News
Byzcath.org News provides news focusing on the Christian East from varous sources and offers links to other sites dedicated to providing the news about the Church.
Churches and organizations that provide news about the Eastern Churches are invited to submit their news stories to us for publication here (use the contact page for submission)..
Materials from the Vatican Information Service, Zenit, CWNews.com and other sources are published here with permission of their owners but may not be republished further without the permission of their original publishers. Please visit these sites to obtain additional general news about the Church. In addition to these sources EWTN News also provides a good general news summary.
Photo: Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I embrace.
- Details
Press Release from Eastern Christian Publications
Eastern Christian Publications is pleased to announce a new email subscription service from Eastern Christian Publications for Daily Vespers according to the Byzantine Ruthenian Typicon. Like the BDO Hours subscription service that we have been delivering for a few years, Daily Vespers will include three versions each day (except Saturdays and Feast Days):
1: Clergy: The full text of Daily Vespers with all litanies, blessings and all changeable parts; the Prayers of Light are provided as a separate Appendix file
2: Reader Service: Daily Vespers for the laity in the world with common texts and all changeable parts
3: Propers: The changeable parts of Daily Vespers including stichera, theotokia, prokeimena and apostichera
- Details
The new year of formation for the six seminarians at St. Josaphat Ukrainian Catholic Seminary in Washington, D.C. began on Friday, August 25. Classes for the seminarians at The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C. commenced on Monday, August 28.
Pictured above in Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Ukrainian Catholic Church, Centralia, Pa. during the August 27 A Call to Prayer Marian Pilgrimage are (l. to r.) Andrew Perrong, Philadelphia Archeparchy; Philip Gilbert, ,Chicago Eparchy; Subdeacon Alex Bricki, Philadelphia Archeparchy; Very Rev. Robert J. Hitchens, seminary rector; Metropolitan-Archbishop Stefan Soroka; Very Rev. Wasyl Kharuk, spiritual director; Martin Nagy, Chicago Eparchy; Kairo Chorne, Philadelphia Archeparchy; Bohdan Vasyliv, Philadelphia Archeparchy.
Rev. John M. Fields
Communications Office
Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia
- Details
Jerusalem (Agenzia Fides) - According to the Patriarchs and Heads of the Churches of Jerusalem, "a systematic attempt to undermine the integrity of the Holy City" and "to weaken the Christian
presence in the Holy City" is in progress. This project clearly manifests itself in the "recent violations of the Status Quo" of the Holy Sites, and also a bill signed by about forty members of the Israeli Parliament, "limiting the rights of the Churches on our properties". The Heads of the Churches are resolute and united in their opposition to "any action" by "any authority or group" that undermines those "laws, agreements, and regulations that have ordered our life for centuries".
The document, published yesterday by the official channels of the Churches, is signed by thirteen heads of Churches and Christian communities present in Jerusalem. The list of signatories is opened by Teophilos III, Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, and also includes Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa, apostolic Administrator of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, and Father Francesco Patton OFM, Custos of the Holy Land.
What triggered the Christian Churches’ concerns regarding the Status quo that regulates coexistence between religious communities in the Old City of Jerusalem was the ruling with which the Israeli Court, at the beginning of August, after a long controversy, rejected the legal initiatives with which the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem had attempted to recognize the acquisition of some of its properties by the Jewish organization Ateret Cohanim, which took place in 2004, as "illegal" and "unauthorized". There have been further actions that are a clear breach of the Status Quo. The judgement in the “Jaffa Gate” case against the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, which heads of Churches regard as unjust, as well as a proposed bill in the Knesset
which is politically motivated.
Read more at fides.org.
- Details
In St Yura Cathedral, on September 3, 2017 during the Hierarchical Divine Liturgy led by the Father and Head of the UGCC His Beatitude Sviatoslav, took place the solemn episcopal ordination of Bishop Andriy (Rabiy), Auxiliary Bishop for Philadelphia Archeparchy.
Lviv (ugcc.org.ua) - First of all the Apostolic Nuncio in Ukraine, Archbishop Claudio (Gugerotti), read a bull from the Holy Father Francis, where the Pope proclaims the father Andriy Rabiy the Auxiliary Bishop of Philadelphia, assigned him the Titular See of Germaniciana (US), granting all the rights and imposing obligations, which are connected with the dignity of a Bishop and authority according to the norms of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches.
During his homily to the faithful the Father and Head of the UGCC His Beatitude Sviatoslav noted we became participants and witnesses of a special event. «We saw," said the Primate of the UGCC, "how the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit care about our Church. Because of His deep mysterious will our Lord planted a vineyard of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in the whole world..."
The preacher reminded that last week in Kyiv and Lviv we celebrated the 50-th anniversary of the World Congress of Ukrainians. "I saw our Ukrainians from various corners of the globe: from Southern Africa, Japan, China, from those countries, where we even cannot imagine that our Church is present through our faithful sons and daughters. Today we became participants of the episcopal ordination of the new Bishop, whom the Father sends in order to care for our Church in the US," noted the Head of the Church.
