Orthodox Beacon is going to take a break in posting for a while. During our hiatus, we recommend that our readers visit www.aoiusa.org/blog/ to find the latest news and opinions about events in American Orthodoxy.

[SOUTH CANAAN, PA | OCA]  —  Some of the countless treasures of Saint Tikhon’s Monastery here, including relics of Saints Silouan, Raphael, John Maximovitch, Barbara, Tikhon of Moscow (with his panagia), Innocent Veniaminov (with his handwritten Gospel Book), Alexis Toth, and Nikolai of Zicha and a relic of the True and Precious Life-Giving Cross will visit the Denver area June 4 through 6, 2010.

Igumen Sergius, Abbot of Saint Tikhon’s Monastery, and a member of the Monastery Brotherhood will be present at the celebration of the Divine Liturgy and Vespers in the following places, at which the faithful will be anointed and prayers for healing will be offered.

Saturday morning, June 5  —  Divine Liturgy at Archangel Michael Greek Orthodox Church, Colorado Springs, CO.

Saturday evening, June 5  —  Vespers at Saint Herman Church [OCA], Littleton, CO.

Sunday morning, June 6  —  Divine Liturgy at Saint Antiochian Orthodox Church, Arvada, CO.

Please contact local parish schedules for exact service times.

Source: www.oca.org/news/2172

A new teaching programme for adults on the Orthodox faith called ‘THE WAY’ is set to invigorate the outreach of the Orthodox Church in majority Orthodox countries such as Romania and amongst Orthodox diaspora in countries like the United Kingdom.

Created by the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies (IOCS) in Cambridge, England, this 12 session course will soon be made available through a CD box-set, containing a CD entitled ‘How to Run THE WAY’ with four DVDs of the original speakers, funded by World Vision.

An application of the teaching methods of the Alpha Course to the needs of the Orthodox community, ‘THE WAY’ aims to communicate the Orthodox faith and explain the Bible to adults using an informal, relaxed approach, much as the ‘Youth Bible Curriculum’ (YBC*) aims to communicate with children in an age-appropriate and culturally relevant way, according to Danut Manastireanu, World Vision’s Director for Faith & Development in the Middle East, Eastern Europe & Central Asia region (MEER).

‘THE WAY responds to a huge need for teaching adults in both majority Orthodox countries and amongst Orthodox diaspora because the catechetical function of the Orthodox Church was almost completely destroyed by the communist regimes in the region’, Manastireanu explained.

‘As well, the demise of religious instruction and church life went hand-in-hand with a loss of hope, leaving a spiritual vacuum that Christian communities across Eastern Europe want to see restored. YBC and ‘THE WAY’ aim to respond to this appeal for change’, he added.

World Vision sees both programmes as important components of its wider community development work, which aims to strengthen and empower societies and a new generation of children to carve out healthier and more fulfilled families.

The Romanian Orthodox Patriarch has already approved the use of the ‘THE WAY’ in Romania and its translation and adaption are underway. Other Orthodox Churches in Eastern Europe are set to follow suit, in agreement with the IOCS in Cambridge.

Priests and lay leaders trained to deliver the curriculum for youth, also supported by World Vision, will be encouraged to deliver ‘THE WAY’ to adults in their community — a connection that will be field tested for the first time later in the year during the national YBC Congress in Romania.

‘THE WAY’ centres primarily on the beliefs of the Orthodox faith and on Christian living, which includes acts of service and caring for the poor and creation. By supporting the Orthodox Church as an ‘agent of change’, World Vision envisages a partnership that can also address child-related issues such as protecting children’s rights, peacebuilding, care of the earth and HIV and AIDS.

For more information about THE WAY, visit: www.iocs.cam.ac.uk/courses/courses_way.html

Source: www.alertnet.org/thenews/fromthefield/wvmeero/45bd380a915569cd05c865f554a65a8b.htm

[ANNISTON, AL | OCA] –- His Beatitude, Metropolitan Jonah, addressed attendees at the Brotherhood of Saint Moses the Black’s Annual Conference at Saint Luke Mission here recently.

