A Word from the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States
On September 14th, Foreign Affairs, the influential magazine of the Council on Foreign Relations, published an article entitled, “Putin’s Useful Priests.” The Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States of America hereby expresses its objection and concern with the inaccurate manner with which Orthodox Christians in the United States are stereotyped by the authors.
First, the article contains significant factual errors that are surprising for the renowned Foreign Affairs and disrespectful to a vital Christian community whose roots in America date over three centuries. Orthodox Christians in America – representing a plethora of ethnic and political backgrounds – number well in excess of one million people, vastly different from the misinformed number of 25,000 asserted by the authors.
Furthermore, the article’s vituperative and essentializing language can easily incite targeting and violence against America’s Orthodox Christians as a community. The reductionist characterization of Orthodox Christians in America as potential “fifth columns” is reminiscent of the worst episodes of nativism in the United States of America. Sadly, we have already witnessed the result of this type of fear mongering with the recent bomb threat made against Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, New York.
The clear message conveyed by this article is that Orthodox Christian parishes and monasteries in the United States are hotbeds of support for the current government and policies of the Russian Federation, a message with no empirical data to support this claim. Notwithstanding the diversity of viewpoints in our communities – a diversity that mirrors the United States as a whole – the lax and potentially dangerous projection to all Orthodox Christians in America is untrue and unwarranted.
Therefore, the Executive Committee of the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States of America decries the article as lacking merit and balance and call for it to be retracted.
Furthermore, we reiterate the recent words of Bishop Irenei of London, of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, in his own response to the Foreign Affairs article: “We stand wholly against the war and we call for it to end. The war is evil. It cannot be justified.”
To our Orthodox Christian faithful and all people of good will, we urge you to pray for peace and harmony among all people without regard to personal or political conviction.
Saturday October 7, 2023 / September 24, 2023
18th Week after Pentecost. Tone eight.
Holy Protomartyr and Equal-to-the-Apostles Thecla of Iconium (1st c.).
St. Gabriel, of Pskov-Eleazar Monastery and Kazan (1915).
New Hieromartyr Basil deacon (1918).
New Hieromartyrs Andrew and Paul priests, Hieromartyr Vitaly and Martyrs Basil, Sergius and Spiridon (1937).
New Hieromartyr Nicander priest (1939).
Venerable Nicander, hermit of Pskov (1581).
Martyrdom of St. Galacteon, monk of Vologda (1612).
Venerable Coprius of Palestine (530).
Saint Vladislav of Serbia (1239).
Icons of the Most Holy Theotokos of “Mirozh” and “Of the Myrtle Tree” (1198).
Venerable Abramius, abbot of Mirozh (Pskov) (1158).
Venerables Stephen the First-Crowned (in monasticism Simon) (1224), David, and Vladislav(1239), of Serbia.
Righteous Euphrosyne, daughter of St. Paphnutius of Egypt.
Venerable Dorothea of Kashin (1629).
Arrival in America of the first Orthodox Mission: Sts. Herman, Juvenaly, and others (1794).
St. Isarnus of Marseilles (1043).
The Scripture Readings
1 Corinthians 15:39-45
39 All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of animals, another of fish, and another of birds.
40 There are also celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies; but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial isanother. 41 There is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differs from another star in glory.
42 So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. 43 It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. 44 It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. 45 And so it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
Luke 4:31-36
Jesus Casts Out an Unclean Spirit
31 Then He went down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and was teaching them on the Sabbaths. 32 And they were astonished at His teaching, for His word was with authority. 33 Now in the synagogue there was a man who had a spirit of an unclean demon. And he cried out with a loud voice, 34 saying, “Let us alone! What have we to do with You, Jesus of Nazareth? Did You come to destroy us? I know who You are—the Holy One of God!”
35 But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be quiet, and come out of him!” And when the demon had thrown him in their midst, it came out of him and did not hurt him. 36 Then they were all amazed and spoke among themselves, saying, “What a word this is! For with authority and power He commands the unclean spirits, and they come out.”