Today we are asking ourselves, says the hierarch, what it means. What gospel, what good news the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church is telling from Ukraine – its maternal territory - for its sons and daughters in the whole world? "First of all – it's that the Lord and we, as his servants, care about our faithful in this whole world. Let us ask ourselves today, in what relation is this servant or us, as Bishops or priests, with the Master of God's vineyard? We are not its owners, not its hired workers. Then who are we? Who is this Bishop, whom the Lord presented before our eyes today? He is a participant in the ministry of the very Son of God, Jesus Christ. He was given today by Jesus Christ, in the power and action of the Holy Spirit, the fullness of His eternal priesthood," believes His Beatitude Sviatoslav.
"Dear Bishop Andriy," addressed the new Bishop the Head of the Church, "we said today that Jesus Christ Himself, as the Son of God, became a vineyard, in His Person combined two natures, divine and human. We solemnly confessed this in "The Creed" before today's ordination. We can say that in your personality the Lord our God combines two realia of our Church — Ukrainian and American. You are a son of this land, a son of prince's city of Lviv, but the Lord called you for the ministry in another country, in another culture, in another dimension of the social, cultural and church life. But those two realia you combined in your personality. That is why today we feel the holiday of strength and unity of our Church."
In the Head's of the Church opinion, it doesn't matter where the children of Ukraine are living today, in Ukraine or in this settlements. This is one and the same God's vineyard, which the Lord our God planted, whom He protects and whom He cares about in an extraordinarily merciful fatherly way.
Finally His Beatitude Sviatoslav thanked the parents of the Bishop Andriy for such a wonderful son.
The UGCC Department for Information
- Details
risu.org.org - On Sunday, September 3, the Synod of Bishops of the UGCC will solemnly begin. These days, the hierarchs of the UGCC from all over the world will come to Ukraine. The main theme of the Synod will be the “Prayer”. The Synod will last for ten days.
This was announced by the Head of the UGCC His Beatitude Sviatoslav on August 27 at the end of the Bishops' Divine Liturgy at the Patriarchal Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ.
“The main request we are willing to express at this Synod is the words of the apostles to Jesus Christ: “Lord, Teacher, teach us to pray”" We also seek to ask you and yourself about how we pray, whether we are able to pray, or whether prayer is the breath of our souls? I ask you to pray for this Synod! We need so that the Synod was not a matter of a group of bishops. For it is a universal church event, a great event of the whole Church,” called the head of the church has called on the believers.
According to His Beatitude Sviatoslav, at the beginning of the Synod, next Sunday, a new bishop born in Lviv will be ordained in Lviv, who is appointed as a bishop of the Philadelphia Archdiocese of the UGCC in the United States.
“Therefore, we ask you to remember the new bishop of our Church, bishop-nominee Andriy, in your prayers,” Head of the Church said. It was reported by the Department of Information of the UGCC.
As reported, on August 8, 2017, the Holy Father blessed the decision of the Synod of Bishops of the UGCC to appoint Father Andriy Rabia, the protosynclael of the Philadelphia Archdiocese of the UGCC in the United States, the Assistant Bishop of this archdiocese, giving him the titular seat of Germaniciana.
- Details
vatican.va - The following is the Message sent by the Holy Father Francis on the occasion of the opening of the 25th International Ecumenical Conference on Orthodox Spirituality, organised by the Monastic Community of Bose in collaboration with the Orthodox Churches (6-9 September 2017, Monastery of Bose):
Message of the Holy Father
To Brother Enzo Bianchi
Monastery of Bose
On the occasion of the opening of the 25th International Ecumenical Conference of Orthodox Spirituality, I wish to address to you, organisers and participants, my cordial greeting. In particular, I would like to convey a warm embrace of peace to His Holiness the Ecumenical Patriarch, dearest Brother Bartholomew, and to His Beatitude Theodoros, Patriarch of Alexandria: your important presence honours the twenty-five years of the Conference that the Monastery of Bose organises in collaboration with the Orthodox Churches and confirms its contribution to the common path towards full unity.
This year’s theme, “the gift of hospitality”, is evocative and timely. It is true that hospitality is a gift, a gift we have first received: we are guests in a world created for us and which must be protected, but we are also transient here, strangers on earth, because we are guests invited and awaited in heaven, where we have our citizenship (cf. Phil. 3: 20).
In the meantime, as itinerant disciples, we are called to focus on what does not wane, on the charity that will never end (cf. Cor. 13: 8), to accept each other as gifts from the Lord, to promote mutual care and affection, to “have compassion, to take part in the pain of those who suffer, to consider as one’s own ill the misfortunes of others” (N. Cabasilas, The Life in Christ, VI, 8). I hope that this calling is rekindled by the humble and sincere listening and reflections of these days, so fraternal sentiments may grow, and an authentic “hospitality of the heart” mature, so as we journey in pilgrimage together towards the Kingdom, we are inspired to take more courageous and concrete steps towards full communion.
With these sentiments I invoke upon you and upon the works of the Conference the abundance of the gifts of the Spirit, while asking you to keep a place for me in your prayers.
From the Vatican, 18 August 2017.
- Press Release from the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, 04.09.2017
- Vatican and Moscow are closing up as they are afraid of Europe's Islamization
- ASIA/HOLY LAND - The Heads of the Churches of Jerusalem: assault on the "Status Quo" in order to weaken the Christian presence in the Holy Land
- Hundreds Journey to an abandoned Pennsylvania coal town for A Call to Prayer Marian Pilgrimage on the Holy Mountain