Give peace to Thy world, to Thy Churches, to Thy priests…

War is bad. Wars should cease. Peace is the way of the Royal Path.

Within one week of his meeting with the President of Russia, the Archbishop of Stika and Alaska has issued a public apology for the pain inflicted upon the faithful in the wake of this meeting.

Indeed, the optics, to many, appeared bad. But optics are not reality. The optics of the Easter morning were that a body was stolen. The reality is that death was dead and Life was alive.

Here, too, a hierarch of the Church of God greeted a dignitary. Is he a war criminal? Should he be arrested? Whatever one might think of Mr. Putin, he is also a sitting President. The optics were that the Archbishop was too effulgent in his talk of Russia. But those are just optics. The Archbishop of sacred Alaska greeted a sitting dignitary from the land that gave birth to Holy Orthodoxy in the Last Frontier.

What is far sadder, however, is the public rebuke by some brother hierarchs, clergy, and faithful of the Orthodox Church, without any conversation with His Grace about motive or purpose.

“Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother” (Matthew 18:15). Lengthy Facebook posts are certainly not offered with the goal of bringing a brother to repentance by telling him his fault between “you and him alone.” They are, instead, often meant to shame, cajole, threaten, and harm.

What the reaction will be by those who were hurt by all of this is anyone’s guess. Will they relent, following this apology? God willing, yes!

One will, of course, be looking to see if an upcoming visit of the Patriarch of Constantinople to the USA and his scheduled visit with the President, members of Congress and the Senate, and members of the Diplomatic Corps will bring the same kind of rebuke to corrupt, immoral behavior that was so longed for in this current situation.

A Miscarriage of Justice: How the Phanar Betrayed Met. Tychikos

The following article by Fr. Anastasios Gotsopoulos was first published by the UOJ's Greek bureau. It has been edited for an American audience.

The New McCarthyism

Today, a delegation of Orthodox clergy will meet with the White House to plead on behalf of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC). Yet mainstream media outlets like The Hill and politicians like Rep. Joe Wilson are dismissing the effort as a Kremlin psyop. This is offensive to the UOC, and to Orthodox Christians here in the United States.

Zelensky-Style Sanctions: The 'Mindich Case' vs. the 'UOJ Case'

Ten years of sanctions for journalists who criticize the authorities, and three years for corrupt officials who steal millions. A story about whom and how people are punished in modern Ukraine.

Will the Phanar Abandon the OCU?

The Orthodox Times ' plea for a “temporary Exarchate” in Ukraine under Constantinople admits the 2019 Tomos birthed division, not unity. Amid OCU defections, state seizures, and Phanar whispers of a puppet church, the proposal is a white flag for a failed intervention. Of course, it also vindicates Met. Onuphry’s steadfast flock.

The Papacy Is Not a 'Development'—It's a Contradiction

The Holy Canons assert the absolute authority of each bishop within his own diocese. The Ecumenical Councils, while acknowledging the Pope's symbolic primacy, also explicitly checked his attempts to exercise superior authority over the Church, or to place himself above his fellow bishops. And the Church Fathers fleshed out this ecclesiology, affirming the rights of bishops and synods while checking papal ambitions.

Meet the New Rome, Same as the Old Rome

J.D. Vance’s comparison of the Ecumenical Patriarch to the Pope highlights growing tensions within Orthodoxy, as critics accuse Patriarch Bartholomew of pursuing "Greek papism" and aligning with U.S. geopolitical interests, risking the erosion of his primacy of love and the unity of the Orthodox Church.