Tag: Christianity

Washington, D.C., June 27, 2024

UOC lawyer Robert Amsterdam with the persecuted Met. Theodosy of Cherkasy. Photo: spzh.live     

“UKRAINE IS ENGAGED IN THE WAR CRIME OF HOSTAGE TAKING,” writes Robert Amsterdam, the international human rights lawyer who is representing the persecuted Ukrainian Orthodox Church pro bono.

His Eminence Metropolitan Theodosy of Cherkasy Another round of searches and investigations against Met. Theodosy, who refused to be exchanged as prisoner of warAccording to the Metropolitan, yesterday’s search was formally launched in connection with a criminal case stemming from a homily he gave for one of the persecuted parishes of the Cherkasy Province, though he believes the real reason lies elsewhere.

“>recently spoke about how the state launched a fourth search of his property and has opened a fifth criminal case against him after he refused to be exchanged to Russia as an enemy prisoner of war. His Eminence is again accused of inciting religious enmity, (the same charge brought against a number of bishops), which means he made public statements about the violent schismatics of the so-called “Orthodox Church of Ukraine.”

If the Ukrainian state continues this tactic, of trying to rid itself of Orthodox bishops through prisoner exchanges, then the lawyer and his team will be forced to turn to the International Criminal Court. Amsterdam writes:

FATHER [METROPOLITAN—OC] THEODOSIY, AMONG OTHERS, IS BEING WRONGFULLY PROSECUTED. I AM TOLD THAT ONLY THROUGH EXCHANGE OF PRISONERS WITH THE ENEMY STATE WOULD THE FALSE CHARGES BE DROPPED.

HE IS NOT ALONE. IF THIS TRAVESTY DOES NOT CEASE IMMEDIATELY, WE WILL PREPARE FILINGS BEFORE ICC PROSECUTORS CONCERNING THIS OUTRAGEOUS BEHAVIOR AND BRING IT TO THE ATTENTION OF WESTERN ALLIES. HOSTAGE TAKING AND HATE CRIMES ARE NO WAY FOR A GOVERNMENT SUPPORTED BY THE UNITED STATES TO BEHAVE.

He also links to an article about comments from MP Artem Dmytruk, who also expressed outrage at the pressure on Met. Theodosy to leave Ukraine.

“Searches, threats of imprisonment, and a criminal case against an innocent citizen of Ukraine because of his refusal to be exchanged! The terror and genocide of the Ukrainian people continue!” the MP writes.

“For this, the metropolitan was demanded to sign a document for exchange as a ‘PRISONER OF WAR ENEMY!’ Just think about it! To them, a citizen of Ukraine is a ‘prisoner of war enemy.’ Moreover, I highly doubt that this is an isolated case,” he exclaimed.

In another case, His Eminence Metropolitan Jonathan of Tulchin, the only bishop to be convicted so far, with a 5-year prison sentence, was recently released through the intercession of Pope Francis at the request of Patriarch Kirill and permitted to Convicted Ukrainian hierarch was released from UkraineThe hierarch of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church who was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment for allegedly supporting the Russian war in Ukraine and inciting religious enmity has been released and left Ukraine.

“>travel to Belarus, from where he traveled to Moscow. He was exchanged for several Ukrainian servicemen who were being held by Russia.

The hierarch, 75, is in poor health, which has been exacerbated by the pressure of Ukraine’s persecution campaign against him.

“Serving a sentence for a metropolitan with a heart disease was tantamount to a death sentence. The defense did everything possible to ease the fate of this elderly and sick man and the soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine who were in captivity,” his attorney told Glavcom.

The details of his release and what would happen should the Metropolitan return to Ukraine after treatment in Moscow were not released. Court upholds 5-year sentence against elderly Ukrainian Orthodox hierarchA court of appeal in the Ukrainian city of Vinnitsa ruled yesterday, June 18, to uphold the verdict against the elderly and ailing Metropolitan Jonathan of Tulchin of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

“>Just days prior, his attorney stated in court that his client was refusing to be exchanged, as he does not recognize himself as an enemy of Ukraine or prisoner of war.