The annual gathering explores the rich treasures of ancient African Orthodox Christianity and the experience of today’s African Americans who are discovering their heritage and home in the Orthodox Church.
In addition to delivering the keynote address, Metropolitan Jonah celebrated the Hierarchical Divine Liturgy with nearly 200 faithful in attendance, after which he presented the Brotherhood’s founder and president, Priest Moses Berry of Ash Grove, MO, with a gold pectoral cross.

Metropolitan Jonah delivers keynote address at St. Moses the Black national conference “This was the first time in the Brotherhood’s history that a conference has taken place in the Diocese of the South,” said Priest Basil Henry of Saint Luke’s, who added that the mission community had just moved into its newly renovated temple in early May. With clergy of several jurisdictions participating, “the conference was a radiant experience of grass-roots Orthodox unity in America.”

Source: www.oca.org/news/2170

[WASHINGTON, DC | OCA]  —  Saint Nicholas Cathedral here invites all Orthodox parishes in the US to add the names, ranks, and photographs of their US military veterans to the newly established Orthodox Veterans Memorial Webpage, an expression of the cathedral’s ongoing commitment to pray for departed Orthodox Christians.

“Our chaplains serve Orthodox of all jurisdictions and as such our War Memorial will honor all Orthodox whose names have been submitted to be honored,” wrote his Beatitude, Metropolitan Jonah, in a letter to the faithful and friends of the cathedral. “We must never forget their sacrifice and those who came before who have, as Abraham Lincoln so eloquently stated in his Gettysburg Address, ‘given their last full measure of devotion.’”

Read full article at: www.oca.org/news/2173

Dear to God,

Christ is in our midst! By the grace of God we have completed our First Episcopal Assembly, chaired by His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North America and attended by 57 of the 65 Hierarchs of North and Central America. He is truly a gracious, loving and patient man and certainly a gift to our Church in North America. May God grant him good health and many years!

Recommendations were made to separate Mexico and Central America from our Episcopal Assembly as their needs linguistically and culturally are quite different. Hopefully, Mexico and Central America will be absorbed into the Episcopal Assembly of South America. Likewise the Bishops of Canada asked to form their own Episcopal Assembly and both requests will be forwarded to the Ecumenical Patriarch per the procedures out-lined in the Chambésy Documents.

The agencies of SCOBA were received by the new assembly which considers itself the successor of SCOBA. Monthly updates to a data base will assist in identifying Canonical Bishops, Priests, Deacons and Parishes. Joint Committees have been identified to ad-dress the common needs of the Orthodox Church here in the United States which will assist us in uniform articulation, discipline and expression of the One Orthodox Faith.

When building a new house, the most difficult aspect can be assessing the soil and digging deep down to find the bedrock upon which to lay a strong foundation. His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios commented that when one looks at a beautiful building, one rarely considers the effort that went into creating a sufficient foundation for the building. By the grace of God we hope we have begun to lay an unyielding foundation upon which to bring the living stones, the faithful in Christ from our various jurisdictions, for the building up of a beautiful Church in North America to the Glory of God. May the All-Holy Spirit direct and guide our Hierarchs as they seek to do Lord’s will.

Your unworthy father in Christ,

+ Mark, Bishop of Toledo and the Diocese of the Midwest

Source: www.antiochian.org/node/23095

(Interfax) — Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople thinks it necessary to advance convening of the All-Orthodox Council with the participation of all local Orthodox Churches.

“We decided to facilitate the process of convening the holy and great Council of all Orthodox Churches,” Patriarch Bartholomew said in an interview to Vesti 24 TV which was recorded Sunday in the Constantinovsky Palace in Strelna near St. Petersburg.

He referred to the Council as one of the major objectives for the Constantinople Church and stated that the Council and its outcomes would “have the greatest impact on the entire Orthodox world.”

According to him, the event’s agenda “has been already set up and is well-known to the Orthodox community,” it covers ten major points, including the principles of autocephaly and autonomy of the Orthodox Churches, challenges of fasting, and a set of issues related to diptych (the order of mentioning Churches during service - IF.)

“Our Orthodox Church continuously seeks to keep up with the times avoiding to give up anything of its teaching, but at the same time, respond to the spirit of the time helping believers to stand up to the current real world,” Patriarch Bartholomew said.

