Remembrance Day
In the USA, it’s Veterans Day, when those, both living and dead, who have served in the Armed Forces are honoured, but in my country, Canada, this day is our Remembrance Day, when we commemorate those who gave their lives in war to protect and preserve the innocent and the...
Hope in the Horror of War
Fr. Bassam Nassif The holy land of the Apostolic Church of Antioch is suffering from the horror of war. Yesterday, it was the turn of Lebanon and Iraq, and today it is that of Syria. Thousands of Syrians, including, bishops, priests, monks, nuns, and laymen, all of whom are...
The Incarnation in the Trenches
Christmas 1914. The trenches. A different kind of cease-fire Today we call it the First World War. Then they called it the Great War. Many European countries were involved in it, in a horrendous conflict without any clear ideological stamp. Millions of people were crushed under the mill-stones of two...
Being Authentic All Year Long
Are you hiding behind a mask when it’s not Halloween? Listen as Fr. Gregory Joyce speaks with Fr. Stavros Akrotirianakis on encouraging young people to be authentic and remove their everyday masks. Fr. Stavros recently published a new devotional book for the Nativity/Christmas Season titled, Let All Creation Rejoice, which...
Aylan Kurdi and Our Failure to Act
There are few photos that capture the human condition. The firefighters raising the American flag over the rubble of the World Trade Center, the man staring down the tanks at Tiananmen Square, man’s first step on the moon. These photos capture moments of hope, determination, and progress in human history....
IOCC Provides Vital Winter Relief for Syria’s Children and War-Weary Families
January 12, 2015 (Baltimore, MD) — Freezing temperatures, heavy snow and chilling winds sweeping across Syria are putting thousands of young lives in jeopardy as displaced mothers struggle helplessly to keep their small children warm and sheltered from the harsh winter conditions. Many live in shelled out buildings with no...
The Healing: Isceljenje
‘The Healing: Isceljenje’ (2014) is a Serbian film by Ivan Jović that tells the story of an Orthodox monk grappling with the aftereffects of war in his homeland. Carrying this pain in his heart, the monk finds his way to a secluded hermitage in the wilderness, where he encounters a...
National Post: With ISIS an hour away, one of the only remaining Christian communities makes its ‘last stand in Iraq’
By Matthew Fisher IRBIL, Iraq — With extremists flying the black flag of the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham less than an hour down the road, the future of one of the last Christian communities in the Middle East is at grave risk of assimilation or annihilation. An estimated...
A Reflection on a Reflection
I recall sitting down to write my An Orthodox Response to Beheading by Muslims, and as my re-inaugural piece for the Orthodox Christian Network (a number of years ago, I wrote a short series during Great Lent). I remember in my own reflections being struck, day after day after day...
Russian movie, The Priest
“The Priest” (Russian: Поп) is a 2009 Russian drama directed by Vladimir Khotinenko. It tells a little-known story from the German occupation of Soviet territory during the Second World War. Between 1941 and 1944, a small group of priests were dispatched by the Orthodox Metropolitan of Latvia on a mission...
