Dans un entretien à la BBC russe, Rowan Williams, archevêque de Canterbury, a avoué que, dans sa jeunesse, il avait souhaité devenir orthodoxe: "J'y pensais sérieusement quand j'étais jeune. Mais je sentais qu'un tel geste comporterait également un danger. A vrai dire, je voulais surtout devenir russe. Mais j'aurais eu du mal, étant né au pays des Galles. Ainsi, on pourrait dire que c'était une tentative de me comprendre et de me découvrir moi-même".

R. Williams a raconté que l'amour de la culture russe est né en lui après avoir vu les films d'Eisenstein "Ivan le Terrible" et "Alexandre Nevski". C'est surtout Dostoïevski qui l'a beaucoup inspiré. R. Williams est d'ailleur auteur d'un livre sur Dostoïevski. "A deux reprises, Dostoïevski nous a dépeint le monde qui rejette les valeurs fondamentales et où règne la volonté de l'homme. La volonté de l'homme est une chose étrange et sauvage. Si elle ne reconnaît personne au dessus d'elle et n'aime rien d'autre qu'elle-même, elle devient une véritable force de destruction".

Rowan Williams a souligné également son profond intérêt pour les philosophes et les théologiens russes du début du XX siècle, notamment Paul Florensky, Vladimir Lossky et Serge Boulgakov. "Je reviens régulièrement vers Boulgakov, je relis toujours Lossky", a dit R. Williams, ajoutant qu'il prépare actuellement une étude sur Paul Florensky.

The Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has said that the 1930s famine in Ukraine was a genocide and that it is praying for its victims.

"Millions of people were dying in horrible pain on the generous Ukrainian black earth. This genocide was an attempt to destroy the very soul of the people, to submit it to total spiritual enslavement," the Synod said in a letter "on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the 1932-1933 holodomor" in Ukraine, posted on the Ukrainian Church's website.

"It became a weapon of diabolic revenge due to the inability to eradicate from the consciousness of our wise people endowed with great virtues its filial memory of God, the love of God, the loyalty to and faith in God," the document said.

"This faith could only be destroyed through the physical extermination of its holders, this is why by creating the spiritual famine, the theomachist power doomed the nation to the physical one," the Ukrainian hierarchs said.

"In the 1930s Ukraine experienced for the first time an artificial hunger, the cynical, targeted and merciless massacre of millions of civilians. Such a crime could only happen in an environment that hates God and humans," the Synod said.

"The 1932-1933 artificial famine was planned by Bolsheviks in order to speed up forced collectivization, to eliminate kulaks as a class, to destroy 'hostile elements'," the hierarchs said.

"Time heals the soul wounds, but the wound in Ukraine's heart cannot be healed. It will always be a painful reminder of the time when the devil reigned both over Ukraine and other peoples of the former Soviet community," the letter said. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church "is praying with great sorrow for the victims of the holodomor and other repressions by the Soviet totalitarian regime," the Synod said.

"Tens of millions were executed, decayed in prisons, were subjected to spiritual and physical tortures and died of hunger. Even the war did not see such a number of victims. Indeed, the regime led a bloody war against its own people," the document said.

Source: Interfax-Religion

The Russian Orthodox Church believes the Constantinople Patriarchate should abandon its ecumenical ambitions and should become more open to brotherly inter-Orthodox dialogue.

"When a decision had to be made on the Estonian issue, the Constantinople Patriarchate unilaterally and without any consultations established its own parallel structure there. Brothers do not act like that," Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, a deputy head of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations, said in a television program.

The Constantinople Patriarchate set up the so-called "Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church" in Estonia in 1996, which is not recognized in the Orthodox world, Fr. Vsevolod said.

"It is utterly wrong to make use of political moments for tearing believers off the body of the Church they belong to," he said.

"Therefore, the Russian Church does not act like our brothers from the Constantinople Patriarchate did," he said.

"When we have been told for years to establish our jurisdiction over part of the Georgian Church, we have said openly that the issue of pastoral guidance of believers in South Ossetia and Abkhazia is possible only through direct dialogue between the Russian and Georgian Orthodox Churches," he said.

Fr. Vsevolod also questioned the Constantinople Patriarchate's right to say that "the entire church diaspora, that is, all the Orthodox believers living outside the canonical territory of this or that local Church, have to obey it."

Source: Interfax-Religion

On 12 November 2008, following the election of Bishop Jonah (Paffhausen) as the Archbishop of Washington, Metropolitan of All America and Canada, Bishop Hilarion of Vienna and Austria sent him the following letter:

Your Beatitude, dear Metropolitan-elect Jonah,

It is with special joy that I learned today about your election as the Archbishop of Washington and New York, Metropolitan of All America and Canada. Axios, axios, axios!

From all the extraordinary circumstances surrounding your election it is clear that the Lord’s providence is behind the popular vote which elevated you to the primatial office. Truly, vox populi vox Dei.

