Neophyte’s burial is scheduled for Saturday and the funeral rites will be led by Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the spiritual leader of Eastern Orthodox Churches worldwide, and Bulgarian clergy.
Neophyte’s burial is scheduled for Saturday and the funeral rites will be led by Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the spiritual leader of Eastern Orthodox Churches worldwide, and Bulgarian clergy.
Backlash from the Orthodox Church of Greece against a landmark law allowing same-sex civil marriage intensified Tuesday, with a regional bishopric imposing a religious ban on two local lawmakers who backed the reform.
Greece’s Independence Day on March 25 and Greek Orthodox Easter on May 3 will serve as a barometer of the Church’s response to legislation passed by Parliament institutionalizing same sex marriage.
Amid the backlash from some clerics over Parliament’s recent ratification of a bill legalizing same-sex marriage, Archbishop Ieronymos ordered an ecclesiastical inquiry on Tuesday concerning the archimandrite of the Holy Archdiocese of Athens, Father Seraphim Dimitriou, over his recent behavior toward a socialist MP.
The status of Orthodox Christians around the world will improve in the relatively near future due to a recent profound expansion of the efforts of the Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
Greece has become the first majority-Orthodox Christian nation to legalize same-sex marriage under civil law. At least for the near future, it will almost certainly be the only one.
Archbishop Ieronymos, the leader of the Orthodox Church of Greece, supposedly took a relatively soft stance on the issue of same-sex marriage.
The Catholic community in Mytilene on the island of Lesvos commemorated Saint Valentine in the “Frankoklisia” – the Catholic Church of the Dormition of the Virgin in the central market of the city.
The government’s plans to legislate for marriage equality “circumvents fundamental principles of human existence,” the 20 monasteries that make up the monastic community of Mount Athos have announced.
Turkish authorities are reportedly moving ahead with the conversion of another Byzantine Greek Orthodox church into a mosque.
Ahead of the government’s submission of a bill on same-sex marriage to Parliament, the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece sent a letter to 300 MPs reiterating its opposition, stressing the damage it will wreak on the institution of the family and children.
The legal adviser to the Hierarchy of the Greek Church is reportedly drafting a letter that will be sent to lawmakers regarding the legal ramifications of same-sex marriage and, according to well-informed sources, it will be completed after the relevant government bill is made public.
The recent unanimous rejection by the influential Greek Church’s governing Holy Synod of government plans to legalize same-sex marriage is perceived as a success for Archbishop Ieronymos in navigating the perennial antagonism between the more modernizing and conservative, at times obscurantist, factions within the Hierarchy.
The Greek Orthodox Church would agree to baptize children of same-sex couples, if they so desire, Archbishop Ieronymos, the leader of the influential Orthodox Church of Greece, said on Thursday.
The Ecumenical Patriarchate expressed its opposition to the proposed bill on same-sex marriage in an official statement on Wednesday.
Archbishop Elpidophoros of America has dismissed reports suggesting a lukewarm reception during his recent visit to the Mount Athos monastic community on Greece’s Halkidiki peninsula.