Priest of the Haitian Mission Alive

15/01/2010

Contact has been established today with Fr Gregory Legoute, one of the two priests serving the ROCOR missions in Haiti.  Communication is still very scant and details difficult to come by.  No word has so far been received about Fr Jean-Chenier Dumais, who is the other priest serving the missions, four of which are in Port-au-Prince and the surrounding areas.  Please keep the people of Haiti in your prayers.

Further updates can be found on the website of the Fund for Assistance, where financial assistance to the Haitian ROCOR missions can be sent.  Donations towards the emergency relief effort can be made to the International Orthodox Christian Charities.

"In the Footsteps of the Forgotten English Saints" - 6th - 18th September, 2010

12/01/2010

In the Footsteps of the Forgotten English Saints is a religious pilgrimage to the shrines of the early English Saints that will also include visits to the most important historical and monastic sites of the ancient Anglo-Saxon church. Our pilgrimage offers a rare glimpse into the often misunderstood and marginalised history of the unique development of Christianity in the British Isles. During our pilgrimage we will visit many unique places, among them traditional pilgrim destinations at St Alban's, Canterbury, and Lindisfarne, the cities of London, Winchester, York and Durham, the painted churches of the southern English counties, and countless other sites and monuments scattered throughout the British provinces from the English Channel to the Scottish border. We shall be accompanied by Dr Paul Cavill, professor of Old English Literature at the University at Nottingham and author of several books on Anglo-Saxon Christianity.

The cost of this two week, largely all-inclusive religious tour is US$3000 per person, based on double occupancy in a group of 25 people. The price is subject to change based on the actual exchange rate or number of participants.

For more information, please visit www.orthodoxtours.com or contact Fr Ilya Gotlinsky.
E-mail: ortours@gmail.com
Tel: 00 607-797-1058

Nativity Epistle of His Eminence Metropolitan Hilarion

07/01/10  

Archpastors and brethren, most honourable fathers, and all Orthodox children of the Russian Diaspora, beloved in the Lord!

I congratulate you with all my heart on the all-glorious and divinely salvific feast of the Nativity of Christ and the impending New Year!

Each year the feast of the Nativity of Christ enters into our hearts with ineffable spiritual joy — the joy that came to earth when the angel of the Lord announced the birth of Christ the Savior to the simple shepherds of Bethlehem. The feast of the Nativity also fills us with radiant joy through the profound content of its divine services, which illumine our souls: the deeply edifying and divinely inspired hymnody of the Nativity and the readings taken from the prophecies.

Hieromartyr Hilarion (Troitsky) wrote thus of the miracle of the birth of the divine Infant: "The heavens proclaimed the birth of God on earth, yet this proclamation was magnificent and silent, because the stars were the heavens' mouth. This event, which the whole Christian world now celebrates, at the time passed almost completely unnoticed." And this was probably because everything that is great takes place in stillness and mystery. In the night of the Nativity, near the city of Bethlehem, in a humble cave which shepherds used for penning their flocks, was born Him Whose name has become close to millions of people in our land. For Jesus, the divine Infant, Who was born of the Virgin Mary, came to proclaim to us the glad tidings of our salvation — the Gospel of joy and light, the good news of new life." The Son of God became man so that man might become the son of God," the Holy Hieromartyr Irenaeus of Lyon wrote of Christ the Savio4r. In the divine Infant our salvation became visible. In God, Who for our sake became man, we all sense ourselves beloved and cherished in the eyes of the creator. 

Rejoicing with the angelic hosts that unceasingly glorify God in the heavens, with them we sing the wondrous hymn of the angels: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill among men!" This joy is transmitted to all men, from age to age, from generation to generation. During the difficult 20th century this joy gave to our people the strength to endure persecution at the hands of their neighbo4rs and kin, wars, invasion by foreign foes, estrangements.

