over the first four days of Lent as part of Great Compline. The linked video is from one of those services. This particular rendition is entirely in...

A Homily delivered to the community at St. Vladimir's Orthodox Seminary on Forgiveness Sunday of 1983As once more we are about to enter the Great Lent, I would like to remind us – myself first of all, and all of you my fathers, brothers, and sisters – of the verse that we just sang, one of the stichera, and that verse says: "Let us begin Lent, the Fast, with joy." Only yesterday we were commemorating Adam crying, lamenting at the gates of Paradise, and now every second line of the Triodion and the liturgical books of Great Lent will speak...

The season of the great fast"This is a favorable time, this is the day of salvation."Nature revives with the arrival of spring, and during this same season Christians who are serious about salvation are spiritualy renewed through prayer and fasting. Fasts are special days of the year that are set aside by the Church to motivate believers to concentrate on the salvation of their souls. The most important of the fasts is Lent, which is prior to the Easter. It begins on the Monday following the Sunday of Forgiveness and lasts for forty days (six weeks) until Palm Sunday, continues...

The stunning icon here depicts the martyrs and was created by Egyptian American artist Tony Rezk. It appears on the website for the Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Los Angeles. From Vatican Radio:  The Coptic Orthodox Church has announced that the murder of the 21 Egyptian Christians killed by the so-called Islamic State in Libya will be commemorated in its Church calendar.Pope Tawadros II announced that the names of the martyrs will be inserted into the Coptic Synaxarium, the Oriental Church’s equivalent to the Roman Martyrology. This procedure is also equivalent to canonization in the Latin Church.According to terrasanta.net, the martyrdom of the...

The Sunday of Forgiveness, the last of the preparatory Sundays before Great Lent, has two themes: it commemorates Adam’s expulsion from Paradise, and it accentuates our need for forgiveness. There are obvious reasons why these two things should be brought to our attention as we stand on the threshold of Great Lent. One of the primary images in the Triodion is that of the return to Paradise. Lent is a time when we weep with Adam and Eve before the closed gate of Eden, repenting with them for the sins that have deprived us of our free communion with God....

The Coptic Orthodox Church has announced that the murder of the 21 Egyptian Christians killed by the so-called Islamic State in Libya will be commemorated in its Church calendar. Pope Tawadros II announced that the names of the martyrs will be inserted into the Coptic Synaxarium, the Oriental Church’s equivalent to the Roman Martyrology. This procedure is also equivalent to canonization in the Latin Church. According to terrasanta.net, the martyrdom of the 21 Christians will be commemorated on the 8th Amshir of the Coptic calendar, or February 15th of the Gregorian calendar. The commemoration falls on the feast day of...

Although the general populace is unaware of it, during the past decade a new effort has been underway to defend the Roman Catholic practice of mandatory priestly celibacy. Putting aside the traditional sociological arguments that we are all familiar with, these new defenders argue for the discipline based primarily on historical grounds. Although their writings have not reached a broad audience, they have found a committed following in some Catholic circles. Normally I would not concern myself with a defense of the Roman Catholic discipline of mandatory celibacy. After all, it is their tradition and they certainly have a right...

Here is how Russell Moore, the Southern Baptist pastor who heads the church’s Washington office, responded to the murder of the 21 Coptic Christians by ISIS: These are my brothers, faithful to Christ even unto death. King Jesus puts heads back on, and puts… http://t.co/0Dps0Lvtxy— Russell Moore (@drmoore) February 15, 2015 A number of Southern Baptists had similar responses. The Southern Baptist bloggers at Pulpit & Pen will have you know that this is a betrayal: Do Southern Baptist leaders and other evangelicals really not know what a Christian is or how you become one? Is it being born into an ethnic group...

