Orthodox

, , , , ,

Historic Ukrainian church, once again, seeks help from global Orthodox leaders

, , , , ,
Historic Ukrainian church, once again, seeks help from global Orthodox leaders

Close observers of Eastern Orthodox Christianity were not surprised when the recent World Russian People's Council bluntly rejected "abortion propaganda," efforts to promote LGBTQ+ rights and this age of "sexual licentiousness and debauchery."

It wasn't surprising when that Moscow conference urged the defense of traditional families, "strong with many children," during an era when birth rates are falling.

Then there was this proclamation -- both theological and political -- about the war in Ukraine: "From a spiritual and moral point of view, the special military operation is a Holy War, in which Russia and its people, defending the single spiritual space of Holy Rus, fulfill the mission of Restrainer, protecting the world from the onslaught of globalism and the victory of the West, which has fallen into Satanism."

In response, a World Council of Churches statement noted that Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, only a year ago, stressed that his controversial "Holy War" references were about the "metaphysical realm," not to warfare in Ukraine. WCC General Secretary Jerry Pillay claimed that the Moscow patriarch agreed that armed warfare cannot be "holy."

But the most striking rejection of the "Russian World" document came from the Department for External Church Relations of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which for centuries had been linked to the Russian Orthodox Church.

"The Church should care about the proper preaching of the Gospel, which Christ commanded her to do, and not of the formation of geopolitical and geo-spiritual concepts," said its public statement. The "Russian World" text ignored the reality that "Ukraine has her own history, and Ukrainians have the right to their national identity and independence, which we are ready to keep defending. …

"Instead of providing ideological support and justification for Russia's military aggression and intervention in Ukraine, we believe that the Orthodox Church in Russia should have raised her voice against this war. … Calls for the destruction of Ukraine and the justification of a military aggression are inconsistent with the Gospel teaching."

Quoting its leader, Metropolitan Onuphry of Kyiv, the statement stressed: "We do not build any Russian world, we build God's world."

, , , , , , ,

Into year 36: When it comes to religion news, many journalists are in a class of their own

, , , , , , ,
Into year 36: When it comes to religion news, many journalists are in a class of their own

After studying relevant police reports, Americans Against Antisemitism issued a 2023 document noting the obvious -- that rising numbers of Orthodox Jews were being assaulted in New York City.

The Orthodox, especially Hasidic Jews, were victims in 94% of the 194 antisemitic assaults between 2018-2022 reported to the city's Hate Crimes Task Force. Most of these crimes occurred in Jewish neighborhoods and some were captured on video. Only two of the criminal cases led to convictions.

Assaults on Orthodox men and women "ranged from spitting, to punching, to someone being hit in the face with a brick," noted Batya Ungar-Sargon of Newsweek, in her book "Bad News." The crime wave produced few news reports until a 2019 mass shooting at a Kosher supermarket in Jersey City and a machete attack on a Hannukah party in Monsey, north of New York City.

Then came COVID-19 and Orthodox Jews, along with others in close-knit ethnic and immigrant communities, were hit hard.

"Because the national news media saw that they could cast the Jews as the villains of the virus instead of its victims, they suddenly couldn't get enough of them," wrote Ungar-Sargon, an Orthodox Jew. "Every outlet began running pieces … blaming Orthodox recalcitrance to social distancing or mask wearing for spreading the virus, not just among their own communities but to their neighbors, too."

Many of these pandemic-driven stories were valid -- but packed with errors about Orthodox beliefs and traditions. Ungar-Sargon asked: Why did journalists jump into "hyperdrive" in this case, after downplaying all those antisemitic attacks? Why do many journalists see Americans they consider "less intelligent and uneducated" as "beyond salvation, irredeemable and filled with hate"? She has continued her work in a new book, "Second Class."

In the late 1970s, researchers began asking why journalists often struggle when covering religion stories or avoid religious news altogether. I wrote my 1982 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign graduate project on this topic and some of that work was published by Quill, the magazine of the Society of Professional Journalists.

This week marks the start of my 36th year writing this "On Religion" column. I also spent 20 years leading the GetReligion.org project, which closed in February, but its archive remains online for those studying religion and the press.

, , , , , ,

Here comes Christmas 2023 -- whatever that means in a digital marketplace

, , , , , ,
Here comes Christmas 2023 -- whatever that means in a digital marketplace

There was a time, long ago, when it was easy to pinpoint the beginning and end of the "Christmas season."

