c. 1999 Religion News Service
Ecumenical patriarch says its up to Greek Orthodox to resolve problems
(RNS) The Istanbul-based spiritual leader of the Greek Orthodox Church of America says it’s up to the U.S. church to settle its increasingly bitter internal dispute.
In a rare interview published Thursday (Feb. 11), Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew said,”I (can only) give paternal counsel.”His role, he told the Chicago Tribune, was to”remind”the church of its”traditions and canons”and to”ask for unity and concord and hope. But it depends on others in the U.S.”to resolve internal church problems.
At the same time, Bartholomew again made it clear that Archbishop Spyridon, the focus on the dispute, will remain in charge of the U.S. church. Spyridon’s church critics have called for his ouster.”He is the archbishop; you must cooperate with him,”said Bartholomew, who appointed Spyridon to his post in 1996.
The U.S. Greek Orthodox Church has been split over Spyridon’s policies, with dissidents who favor greater democracy in the tradition-bound church accusing him of arrogantly ignoring established policy concerning lay and clerical imput, among other allegations.
Greek Orthodox American Leaders, Inc. (GOAL), a dissident group that has spearheaded the opposition to Spyridon, has repeatedly accused Bartholomew of turning a deaf ear to the criticism, and demanding instead blind loyalty to Spyridon.
In January, the archdiocese’s five metropolitans, or regional bishops, met with Bartholomew and Spyridon in Istanbul. At the meeting, the ecumenical patriarch also affirmed his intention not to remove the archbishop.
Update: Israeli ultra-Orthodox reject call to postpone demonstration
(RNS) Ultra-Orthodox Jewish leaders Friday (Feb. 12) rejected an appeal by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cancel a demonstration this weekend that the nation’s president has warned could lead to bloodshed.
The protest, set for Jerusalem on Sunday, is expected to draw hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews upset with recent Israeli Supreme Court decisions that have weakened their long-standing control of Jewish religious practice in Israel.
Secular Jewish groups who accuse the ultra-Orthodox of being intolerant and anti-democratic have scheduled counter-demonstrations, prompting President Ezer Weizman to warn”there could be bloodshed Sunday.” Meanwhile, a poll published Friday in the Israeli newspaper Maariv said 75 percent of Israelis believe the ultra-Orthodox have too large a say over public policy in Israel.
The ultra-Orthodox comprise about 10 percent of Israel’s Jewish population. But Israel’s multi-party parliamentary system gives them considerably more power than their numbers would dictate. The ultra-Orthodox are part of Netanyahu’s ruling coalition.
Vatican hints at possible Asia trip for pope
(RNS) The Vatican is hinting that a trip to Asia _ possibly including Russia and China _ may be in the works for Pope John Paul II.
On Thursday (Feb. 11), Vatican officials said there are no definite plans in the works, and they pointedly noted that Hong Kong _ now a part of China _ was among the sites suggested for a papal visit by bishops from Asia when they were in Rome last spring.
The officials said an Asian trip later this year is almost certain as a follow-up to that Asian meeting which was similar to the meeting of bishops from the Americas which led to the pontiff’s trip to Mexico City and St. Louis last month.
But the officials said the site of any Asian trip must still be decided, and no announcement is expected for several months.
Other sites that have been mentioned include Vietnam, whose bishops have formally invited John Paul, and the Philippines, the church’s stronghold in Asia and a place the pope has visited in the past.
Italian journals have reported that Chinese bishops”are doing everything possible so that the pope can celebrate the end of the Asian synod in Hong Kong.” The Roman Catholic Church operates openly in Hong Kong, while Beijing recognizes only the state-sanctioned Patriotic Church on the mainland and Catholics loyal to the Vatican, according to human rights groups, are targets of harassment and persecution.
Fallout from Christian killings prompts resignation of Indian official
(RNS) A top official of the eastern Indian state of Orissa resigned Friday (Feb. 12), saying the move was his”moral responsibility”following a series of killings of Christians in the region.
Janaki Ballabh Patnaik, the chief minister of the state, submitted his resignation to the acting governor, Chakravarti Rangarajan.
Since anti-Christian violence culminated late January when an alleged Hindu mob burned to death an Australian missionary and his two young sons as they slept in a vehicle on Jan. 23, outrage has been leveled against Orissa authorities by Christians and the Bharatiya Janata Party, the opposition party in the region which controls the country’s federal government.