Follow OrthoChristian on Twitter, Vkontakte, Telegram, WhatsApp, MeWe, and Gab!

The Supreme Court June 26 ruled in favor of the Biden administration in a dispute with Republican-led states over the government’s effort to restrict misinformation on social media on topics including COVID-19.

The government argued it should be able to communicate with social media companies about matters including discrimination, national security and public health. Louisiana, Missouri and other parties sued the Biden administration, arguing that they improperly pressured social media companies to restrict posts containing misinformation about COVID-19 and its corresponding vaccines, among other topics.

But in a 6-3 decision, with Justice Amy Coney Barrett writing for the majority, the court found that plaintiffs did not have standing to sue, in part because they had failed to adequately demonstrate that the content moderation they alleged was a result of government actions.

“We begin — and end — with standing,” Barrett wrote. “At this stage, neither the individual nor the state plaintiffs have established standing to seek an injunction against any defendant. We therefore lack jurisdiction to reach the merits of the dispute.”

Barrett argued that while “the plaintiffs emphasize that hearing unfettered speech on social media is critical to their work as scientists, pundits, and activists,” they failed to “point to any specific instance of content moderation that caused them identifiable harm.”

The social media platforms in question, Barrett further argued, “moderated similar content long before any of the Government defendants engaged in the challenged conduct.”

“In fact, the platforms, acting independently, had strengthened their pre-existing content-moderation policies before the Government defendants got involved,” she wrote. “For instance, Facebook announced an expansion of its COVID–19 misinformation policies in early February 2021, before White House officials began communicating with the platform.”

Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas dissented. In his dissent, Alito wrote, “I assume that a fair portion of what social media users had to say about COVID–19 and the pandemic was of little lasting value. Some was undoubtedly untrue or misleading, and some may have been downright dangerous. But we now know that valuable speech was also suppressed.”

“For months, high-ranking Government officials placed unrelenting pressure on Facebook to suppress Americans’ free speech. Because the Court unjustifiably refuses to address this serious threat to the First Amendment, I respectfully dissent,” he added.

Vidin, Vidin Province, Bulgaria, June 27, 2024

Photo: ocl.org     

The canonically dubious interference of the Patriarchate of Constantinople in ecclesiastical affairs in Ukraine only further divided the country, and the Orthodox Church worldwide, says His Eminence Metropolitan Daniil of Vidin, one of the three candidates for the Bulgarian Patriarchal throne.

Met. Daniil was Three candidates chosen for next Bulgarian PatriarchIt is noteworthy that none of the hierarchs who concelebrated with Ukrainian schismatic “bishops” in Istanbul in May were chosen as candidates.

“>chosen by the Bulgarian Holy Synod, together with Their Eminences Metropolitan Gregory of Vratsa and Gabriel of Lovech, on June 20. A council of hierarchs, clerical, monastic, and lay representatives will choose the next Patriarch. from among the three candidates on June 30.

The outspoken hierarch’s has expressed his stance on the Ukrainian issue several times over the past few years, including in an ”Our Paschal Joy is Grieved”: The Open Letter of Metropolitan Daniil of Vidin, Bulgaria concerning Constantinople’s actionsI believe it necessary for reasons put forth in my letter to share with Your Eminence my concerns with regard to recent developments in the Orthodox Church.

“>open letter to the Metropolitans of the Church of Greece.

“The persecutions against the Church haven’t stopped,” says Met. Daniil in a new interview with bnr.bg. They began with the very birth of the Savior and accompany us down through the centuries and millennia. However, “When they endured persecutions, the first Christians remained in the teaching of the Holy Apostles and jealously guarded the faith.”

And through all of the trials the Church faces, we can always look to the Holy Fathers, the Metropolitan emphasizes. And turning to more recent persecutions, he recalls:

In the first years after the Bolshevik revolution, the persecutions against the Church in the former Soviet Union were also horrifying, perhaps the most cruel and massive in the entire history of the Church—the killing of priests, the destruction of hundreds and thousands of churches, an attempt to replace the institution itself through the Renovationist schism.

