— By Archbishop Job of Telmessos
On 1st June, the Ecumenical Patriarchate has lost a prominent hierarch, gifted with a sense of ethics and trained by high education. On that day, the Ecumenical Movement mourned the loss of a devoted ecumenist who will be greatly missed. On that day, Metropolitan Gennadios of Sassima fell peacefully asleep in the Lord after having fought illness over several months.
— By Archbishop Job of Telmessos
Following a tradition well established since 1983, an Inter-Orthodox Pre-Assembly Consultation was organized this month in Cyprus by the World Council of Churches in view of its 11th assembly to be held at the beginning of September in Karlsruhe, Germany, under the theme “Christ’s love moves the world to reconciliation and unity”. The purpose of such consultations is to prepare delegates for the theme of the assembly and the issues that will be discussed. This meeting should normally have taken place two years ago, but unfortunately it had to be postponed several times due to the pandemic.
— By Archbishop Job of Telmessos
The annual celebration of Holy Week and Easter makes it possible to relive the events linked to the mystery of our salvation, not only as a memorial, but also as their actualization. For all that Christ accomplished was done “for our salvation”. Furthermore, the key to reading that Christ himself gave us in the parable of the last judgment – that what we did to one of the least of his brothers, we did it to him (cf. Mt 25:40) – allows us to contemplate in each human being an icon of Christ and to consider the actions done to our fellow brothers as being accomplished to Christ. And having this in mind, in the context of the tragedy that the world is currently experiencing, the words of Christ before his Passion resonate with even more relevance: “For all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword” (Mt 26:52)…
— By Archbishop Job of Telmessos
“God is only the God of peace, he is not the God of war, and those who support violence profane his name” said Pope Francis on 13 March. If the Pope of Rome had to raise his voice, it was to respond to his “brother”, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, with whom he had commonly declared in Havana in 2016: “We exhort all Christians and all believers of God to [...] not permit a new world war. In order to ensure a solid and enduring peace, specific efforts must be undertaken to rediscover the common values uniting us, based on the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ”. Recently, Patriarch Kirill has been constantly trying to justify the “special military operation” in Ukraine by speaking of a “metaphysical war” in order to “remain faithful to the word of God” and “not to succumb to the temptations” of the “apparent freedom” of “world power”. These comments shocked many who consider that the Patriarch of Moscow has thus lost all moral and religious credibility. Indeed, these words are unacceptable in the mouth of a pastor of the Church and a preacher of the Gospel. They constitute not only a disgrace for the Holy Church of Russia and for Orthodoxy as a whole, but also for all Christendom because they are contrary to the spirit of the Gospel of Christ.
By Archbishop Job of Telmessos
It was November 2013. I was attending a meeting at the Kyiv Caves Lavra, the largest and oldest monastery in Ukraine. Suddenly, a wave of public demonstrations began in the city, later known as the Euromaidan, sparked by the decision of the president of Ukraine at that time, Viktor Yanukovych, to suspend the signing of the European Union–Ukraine Association Agreement. Yanukovych has been since then stigmatized as a “pro-Russian” politician. However, several European diplomats have assured me that Yanukovych had done more than anybody else for the European integration of Ukraine. What has caused the turnaround of his mind in November 2013? Diplomats have then informed me that the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, had then threatened to invade Crimea. To save this region of Ukraine that he loved so much, Yanukovych made the decision to sacrifice the integration of Ukraine to Europe, a decision that would lead to the 2014 Ukrainian revolution, the Revolution of Dignity, and that would bring him down.
— By Archbishop Job of Telmessos
As Christians are celebrating worldwide the Nativity of Christ, only two gospels, that of Matthew and Luke, evoke his birth in Bethlehem. The gospel of Mark does not mention it and begins directly with the public mission of Christ, with his baptism in the Jordan. The Gospel of John, for its part, more spiritual and theological, formulates the birth of Christ with this meaningful one sentence: “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14), adding further: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (Jn. 3:16).
By Archbishop Job of Telmessos
As the World Council of Churches progresses in its preparation for its 11th Assembly to be held in Karlsruhe, Germany in early September 2022, the theme of racism is once again the subject of new reflection. This theme is not new in the Council theme, since the 5th Nairobi Assembly in 1975 had prophetically affirmed that “racism is a sin”.
This 22 October 2021 marked the 30th anniversary of the election of Patriarch Bartholomew to the Apostolic and Patriarchal Ecumenical Throne of Constantinople. By his election he was entrusted not only with the ministry, as primate, of maintaining the ecclesial unity within his local Church, the Ecumenical Patriarchate, but also the ministry of ensuring pan-Orthodox unity, the Ecumenical Patriarchate being historically the first see of the Orthodox Church. Indeed, as a renowned Orthodox theologian of the 20th century, Father Alexander Schmemann, once said: “universal unity demands a universal center, a universal First Hierarch. And who, if not he, shall take upon himself the care of this unity, the testimony of this unity, the initiative for healing diseases? The Orthodox Church has always had such a center, and still has it in the see of Constantinople.”
“Christ’s love moves the world to reconciliation and unity” is the theme chosen by the World Council of Churches for its 11th Assembly which ought to be held in Karlsruhe, Germany this year, but which will take place, God willing, from 31 August to 8 September 2022 due to the pandemic of COVID-19.
The Orthodox Church has been a pioneer in addressing the environmental crisis since 1986. If she did so, it was definitely not out of political correctness or for demagogic reasons, but on the basis of deep theological convictions: as we read in the first book of the Bible, in Genesis, the world has been created good by God (Gen 1), and man has been established as its guardian (Gen 2:15).