And today, when things are still unsettled in the world, when we are threatened by the economic disorders to which the unrestrained striving for wealth and profits, and the abandonment of moral principles have brought us, let us not be daunted by the stormy waves of the sea of life, for we are not alone in this world. In the hymnody of the Nativity of Christ we sing: "God is with us! Understand, ye nations, and submit yourselves, for God is with us!" If with all our mind, all our heart, all our life we will strive to be with God, then no difficulty or trial will discourage us. And no one will be able to deprive us of the joy that comes to us from on high, and which the Gospel tells us no one can take from us (John. 16:22).

This past year there took place in the life of the reunited Russian Orthodox Church an event long awaited by the faithful in the homeland: the all-pure Mother of God, in her miraculous image — the Kursk-Root Icon of the Sign — visited Russia and its native precincts in the Kursk-Root Hermitage. It was a joyful thing to behold the faith and zeal of the tens of thousands of believers who came to venerate the Directress of the Russian Diaspora. One may rightly say that this event brought them together spiritually and united them. All of this gives one hope that, with God's help, in the year 2010 also the good traditions of that spiritual life of prayer, the beginnings of which were laid by the ever-memorable Patriarch Alexy and Metropolitan Laurus, will develop further and become the surety of the spiritual unity of our Holy Church.

The year 2010 will mark the 90th anniversary of the formation of the Russian Church Abroad. Thus, we would like to thank the hierarchs and pastors who carry out their tasks with diligence and zeal, the staff members of the departments of the Synod, the Church-affiliated social organisations, the parish schools, the sisterhoods, and all who help strengthen the Church throughout the Russian Diaspora, and to call upon them to work toward the fulfilment of the goals which lie before our Church in the field of spiritual, educational, and missionary service.

With "Christ is born! Glorify Him!" the Holy Church addresses us during these radiant festal days. Let us follow this summons and glorify Him in our prayers, acts, words, and thoughts.

The day of the Nativity of Christ is a feast of peace, hope, and the love of God. Let each of us strive to translate this day into deeds pleasing to God — let us give alms and help our neighbours, treat each person with goodness and love, become better and, most important, closer to God. With all my soul I wish that you will greet and celebrate the radiant feast of the Nativity of Christ in the joy of the Lord Who came into the world "for our sake and for our salvation." Let the joy of the radiant Nativity of Christ enter into each home, each family, and warm our hearts with the fervour of divine Love.

May your souls be filled with splendour and joy, like the cave of Bethlehem, where the divine Infant, the Saviour of the world, was born. May God bless our homes and families with peace, happiness, and prosperity during the coming year and all the days of our life. May the star of Bethlehem guide you on the path to salvation.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who has now been born of the Ever-virgin Mary, remain with all of you.

+Hilarion,
Metropolitan of New York and Eastern America,
First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad

Nativity Epistle of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill

07/01/10

Beloved in the Lord Archpastors, Reverend Presbyters, and Deacons, God-loving Monastics,

Dear Brothers and Sisters!

On this bright day of the great feast of the Nativity of Christ, I send my heartfelt greetings to you.

For over two thousand years, Christians throughout the world turn their thoughts with joy and hope to the event that became a turning point in the history of mankind. Our system of counting years commences from the Nativity, and is the chronology of the Christian era, which in and of itself bears witness to the unique significance of the advent of Christ the Saviour.

The cave in Bethlehem, where animals would find shelter from the cold winter nights, was a symbol of the world, which had moved away from its Creator and had come to endure the sorrow and darkness of the abandonment of God. Yet the radiant night of the Nativity illuminated not only the cave which gave shelter to the Most-Pure Virgin Mary, but all of creation, for the birth of the Son of God “lighteth every man that cometh into the world,” as Evangelist John witnesses (John 1:9).

One might ask: what does the true Light mean? We find the answer to this question in the same Gospel passage from St John. The true Light is the Lord Himself, the Divine Word, “Which was made flesh, and dwelt among us… full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

Through the Birth of the Saviour, people gained the possibility of obtaining grace and Truth (John 1:17). Grace is Divine power given by God to mankind for salvation. It is with this power that mankind defeats sin. Without grace evil cannot be defeated, nor all that which darkens our lives.