And unfortunately, this is not only an experience of the past century, His Eminence explains:

Today, something similar is happening in Ukraine. Now this attempt at replacement is through the creation of the so-called Orthodox Church of Ukraine by Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople in 2019, despite the existence of a universally recognized canonical church in Ukraine—the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, led by Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev. This canonically unsound action by Patriarch Bartholomew has led to even greater division in Ukraine.

The canonical UOC is more numerous than the schismatic OCU, Met. Daniil notes. He continues:

The clergy of this structure essentially have problems with Apostolic Succession; among them are those ordained by civilians, meaning there’s a lack of succession of Apostolic grace. There are those who have been deposed and excommunicated for valid canonical reasons, who have been improperly accepted and reinstated without repentance. Despite this, Patriarch Bartholomew attempted to legitimize them by issuing the so-called tomos—the document establishing this non-canonical structure.

He signed and proclaimed two previously non-canonical structures, uniting them into the so-called Orthodox Church of Ukraine—the OCU, and recognized the newly created entity as the canonical Orthodox Church in Ukraine. We ask, however, what is the fate of the universally recognized Ukrainian Orthodox Church led by Metropolitan Onuphry, acknowledged by all local Orthodox Churches five years ago and to this day? Five years have passed, and Churches that are Greek-speaking, like the Albanian Church, or close to the Patriarchate of Constantinople like the Jerusalem Patriarchate and the Antiochian Patriarchate do not recognize these structures.

The primate of the Albanian Orthodox Church, His Beatitude Archbishop Anastasios, has worthily addressed the issues surrounding the OCU, recalls Met. Daniil:

Ecclesiological Principles Cannot Be IgnoredIt is universally recognized as a basic ecclesiological principle that the ordinations of heretics and schismatics, and especially of those who are deposed and excommunicated, as a “Sacrament,” celebrated by all the Churches, are invalid. This basic principle is inextricably bound with the Orthodox teaching on the Holy Spirit and constitutes an unshakeable foundation of the Apostolic succession of Orthodox bishops. It is our conviction that this principle cannot be ignored.

“>There’s an excellent letter from Archbishop Anastasios of Tirana of the Albanian Church—he explained his views on the matter and pointed out that issuing this tomos to unrepentant schismatic groups with problematic clergy is unacceptable. Patriarch Bartholomew was convinced that this would bring millions of Orthodox Christians deprived of communion with the Church back into its fold. And instead of bringing peace as he assumed, he ignited an even more fierce division, in which literally these people he proclaimed canonical began to persecute the canonical Church. They seize churches, beat priests, and kill—are these Christians? It’s absurd, but the division is a fact.

And this division has spread throughout the Orthodox world, with some bishops recognizing the OCU, against the vast majority who do not. Moreover, the OCU tomos states that it recognizes Constantinople as its head, as supposedly do all other Orthodox Churches. But Orthodox teaching is quite clear that the head of the Universal Church is Jesus Christ Himself, emphasizes Met. Daniil. And we must hold onto sound doctrine, to help us through our many trials. The canons “categorically forbid the primate of one Church from interfering in the affairs of another autocephalous Orthodox Church.”

Asked what the future Bulgarian Patriarch should be like, Met. Daniil pointed to the example of His Holiness Patriarch Maxim of BulgariaVery few people understand that this man is the most precious among us all. Statesmen work until the end of their terms, but he will serve his people until the end of his life. His quiet, yet steadfast labor for the sake of his fatherland could never be replaced by Comecon, by the Warsaw Pact, NATO, or the European Union taken all together. Eighty-five years of his life were spent under the church domes, and the altar is his true home. There, His Holiness prays no less than three times a day for the well-being of his people.

“>His Holiness Patriarch Maxim (†2012), who “despite all difficulties, managed to preserve the unity of the Church not with force and fist-pounding, but with tact, patience, courage, and discretion.”

