Bridging the Ecclesial, the Academic, and the Political
“Church reform” has always been a taboo in the Orthodox Church; it has a negative connotation in some traditionalistic circles. Actually, there are many elements that strengthen stagnation and promote anti-reform tendencies, such as the claim of unity, stability, identity, psychological and spiritual factors, catholicity and universality, synodality, solidarity and collegiality, sameness, traditionalism, and others….
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by Matthew Namee | български | ქართული | ελληνικά | Română | Русский | Српски One of the keystone prerogatives claimed by the Ecumenical Patriarchate is its jurisdiction over the so-called “diaspora”—regions not included within the geographic boundaries of the other Autocephalous Churches. She insists that this exclusive extraterritorial jurisdiction is rooted in Canon 28…
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We Orthodox need to ask ourselves some hard questions about the episcopal ethos that has come down to us from Byzantium and was then magnified in the Russian tradition. This was an aspect of Orthodoxy that for his entire life troubled Fr. Sergius Bulgakov (1871-1944), one of the most prolific Orthodox thinkers of the 20th…
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by Very Rev. Dr. John A. Jillions Bishops are regularly in the news for exercising their authority and then either coming under fire or being praised for doing so. Over the last couple months we’ve seen volcanic reactions for and against Archbishop Elpidophoros presiding at the baptism of a gay couple’s children in Greece. When…
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Speaking about human rights in Orthodoxy, we must clearly understand why we need this discourse and how it will influence theology and religious consciousness. In my opinion, it has two primary purposes: protection of the weak and inclusion. Today, the debate about human rights increasingly affects Orthodox political theology and anthropology but does not affect…
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by Fr. Bohdan Hladio | български | Ελληνικά | Русский | Српски Much breath and ink continues to be spent castigating the Patriarchate of Constantinople for its “uncanonical” bestowal of autocephaly upon the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU). Characteristic are the words of newly-elected Patriarch Porfirije of Serbia: “The actions of Constantinople in Ukraine are…
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Public Orthodoxy is a publication of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center of Fordham University
