Month: September 2025

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and Dr. Jane Goodall at the Templeton Prize Ceremony

The earth groans, but it also hopes. The question is whether we will participate in the song of its pain or in the hymn of its gratitude.

His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, Archbishop of Constantinople and New Rome

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

If the Pope arrived in the United States, we would have seen every detail of his visit in all versions of print, television, digital and social media. That would be big news. Did most of us even know that our own Orthodox world leader, His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew was in the US for more than two weeks? What a joy to receive him, who prays for us and safeguards the Faith. Having met His All-Holiness six times in my life, from large-scale gatherings to private audiences, I can personally attest to the humility, brilliance, sanctity and sincerity of our shepherd of shepherds. 

His visit to the United States this time was not so much for pastoral reasons, but rather to validate and celebrate his life-long efforts on behalf of the ecological, environmental, and anthropological connections to Orthodox Theology. His decades-long message that our love for God should be evident in our love for the environment was cemented in history with his nomination and reception of the most prestigious award possible at the intersection of Theology and Science – The Templeton Prize.

Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople received the 2025 Templeton Prize at a ceremony in New York on Wednesday, September 24, becoming the first leader of an Orthodox Church to receive the award. The prize, worth approximately $1.4 million, recognizes individuals who bridge religion and science while advancing spiritual understanding.

The ceremony was attended by Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, who first dubbed Bartholomew the “Green Patriarch” in 1997. In his acceptance speech, the Patriarch emphasized the interconnection between environmental and spiritual responsibility.

“The God who breathed stars and humans into being is the same God who grieves when a single sparrow falls, when a coral reef bleaches white as bone, and when a child gasps for clean air,” Patriarch Bartholomew stated, noting that the award belongs not to him personally but to the ecumenical vision served by the Patriarchate for decades.

The Patriarch traced the Orthodox Church’s environmental commitment to 1989, when his predecessor Patriarch Demetrios established September 1 as a day of prayer for the protection of creation. He called for reuniting science and faith, comparing a physicist studying glacier acceleration to a theologian reading about “the groans of creation” in the Apostle Paul’s writings as “two people reading the same book in different languages.”

In his address, His All-Holiness criticized religious communities that embraced “conspiracy theories” during the COVID-19 pandemic and condemned those who limit themselves to “words of faith” without action. He emphasized the connection between consumerist greed and environmental destruction, proposing ascetic practices as a “joyful discipline” that heals excess and restores harmony. He also expressed concern for young people’s “existential anxiety about the environment,” calling this a “moral failure” of older generations, and stressed that environmental protection requires social justice, stating “we cannot heal the planet without healing our relationships with each other.”

The Patriarch concluded his speech by stating: “The earth groans, but it also hopes. The question is whether we will participate in the song of its pain or in the hymn of its gratitude.”

The Templeton Prize has been awarded annually since 1972 to individuals including Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, and Francis Collins. The $1.4 million award supports the recipient’s ongoing work and initiatives.

During his visit, he also met with President Trump and President Zelensky of Ukraine. 

As Greek Orthodox Christians, we can take great joy in the fact that the Ecumenical Patriarch is not only a man of principle, vision, and dignity, but sees creation, in all its glory, in all its diversity, and in all its grandeur through the prism of its delicate balance. God Grant Him Many Years!

With Love in Christ,

Fr. Anthony Savas
Protopresbyter

On the Sunday Following the Feast of the Elevation of the Cross:

Nicolaos Kabasilas in order to give us to understand God’s love, he uses the example of those who are in love.  As the couple always seek the one for the other, and when they are together they are feeling wonderfully;  in a similar manner God loved so much the world, that He became man to seek of what it was lost.  God does not only call all men to repentance, but He Himself came into the world, took up flesh becoming a perfect man, but without sin, and suffered on the cross death.  Through His death He granted life to all those who believe in His name.