He continued:

When this unity is the personal conviction and self-sacrifice of each individual, then the Church is invincible. The Lord says: Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them. And if the Lord is with us, no one can be against us, and we uphold it. So the Patriarch must be, first and foremost, Orthodox, keeping the mystery of faith in a pure heart himself and inevitably respecting his brethren. The 34th Apostolic Canon states that each nation should know its primate, and none of the bishops should do anything in common Church affairs without the consent of the primate, and he should do nothing in common Church affairs without the consent of the others; in this, love will be manifested, and the Son will be glorified in the Father through the Holy Spirit. When there is this agreement, it means the Patriarch is that figure who must embody and seek this agreement. That’s why our statutes say, “To be known for right thoughts about the faith.” This is very important. To be known for his life in the teaching of the Church and truly give the opportunity for this agreement to manifest for the glory of God.

His Eminence concluded with a blessing:

Let us remain Orthodox. It’s a great gift that we were born in an Orthodox country. Our ancestors fought to uphold the purity of the Orthodox faith—how many martyrs for the faith and how many saints our people have given! In cities and villages, on every holiday and Sunday, we hear the bell ringing in the church, and it awaits us there. Let us not pass by this call, let us know this treasure that we have near us. This is salvation and this makes us human.

Follow OrthoChristian on Twitter, Vkontakte, Telegram, WhatsApp, MeWe, and Gab!

After mistakenly leaking the decision before releasing the final ruling, the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that Idaho hospitals must perform abortions in certain emergencies.

The 6-3 decision, issued in Moyle v. United States, means that Idaho hospitals are compelled to perform abortions, despite it being illegal in the state.

The decision hinged on the court’s interpretation of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) that hospitals are required to provide abortions “when needed to stabilize a medical condition that seriously threatens a pregnant woman’s life or health.”

While Idaho law allows abortions only in cases to save the life of the mother, the court now holds that this is too narrow an exception.

“Idaho law prohibits abortions unless necessary to prevent a pregnant woman’s death; the law makes no exception for abortions necessary to prevent grave harms to the woman’s health, like the loss of her fertility,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote in the majority opinion.

“EMTALA requires hospitals to provide abortions that Idaho’s law prohibits. When that is so, Idaho’s law is preempted. The court’s ruling today follows from those premises,” she wrote.

According to the majority, EMTALA “ensures that a woman with no health risks of her own can demand emergency-room treatment if her fetus is in peril. It does not displace the hospital’s duty to a woman whose life or health is in jeopardy, and who needs an abortion to stabilize her condition. Then, the statute requires offering that treatment to the woman.”

The court’s decision dismisses Idaho’s appeals as improvidently granted, meaning that the case will return to the lower 9th Circuit Court, which has already ruled to block Idaho’s prohibition of abortions in hospitals. The decision also lifts a stay the Supreme Court had placed on the lower court’s decision in January.

The majority opinion was written by Justice Elena Kagan with Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson concurring. Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote a separate concurring opinion with which Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined.

The three dissenting voices were Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch.

This case could have far-ranging effects on the use of EMTALA and protections for unborn children in Idaho and more than 20 other states that have passed pro-life laws in the past few years.

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles has released its “New Pastors and Administrators” assignments for 2024. Archbishop José H. Gomez has approved the following priests to be appointed pastors, effective July 1, 2024.

Our Lady of the Angels Region:

Fr. Augustine Chang, St. Teresa of Avila, Los Angeles*

Fr. Alexis Ibarra, St. John Chrysostom Church, Inglewood

San Fernando Region:

Fr. Brian Chung, Holy Trinity, Los Angeles (Atwater)*

Fr. Jeejo Vazhappilly, St. Bridget of Sweden Church, Lake Balboa

Fr. Marlon Mateo, St. Clare of Assisi Church, Santa Clarita

San Gabriel Region:

Fr. Ricardo Viveros, Holy Family, South Pasadena*

Fr. Enrique Huerta, Our Lady of Guadalupe (Hammel), Los Angeles*

Fr. Juanbosco Jimenez, Our Lady of Guadalupe (Rosehill), Los Angeles*

Fr. Cesar Magallon, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, Rowland Heights*

Fr. Richard Sunwoo, St. Louise de Marillac, Covina*

Fr. Spencer Lewerenz, St. Anthony Church, San Gabriel

San Pedro Region:

Fr. David Loftus, Our Lady of Refuge, Long Beach*

Fr. Matthew Murphy, St. James, Redondo Beach*

Fr. Chan Lee, St. Paul of the Cross Church, La Mirada

The following priests will be appointed or re-appointed Administrators:

