The Shepherd, September 2008
HAVE MERCY on us, who are at fault before Thee greatly
at every hour, O my Christ;
and before the end, grant means
that we may repent before Thee.
From the Hymns of Ascent
NEWS SECTION
GEORGIA
NO ORTHODOX SOUL can fail to be deeply distressed by the recent hostilities in Georgia, and it is not our place to enter into any discussion of the rights and wrongs of the various parties in the conflict. However, an Interfax release from Moscow on 19th August reported the miraculous protection of the All-Holy Virgin in caring for the afflicted people there. It read “Many residents of Tskhinvali saw the Holy Virgin during the most violent battles, Bishop Georgy (Pukhate) [The Synod in Resistance’s Bishop George of Alania - ed.] [said], … “She was seen in long garments. She mournfully passed along the streets. She was seen in the evening and at night in places of most violent and cruel battles. Militiamen realized, the Holy Virgin didn’t leave the city to save it from total destruction. She came to help us,”’ Bishop Georgy said in his interview published on Tuesday … He confessed that when some residents told him that they had seen the Holy Virgin on the first war days, he ‘yielded to a temptation’ and decided that people ‘were hallucinating from fear and horror.’ “but when many residents and policemen from various parts of the city described the same phenomenon, it couldn’t be a hallucination,’ Bishop Georgy said.”
JERUSALEM PATRIARCHATE COMMUNITIES TRANSFERRED TO THE ŒCUMENICAL PATRIARCH
THE GREEK ORTHODOX ARCHDIOCESE OF AMERICA issued a statement on 6th August: “After a long process that began in 1993 related to the ecclesiastical status of a portion of the Palestinian and Jordanian communities in the USA, the portion connected to the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, there has been a final agreed decision by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Patriarchate of Jerusalem concerning these communities. The Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Jerusalem Patriarchate have agreed that the canonical and pastoral supervision of these communities and their clergy should belong to the canonically established jurisdiction in the United States which is the Eparchy of the Ecumenical Throne in America, that is, the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. Henceforth, the Patriarchate of Jerusalem no longer asserts any jurisdiction in the Western Hemisphere. On Tuesday, April 1, 2008, His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew received His Beatitude Patriarch Theophilos III of Jerusalem, together with the senior member of the Holy Synod of the Jerusalem Patriarchate, Metropolitan Vasilios of Caesaria (Palestine) and other clergy. Final details for the implementation of the agreements were completed, with a mutual decision that these communities come under the canonical jurisdiction of the Archdiocese of America. Following the meeting at the Phanar, His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios of America was directed to proceed with the implementation of the agreements by the creation of a Vicariate for the inclusion of the clergy and communities within the Archdiocese of America.…” Of course, many Orthodox Christians in America would dispute that the Eparchy of the Œcumenical Throne is the canonically established jurisdiction in the United States.
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