NEW YORK, NY — The Archdiocesan District Philoptochos is proud to announce an upcoming webinar taking place on Saturday, October 3rd, offering essential guidance and spiritual support for Orthodox Christians navigating the complex journey of supporting loved ones experiencing addiction. 

Supporting a family member or friend through addiction can feel isolating and overwhelming. For Orthodox Christians, a pressing question often arises: How do we do this while keeping Christ at the center of our lives? 

Through this collaborative event, the Archdiocesan District Philoptochos shines a vital spotlight on these challenges, continuing its unwavering commitment to supporting families, strengthening communities, and serving those in need. The Saint Anastasia Fellowship (SAF) is actively working to provide education and reduce stigma by informing the faithful about addiction, recovery, and the Orthodox Church’s theological perspective. By blending modern clinical approaches with ancient healing modalities from our faith, the Fellowship seeks to meet people in their suffering and invite Christ through the intercessory prayers of Saint Anastasia for their healing. 

This special online event provides a compassionate space to address these challenges. Participants will hear directly from Fr. Nikolas Delaveris, Director of Development of the SAF, an addiction counselor for more than a decade, and parish priest at Prophet Elias Greek Orthodox Church. The Archdiocesan District Philoptochos will moderate the discussion and present the most common questions submitted by registrants about how to navigate this path with faith and strength. 

Event Details: 

• Date: Saturday, October 3rd 

• Host: Direct Archdiocesan District Philoptochos 

• Featured Speaker: Fr. Nikolas Delaveris, Director of Development, Saint Anastasia Fellowship 

• Call to Action: Sign up and submit your questions today through the official Zoom Registration Link.

All faithful and families seeking comfort, community, and practical spiritual guidance are encouraged to register and participate in this vital conversation. 

 About the Saint Anastasia Fellowship 

The Saint Anastasia Fellowship—a ministry of the Direct Archdiocesan District—offers a uniquely Orthodox Christian approach to addiction recovery. By combining contemporary clinical practices with Scripture, Tradition, and the wisdom of the Orthodox Church Fathers, the Fellowship provides vital education, outreach, intercessory prayer, and peer-based group support to individuals and their families navigating addiction. This ministry is made possible through a generous grant from Leadership 100.  

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During the Holy Fast for the Dormition of the Most Holy Mother of God, His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, in the company of His Beatitude Pope and Patriarch Theodore II of Alexandria and All Africa and His Beatitude Archbishop Ioannis of Tirana, Durrës and All Albania, traveled back to the island of Imvros, where he was born on February 29, 1940. On Thursday, August 13, 2026, His All-Holiness observed the 65th anniversary of his ordination to the diaconate and offered a series of reflections on his remarkable lifetime of service to Almighty God and His Holy Church.

Before the dismissal of the Patriarchal Divine Liturgy, over which he presided at the Metropolitan Church of the Dormition of the Theotokos, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew celebrated a Trisagion for the repose of his elder and benefactor of blessed memory, Metropolitan Meliton of Chalcedon. 65 years ago, on August 13, 1961, His Eminence Meliton, then the Metropolitan of Imvros and Tenedos, ordained the 21-year-old Dimitrios Archontonis to the sacred diaconate, and gave him the ecclesiastical name Bartholomew.

Recalling his ordination to the diaconate, His All-Holiness stated that he remembered in particular the words “Jesus only,” from the account of the Transfiguration in the Gospels: “And when they lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only” (Matthew 17:8). These words, he explained, have guided him throughout his lengthy and remarkable lifetime of diakonia.

According to Orthodox Times, the Ecumenical Patriarch “spoke warmly of the formative influence of both Imbros and the Theological School of Halki, where his faith, love of learning and appreciation for Orthodox liturgical and theological tradition were cultivated. He also paid tribute to the people of Imbros who remained on the island through difficult decades and preserved its churches, language and identity. Expressing optimism about the island’s future, he encouraged younger generations to contribute actively to maintaining a sustainable Greek Orthodox presence there.”