The Metropolitan of Pergamon, John Zizioulas, recounts that the involvement of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in the protection of the creation started by reading an article by Lynn White, entitled “The Historical Roots of our Ecologic Crisis” published in 1967 in the journal Science. This article already asserted that the roots of the ecological crisis were theological. According to White, Christian theology was largely responsible for the ecological crisis because of the divine command of the book of Genesis: “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subjugate it; and rule over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every animal that moves on the earth” (Gen 1:28). Although this article primarily criticized Western Christianity, the Orthodox Church could not remain indifferent to the ecological crisis but had to be self-critical in asking whether Orthodox theology was responsible or not for the ecological crisis, and if it was the case, how to help in finding a solution.
In response to the Lynn White article, Orthodox theology underlines that man is not the processor of the earth, but its steward (oikonomos) and its guardian. Orthodox theology rejects the abuse of natural resources as a misinterpretation of God’s command to rule the world (Gen 1:28) in which White saw the cause of the contemporary environmental crisis.
By Archbishop Job of Telmessos
It is not uncommon these days, especially in times of crisis and epidermal reactions, to hear, both among some Christians, either Orthodox or of other confessions, that “ecumenism is a heresy that needs to be condemned”. Some even pretend that ecumenism has developed an “ecclesiological modernization” by maintaining that “heterodox” are within the “boundaries” of the Church and “recognizing” their baptism as valid. Such protagonists often justify their statements by quoting the words of some new saints or elders who saw ecumenism as a threat, sometimes designating it as one of the “devil’s tentacles to capture the whole world”.
Christianity is the religion of incarnation. One of the fundamental points of Christian theology is that the Word of God “became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (Jn 1:14). Therefore, from a Christian perspective, religion is neither an escape from the body nor an evasion from the world. Although Christians await the coming of the Kingdom of God in fulness, they should never forget that it has been already inaugurated among us. For this reason, Christians ought not to be disinterested in public life, but on the contrary, should be engaged in public issues.
The pandemic we are going through is an opportunity for us to become aware of the various crises that affect us and to think deeply about their causes. If we reflect carefully and take a critical look at the speeches we hear and the writings we read, we will be able to observe the changes, or even the drifts, of certain theological statements, of which we must be critical and into which we must not sink.
The year 2025 will mark the 1700th anniversary of the first ecumenical council, the council of Nicaea (325), which initiated a new chapter in the history of Christianity. On this occasion, the World Council of Churches is planning to organize a World Conference of the Faith and Order Commission in order to celebrate this anniversary and to reflect on the transmission of the apostolic faith today. The purpose of this conference will not be to study the history of the council nor to study its theology, but rather to reflect on what “visible unity” means today to different Christian Churches and how Christians can collectively promote, preach and live the apostolic faith today in the context of so many contemporary challenges, such as secularization and religious pluralism.
Time magazine has labeled 2020 as the worst year ever in history. Many would agree with this statement and look forward to 2021, thinking that nothing could be worse from what we have experienced during last year. But will actually 2021 be a better year? It already started with the appearance of a mutating virus. If vaccination sounded like the hope for the new year, new questions already arise: will the vaccine be effective with the mutation of the virus? Will it be able to eradicate it totally from the earth? Or shall we “learn to live with the virus” forever?
As a second wave of the pandemic of the coronavirus is tragically spreading all over the world, more strict restrictions may in many countries jeopardize the celebration of Christmas in Christian Churches. In different parts of the world, some Christians have already expressed their unhappiness about it, although these sanitary measures are imposed by the civil authorities for the common good of the population.
I was educated in Canada in a materialistic world. Man had walked on the moon. Medicine had eradicated, through vaccination, most of the dangerous diseases. Science was the almighty answer to human life. In my secondary education, scientific knowledge had its superiority, and was supposed to reflect the reality of the world in which we lived. All spiritual and religious beliefs ought to be considered through the prism of science, and were often regarded with a grin, if not judged as superstition. What a surprise for my teachers and my classmates when I, who had exceled in science, chose theology as my field of studies at university! They would have expected me to become rather a physicist or a mathematician than a theologian and a clergyman! Then the AIDS virus appeared, and still science had the pretention to manage the situation, believing that through prevention and medication it could be soon eradicated, as had all its predecessors. Still today, many of our contemporaries believe in transhumanism, arguing that physical and intellectual human capacities could be increased or even transcended through technological or scientific progress.
But a year ago, the coronavirus appeared and challenged, if not humbled scientific knowledge. The scientific and medical world sought to face a new, unknown virus, and a very tricky one, and therefore, had no previous experience nor knowledge to dominate and eradicate it. The spread of the coronavirus became very quickly a pandemic, and although pharmaceutical industries are rushing to shout victory in order to impose their own vaccine as the salvation from the pandemic, the scientific and medical world is still facing many challenges and a lack of understanding facing the new virus, which leads to all sorts of contradictory statements and information in the media.
On 3 October 2020, on the eve of the feast of the Saint Francis, at the tomb of the saint in Assisi, His Holiness Pope Francis issued a very powerful and timely encyclical entitled “Fratelli tutti”, addressing the issue of universal fraternity and cooperation at the time of a disastrous pandemic, afflicting people not only by the staggering number of deaths and economic consequences, but surrounded, sadly, by the rise of racism, nationalism and religious fundamentalism. Its title repeats the words through which Saint Francis of Assisi addressed his brothers and sisters while proposing to them a way of life according to the Gospel. Pope Francis recalls that it was the visit of the saint to Egypt, where he met Sultan Malik-el-Kamil in the year 1219, during the time of the Crusades, that revealed the love of the saint for every human being, whom he considered as his brothers and sisters.