As recently as last week, Patnaik’s government had fended off criticism by saying that a crime in which two Christian teenagers where brutally killed was not religiously motivated.
Finally succumbing to pressure _ including the wishes of some in his own Congress Party _ Patnaik officially stepped down, although he will continue to perform his duties until a successor is chosen.
In a separate but related development, the United Nations announced that its human rights chief, Mary Robinson, would begin a three-day visit to India on Monday (Feb. 15) to attend an Asian seminar on regional cooperation in the promotion and protection of human rights, Reuters reported.
Christians make up just 2 percent of India’s 1 billion population. Hindus make up 82 percent, Muslims 12 percent and others include Buddhists, Sikhs and Jains.
Students pray for end to `religious genocide’ in Sudan
(RNS) To protest what they say is”religious genocide”in southern Sudan, U.S. college students from campuses across the country gathered to pray and kick off a campaign to convince Congress to take stronger measures to end the persecution.
The campus events were organized by members of the National Campaign of Conscience for Sudan and included events at such schools as Harvard, Stanford, Wheaton, Eastern Nazarene, Georgetown Law School and Virginia Theological Seminary.
In the 15-year war between the Islamic regime in northern Sudan and the largely Christian and animist southern part of the nation, some 1.9 million Sudanese _ especially in the south _ have been killed. In addition, war-caused famine has brought another 2.6 million people to the brink of starvation.”It’s very easy for the average college student to be very content with the comfortable life that we live here in the West,”said Grace Chiu, a Harvard graduate student and one of the organizers for the event at the Cambridge, Mass., university.”However, Scripture tells us that we must speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves and defend the rights of the poor and needy.” Meanwhile, the United Nations said that its investigator for human rights will begin a two-week visit to Sudan on Saturday (Feb. 13).
He is expected to report his findings to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights on March 22.
The announcement came as Doctors Without Borders announced it has halted operation in five of 10 locations in one province hard hit by famine in which it has been operating for the past year.
Some 40 humanitarian aid workers are being withdrawn from the area, the Associated Press reported from Nairobi, Kenya.
Columnist is expanding marriage program
(RNS) A Christian group aimed at slashing American’s fickle tendency to promise, `till death do us part,’ only to later wind up in divorce court, announced its marriage-strengthening efforts will soon expand to include 100 U.S. cities.
On Monday, Feb. 15, the day after Valentine’s Day _ a national celebration of romantic relationships _ clergy from the small town of Culpeper, Va., will launch the first of those efforts to assure that, despite a 50 percent nationwide divorce rate, the unions sanctioned in Culpeper will ride on more than a prayer.
Culpeper’s clergy are the latest converts to Marriage Savers, a non-profit group founded by columnist Mike McManus. The heart of the program is what McManus calls a”community marriage policy”_ essentially, an agreement on pre- and post-marriage requirements between religious leaders across traditions.
In Culpeper, those mandates include a four-month waiting period in which the potential partners must attend at least three counseling sessions, learn their church’s teachings on the rite of marriage and take a test which McManus said predicts _ at 85 percent accuracy _ if the marriage will last.
The program also requires a check-up session within a year and encourages further participation in the church and in conferences designed to enrich marriage.
McManus told a Thursday (Feb. 11) news conference that cities in which his program is operating have experienced drops in their divorce rate but skeptics have called for independent proof.
McManus admitted the small number of clergy in various cities specifically using his program could only have been directly responsible for a fraction of that change. But, he said local news coverage of the program actually encouraged people to persevere in troubled marriages _ including people who never signed up for the program themselves. “The disintegration of the family is the central domestic problem of our time as I see it,”said McManus, whose Marriage Savers program relies heavily on experienced couples working as mentors to marriage candidates.”We need to say, `hey, marriage works and let us tell you how’ _ and who better to teach it than those that have good marriages?”
Quote of the day: Senate chaplain Lloyd Ogilvie
(RNS)”Most important of all, we know that we can trust you (God) with the results. You can use what is decided and continue to accomplish your plans for America. We entrust to your care the president and his family. Use whatever is decided today to enable a deeper experience of your grace in his life and healing in his family.” _ The Rev. Lloyd Ogilvie, Senate chaplain, in his prayer Friday before the Senate voted to acquit President Clinton of charges he committed perjury and obstructed justice.
DEA END RNS