In cultures linked to centuries of Christian tradition, the feast of Christmas -- the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ or Christ Mass -- was on December 25, the start of a festive 12-day season that ended with the Feast of the Epiphany. Many Eastern Orthodox churches continue to use the ancient Julian calendar, celebrating Christmas on January 7.

Then there is the "Christmas season" for the whole culture. One big change occurred on December 26, 1941, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt -- focusing on Christmas shopping -- signed a joint resolution of Congress defining Thanksgiving as the fourth Thursday in November. That established an official starting line for the dash to Christmas.

By the early 1960s, the name "Black Friday" was attached to the day after Thanksgiving, with armies of shoppers heading to downtown stores and, eventually, the shopping malls that replaced them. This brand of Christmas opened with a bang, with throngs gathering before dawn to grab "Black Friday" bargains, with police present to control the inevitable pushing and shoving.

Then came the Internet, with more changes in the size and shape of the commercial steamroller known as the "Holidays."

"It's safe to say that Black Friday has become a concept, not an event. We have ended up with Black Fridays all the way down" the calendar during November, said Jeremy Lott, managing editor for publications at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and former editor of the Real Clear Religion website.

"Basically, we're talking about Black Friday after Black Friday everywhere, world without end. Amen," he added, in a telephone interview.

It's true that millions of shoppers can flock to any "malls that are still open," he said. But in terms of large-scale holiday rites, the "liturgy of the shopping mall" has devolved into smaller rites focusing on waves of sales in strip-mall shops and "big-box" stores located nearby.

, , , , , , , ,

Have American Muslims joined the Religious Right? Some school leaders say, 'Yes'

, , , , , , , ,
Have American Muslims joined the Religious Right? Some school leaders say, 'Yes'

Faced with a throng of worried parents, Montgomery County Councilmember Kristin Mink met with a few Muslim protestors to hear their objections to the "LGBTQ+ inclusive texts" that school teachers would be using with their children.

The Maryland Democrat was not amused by what she heard.

"This issue has unfortunately put … some, not all of course, Muslim families on the same side of an issue as white supremacists and outright bigots," said Mink, in early June. "The folks I have talked with here today, I would not put in the same category as those folks, although, you know, it's … complicated."

Public-school efforts to promote equity, she added, are "not an infringement on, you know, particular religious freedoms."

This public statement stunned a coalition of Muslims, Orthodox Christians, evangelicals, Jews and others committed to a Maryland policy that allowed students to avoid some activities focusing on family life, gender change and same-sex relationships. These parents, for starters, objected to the use of books such as "Born Ready: The True Story of a Boy Named Penelope," "Rainbow Revolutionaries: Fifty LGBTQ+ People Who Made History" and "Pride Puppy!", an ABC book familiarizing preschool and kindergarten children with the sights and sounds encountered when attending Pride marches.

In the spring, Montgomery County officials limited use of the opt-out policy, while releasing a notice stating that "teachers will not send home letters to inform families when inclusive books are read in the future."

Council on American-Islamic Relations leaders -- citing documents from an open-records request -- noted that officials also encouraged teachers to "scold, debate or 'disrupt the either/or thinking' of … students who express traditional viewpoints" on gender, family life and sexuality. Also, students should be instructed not to use "hurtful," "negative" words.

, , , , ,

Familiar tragedy in Syria: The Orthodox shepherds of Aleppo are still missing

, , , , ,
Familiar tragedy in Syria: The Orthodox shepherds of Aleppo are still missing

Metropolitan Paul Yazigi had no way to know that he was about to vanish into the chaos of the Turkish-Syrian border during the violent rise of the Islamic State.

"If we want to be good children to God, then we don't thank Him only when He gives us [blessings]," he said, in one of his final sermons (translated from Arabic) before he was kidnapped on April 22, 2013.

"Also, when we are hurting, we say to Him: 'Your hand must be taking care of us, and we thank You.' …A Christian is a creature that gives thanks to God for all things one knows and doesn't know, for both the good and the hardships one faces in his life."

Sermons about faith and suffering are always timely in ancient churches.

The bishops of Aleppo, Syria -- Metropolitan Yazigi and Metropolitan Yohanna Ibrahim of the Syriac Orthodox Church -- disappeared 10 years ago while seeking the release of two kidnapped priests. Their car was surrounded by a pack of armed men, as they maneuvered through risky checkpoints near west of Aleppo. Their driver died in the gunfire, but a survivor later testified that the kidnappers were not speaking Arabic and appeared to be from Chechnya.

There were no ransom demands from the terrorists. The shepherds of Aleppo simply vanished, inspiring few headlines outside the Middle East.