The preliminary work to convene the Council was started as far back as 1960s. The All-Orthodox Council is preceded with the meetings of All-Orthodox Pre-Council Conference and Inter-Orthodox Preparatory Commission. The Council shall decide the problems which have been accumulating within several centuries, from the time of the last 7th Ecumenical Council, which should be addressed by the entire Church.

www.interfax-religion.com/print.php?act=news&id=7320

[SOUTH CANAAN, PA | OCA] — His Beatitude, Metropolitan Jonah, President of Saint Tikhon’s Seminary here, presided at the school’s 68th annual Commencement Exercises on Saturday, May 29, 2010.

Over thirty graduate from St. Tikhon’s Seminary More than 30 degrees were conferred on a graduating class that included many newly ordained priests and deacons representing numerous dioceses across four jurisdictions.

Of the degrees awarded, the most notable was that of the degree of Doctor of Divinity, Honoris Causa, bestowed on His Grace, Bishop Joseph of Los Angeles and the West of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America by the Faculty and Seminary Board of Trustees of St Tikhon’s. In delivering the commencement address, Bishop Joseph exhorted the class with profound words concerning the pursuit of true theology as that which is rooted in a life of prayer.

Also addressing the graduates were His Grace, Bishop Tikhon of Philadelphia and Eastern Pennsylvania, seminary Rector, and His Grace, Bishop Michael of New York and New Jersey, the seminary’s Dean.

The Commencement Exercises were followed by the celebration of the Resurrectional Vigil in the Monastery Church of Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk.

Source: www.oca.org/news/2171

(Irkutsk, Interfax) — Pastor Igor Zyryanov from the Irkutsk Region, after 18 years of working at Protestant meetings and two years of pastoral missionary work, converted to Orthodoxy together with his family and community.

“It wasn’t easy for us, but now and in the future we will further study and follow the Lord on the Orthodox thousand-year path. But the most important is that now we enjoy plenitude as I was searching for 18 years and couldn’t find, was drinking but couldn’t quench my thirst, was eating but couldn’t satisfy hunger,”

Zyryanov writes in his article “The Lord Took Me Home” published at the Irkutsk Diocese website.

According to him, members of his community until this moment,

“were floating on the river of Protestantism and suddenly our horizon broadened and the infinite ocean of Orthodoxy has opened for us.”

After finishing school, Zyryanov practiced as an extrasensory expert and opened his own cabinet. Since the 1990s he started visiting meetings of the Blagaya Vest Protestant Church as he first thought to attract new clients. The future Orthodox believer considered Christ “a great extrasensory expert.”

Read more: Renowned Protestant Pastor Converts His Community to Orthodoxy : Journey To Orthodoxy | The Orthodox Christian ‘Welcome Home’ Network

goo.gl/C4TK

Official communique from the recent Episcopal Assembly. Truly historic events!

We glorify the name of the Triune God for gathering us at this first Episcopal Assembly of this region in New York City on May 26-28, 2010 in response to the decisions of the Fourth Pre-Conciliar Pan-Orthodox Conference held at the Orthodox Center of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Chambésy, Switzerland, from June 6-12, 2009, at the invitation of His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew.

Gathered together in the joy of the Feast of Pentecost, we humbly recognize our calling, in our unworthiness, to serve as instruments and disciples of the Paraclete, who “holds together the whole institution of the Church” (Hymn of Vespers of Pentecost).

We honor and express gratitude to the Primates and Representatives of the Orthodox Autocephalous Churches who assembled at the Ecumenical Patriarchate from October 10-12, 2008 to affirm their “unswerving position and obligation to safeguard the unity of the Orthodox Church” (Chambésy Rules of Operation, Article 5.1a) and emphasized their will and “desire for the swift healing of every canonical anomaly that has arisen from historical circumstances and pastoral requirements” (Message of the Primates 13.1-2)

We call to mind those who envisioned this unity in this region and strove to transcend the canonical irregularities resulting for many reasons, including geographically overlapping jurisdictions. For, just as the Lord in the Divine Eucharist is “broken and distributed, but not divided” (Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom), so also His Body comprises many members, while constituting His One Church.

We are grateful for the gift of the doctrinal and liturgical unity that we already share, and we are inspired by our leaders, the Heads of all the Orthodox Churches throughout the world, who proposed that which we painfully yearn for in this region, i.e., the “swift healing of every canonical anomaly” (Message of the Primates 13.2). We are also grateful that they established a fundamental process toward a canonical direction and resolution.

