c. 1998 Religion News Service
Old Calendarists Greek Orthodox group rejoins main church
(RNS) A decades-old rift between an American faction of a Greek Orthodox splinter movement and the main church has been resolved, bringing about 30,000 of the separatists into the Greek Orthodox Church of America.
The rift was formally healed Sunday (May 3) during a church ceremony in the Astoria section of New York City.
The dispute originated in 1924 when the worldwide Greek Orthodox Church switched to the commonly used Gregorian calendar, prompting protests from some traditionalists in Greece, Romania, Bulgaria and the United States. The traditionalists insisted on retaining the previously used Julian calendar, which is 13 days behind the Gregorian.
The dispute grew into a schism, prompting the traditionalists to pull out of the main, or canonical, Greek Orthodox Church.
In April, the largest of the so-called Old Calendarist groups in the United States was accepted back into communion with the Greek Orthodox Church during a ceremony in the Istanbul-headquarters of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the worldwide head of the Greek church.
The returning faction has about 20 congregations and monasteries in the United States and about 30,000 members.
Under terms of the reconciliation agreement, neither the Old or New Calendarists are required to change how they measure the liturgical year. In addition, Old Calendar clergy have been accepted as members of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, and all Old Calendarist sacraments, weddings, baptisms and other such rites performed over the years were retroactively approved.
The reconciliation was not without its critics, however. Members of Greek Orthodox American Leaders, a group critical of the archdiocese’s leadership, said the Old Calendarists should not have been accepted into the canonical church because of their alleged political right-wing views.
In 1991, the Old Calendarists sued the canonical church over a missing icon, saying it had been”stolen”by church officials. The suit was eventually settled out of court.
Vietnam, citing thrift, restricts access to Roman Catholic festival
(RNS) Vietnam’s communist party chief says the decision to restrict access to a Roman Catholic festival is not a matter of religious repression but an effort to implement the government’s policy on thrift.”It’s not just for religious festivals but also other traditional and national festivals in these times of economic difficulties that it is not advisable to mobilize people from all over the country to converge in one place for a religious ceremony,”said Lieutenant-General Le Kha Phieu, general secretary of the party.
Phieu was responding to questions as to why the government has restricted travel to celebrate the the 200th anniversary of Mother Maria’s Appearance at La Vang in Quang Tri province, Reuters reported. The celebration is to happen in August.
The restrictions bar the Vietnam tourist administration from advertising the festival and from taking foreign visitors to the site.”It is not simple to ensure accommodation, food supplies and transportation,”Phieu said during a news conference with foreign journalists in Hanoi.”If we mobilize hundreds of thousands or millions of people to converge in one tiny area, it is not easy to organize,”he said.
Religion, especially Catholicism, is a touchy issue in Vietnam because of the church’s close alliance with the previous regime in South Vietnam.
But Phieu denied the restrictions on the Mother Maria’s Appearance festival were politically motivated.”We still have the La Vang festival going on,”he said.”It will not be stopped but there should not be mobilization of millions of people from around the country to come for one day.”
Raiser calls for universal church council
(RNS) The Rev. Konrad Raiser, general secretary of the World Council of Churches, is calling for the main Christian faith streams _ Roman Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox and Pentecostal _ to use the year 2000 to launch a process leading to a universal Christian council similar to those called by the early church.
In an April 25 speech at the Dutch Kerkendag (church day) in Kampen, Netherlands, Raiser said there has been little progress in reconciliation between the different Christians traditions in recent years.
He said that while it would not be necessary to resolve all outstanding differences between the main Christian traditions, some obstacles to calling a universal council remain, including the issue of tradition in the Orthodox church, the primacy of the pope in Catholicism, and issues of ministry and authority in the Protestant churches of the Reformation.
The past decade, Raiser said, has demonstrated the problems of church unity rather than providing a solution to them.
The Dutch Kerkendag was also used by the Dutch churches to mark the culmination of the Decade of Churches in Solidarity with Women, a program launched by the World Council of Churches in 1988.”We tried to enter the churches by the front door, but we found only the attic window ajar,”said Grieke Land, chairwoman of the Dutch steering group for the decade.”At the top of the churches we did not find the solidarity we had expected, but the churches now know that the attic window is not enough,”she said of women’s progress.
South African Anglican prelate urges African economic union
(RNS) The Rev. Njongonkulu Ndungane, Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa, giving the keynote address at a meeting of African political and religious leaders, has urged African nations to consider setting up an economic union of African nations.
The archbishop, kicking off the Jubilee 2000 campaign _ the international effort aimed at canceling the debts of the world’s poorest nations for the new millennium _ said it is time”for the giant of Africa to wake up from its deep sleep and to take its rightful place in the world.” African unity has been one of Ndungane’s major themes since taking over the post from retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu. In January, he called on all of Africa’s Anglican churches to unite in an”Episcopal Church of Africa.” Ndungane made his call for economic cooperation in a mid-April speech in Accra, Ghana, before a group of African heads of state as well as Protestant, Roman Catholic and Muslim religious leaders and representatives of non-governmental organizations working in Africa.”Now is the time for the countries of this continent to settle down to a period of sustained and invigorating growth _ economic and social growth that will trigger development worldwide,”he said.
He said an”Economic Union of African States”would ensure that”Africa would never again be marginalized or become the begging bowl of the world”and that its natural resources”would never again be exploited”by non-African governments and companies.”We are a people and continent with a rich heritage, the cradle of humanity,”he said.
Sisters of Mercy call for ecumenical prayers for Northern Ireland
(RNS) The Sisters of Mercy, the Roman Catholic religious order, has invited other nuns as well as friends in other denominations to make May a month of ecumenical prayer for peace in Northern Ireland.”The referendum for peace scheduled for vote on May 22 is a historic opportunity to further the process of peace in Northern Ireland,”said Sister Doris Gottemoeller, president of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas.
The religious order was founded in Dublin and has some 12,000 members around the world, including 6,000 related to the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas.”When I spoke to Sister Agnes Hannon, the superior of the Northern Ireland province of Sisters of Mercy, she said that while the situation in Ireland is tense and the possibility of violence exists, they feel strongly that the referendum is their best hope for peace after hundreds of years of conflict,”said Sister Teresa O’Connell, superior of the Congregation of Sisters of Mercy of Ireland’s U.S. province.
The prayer, composed by Irish nuns, asks God for strength to”see us through the dangers and uncertainty of the next few months.”
Quote of the day: The Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick
(RNS)”… It is this kind of violence, death threats and the murder of Protestant church leaders in which members of the Guatemalan military stand accused, that has led the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to strengthen its call to the U.S. Congress to close the School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Ga., where so many Central American military leaders have been trained.” _ Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick, in a statement reacting to the murder of Roman Catholic Bishop Juan Gerardi Conedera of Guatemala two days after the bishop released a church-sponsored report blaming the Guatemalan military for human rights abuses.
DEA END RNS
