The Victory of the Cross

On the first day of the Orthodox ecclesiastical year, 63 Orthodox and Evangelical leaders are gathered at Sofia Cultural Centre just outside Helsinki, Finland, to consider “The Gospel as Good News”. Gathered from around the world the participants were welcomed by His Eminence Metropolitan Ambrosius on behalf of the local Orthodox Community.  Bishop Tapio Luoma, of the Diocese…

This report comes from our good friend, Ramez Atallah, Senior Advisor to the Bible Society of Egypt: Through its Sunday School movement the Coptic Orthodox Church in Egypt has been very committed to studying, memorizing and understanding the Bible. In the early 80s a new approach was introduced to Coptic university students which is how…

The Ecumenical Patriarch said today he hoped for a continuing exchange of Orthodox and Anglican students to aid the two Churches’ relationship. His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew was speaking today during his welcome of the Anglican Communion’s spiritual head Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby. He said, “In the past, the rapprochement between our two Churches…

The picture in this post does not depict the people and conversations referred to by the author. One day during the Lausanne – Orthodox Initiative 2014 consultation I found myself disturbed.  I was upset because I felt like other members of my discussion group were not taking my experience and point of view seriously. I…

The second day of the Lausanne-Orthodox Initiative has been wrestling with ‘What is the Gospel?’. This is a particularly challenging question in the ‘hard places’ of our contemporary world. During the afternoon participants heard from Salim S. (name withheld) from Allepo, Syria, who joined the consultation by Skype because he had been unable to obtain a visa to…