Return to Mosque

Early this month Turkey’s Council of State began its review of a request to return Hagia Sophia to use as a mosque. Yesterday the Council approved the change. 

This is not the first change in its use; it originally was a church, then a mosque before becoming a museum for the last 86 years. Concerns from different quarters—including Eastern Orthodox Patriarch and the Russian Orthodox Patriarch—and “grief and dismay” from the World Council of Churches have been registered.

Vatican News recently posted the change. However, the Orthodox Times considered “unjustified silence of the Holy See and personally of Pope Francis [to be] causes [for] concern and sadness in the Christian world.”

Turkish President Recep Erdogan decrees that #HagiaSophia will become a mosque once again, leading Orthodox leaders to express regret.https://t.co/VSPJvNvZf4

— Vatican News (@VaticanNews) July 11, 2020

Situation Poses Questions

Eucharistic famine: one description of the pandemic keeping people from eucharistic celebrations. The burden is particularly hard for Christians for whom eucharistic liturgy “is the most gracious legacy of [Christ’s] new covenant. On the night he was delivered up to be crucified he left us this gift as a pledge of his abiding presence.” Because liturgy is ritual behaviour its repeated experience shapes hearts and minds to count on it. What does “counting on it” mean? Only to have it?

Does not counting on eucharist mean relying on it to sustain one to embody Christ’s self-sacrificial way in and for the world? During the ease of sharing eucharistic communion do Christians run the risk of missing the ways in which Christ is present to us and with us? Orthodox Fr. Alexis Vinogradov reflected about “communion beyond the eucharist in pandemic time.” Directed to ministers of the eucharist, his reflection affects all the baptized.

“But is communion limited to the Eucharist? And is not the purpose of the Eucharist itself to reveal the very essence and goal of all of life as communion?” https://t.co/bOnhtzJtjw

— Aristotle Papanikolaou (@atpapanik) April 22, 2020

Χριστός Ανέστη!

The Greek Orthodox Easter Hymn

Sung the world over in several languages. This Greek version was sung clearly.

Christós anésti ek nekrón,

Christ is risen from the dead

thanáto thánaton patísas,

Trampling death by dying,

ké tís en tís mnímasi,

And on those in the tombs

zoín charisámenos!

Bestowing life!

Holy Saturday Among Orthodox Churches

The Easter Vigil has been celebrated in other parts of the Orthodox world. It will be celebrated in North America later tonight. Aristotle Papanikolaou tweeted about divine suffering and the Corona virus pandemic.

“Public Orthodoxy” is a publication of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center of Fordham University.

“Christ bestows his life at the price of his death on the Cross; but this death, or any disease leading to death, such as the coronavirus, does not have the final word.”https://t.co/w3sFSGsI8j

— Aristotle Papanikolaou (@atpapanik) April 18, 2020

Annual Visit

The Solemnity of the Apostles Peter and Paul is the occasion for the Patriarch of Constantinople to visit or send a delegation to visit the Bishop of Rome. The former leads the See of St. Andrew, “the first one to be called” and the latter the See of St. Peter, “the first one among the Apostles.”

Patriarch Bartholomew visited Rome earlier this year to attend the installation of Pope Francis. That may have been the first time a Patriarch of Constantinople attended that event since 1054, when the churches of East and West separated.

Until that time unity persisted despite differences between East and West. The restoration of unity is the goal of the annual meeting on the Solemnity of the Apostles Peter and Paul. They were united and very different. Unity is possible.

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Wiki-image of icon of Ss. Peter and Paul public domain in the U.S.

History of a Union

Once a year news stories are devoted to “Orthodox Christmas.” The stories include a photo or two, mention the different date and, usually, the Julian calendar. On any day little space is given to the history of Orthodoxy in the U.S. A brief essay, focusing on people instead of dates and posted at CNEWA, is a great introduction to the complex origin of the Orthodox Church in America: from “Orthodoxy arrives” to “a new Church.”

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Wiki-image by Andrew Gould of Holy Ascension church used by CC BY-SA 2.0.