I am convinced that under your spiritual guidance the Orthodox Church in America will speedily recover from turbulence and will enter a period of renewal and spiritual prosperity.

Pittsburgh, PA - On Wednesday, November 12, 2008, His Grace, Bishop Jonah of Fort Worth was elected Archbishop of Washington and New York and Metropolitan of All America and Canada at the 15^th All-American Council of the Orthodox Church in America.

His Beatitude, Metropolitan Jonah was born James Paffhausen in Chicago, IL, and was baptized into the Episcopal Church. While still a child, his family later settled in La Jolla, CA, near San Diego. He was received into the Orthodox Church in 1978 at Our Lady of Kazan Moscow Patriarchal Church, San Diego, while a student at the University of California, San Diego. Later, he transferred to UC Santa Cruz, where he was instrumental in establishing an Orthodox Christian Fellowship.

After completing studies at UCSC, James attended St. Vladimir's Seminary, graduating with a Master of Divinity degree in 1985 and a Master of Theology in Dogmatics in 1988.

He went on to pursue studies towards a Ph.D. at Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, but interrupted those studies to spend a year in Russia.

In Moscow, working for Russkiy Palomnik at the Publishing Department of the Moscow Patriarchate, he was introduced to life in the Russian church, in particular monastic life. Later that year, he joined Valaam Monastery, having found a spiritual father in the monastery's Abbot, Archimandrite Pankratiy. It was Archimandrite Pankratiy's spiritual father, the Elder Kyrill at Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra, who blessed James to become a priestmonk. He was ordained to the diaconate and priesthood in 1994 and in 1995 was tonsured to monastic rank at St. Tikhon's Monastery, South Canaan, PA, having received the name Jonah.

Returning to California, Fr. Jonah served a number of missions and was later given the obedience to establish a monastery under the patronage of St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco. The monastery, initially located in Point Reyes Station, CA, recently moved to Manton in Northern California, near Redding. During his time building up the monastic community, Fr. Jonah also worked to establish missions in Merced, Sonora, Chico, Eureka, Redding, Susanville, and other communities in California, as well as in Kona, HI.

In the spring of 2008, the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in America elevated Fr. Jonah to the rank of Archimandrite and he was given the obedience to leave the monastery and take on the responsibilities of auxiliary bishop and chancellor for the Diocese of the South.

Bishop Jonah's episcopal election took place on September 4, 2008, at an extraordinary meeting of the Holy Synod of Bishops. Earlier in the summer, his candidacy was endorsed by the Diocese of the South's Diocesan Council, shortly after Bishop Jonah had participated in the diocese's annual assembly.

Bishop Jonah was consecrated Bishop of Forth Worth and Auxiliary Bishop of the Diocese of the South, at St. Seraphim Cathedral, Dallas, TX, on Saturday, November 1, 2008. Consecrating hierarchs included His Eminence, Archbishop Dmitri of Dallas and the South, Locum tenens of the Metropolitan See; His Grace, Bishop Tikhon of Philadelphia and Eastern Pennsylvania; His Grace, Bishop Benjamin of San Francisco and the West; and His Grace, Bishop Alejo of Mexico City and the Exarchate of Mexico.

Metropolitan Jonah will be installed by the OCA's Holy Synod of Bishops at St. Nicholas Cathedral, Washington, DC, on December 28, 2008.

May the Lord bless His Beatitude, Jonah, newly-elected Metropolitan of All America and Canada with many years of fruitful service in His Holy Vineyard.

Eis polla eti, Despota!

The Russian and Georgian Orthodox Churches intend to continue dialogue on the spiritual guidance of the population of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

"We agreed to exchange delegations between the Russian and Georgian Churches. A delegation from the Russian Orthodox Church will visit Tbilisi to continue dialogue," head of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad told reporters in Moscow after a meeting between Patriarch Alexy II and a delegation from the Georgian Orthodox Church.

Asked how the dialogue was proceeding, he said that given the existence of a "non-canonical structure in South Ossetia", the problem should be solved "in a strictly canonical field with the observance of canonical norms in order to discuss this theme with the Georgian side".

"At present the South Ossetian Church is led by a schismatic," he said.

Head of the Georgian Patriarchate Foreign Relations Department Metropolitan Gerasim of Zugdidi and Tsaishi, for his part, told reporters after meeting with Alexy II that South Ossetia and Abkhazia were "a canonical territory of the Georgian Patriarchate".

"Georgian priests should serve there but regrettably, under the present circumstances they have no such opportunity," he said.

"We agreed with His Holiness Patriarch Alexy and Reverend Father Kirill to discuss these issues little by little quietly and wisely - how to guide and help people who live there", the archbishop said.

He added that the issue of the spiritual guidance of Abkhazia and South Ossetia was "the most sensitive and complicated one and cannot be resolved overnight".

"We are satisfied with today's meeting. We showed both Georgia and Russia that our Churches have not lost connections between them in the absence of diplomatic, political, economic or cultural ties between Georgia and Russia," the Georgian cleric said.

Source: Interfax-Religion