Our Lady of the Angels Region:

Fr. Paul Sustayta, Blessed Sacrament, Los Angeles

Fr. Justin Oh, Christ the King, Los Angeles

Fr. Jose Pimentel, MCCJ, Mother of Sorrows, Los Angeles*

Msgr. Charles Chaffman, Our Lady of Malibu, Malibu

Fr. Matthew Wheeler, Our Savior, Los Angeles

Fr. Chidi Epkendu, St. Francis of Assisi, Los Angeles*

Fr. Christopher Felix, St. Frances X. Cabrini, Los Angeles*

Fr. Francisco Jin, St. Gregory Nazianzen, Los Angeles*

Fr. Paul Francis Kim, Visitation, Los Angeles

Fr. Roberto Rueda, Immaculate Heart of Mary Church, Los Angeles

Fr. Tomas Karanauskas, St. Casimir Church, Los Angeles

Fr. Michael Joseph Wu, O.Carm, St. Clement Church, Santa Monica

Fr. Doan Tien Hoang, S.J., St. Francis Xavier Church, Los Angeles

Fr. Miguel Acevedo, St. Paul Church, Los Angeles

Fr. Prosper A. Hedagbui, Transfiguration Church, Los Angeles

Santa Barbara Region:

Fr. Jose Maria Ortiz, La Purísima Concepción, Lompoc*

Fr. John J. O’Brien, Our Lady of Sorrows, Santa Barbara*

St. Francis of Assisi, Fillmore, will be entrusted to the Rogationist Fathers, with a pastor to be named later.

San Fernando Pastoral Region:

Fr. Luis Estrada, Guardian Angel Church, Pacoima

Fr. Danilo Guinto, St. Cyril of Jerusalem Church, Encino

San Gabriel Pastoral Region:

Fr. Miguel Angel Ruiz, Our Lady of the Rosary of Talpa Church, Los Angeles

Fr. Alexander Hernandez, C.Ss. R., Our Lady of Victory Church, Los Angeles

Fr. Miguel Menjivar, St. Joseph Church, La Puente

San Pedro Region:

Fr. Diego Cabrera, SSC, St. Hilary, Pico Rivera

Fr. Raymont Medina, St. Mary of the Assumption, Whittier*

Fr. Daniel Garcia, Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church, Downey

Fr. Oscar Martinez Gutierrez, St. Rose of Lima Church, Maywood

Special Ministry:

Fr. Sang Man Han, The 103 Saints Korean Catholic Center, Torrance

*Denotes parishes that were on the Open Pastorate listing this term.

Let us pray for the above-mentioned clergy who have been called to serve in leadership in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

Ozarintsy, Vinnitsa Province, Ukraine, June 27, 2024

Photo: moh-pod.church.ua     

An old village church in the Vinnitsa Province of Ukraine was the scene of the Divine Liturgy for the first time in 93 years this week.

The service was celebrated in the Holy Dormition Church in the village of Ozarintsy on June 25, the feast of St. Onuphrios the Great, the feast day of the Ukrainian primate His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine. It was also the anniversary of the church’s consecration, reports the Diocese of Mogilev and Podolsk.

Photo: moh-pod.church.ua     

“Due to certain circumstances,” the parish community was forced to leave its previous church, named for the feast of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos, thus the Liturgy was celebrated in the Holy Dormition Church, which was closed by the Soviet authorities in the 1930s.

The service was celebrated by clerics of the local diocese.

Following the Liturgy, there was an akathist with a moleben before the icon of St. Onuphrios, and the clergy sprinkled the people with holy water.

Russia: First Liturgy in monastic village church in 100+ yearsThe St. Lucian Hermitage was founded in 1654 by St. Lucian of Alexandrov. The monastery soon flourished and enjoyed royal patronage over the centuries.

“>Yesterday, OrthoChristian reported on the recent celebration of the first Divine Liturgy in a Russian village church in over a century.

Follow OrthoChristian on Twitter, Vkontakte, Telegram, WhatsApp, MeWe, and Gab!

