“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends”
--American Civil Rights Activist, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Amber Nicole Thurman, a Black mother in Georgia, died in August of 2022, after doctors at Piedmont Henry Hospital in the Atlanta suburb of Stockbridge refused her a routine procedure known as a dilation and curettage, or D&C, following incomplete chemical abortion. Thurman’s young son now finds himself with neither mother nor father.
In the weeks following the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, we witnessed an outpouring of criticism, indignation, sorrow, and even hatred directed at the scene, which was intended, according to many observers, to parody the Last Supper, or rather, Da Vinci's famous painting of it. Episcopal conferences from around the world expressed their views on the matter. There were endless debates (ranging from polite to aggressive) regarding whether this scene represented the Last Supper or rather the banquet of the Olympian gods around Dionysus.
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, has been applied in human societies since ancient times. In modern times, following the Second World War, during which the phenomenon showed, not unexpectedly, a dramatic increase, the gradual abolition of the practice is considered by many as one of the greatest triumphs of the human rights movement. However, this triumph is still unfinished, as there is no global consensus, and the controversy continues to this day. It is a fact that even in those countries where the practice has been long abolished, its popular support remains high.
The position of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) in justifying the Russian war in Ukraine, especially the statements delivered by Patriarch Kirill, has caused a sharp reaction in Estonia. Estonia is a neighbor of Russia and until 1918 the territory of Estonia was part of the Russian empire. It is the smallest of the three Baltic republics (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia), situated on the East coast of the Baltic Sea. Estonia established its independence as a sovereign state in 1918. Because of historical reasons – the Republic of Estonia was occupied by the Soviet Union from 1940 to 1941 and again from 1944 to 1991 – there is a large Russian-speaking Orthodox minority living in the country.
Let’s consider the example of “the parody of the Last Supper.” It’s not a parody of the Last Supper at all, but a parody of paintings that interpret the Last Supper, paintings that are just as far removed from what might have really happened, but also, possibly, represent a reinterpretation of Dionysian myths (let’s not forget that the Judeo-Christian tradition itself found inspiration in the mythology of other cultures).
“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends”
--American Civil Rights Activist, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Amber Nicole Thurman, a Black mother in Georgia, died in August of 2022, after doctors at Piedmont Henry Hospital in the Atlanta suburb of Stockbridge refused her a routine procedure known as a dilation and curettage, or D&C, following incomplete chemical abortion. Thurman’s young son now finds himself with neither mother nor father.
In the weeks following the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, we witnessed an outpouring of criticism, indignation, sorrow, and even hatred directed at the scene, which was intended, according to many observers, to parody the Last Supper, or rather, Da Vinci's famous painting of it. Episcopal conferences from around the world expressed their views on the matter. There were endless debates (ranging from polite to aggressive) regarding whether this scene represented the Last Supper or rather the banquet of the Olympian gods around Dionysus.
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, has been applied in human societies since ancient times. In modern times, following the Second World War, during which the phenomenon showed, not unexpectedly, a dramatic increase, the gradual abolition of the practice is considered by many as one of the greatest triumphs of the human rights movement. However, this triumph is still unfinished, as there is no global consensus, and the controversy continues to this day. It is a fact that even in those countries where the practice has been long abolished, its popular support remains high.
The position of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) in justifying the Russian war in Ukraine, especially the statements delivered by Patriarch Kirill, has caused a sharp reaction in Estonia. Estonia is a neighbor of Russia and until 1918 the territory of Estonia was part of the Russian empire. It is the smallest of the three Baltic republics (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia), situated on the East coast of the Baltic Sea. Estonia established its independence as a sovereign state in 1918. Because of historical reasons – the Republic of Estonia was occupied by the Soviet Union from 1940 to 1941 and again from 1944 to 1991 – there is a large Russian-speaking Orthodox minority living in the country.
Let’s consider the example of “the parody of the Last Supper.” It’s not a parody of the Last Supper at all, but a parody of paintings that interpret the Last Supper, paintings that are just as far removed from what might have really happened, but also, possibly, represent a reinterpretation of Dionysian myths (let’s not forget that the Judeo-Christian tradition itself found inspiration in the mythology of other cultures).
One of the important stages in the formation of the Russian quasi-religious neo-fascist doctrine of the "Russian World", intended to become the official state and religious ideology of Putin's Russia, took place on 27 March 2024. On this day a little-noticed but significant event took place in the Church Councils Hall of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. Under the chairmanship of Patriarch of Moscow Kirill (Gundyaev) the "Edict of the XXV World Russian People's Council", titled "The Present and Future of the Russian World," was officially approved. As stated in the preamble of this document, it "is a program document of the World Russian People's Council, as well as an order addressed to the legislative and executive authorities of Russia"
January 18, 2024, afternoon. I receive a call from my wife: “Did you hear the news? Fr. Ivan Moody had passed away.” “Ivan Moody, dead? Could it be a mistake?” Hope in such situations always trumps the tragic news, even just for a moment. The news is soon confirmed. The Orthodox world, Serbian Orthodox Church, musicians, composers, and musicologists, have lost a truly remarkable person, a man of great stature.