Truth is the fundamental value of existence. If the foundation of life were untruth, error, then life would not exist. Of course, the external life of a wayward person might seem fully satisfactory. But this does not mean that error is without consequence: sooner or later it will manifest itself, including the tragedy of the fates of men.

The true Light is Divine light, Divine truth. It is unchanging and eternal and does not depend upon whether we accept it or not. When man accepts Divine truth, it will determine first of all the character of his relationship with others, the ability, in the words of the Apostle, to “bear one another’s burdens” (Galatians 6:2), that is, to display solidarity with one's neighbours, to participate in their joys and sorrows. “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:35), says the Lord. Yet these eternal Divine truths, which are the only ones that are able to transform our lives, are today no longer considered ideals. They are persistently pushed out of the consciousness of contemporary mankind by the propaganda of moral irresponsibility, of egotism, consumerism, the denial that sin is the main problem facing mankind.

It is precisely the substitution of genuine values with false ones that explains the growing so-called “human factor” in tragic events that destroys lives by the hundreds. This explains the crises which on a global scale shake the foundations of economics, politics, society, of family life, inter-generational relationships, and much more.

The meaning of the celebration of the Nativity of Christ is that it draws the Saviour closer to us, it helps us see his Face more clearly, to absorb his good news. The Lord again and again is mysteriously born for us in the depths of our souls, so that we “might have life, and… might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). The event of that Bethlehem night enters contemporary life, helping us to see it in a new, sometimes uncommon and unexpected way. That which has seemed to us most important and enormous, suddenly becomes insignificant and fleeting, making way for the grandeur and beauty of eternal Divine truth.

The words of the Saviour resound with special power today: “I am with you always, even unto the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). These words give us hope, founded on firm conviction, that no matter what temptations face us in this world, the Lord will not abandon his legacy.

Over this last year, the life of our Church was marked by many important events. Gathering in Moscow, at Christ the Saviour Cathedral, the Local Council elected a successor to His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II following his repose. Strengthened by prayer and the support of the episcopacy, clergy and multitudinous flock, with trust in the will of God, I accepted the lot of the Patriarchal service that fell to me. While performing divine services in Moscow, in other Russian dioceses, and also in Ukraine and Azerbaijan, I experienced the joy of prayerful communion with our pious Orthodox people, with the young and the old, with people of middle age and with children. Everywhere I saw the bright faces of people expressing their profound faith. This for me has become the greatest spiritual experience and a visible witness of the unity of Holy Russia, which through the faith of its multi-national people overcomes social, material, generational, ethnic, and other boundaries, preserving within the conditions of today’s political realities their spiritual unity.

This unity is strengthened by a unified Church, in which, through Divine grace, all that is temporary and fleeting is overcome. Here, before the gaze of mankind, stands the true greatness of enduring values. This is why Divine truth must serve as the main point of orientation for all human endeavour, development and progress.

It is joyous to see how many more of our contemporaries are beginning to return to their spiritual wellsprings, to value their religious and cultural tradition. And today, the celebration of this feast is shared by those believers who are firmly rooted in Orthodoxy, but those, too, who are only on the path to recovering the salvific faith, and maybe are entering the doors of the church for the first time, their hearts responding to the call of the Gospel.

I prayerfully wish you, Most Reverend Bishops, Reverend Fathers, dear brothers and sisters, abundant mercies from the God-Child Christ born in Bethlehem, that by the grace of God your joys would multiply, your ailments would heal and sorrows be consoled. May the light of the star of Bethlehem be a beacon for each one of us, and may the Lord bless the labours in the harvest-fields of establishing the life of the Church, the state in which we live, and our societies, and may we all be granted unwavering presence in the Truth of the Gospel. 

+ KIRILL, PATRIARCH OF MOSCOW AND ALL RUSSIA
Nativity of Christ 2009/2010
Moscow