In its calendar, the Church singles out special seasons to celebrate — Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter. But, outside of these special times, it invites us to live and celebrate Ordinary Time.

For most of us, I suspect, that phrase conjures up images of something that is less than special — bland, flat, routine, domestic, boring. Inside us there is the sense that the ordinary can weigh us down, swallow us up, and keep us outside the more rewarding waters of passion, romance, creativity, and celebration.

We easily vilify the ordinary. I remember a young woman, a student of mine, who shared in class that her greatest fear in life was to succumb to the ordinary, “to end up a content, ordinary housewife, happily doing laundry commercials!”

If you’re an artist or have an artistic temperament, you’re particularly prone to this kind of denigration because artists tend to set creativity in opposition to the ordinary. Doris Lessing, for example, once commented that George Eliot could have been a better writer “if she hadn’t been so moral.”

What Lessing is suggesting is that Eliot kept herself too anchored in the ordinary, too safe, too secure, too far from the edges. Kathleen Norris, in her biographical work, “The Virgin of Bennington,” shares how as a young writer she fell victim to this ideology: “Artists, I believed were much too serious to live sane and normal lives. Driven by inexorable forces in an uncaring world, they were destined for an inevitable, sometimes deadly, but always ennobling wrestle with gloom and doom.”

The ennobling wrestle with gloom and doom! That does have a seductive sound to it, particularly for those of us who fancy ourselves as artistic, intellectual, or spiritual. That’s why, on a given day, any of us can feel a certain condescending pity for those who can achieve simple happiness. Easy for them, we think, but they’re selling themselves short. That’s the artist inside of us speaking. You never see an artist doing a laundry commercial!

Don’t get me wrong. There is some merit to this. Jesus said that we do not live by bread alone. No artist needs an explanation of what that means. He or she knows that what Jesus meant by that, among other things, is that simple routine and a mortgage that’s been paid do not necessarily make for heaven.

We need bread, but we also need beauty and color. Lessing, who was a great artist, joined the Communist Party as a young woman but she left after she’d matured. Why? One phrase says it all. She left the Communist Party, she says, “because they didn’t believe in color!” Life, Jesus assures us, is not meant to be lived simply as an endless cycle of rising, going off to work, responsibly doing a job, coming home, having supper, getting things set for the next day, and then going back to bed.

And yet there’s much to be said for the seemingly drab routine. The rhythm of the ordinary is, in the end, the deepest wellsprings from which to draw joy and meaning. Norris, after telling us about her youthful temptation to sidestep the ordinary to engage in the more ennobling battle with gloom and doom, shares how a wonderful mentor, Betty Kray, helped steer her clear of that pitfall. Kray encouraged her to write out of her joy as well as her gloom. As Norris puts it: “She tried hard to convince me of what her friends who had been institutionalized for madness knew all too well: that the clean simple appreciation of ordinary, daily things, is a treasure like none on earth.”

Sometimes it takes an illness to teach us that. When we regain health and energy after having been ill, off work, and out of our normal routines and rhythms, nothing is as sweet as returning to the ordinary — our work, our routine, the normal stuff of everyday life. Only after it has been taken away and then given back, do we realize that the clean, simple appreciation of daily things is the ultimate treasure.

Artists, however, are still partially right. The ordinary can weigh us down and keep us outside the deeper waters of creativity, outside that one-in-a-million romance, and outside of the wildness that lets us dance. However, that being admitted, the ordinary is what keeps us from being swept away. The rhythm of the ordinary anchors our sanity.

Paul Simon, in an old 1970s song entitled, An American Tune, sings about coping with confusion, mistakes, betrayal, and other events that shatter our peace. He ends a rather sad ballad quite peacefully with these words: “Still tomorrow’s gonna be another working day, and I’m trying to get some rest. That’s all I’m trying, is to get some rest.”

Sometimes obedience to that imperative is what saves our sanity. There’s a lot to be said for being a contented, little person, anchored in the rhythms of the ordinary, and perhaps even doing laundry commercials.

Bukoba, Tanzania, July 27, 2024

Photo: Facebook     

Nearly three dozen souls in Tanzania were baptized into Christ and received the seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit on the feast of Pentecost this year.

