May 15, 2017, Monday "What united Orthodox and Catholics in those years was far more important than that which divided them, for they were united by love of Christ.”— Russian Orthodox Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev, "Foreign Minister" of the Russian Orthodox Church, in his address on May 11 to the "World Summit of Christian Leaders in Defense [...]
May 15, 2017, Monday "I saw that American leaders wanted to cooperate with Russia.”—The influential Russian Orthodox Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev, the Oxford-educated "Foreign Minister" of the increasingly powerful Russian Orthodox Church, in an interview published today on the website of the Russian Orthodox Moscow Patriarchate. The interview follows Hilarion's four-day trip to Washington D.C. to participate [...]
December 25, 2016, Sunday -- The Passing of a Russian General Christmas Day 2016 Christmas Day is here. I would like to send my heartfelt Christmas greetings to all of my friends and readers at Christmastime. I would also like to share some sorrowful news. This Christmas day began, as so many now do, with an [...]
August 29, 2016, Monday -- Rome-Moscow Exchange Intensifies "May the Holy Mother of God, our common heavenly Mother, keep all of us and cover us from all evil.'" —Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev, head of the Department of External Relations of the Russian Orthodox Patriarchate of Moscow, speaking to a dozen visitors from Rome, his guests for two [...]
February 5, 2016, Friday -- More on the Pope Francis-Patriarch Kirill Meeting in Havana, Cuba, on February 12 "Thus, in full awareness and at the beginning of his ministry in the Church of Rome that Peter bathed with his blood, the current successor assumes as his primary commitment that of working tirelessly towards the reconstruction of [...]
December 17, 2015, Tuesday -- A Vatican-Russian Concert There was a remarkable "ecumenical" concert in Rome this evening at 8:30 p.m. in the Apse of the Basilica of St. John Lateran, often called "the Mother and Head of all churches in Rome and in the World" because it is the oldest and ranks first among the [...]
As the world mulls over the words of Pope Francis in his latest interview to a group of Jesuit journals, the situation in Syria and the Middle East remains tense. On Saturday, September 7, Pope Francis spent five hours praying for peace in St. Peter’s Square, surrounded by 100,000 people, and followed by millions around the [...]
Signs A reflection on a morning prayer By Robert Moynihan, reporting from America This September morning dawned cool in the friary in Yonkers. I wrote last time about evening prayer. But there is also morning prayer. (I write in the dining room of the friary, photo below). Morning prayer today in this Franciscan friary was devoted [...]
