OPEN LETTER to the Honourable Gavin Newsom, Governor of California Open Letter to The Honourable Gavin Newsom, Governor of California from His Eminence Kyrill Archbishop of San Francisco and Western America  in light of the decree issued by the Governor of California  that forbids choral singing in churches. Your Excellency, I hereby express my protest against the recent prohibition […]

Commemorated on June 21 Troparion & Kontakion On the second Sunday after Pentecost, each local Orthodox Church commemorates all the saints, known and unknown, who have shone forth in its territory. Accordingly, the Orthodox Church in America remembers the saints of North America on this day. Saints of all times, and in every country are […]

THURSDAY, JUNE 11, 2020 Download His Eminence’s letter June 8, 2020 Beloved Faithful in Christ, Greetings and blessings to you and your families in the Name of our Great God and Savior, Jesus Christ! As we wrote in our pastoral letter for Pentecost, these holiest of days have been difficult and heartrending. We have experienced […]

Priest Dimitry Vydumkin The Ascension of the Lord. VIII-IX century. Monastery of Saint Catherine’s Monastery of the God-Trodden Mount Sinai. The event of the Ascension of the Lord is described in detail only by Luke the Evangelist. Matthew the Apostle and John the Evangelist do not mention it at all, and Mark the Evangelist describes […]

Fr. Lawrence Farley Photo: brooklyn-church.org Like many, I was more than a little surprised to see an American Orthodox archbishop of prominence suggest that inter-communion is a good idea—i.e. that an Orthodox priest should give Holy Communion to a non-Orthodox person. Admittedly he was not suggesting indiscriminate inter-communion and giving the Eucharist to anyone showing […]

Fr. Lawrence Farley The year 2020 will be remembered by Orthodox as the year without Pascha. At the beginning of the year, and even at the beginning of Great Lent, it hardly seemed possible. I remember the second Sunday of Great Lent here at St. Herman’s. We had served the Liturgy of St. Basil and […]

To the Reverend Clergy, Monastics and Faithful of the Diocese of the West: Christ is Risen! Indeed He is Risen! In the Divine Liturgy, at the apex of the Anaphora, the Gifts are raised on high by the deacon as the following prayer is said, ending with the exclamation: Remembering this saving commandment and all […]

SYOSSET, NY [OCA] Following from their Wednesday, March 11, 2020, extraordinary meeting, His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon and the members of the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America have today issued an Archpastoral letter concerning the Coronavirus, COVID-19 outbreak. The complete text appears below and is also available in PDF format. A number of dioceses […]

February 11, 2020 Archpriest John Anderson BILLINGS, MT [OCA / DOW] The Very Reverend Archpriest Dr. John Wallace Anderson fell asleep in the Lord peacefully in his sleep at his residence here, on February 11, 2020, at the age of 95.  He was soon to celebrate his 40th Anniversary to the Holy Priesthood.  Born in […]