Patriarch Laham says the Middle East is suffering a 'Way of the Cross' in Lenten messageThe Middle East is suffering a “Way of the Cross” that is the greatest tragedy since World War Two, Melkite Catholic Patriarch Gregoire III Laham said in his Lenten message. He said the Church, despite its efforts, is having difficulty meeting the growing needs it faces in the region. “We fail in front of the suffering of our people in all walks of life, Christians and Muslims. It’s a universal suffering,” he said. “We as pastors are with our people, at their side, in front...

The brother of two of the 21 Coptic Christians murdered in Libya last week has thanked their killers for including the men's declaration of faith in the video they made of their beheadings. Speaking on a live prayer and worship programme on Christian channel SAT-7 ARABIC yesterday, Beshir Kamel said that he was proud of his brothers Bishoy Estafanos Kamel (25) and Samuel Estafanos Kamel (23) because they were "a badge of honour to Christianity". Harrowing scenes of the murders have been seen around the world. The last words of some of those killed were "Lord Jesus Christ". Beshir Kamel...

I am breaking from my retreat to write with tears a tribute of honour and veneration to our newest martyrs, the 21 martyrs in Libya. These valiant men have offered themselves as a living sacrifice as a testimony before the whole world and all nations. But before all this they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name’s sake. This will be a time for you to bear testimony. Settle it therefore in your minds, not to meditate beforehand...

Bishop Antonios Aziz Mina of Giza echoed Pope Francis by hailing the 21 Coptic Christians killed by ISIS as martyrsThe 21 Coptic Christians who were beheaded by ISIS militants died as martyrs, invoking the name of Jesus, said an Egyptian Catholic bishop. In line with Pope Francis’s assertion at morning Mass on February 17, Bishop Antonios Aziz Mina of Giza told the Fides news agency that the “diabolical” video of the Christians’ massacre, intended to “spread terror,” was a testament to their martyrdom in the faith. The video of their beheading, released on Sunday, shows that “in the moment of...

Although this work is historical in its method and content, it is not a product of historical curiosity. At a time when church unity occupies an increasingly central place in theological study, the contribution of our theology is required not simply as an academic demand, but also a fundamental debt owed to the Church. In order to fulfil the demand and pay the debt, our theology can no longer fall back on the sources of its own confessional riches. The gradual abandonment of the confessional mentality of past generations and the recognition of the need for our theology to be...

The Sunday of the Last Judgment is the third Sunday of a three-week period prior to the commencement of Great Lent. During this time, the services of the Church have begun to include hymns from the Triodion, a liturgical book that contains the services from the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee, the tenth before Pascha (Easter), through Great and Holy Saturday. On this day, focus is placed on the future judgment of all persons who will stand before the throne of God when Christ returns in His glory.

The Church's traditional teaching on fasting is not widely known or followed in our day. For those Orthodox Christians who are seeking to keep a more disciplined fast, the following information may be helpful. Though the rules may appear quite strict to those who have not seen them before, they were developed with all of the faithful, not only monks, in mind. (Monks do not eat meat, so rules regarding the eating of meat cannot have been written with them in mind. Similarly rules regarding marital abstinence apply only to the laity and married clergy.) Though few laymen are able...

There is certainly nothing wrong with people trying to do the right thing and to be moral and upstanding citizens. The problem is that salvation and transfiguration are not a matter of morality. The publican and the prodigal were not moral people. They did all the wrong things, but yet they came to themselves, they discovered their hearts, and in so doing found the way, not just to moral goodness, but to holiness, to righteousness, and to feasting in the Father’s household. In the West, many speak about Lent as a period of struggle whose goal is for Christians to...

Baghdad (Agenzia Fides) - The Iraqi national government and the regional Kurdistan government must "allocate the necessary funds to support families that Daesh (Arabic acronym which indicates the jihadists of the Islamic State, ed) expelled from their homes and deprived their property". In addition, all "national and international forces" must "unite their intent to liberate the occupied territories as soon as possible and put in place the necessary measures to protect Christians and other Iraqis, so they all return to their homes and live in safety and with dignity". These are the appeals launched by the Extraordinary Synod of the...