There is constant tension between the principles of equality and hierarchy in the continuing debate within Orthodoxy concerning the ordination of women to clerical rank. Advocates of the ordination of women stress the ontological equality of men and women as a strong argument supporting the ordination of women to the diaconate and the priesthood, while opponents of women’s ordination argue that there exists a natural hierarchy between the sexes which bars women from ordination.
In early November, at the Maliotis Center at Hellenic College/Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, the St. Phoebe Center for the Deaconess held a symposium as part of the celebrations of its ten years of existence. The well-attended conference included presentations by several seminary faculty and other Orthodox theologians as well as a Greek Orthodox metropolitan bishop, and discussed a number of topics related to women’s ministries in the church: the historical diaconate, notions of ritual impurity, contemporary female chanters here in the U.S., consecrated deaconesses in some African Orthodox churches, pastoral issues where an ordained women’s ministry would benefit the church, logical fallacies in some arguments opposing the female diaconate, and the possibility of and strategies for reviving the female diaconate within the Eastern Orthodox Church.
We were two of the one hundred or so participants at last weekend’s symposium on “Deaconesses for the Orthodox Church Today,” held at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Boston (Nov 10-12, 2023). The conference was celebrating the tenth anniversary of the St Phoebe Center for the Deaconess. By rough observation it looked like about three quarters of attendees were women, but there were men, including a few priests and deacons, and notably a bishop—Metropolitan Nathanael of Chicago (GOA)—and they came from various Orthodox jurisdictions in Canada and the United States. The conference had the blessing of Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople and Archbishop Elpidophoros (GOA), both of whom sent substantial greetings of support for this effort.
On August 4th, 2003, Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom) of Sourozh fell asleep in the Lord. With his passing, the Orthodox Church lost one of its most prophetic and insightful pastors, and today, twenty years later, in the midst of the existential crisis of global Orthodoxy, his absence is felt more acutely than ever. To mark this anniversary, we would like to offer our readers an essay from our Issue #4 by Inga Leonova “The Problem of Fear.”
On May 15th, 2023, Russian-language media reported that President Putin had returned Andrei Rublev’s “Trinity” icon, currently housed in the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, and the silver ark that used to contain the relics of St. Alexander Nevsky, housed in The Hermitage, to the Russian Orthodox Church. (A brief press release in English can be found here.) Moscow Patriarchate announced that the greatest and most famous of all Russian icons will stay in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior for a year before being permanently moved to its previous home in Trinity-Sergius Lavra. Art historians and restorers are saying that this decision means the death penalty for the extremely fragile fifteenth-century icon which has suffered damage after the three-day “visit” to the Lavra in July of 2022. According to the uniform expert consensus, the fragile state of the priceless artifact does not permit any relocation outside of the stable conditions of the museum. Museum experts have been fighting the Moscow Patriarchate’s attempts to repossess the icon for the last few decades.
“It is the Orthodox teaching that there are no sacraments and no ecclesial reality outside Eastern Orthodoxy’s canonical bounds.” We have all likely heard this before, a confidant assertion of what is and is not “the” Orthodox view, based on nothing but shallow polemics and a complete ignorance of the complex theological dialogue which informs the work of Orthodoxy’s hierarchs and best theologians. Worse still, we all likely know of a personality, or group of personalities, who create a community and identity around themselves, parasitic upon the Church, and creating the kind of Orthodox identity completely bound up with such an individual or group, its politics, its polemical approach to theology, and its opposition to our hierarchs and theologians regarding ecumenism.
The Russian Church - along with Russia itself - has come to believe so deeply in its mission that the geopolitical interests of the state have been equated in the minds of its leaders with the work of salvation. The price for this is to be paid by others. In 2022, Russia will bill the people of Ukraine.
On February 2nd, on the Feast of the Meeting, John Zizioulas, one of the most eminent contemporary Orthodox theologians and clergymen, fell asleep in the Lord. He inspired a couple of generations of Orthodox scholars, priests and lay people, to approach the faith and the Church in a fresh, creative way.
War, like all organized murder, is in itself madness. Sometimes forced. And that merciless war that is being waged against peaceful people for the sake of protection from an enemy invented along the way, in general, challenges any reasonable humanity. Nevertheless, it is fully supported not only by the stone brain of a geopolitician, but also by the pious heart of a believer. To understand that this happens is still possible, it is impossible to comprehend. If so, with whom? Yes, is this a person? - I want to ask in the words of Primo Levi's book about Auschwitz.
Samuel anoints David king of Israel. Tempera on plaster, synagogue, Dura-Europos (3rd century).
On May 6, 2023, a global public will witness the first Christian coronation of a head of state in seven decades, as Charles III is anointed and crowned King of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth Realms in a Christian Eucharistic service. This event offers an opportunity to reflect on the connection between God and government, on the symbolic prominence of monarchy—both human and divine—in the received tradition of Christianity, and on contemporary debates over how best to interpret that tradition. The Wheel invites contributions on topics broadly related to monarchy and republicanism, good government, and the liturgical imagery of royalty, in dialogue with the historical and contemporary realities of the Orthodox Church. Completed manuscripts should be submitted by January 15, 2023, to editors@thewheeljournal.com. Proposals and queries may be submitted any time before the deadline.