Two are the basic characteristics of true love.  The first is that the one who loves offers everything to the other who is being loved; and secondly, the first suffers everything for the second.  When someone suffers for the one who he loves, then this expression of love is greater then offering.   Because of the guilt of sin, man was unable to reconcile himself to God, God had to become man and suffered for man’s sake.  Dying on the Cross God the Logos became the one and only mediator  between God and man. 

In God’s love for man one must seek the reason for His incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection on the third day.  All these historical events took place, “when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons” (Gal. 4:4-5). 

No one else had so much love as Christ did for mankind, for He did not only suffered pain, but consider His sufferings valuable.  He offers Himself to all the members of His divine Body, sanctifies them and grants eternal life to all who believe in His name.  Through Christ’s love man is cleansed from sin, because when one loves Christ he struggles against all evil.

The relationship between Christ and the Orthodox Christians is not an emotional  condition, but it is the fruit of the extreme love for Christ.  This love for Christ guides man to renounce the love for all material things.  When man loves God, then there can be no place in his heart for anything else.  For this reason the holy Fathers of the Orthodox Church teach that, he who sins is in reality renouncement Christ’s love in exchange for the love of worldly matters.

The love of the holy Saints of our Church is proved in that they gave everything for His name sake.  St. Paul the Apostle teaches us saying, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?  Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?  As it is written:   ‘For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter’.  Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.  For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come,  nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” ( Rom. 8:35-39).

My beloved friends, today our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ calls upon each and everyone of us to follow Him.  Christ is the Way, the Life and the Resurrection.  Christ calls us, not by force, but out of love, to follow Him by our own free choice and will.  No one can force us to do good or evil.  It is in our own will the way of life that we should follow.

To follow Christ means that one has to carry his cross, as Christ carried His own Cross.  An Orthodox Christian is called to crucify the old man who is within him and to rise as a new creation.  Only if one crucifies his sinful desires can he achieve the resurrection of the virtues.  One must accept suffering and sacrifice for the sake of Christ and His Kingdom, which ultimately brings salvation.  To be a disciple of Christ is costly: it requires giving up all claims to everything the world holds dear.

In our daily life we all are called to renounce sin and to follow Christ.  To achieve sanctification and salvation one must be purified by the Grace of God granted through the Cross.  Our life is a gift from God, “for what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?  Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Mark 8:36-37). 

You have riches, but they are not forever.  God gave them to you in order to see how you will use them for His glory and the benefit of your fellow man.  Let us all recall the foolish rich man.  He had everything that anyone could wish for, but he lost his eternal soul, because he never thought about the needs of his fellow man.  He never considered to work for virtues, but wasted all his time in working out how to make more money, more and more.  At the end when he had so much that he did not know what to do with it, his soul was demanded by the devil to be taken away.

He did not follow Christ.  He did not renounce himself.  He did not carry his cross, but on the contrary he lived a life surrounded by material and worldly maters.  If one loses his soul, what did he achieve?  Nothing, because our purpose in life is to achieve our salvation in Christ Jesus.  If one loses his soul, then what would all the riches in the world profit him?  If one loses his soul, then what would your properties help you, for you will be placed in the ground.

Every time that one visits the cemetery, let us hear the voices of those who cry out to us saying: Here is the vanity of the earth.  Here is where all the pleasures of life end.  Here is where the worldly glory ends.  But after death occurs our souls face the real life, the real world. 

For this reason, my beloved friends, let us all hear the calling of Christ.  Let us, with a humble heart, turn to Christ our God and ask Him His divine Grace and Love.  He is always there for us, waiting for our repentance.  Let us take up our cross and follow Him, who died for our salvation.  Let us confess His name before men, so that He will also confess for us before His Father who is in Heaven (Matth. l0:32).

– By His Eminence Metropolitan PANTELEIMON of Antinoes

Fr. Anthony Savas
Protopresbyter

As You were mercifully crucified for our sake, grant mercy to those who are called by Your name; make all Orthodox Christians glad by Your power, granting them victories over their adversaries, by bestowing on them the invincible trophy, Your weapon of peace.