We are thankful to almighty God for the growth of Orthodoxy, for the preservation of our traditions, and for the influence of our communities in this region. This is indeed a miracle and a mystery.

During our gathering, and in accordance with the rules of operation of Episcopal Assemblies promulgated by the Fourth Pan-Orthodox Pre-Conciliar Conference, we established:

1. A registry of canonical bishops (Article 6.1)

2. A committee to determine the canonical status of local communities in the region that have no reference to the Most Holy Autocephalous Churches (Article 6.2)

3. A registry of canonical clergy (Article 6.3)

4. Committees to undertake the work of the Assembly, among others including liturgical, pastoral, financial, educational, ecumenical, and legal issues (Articles 11 and 12)

5. A committee to plan for the organization of the Orthodox of the region on a canonical basis (Article 5.1).

In addition to the above, we agreed that a directory would be created and maintained by the Assembly of all canonical congregations in our region.

We as Episcopal Assembly understand ourselves as being the successors of the Standing Conference of Canonical Orthodox Bishops in the Americas (SCOBA), assuming its agencies, dialogues, and other ministries.

Moreover, at the formal request of the Hierarchs who have jurisdiction in Canada, the Assembly will submit to the Ecumenical Patriarch, in accordance with the rules of operation (Article 13), a request to partition the present region of North and Central America into two distinct regions of the United States and Canada. Additionally, at the request of the Hierarchs who have jurisdiction in Mexico and Central America, the Assembly will likewise request to merge Mexico and Central America with the Assembly of South America.

As Orthodox Hierarchs in this blessed region, we express our resolve to adhere to and adopt the regulations proposed by the Pan-Orthodox Conferences and approved by the Autocephalous Orthodox Churches, and to do everything in our power by the grace of God to advance actions that facilitate canonical order in our region.

We confess our fidelity to the Apostolic Orthodox faith and pledge to promote “common action to address the pastoral needs of Orthodox living in our region” (Chambésy, Decision 2c). We call upon our clergy and faithful to join us in these efforts “to safeguard and contribute to the unity of the Orthodox Church of the region in its theological, ecclesiological, canonical, spiritual, philanthropic, educational and missionary obligations” (Article 5.1) as we eagerly anticipate the Holy and Great Council.

The Assembly concluded with the celebration of the Divine Liturgy on Friday, May 28, 2010 at the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Archdiocesan Cathedral in New York City. During the Liturgy prayers were offered for the repose of the eleven victims of the current ecological disaster in the Gulf Coast, for the consolation of their families, for all those adversely affected by this catastrophe, as well as for all people living under conditions of war, persecution, violence, and oppression.

Of the sixty-six Hierarchs in the region, the following 55 were present at this Assembly:

Archbishop Demetrios, Chairman
Metropolitan Philip, Vice Chairman
Archbishop Justinian, Vice Chairman
Bishop Basil, Secretary
Archbishop Antony,Treasurer
Metropolitan Iakovos
Metropolitan Constantine
Metropolitan Athenagoras
Metropolitan Methodios
Metropolitan Isaiah
Metropolitan Nicholas
Metropolitan Alexios
Metropolitan Nikitas
Metropolitan Nicholas
Metropolitan Gerasimos
Metropolitan Evangelos
Metropolitan Paisios
Archbishop Yurij
Bishop Christopher
Bishop Vikentios
Bishop Savas
Bishop Andonios
Bishop Ilia
Bishop Ilarion
Bishop Andriy
Bishop Demetrios
Bishop Daniel
Bishop Antoun
Bishop Joseph
Bishop Thomas
Bishop Mark
Bishop Alexander
Metropolitan Hilarion
Bishop Iov
Bishop Gabriel
Bishop Peter
Bishop Theodosius
Bishop George
Bishop Ieronim
Metropolitan Christopher
Bishop Maxim
Archbishop Nicolae
Bishop Ioan Casian
Metropolitan Joseph
Metropolitan Jonah
Archbishop Nathaniel
Archbishop Seraphim
Bishop Nikon
Bishop Tikhon
Bishop Benjamin
Bishop Melchisedek
Bishop Irineu
Bishop Irinee
Bishop Michael