Free Republic

Last summer, Turkish authorities transformed Hagia Sophia ("Holy Wisdom") — which was originally built, and for a millennium functioned, as one of Christendom's greatest cathedrals — into a mosque (again). On that Friday, July 24, 2020 (which for millions of Eastern Christians is now deemed a "day of mourning"), Muslims met inside the desecrated church, where they were led in prayer by a sword-waving imam, to spasmodic cries of "Allahu akbar." The Turks, beginning with their president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, have been presenting this bit of cultural appropriation as their "right." Imam Ali Erbas, Turkey's president of religious affairs, has...

My Archbishop (Alexander Golitzin) shares the story of a young man whom he taught some years ago. He was Orthodox from Estonia. He grew up in the Soviet era and had come to hate all things Russian, including the Orthodox Church. Nevertheless, he saw an Orthodox procession in the streets of his city one year, a procession that included the Russian bishop (whom he also hated and believed to be a KGB agent). However, he saw the bishop surrounded by light. It was an experience that led him into the Orthodox faith. You might hate the man, and the Church...

My newsfeed must be set for “shock.” Never does a day go by that there is no something outlandishly alarming featured as a story, somewhere, illustrating the insane march of modern culture. Much of me would like to think that the problem is in the newsfeed and not in the culture itself. However, on a basis that is frequent enough to be alarming in itself, I find something in my daily experience that confirms the insanity in my newsfeed. I can only conclude that the world is getting stranger by the day. I recently saw a story that proclaimed God...

The topics of heaven, hell, purgatory, hades, life-after-death, the judgment, etc., are not among my favorites. There is a particular reason for this: everybody thinks they know more about this than they do and most people assume the Church says more about this than it does. Much of the problem, I think, lies in the fact that we torture the faith into geographical shapes, when it belongs in relational dynamics. That is to say, we think that describing heaven and hell (and other such terms) along with the rules for how they work (as places) somehow states something important and...

In the past five or six years, I have known several people who have left Reformed Christianity for Eastern Orthodoxy. Their reasons for making that decision varied. Some were mesmerized by the beauty of the Divine Liturgy. Others found Eastern Orthodoxy (hereafter EO) to offer a greater appreciation for mystery and religious experience than what they had known as a Protestant. All of them, however, were attracted by and eventually convinced of EO’s claim to be the original church founded by Christ. While I do not agree with their decision, I sympathize with their desire to be part of the...

Your word I have hidden in my heart, That I might not sin against You! (Ps. 119:11) Years ago, I heard a statement from an American monk: “The contemplative need go no further than his own heart to find the source of all violence in the world.” It struck me as true then and has only seemed more so as the years have passed. At the time (not long after the Vietnam War) this monastic was remarking on the many young people whom they had visiting his monastery who were “so deeply angry about peace.” The statement echoed an experience...

WASHINGTON — Fifty-seven Orthodox Christian clergymen and lay leaders, including the heads of two leading Orthodox seminaries in the U.S., have issued a public statement calling on church leaders to defend Orthodox teaching on the creation and calling of man as male and female by opposing the appointment of deaconesses in the Orthodox Church. The statement comes in response to a public statement issued in October by nine Orthodox liturgical scholars in the U.S. and Greece, expressing support for the Patriarchate of Alexandria’s November 2016 decision to “restore” the ancient order of deaconesses and its February 2017 appointment of deaconesses...

The Orthodox Church in the United States has problems. One of the problems the Orthodox Church currently suffers in this country is a lack of converts. There are other problems as well: overlapping jurisdictions, lack of communication across jurisdictional lines, and a tendency to isolate ourselves from communities in which we live. But it is our lack of converts that strikes me as particularly troubling. Doubtlessly, some will correct me and remind me that the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese of America and the Orthodox Church in America are made up largely of converts. While this is certainly the case, it may...

Family members of Dr. Walter Martin, founder of the Christian Research Institute, are calling on current CRI president Hank Hanegraaff to step down due to his conversion from evangelicalism to Eastern Orthodoxy. A majority of the family members have signed a statement asking the "Bible Answer Man" to leave his leadership post. Jill Martin Rische, the eldest daughter of Dr. Martin and who leads Walter Martin Ministries alongside her husband, Kevin Rische, told The Christian Post in a phone interview on Thursday that she and many other evangelical Christians were "shocked an surprised" when Hanegraaff was formally received into the...

Evangelical Apologist Hank Hanegraaff Converts to Eastern Orthodoxy Posted by: Rob Bowman On Palm Sunday, April 9, 2017, Hank Hanegraaff formally joined the Orthodox Church. Since 1989 Hanegraaff has been the President of the Christian Research Institute (CRI) and (since ca. 1992) the host of CRI’s Bible Answer Man radio program.[1] Hank, his wife Kathy, and two of their twelve children were inducted by a sacramental rite called chrismation into the Orthodox faith at St. Nektarios Greek Orthodox Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, near where CRI is based. In chrismation, a baptized individual is anointed with oil in order to...

The European Union Parliament is pressuring the Turkish Government to restore Saint Sophia Cathedral from a museum into a Greek Orthodox Church. However the Parliament has set a requirement of 1.000.000 signatures on a petition before it makes this conversation a prerequisite for Turkey's admission into the European Union. You are requested to cast your vote by logging on to the link above. This is an opportunity for each of you to have an impact on world events. Get as many Greek Orthodox, other Orthodox and Christian friends of yours to sign the petition and make history.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is visiting the monastic community of Mount Athos in Greece, one of Orthodox Christianity's holiest sites. He is the first Russian leader to visit the male-only community, on a narrow, rocky peninsula east of Thessaloniki, Russian television reported. The trip is part of Mr Putin's two-day visit to Greece. Ahead of talks with Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, Mr Putin described Greece as a serious partner. He said the two countries held similar positions on issues such as Cyprus and the Balkans, and that it was important to press ahead with energy projects such as a planned...

This an excerpt is from Against False Union by Dr. Alexander Kalomiros (Seattle, WA: St. Nectarios Press, 1990 [1967]), pp. 53-55 as posted on www.orthodoxinfo.com /small> XXVIII. ECCLESIOLOGY The commotion about union of the churches makes evident the ignorance existing as much among the circles of the simple faithful as among the theologians as to what the Church is. They understand the catholicity of the Church as a legal cohesion, as an interdependence regulated by some code. For them the Church is an organization with laws and regulations like the organizations of nations. Bishops, like civil servants, are distinguished as...