In Sinyanga, 12 people were baptized in a hotel pool in the absence of a church. According to the Friends of the Diocese of Bukoba & Western Tanzania (Patriarchate of Alexandria), the newly illumined are the first Orthodox Christians in a city of a million people.

Photo: orthodoxianewsagency.gr     

“These events are occasions of great joy and elation for the faithful members of our Church, seeing its growth and the acquisition of new children. In missionary dioceses, the celebrations of Heaven and earth are frequent, as Baptisms are often performed.”

Another 22 were baptized by Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Bukoba in Magu, where an old mission parish was revitalized.

Mass Baptism and Wedding service in TanzaniaMore than twelve dozen people were baptized into Christ in the Holy Orthodox Church in Tanzania this weekend.

“>More than 12 dozen people were baptized in Tanzania in April.

Follow OrthoChristian on Twitter, Vkontakte, Telegram, WhatsApp, MeWe, and Gab!

St. Cyril of Alexandria was probably born between 370 and 380 in Alexandria in Egypt. He, along with his uncle, Patriarch Theophilus of Alexandria, was involved in a dispute between the churches in Egypt and Greece. He may have been a monk before becoming a bishop.

In 412, Cyril succeeded his uncle Theophilus as the head of the Egyptian Church. In 418, the two Eastern churches came back together. But in 428, the churches broke from each other again when the Patriarch of Constantinople refused to refer to Mary as “Mother of God,” instead only calling her “Mother of Christ.”

Cyril continued to uphold the Church’s teachings on Mary, by writing letters to the Nestorius, the Patriarch of Constantinople, and finally by summoning the ecumenical council of 431.

Cyril’s defense of Christ as a single eternally divine person, who became man, was lauded and led to Nestorius’ condemnation.

He died on June 27, 444, after being a bishop for almost 32 years. St. Cyril was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1883.

In the aftermath of the Dobbs decision in 2022, California’s government set out to make the Golden State an abortion haven. Two years later, after enshrining the right to abortion in the state’s constitution and spending millions to promote the life-ending procedure, California’s abortion numbers have grown.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization for the abortion industry, clinics provided an estimated 179,700 abortions in California in 2023, a 16.6% increase in abortions since 2020.

Although California’s abortion laws have been permissive for decades, the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision kicked off even more initiatives to promote and expand abortion, explained Molly Sheahan, associate director for healthy families at the California Catholic Conference, the lobbying arm of the California bishops. The Dobbs decision saw the Supreme Court overturn precedent that held abortion to be a constitutional right since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, and returned the issue of regulating or restricting abortion back to legislatures.

“We saw nearly 20 new bills expanding abortion in California and an investment of $200 million from the state budget focusing on improving privacy for those who perform or receive abortions, investments in abortion infrastructure, training for all kinds of health care professionals, (and) the creation of a new website … to promote the options for abortion and dissuade folks from seeking out pregnancy centers,” said Sheahan. “We saw the state remove any copay or deductible from abortion so it truly is free, and (launch) an investment in funds to pay for travel costs for those coming from out-of-state.”

Additionally, pro-abortion organizations such as ACCESS Reproductive Justice, a statewide abortion fund, make the procedure even more accessible. The organization states that in 2023 it assisted more than 1,500 individuals across California and the U.S. — a 150% increase since Dobbs — and thanks to state funding, spent over $788,400 on its health line, which was four times the amount in 2022.

Out-of-staters coming to California for an abortion account for some of the state’s increased abortion numbers. According to Guttmacher, around 6,500 abortions were performed on mothers coming from Arizona, Florida, Nevada, Louisiana, Tennessee and Texas, accounting for 3% of California abortions in 2023.

“Our governor (Gavin Newsom) has made us a sanctuary state,” said Marie Leatherby, executive director of the Sacramento Life Center in Sacramento, California. “He’s advertised across the country (with) TV ads (and) billboards that California is the place to come. And we’ll pay for everything — your travel, your stay, your abortion.”

But while there’s been a huge promotional push for abortion, parenting and adoption resources haven’t been promoted at all, say Catholic and pro-life advocates.