Kontakion of the Feast

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Tomorrow is the Major Feast of the Elevation of the Cross. It is the day we lift up, consider, venerate, and contemplate the extreme mystery that is the Cross of Christ. It is violent. It is glorious. It is mournful. It is joy. It is death, itself. It bred life, itself. It wells up tears of sorrow yet pours fourth tears of gratitude.  It is repulsive. It is beautiful. In fear we flee from its shadow. In faith, we draw near to its light. In grief we look away from it. In the hope of the Resurrection, we gaze up at it. It is the Cross of Christ. It is all those things. Glory to Him Who ascended it unto our Salvation

Fr. Thomas Hopko explains well this Feast, This tale of “Harmolipe” (Joyful Sorrow).

The Elevation of the Cross, celebrated on the fourteenth of September, commemorates the finding of Christ’s Cross by Saint Helen, the mother of the Emperor Constantine in the fourth century; and, after it was taken by the Persians, of its recovery by the Emperor Heraclius in the seventh century at which time it was “elevated” in the Church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem. From this latter event the “universal elevation” of the Cross was celebrated annually in all of the churches of the Christian Empire.

As You were mercifully crucified for our sake, grant mercy to those who are called by Your name; make all Orthodox Christians glad by Your power, granting them victories over their adversaries, by bestowing on them the invincible trophy, Thy weapon of peace.

Kontakion of the Feast

The day of the Elevation of the Cross became, as it were, the national holiday of the Eastern Christian Empire similar to the Fourth of July in the United States. The Cross, the official emblem of the Empire which was placed on all public buildings and uniforms, was officially elevated on this day by the bishops and priests. They blessed the four directions of the universe with the Cross, while the faithful repeated the chanting of “Lord have mercy.” This ritual is still done in the churches today after the solemn presentation and elevation of the Cross at the end of the Vigil service of the holy day following the Great Doxology of Matins.

The troparion of the feast which was, one might say, the “national anthem” sung on all public occasions in the Christian Empires of Byzantium and Russia, originally petitioned God to save the people, to grant victory in war and to preserve the empire “by the virtue of the Cross.” Today the troparion, and all the hymns of the day, are “spiritualized” as the “adversaries” become the spiritually wicked and sinful including the devil and his armies, and “Orthodox Christians” replace the names of ruling officials of the Empire.

Save O Lord Your people, and bless your inheretence. Grant victory to the faithful against the adversaries of the Faith. And protect your people by Your Holy Cross.

Apolytikion of the Feast

When we elevate the Cross and bow down before it in veneration and worship to God, we proclaim that we belong to the Kingdom “not of this world,” and that our only true and enduring citizenship is with the saints in the “city of God” (Eph 2.19; Heb 11.10; Rev 21–22).

This central hymn of the Elevation of the Cross which lasts for eight days in the Church is sung many times. It replaces the Thrice-Holy of the Divine Liturgy. The normal antiphons are also replaced by special verses from the psalms which have direct reference to Christ’s crucifixion on the Cross (Ps 22, 74, 99). At the Matins, in the gospel reading from Saint John, Christ says that when He is elevated on the Cross He will draw all men to Himself (Jn 12.28–36). The long gospel reading at the Divine Liturgy is the passion account from this same gospel.

Thus, at the Elevation of the Cross the Christians make their official rededication to the crucified Lord and pledge their undivided allegiance to Him by the adoration of His holy feet nailed to the life-creating Cross. This is the meaning of this holy day of fasting and repentance in the Church today.

Please remember that following the Divine Liturgy, we will have a special collection to benefit our Metropolis students at the Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology. Our practice is to not pass trays in the church (if fact we don’t even own any of that fancy, velvet-lined, brass plates). But we will have a basket set up in the Narthex to demonstrate our support for those who are studying at our Seminary. 

Fr. Anthony Savas
Protopresbyter