The 10-year anniversary passed quietly this spring, after years of special prayers during Orthodox worship services around the world.

"I don't think anyone can assume, at this point, that they are still living. But there is a sense that we don't know enough about what happened to have a sense of closure," said Father Thomas Zain, dean of St. Nicholas Antiochian Orthodox Cathedral in Brooklyn, New York.

"It's likely that they were kidnapped in Turkish territory, which added another level of complexity to the political situation." Many have concluded that the gunmen "didn't know who they had kidnapped. When they realized what kind of mistake they had made, they may have killed them immediately and moved on."

A joint statement from the two churches marking the anniversary was especially poignant since the leader of the ancient Antiochian Orthodox patriarchate is more than Metropolitan Yazigi's "brother" bishop -- they are actually brothers from the same family.

, , , , ,

A lingering Theophany mystery: The 'holy water flowers' that refused to fade

, , , , ,
A lingering Theophany mystery: The 'holy water flowers' that refused to fade

After the Christmas season and before Lent, Orthodox priests have -- for centuries -- rushed to visit church-members' homes to bless them with prayers and splashes of holy water flung about with a foot-long brush or handfuls of basil.

Droplets of blessed water end up on beds and bookshelves, TVs and toys, potted plants and paintings, along with everything else.

"It's a chance to start over," said Father John Karcher of St. Nicholas Orthodox Church in Portland, Oregon. "We clean out the cobwebs of sin. … Then we make mistakes and muck it all up again. But we do this every year because God doesn't give up on us."

These rites flow out of the Feast of Theophany, which many Orthodox churches in America celebrate on January 6, or on January 19th for those using the ancient Julian calendar year-round. In addition to house blessings and liturgies, Orthodox clergy bless bodies of water -- rivers, lakes and oceans. In some parts of the world this requires man-sized holes cut into ice.

The feast's central message, said Karcher, is that "when Christ was baptized, he went into the waters and the waters didn't cleanse him -- it was the other way around. He blessed the waters and through them all of creation. … It's a beautiful thing. God responds to our prayers that he sanctifies the waters -- again."

In one rite, priests pray that the blessed water will provide "a fountain of incorruption, a gift of sanctification, a loosing of sins, a healing of sicknesses, a destruction of demons" so that worshippers will experience "the cleansing of souls and bodies, for the healing of sufferings, for the sanctification of homes and for every useful purpose."

The mysterious nature of these rites hit home a decade ago when Karcher led St. Innocent Orthodox Church in the Bay Area in northern California.

, , , , , , , , , ,

All those attacks on churches? Were they part of the year's top religion-beat news story?

, , , , , , , , , ,
All those attacks on churches? Were they part of the year's top religion-beat news story?

In the years before Roe v. Wade, one of America's largest Christian flocks struggled to find a way to condemn abortion, while also opposing bans on abortion.

A 1971 resolution said: "Some advocate that there be no abortion legislation, thus making the decision a purely private matter between a woman and her doctor" while others "advocate no legal abortion," permitting it "only if the life of the mother is threatened." Thus, it backed legislation allowing "abortion under such conditions as rape, incest, clear evidence of severe fetal deformity, and carefully ascertained evidence of the likelihood of damage to the emotional, mental, and physical health of the mother."

After the 1973 Roe decision, the same body stressed the "limited role of government" in abortion questions, while supporting a "full range of medical services and personal counseling" for expectant mothers.

That was the Southern Baptist Convention -- before its conservative wing gained control, creating a powerful cultural force against abortion rights.

Churches were always active in abortion debates, with some embracing centuries of doctrine on the sanctity of human life, while overs became strategic abortion-rights supporters. Thus, journalists in the Religion News Association named the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade as the year's top American religion-news story. Now churches -- left and right face -- face the challenge of proclaiming certainties while many states seek compromise.

Stressing politics, the RNA stated: "The Supreme Court overturns the 1973 Roe v. Wade precedent and says there is no constitutional right to abortion, sparking battles in courts and state legislatures and driving voters to the November polls in high numbers. More than a dozen states enact abortion bans, while voters reject constitutional abortion restrictions in conservative Kansas and Kentucky and put abortion rights in three other states' constitutions."

This poll avoided other religion-news elements of this story, such as acts of violence against churches -- especially Catholic parishes -- and crisis pregnancy centers, ranging from vandalism to arson, from the interruption of sacred rites to the destruction of sacred art. Protestors marched at the homes of SCOTUS justices and police arrested an armed man who threatened to invade the house of Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

This year, the RNA added an international list, selecting Russia's war against Ukraine as the top story, in part because of bitter tensions between the Russian Orthodox Church and the new Orthodox Church of Ukraine, backed by the United States and the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarchate in Turkey.