“There’s no pregnancy.ca.gov,” said Sheahan. Expectant families have to do their own legwork to tap into the state’s social services or to find support from a local pregnancy center, she explained, adding that waiting lists for affordable housing and childcare are very long. Pregnant mothers may have difficulty accessing health care as at least 46 California maternity wards have closed since 2012.

“If you’re searching for abortion, everything will be provided, but if you choose to parent you really are on your own,” Sheahan said. “What this amounts to is a systemic coercion of women.”

Not only does the state promote abortion, it makes the work of pregnancy centers more difficult, said Leatherby.

“The attorney general has been suing pregnancy centers; he’s investigating pregnancy centers; he’s subpoenaed pregnancy centers — they’re really out to shut us down,” she said. “Just let us do our work.”

Although many states have banned or tightened restrictions on abortions, abortions have increased nationwide since the fall of Roe. In 2023, there were more than 1 million abortions in the U.S., an 11% increase since 2020. According to Guttmacher, 2012 was the last year that abortions topped a million. The historic high for abortion was 1.6 million in 1990, and abortion saw a long-term decline, hitting a low of 885,000 in 2017 before starting to trend upward again.

Abortion was already on the rise in California before the Dobbs decision. According to Guttmacher, 132,680 abortions took place in California in 2017. Two years later, the number was 150,660.

Part of the rise could be attributed to the increase of medication or chemical abortions. The two-drug combination of mifepristone and misoprostol — which is also used today for early miscarriage care — accounted for 53% of all U.S. abortions in 2020 and 63% in 2023, according to Guttmacher.

During the pandemic, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration loosened an in-person dispensing requirement for the medication regimen and since then has removed it permanently.

Abortion by telehealth has also quickly grown. A Guttmacher policy analysis noted the number of U.S. providers offered telemedicine consultation “by video, phone call, text or online platform” and mailing abortion pills increased from 7% of those known to offer medication-based abortion in 2020 to 31% in 2022. It noted that online-only abortion clinics, which debuted in 2021, “accounted for 8% of all abortions provided within the formal health care system in the first six months of 2023.”

Despite the growing number of abortions, Sheahan doubts most women with an unexpected pregnancy truly desire abortion. She cited a study of 1,000 women aged 41-45 from the Charlotte Lozier Institute showing that 43% of women felt abortion was “inconsistent with their values and preferences” and another 24% felt the abortion was “unwanted or coerced.”

The study found 60% would have preferred to give birth rather than abortion if they had either more emotional support or more financial security. Only 33% said their abortions were wanted.

“We always hear that a lot of people have unwanted pregnancies — I think we have an unwanted abortion problem in the United States and it’s not something that’s being addressed,” she said.

Pregnancy center employees and volunteers see the problem firsthand. Almost all of the women who walk through the doors of the Sierra Pregnancy + Health medical clinic in Roseville, California, are afraid, said Mindy Hertzell, director of clinic operations.

“Fear is the motivator — whether it’s fear of lack of resources or shame, (or) fear that they won’t know what to do when they’re baby is born,” she told OSV News.

“We give them an alternative to the only choice they think they have,” Hertzell said.

Much like the more than 160 pregnancy centers in California, Sierra offers pregnancy tests, testing for sexually transmitted infections, ultrasounds, reversal procedures for medication-based abortions, parenting classes, diapers, baby clothes and more. In an average year they serve around 550 clients, said Hertzell.

In their work at the Sacramento Life Center, Leatherby and her staff meet women every day at risk for an unwanted abortion.

“We see a lot of low-income (families), a lot of immigrants, trafficked women — we see every kind of story,” she said. The changing pro-abortion landscape has made it more difficult for the licensed and nationally accredited medical clinic to reach women in need, so they work with a marketing company to get their message out. Last year, the center had nearly 2,500 patient visits.

“We spend more advertising money than ever before but our numbers still continue to increase,” she said.

Leatherby hopes the state government will start putting its resources toward serving expectant mothers in need, rather than encouraging them to abort. “(Women) feel desperate to end their baby’s life because they don’t feel supported,” she said. “Our state could at the least support both choices (rather) than leaving women with only one option.”