Constantinople

Istanbul moves towards Islamic nationalism as Hagia Sophia is redesignated a Mosque [Video]

The Duran - 2020-07-11 - Original post - Cached copy

Russia Today and the BBC both report that the Hagia Sophia (The Church of Holy Wisdom), the single largest Church in Byzantium, is to be repurposed as a mosque. This move ends 86 years of the building serving a “neutral purpose” as a museum, where neither Muslim nor Christian was allowed to pray in open sight. This move is understandably tragic for Orthodox Christians, particularly the Greeks, but there are several ways to understand this situation.

Orthodox priest reveals core problem with COVID-19 measures – Part I

The Duran - 2020-06-13 - Original post - Cached copy

An Orthodox Christian priest wrote an anonymous letter trying to justify how secular expediency aids sacred faith with regards to COVID-19, with the best and most reasoned approach we have yet seen. Nevertheless, his well-intentioned letter stumbles on Christ’s Gospel, because it tries to incorporate secular knowledge as beneficial when it is not. We will attempt to explain how this is so.

A plot all along? Unrest in Ukraine’s Church caused by Bartholomew’s conniving

The Duran - 2019-05-28 - Original post - Cached copy

A recent newspiece on OrthoChristian.com, the representative news site of the Moscow Patriarchate, reported that “Patriarch” Philaret Denisenko, the decades-long leader of the “Kyiv Patriarchate” of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, refused to sign a document pledging fealty to the statutes of the newly formed “Church” structure presently known as the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU).

Canonical Ukrainian Church issues an update on the crisis

The Duran - 2019-04-06 - Original post - Cached copy

More than five months after the decision of the Ecumenical Patriarchate to grant legitimacy and then autocephaly to two schismatic groups in Ukraine, the situation is mostly unchanged. The new church structure, known now as the “Orthodox Church in / of Ukraine” is reportedly continuing its efforts to forcefully seize control of parish communities and churches all over Ukraine.

Constantinople: Ukrainian Church leader is now uncanonical

The Duran - 2018-12-07 - Original post - Cached copy

The pressure in Ukraine kept ratcheting up over the last few days, with a big revelation today that Patriarch Bartholomew now considers Metropolitan Onuphy “uncanonical.” This news was published on 6 December by a hierarch of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (running under the Moscow Patriarchate).
This assessment marks a complete 180-degree turn by the leader of the Orthodox Patriarchate of Constantinople, and it further embitters the split that has developed to quite a major row between this church’s leadership and the Moscow Patriarchate.

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