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updated 12/23/2011 "Remember not O Lord, the sins of my youth" (Psalms 25:7)

Ecumenical Patriarch Welcomes Vice President Biden to the Phanar

Dec 3, 2011
More photos are available at patriarchate.org


His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew welcomed the Hon. Joseph Biden, Vice President of the United States to the Sacred See of St. Andrew, First-called of the Apostles. The historical first visit of a sitting Vice President of the United States took place on Saturday, December 3, 2011, at the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul, Turkey, and lasted approximately two hours.

Vice President Biden was greeted at the entrance to the Patriarchal compound by His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios of America, together with the Chancellor, the Chief Secretary of the Holy and Sacred Synod, and the Patriarchal Court.

His All-Holiness met with the Vice President in his personal office for a private conversation. Among the issues discussed were religious freedom in Turkey, the reopening of the Theological School of Halki, Turkey's accession to the European Union, and the ecological initiatives of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

Afterward, the Vice President was introduced to members of the Holy and Sacred Synod, clergy and laity of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, as well as prominent members of the Greek Orthodox community in Turkey and abroad, including Archons of the Order of St. Andrew in the United States. Finally, Vice President Biden was guided through the Patriarchal Church of St. George.

From the Office of the Chief Secretary

 


Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill: protect Mideast Christians!

Dec 2, 2011 15:43 EST reuters.com

  (A priest kisses the hand of Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill (2nd L) during a welcoming religious service at Saint George Orthodox Cathedral in Beirut, November 14, 2011. REUTERS/Jamal Saidi)

The Russian Orthodox Church has warned that rising violence against Christian minorities in the Middle East could force them out of the region and urged international cooperation to protect them and their rights. Patriarch Kirill told a Moscow conference the region’s Christians had become “hostages of big politics” and the prospect of them being completely driven from the region was “quite realistic”, Interfax news agency reported on Friday.

“One of the most symbolic tendencies of our time is the mass exodus of Christians from the Middle East and North Africa, caused by an unprecedented increase in violence against religious minorities in the region,” he said.

Kirill called for “a viable mechanism to protect the rights of Christians and Christian communities” with the cooperation of the United Nations and representatives of the region’s faiths.

The rise of radical Islamist attacks on Christians, first in Iraq and now in Egypt after dictators there were overthrown, has alarmed religious minorities across the Middle East and prompted support efforts from Christian churches abroad.

The Russian Church, the largest in Orthodox Christianity, has become increasingly active in world religious issues and its bishops took up the defence of Middle Eastern Christians in a statement in May on growing cases of “Christianophobia”. Christians make up about 5 percent of the Middle Eastern population, down from 20 percent a century ago because of a continuing exodus from the region. A large majority of them belong to local Orthodox churches.


Russians flock to see Virgin Mary relic

MOSCOW (AP) — Braving freezing cold temperatures and ice-covered sidewalks, tens of thousands of Russians stood in line Wednesday to see and kiss a newly arrived relic of the Virgin Mary in Russia's largest Orthodox cathedral.

The Virgin Mary's Cincture, a belt that Christians believe was worn by Jesus' mother, was brought to Russia last month from Mount Athos, a monastic community in Greece.

Kissing the relic, which is encased in an ornamental box, is believed to help barren women conceive and heal other ailments.

The line of people, mostly women, waiting to enter the golden-domed Christ the Savior Cathedral stretched for 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) along the Moscow River despite temperatures that dropped to below minus 5 Celsius (23 Fahrenheit).

Police officers announced through bullhorns that it will take worshippers 24 hours to get to the relic as the line swelled to tens of thousands.

Hundreds of buses brought pilgrims from other Russian cities. Some 150 buses were parked along the embankment with their engines running so the faithful could get warm as they waited. The city provided free tea and food and put up portable toilets.

Some 1,500 police officers were deployed to prevent people from cutting in line.

Traffic in central Moscow has been snarled since the relic first went on display Saturday. By Wednesday afternoon, as many as 300,000 people had seen the relic, which will remain on display through Sunday.

The St. Andrew's Foundation, which brought the relic to Russia, said it was viewed by 2 million people in 14 other cities before arriving in Moscow.

The Russian Orthodox Church withered under eight decades of Soviet rule, but has enjoyed a resurgence over the past two decades. Russians adopted Christianity in 989 from Byzantine Greeks, and the Russian Orthodox Church has maintained close ties with Greek clergy and monasteries.


 

Bishop Savas of Troas Elected Metropolitan of Pittsburgh

Nov 3, 2011

NEW YORK – The Holy and Sacred Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople elected today His Grace Bishop Savas of Troas as the Metropolitan of Pittsburgh to succeed Metropolitan Maximos, who retired on September 1, 2011.

The Metropolitan-elect was chosen for the see of the Metropolis of Pittsburgh from a list of three candidates whose names were submitted to the Holy and Sacred Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate by the Holy Eparchial Synod of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America.

The newly-elected Metropolitan Savas is a native of Gary, Indiana, the second of six children of Skevos and Stamatia (Georgiades) Zembillas of Kalymnian and Cypriot ancestry. He is a graduate of Andrean High School, Gary, Indiana (1975), Colby College, Waterville, Maine (1979, BA in Philosophy and English Literature) and Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Brookline, Massachusetts (1984, M.Div. with highest honors). He served as the pastoral assistant at Holy Trinity/St. Nicholas in Cincinnati, Ohio from 1985-87 before resuming his academic studies at Oxford University, England, from 1987 until 1994, under the supervision of then Bishop Kallistos (Ware) of Diokleia, researching texts and persons of spiritual significance for the history of early Byzantine monasticism.

He was ordained to the Holy Diaconate on November 21, 1992, and on January 8, 1995, to the Holy Priesthood, on both occasions by the then Bishop Iakovos of Chicago, at his home parish of Sts. Constantine and Helen Cathedral in Merrillville, Indiana. During a two-year interim between ordinations, he served as Deacon to Bishop Kallistos of Diokleia. Upon his return to the United States, in September 1995, he was appointed as Proistamenos of the Greek Orthodox Church of the Annunciation in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He was elevated to the rank of Archimandrite on November 12, 1996, by the then Bishop Maximos of Pittsburgh. In September 1997, His Eminence Archbishop Spyridon of America assigned Archimandrite Savas to the Greek Orthodox Church of St. Demetrios in Merrick, Long Island.

In December 1999, the newly-enthroned Archbishop Demetrios of America, appointed his former student Savas Chancellor of the Archdiocese, a position he held for ten years.

On December 11, 2001, he was elected an Auxiliary Bishop to Archbishop Demetrios by the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, and given the title “Bishop of Troas.”

Bishop Savas served as the Chancellor of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America until 2009, when he was named Director of the Archdiocesan Office of Church, Society and Culture.