, , , ,

Centuries of 'Holy Rus' church history behind the bitter Orthodox schism in Ukraine

, , , ,
Centuries of 'Holy Rus' church history behind the bitter Orthodox schism in Ukraine

After the Soviet Union's collapse, Orthodox Christians throughout the Slavic world celebrated the slow, steady, construction of churches after decades of persecution.

In 2004, the poet Nina Borodai wrote a long prayer -- "Song of the Most Holy Theotokos (Greek for God-bearer)" -- seeking the prayers of St. Mary for the lands of "Holy Rus," a term with roots dating to the 988 conversion Prince Vladimir of Kiev.

"Mother of God, Mother of God / … All Holy Rus prays to you / And valleys and mountains and forests. … / Consecrate all the churches to you," wrote Borodai (computer translation from Russian). "Domes, domes in the sky are blue / I can't count the bells / The ringing floats, floats over Russia / Mother Rus is awakening."

Borodai's prayer of joy and repentance was an unlikely spark for an explosion of religious conflict inside Ukraine. Leaders of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church -- with centuries of canonical ties to Russian Orthodoxy -- face Security Service of Ukraine accusations of collusion with President Vladimir Putin of Russia. Some churches have been seized or padlocked as pressures rise for conversions to the rival Orthodox Church of Ukraine, officially born in 2019 with recognition by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Istanbul and Western governments.

In November, an OCU priest posted a video showing laypeople singing Borodai's poem after a service inside the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, the font of Slavic monasticism since its birth in 1051 in caves above the Dnieper River. Monastery critics made headlines by claiming the video proved the monks -- part of the historic UOC -- are disloyal to Ukraine. Lavra visitors, according to the New York Times, were "cheering for Russia."

Days later, security forces raided the monastery and, in the weeks since, officials have accused bishops and priests of aiding Russia. They released photos of Russian passports, theological texts in Russian and pamphlets criticizing the newly created Ukrainian church.

The UOC synod responded by pleading for fair, open trials of anyone accused, while noting: "From the first day of the invasion of Russian troops, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has condemned this war and has consistently advocated the preservation of the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine. Our believers, with God's help and the prayers of their fellow believers, courageously defend their Motherland in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. … Memory eternal to all victims of this terrible war!"

This echoed waves of UOC statements condemning the invasion.

, , , , , , , ,

When is Christmas? That depends on the person asking

, , , , , , , ,
When is Christmas? That depends on the person asking

On church calendars, parents and grandparents circle this December event with red ink.

The problem for clergy is simple: When do they schedule that special Christmas service, or that concert full of Christmas classics?

"Evangelicals, and especially Baptists, tend to be rather pragmatic about these decisions. We want the most bang for our bucks and we want as many people as possible" in the pews, said Joshua Waggener, professor of church music and worship at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.

One thing is certain: "You have to have those little kids up there singing 'Little Drummer Boy.' It's pragmatic. For most people, I don't think theology has anything to do with" the timing.

This reality affects when churches schedule special events, especially in December -- when their members wrestle with school calendars, travel, office parties, family traditions and, yes, worship services. Meanwhile, civic groups, shopping malls and mass media offer "The Holidays," a cultural tsunami that begins weeks before Thanksgiving.

In churches with centuries of liturgical traditions, the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ is Dec. 25, following the quiet season of Advent (Latin for "toward the coming"). This year, Christmas falls on Sunday and, for Catholics, Anglicans and others, the Christmas Eve Midnight Mass is one of the year's most popular rites. This opens a festive season that continues through Jan. 6, the Feast of the Epiphany. Many Eastern Orthodox Christians follow the ancient Julian calendar and celebrate Christmas on Jan. 7, after Nativity Lent.

In the United States, some kind of Christmas Eve service remains the big draw, according to almost half (48%) of Protestant pastors contacted in a new study by Lifeway Research. The frequency of high-attendance church events builds until Christmas Eve, then declines sharply.

In this survey, mainline Protestant clergy (60%) were more likely than evangelicals (44%) to say Christmas Eve rites drew the most people, with Lutherans (84%) being the most likely to worship on Christmas Eve. In general, evangelical pastors (30%) said their high-attendance events came during the third week of December (30%).

Some churches fared better than others with events earlier in December.