His All-Holiness spent eight years as a deacon; Metropolitan Meliton ordained him to the holy priesthood on October 19, 1969, and Ecumenical Patriarch Demetrios of blessed ministry consecrated him as a bishop on the Feast of the Nativity of the Lord Jesus Christ, December 25, 1973. On October 22, 1991, the Holy and Sacred Synod unanimously elected him as the 270th Archbishop of Constantinople-New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch. He was enthroned on November 2, 1991.

On Imvros on August 13, His All-Holiness gave thanks to God for the “supreme gift of the priesthood.” He noted that in his service to the Holy Orthodox Church, his efforts had been “devoted to pan-Orthodox cooperation, inter-Christian and interreligious dialogue, peace and solidarity, the protection of the natural environment, and engagement between the Church and the contemporary world.”

The Ecumenical Patriarch stated: “My entire journey has been a ‘life in dialogue.’” He stressed “that he has always regarded introversion, isolation, self-sufficiency and ‘sterile monologue’ as incompatible with the Orthodox faith.” He explained that as Ecumenical Patriarch, he had always emphasized that Orthodoxy is “fundamentally a call to communion, encounter with others, solidarity and peaceful coexistence.” He added that these convictions “have inspired initiatives aimed at fostering cooperation in addressing the major challenges of the contemporary world.”

The extraordinary 35-year ministry of His All-Holiness as Ecumenical Patriarch has indeed been marked by remarkable initiatives to in building bridges with Christians of other faith traditions, as well as with non-Christians. In his address, His All-Holiness “also emphasized the wider mission of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, insisting that the Church cannot remain detached from the challenges facing humanity.” Throughout his tenure as Ecumenical Patriarch, His All-Holiness has consistently and courageously raised a prophetic voice to meet those challenges, calling upon humanity to care for the natural environment, and to recognize that war causes incalculable loss of lives and property while solving nothing.

His All-Holiness said that “the Ecumenical Patriarchate has never been a spectator of the course of human affairs,” while “rejecting the notion that engagement with the world necessarily leads to the secularization of the Church.”

His All-Holiness also recalled the Lord’s words, “You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trodden under foot by men. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid.” (Matthew 5:13-14). He declared: “We cannot journey toward God while turning our backs on our fellow human beings.”

That is the ethos that has characterized this holy man’s selfless 65 years of service to the Holy Orthodox Church. We are immensely blessed that his ministry continues. Eis polla eti, Despota!

See the original article here.

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After moving to Athens when I was 15, I found myself surrounded by graffiti on a scale I had not seen in New York, covering entire walls of neighborhoods, highways and even monuments. This made me wonder what impulse leads people throughout history to mark surfaces and leave a trace? Now, graffiti is illegal and considered damage to public and private property, yet it continues. My interest in graffiti on the streets of Athens intensified and brought me to the Iviron Monastery library at Mount Athos.   

Delving into “Silk Road Graffiti” by Dale Johnson, a Syriac Orthodox monk and linguist who documented writings at the margins of ancient scrolls (marginalia) was illuminating. He described marks of children practicing their letters, travelers leaving messages that were sometimes answered decades later, as well as doodles and notes accumulated over hundreds of years. It irked me that historians often treat marginalia as secondary, even distracting. The more I researched, the more I realized the margin is often where the reader becomes present, visible, uncertain, and curious. And marginalia are also the graffiti which cover the walls of Athens today. 

In December 2025, I made the long trek to the Holy Monastery of Iviron on Mount Athos to look for marginalia in medieval manuscripts. Coming from Greece’s mainland. I arrived at Mount Athos as a pilgrim would: slowly and tired but with intention. Once there, my visit was a medieval experience: Time moved differently even though church bells rang loudly to mark the functions of the day. The architecture, the communal life of the monks, and the natural setting were more vivid than I had expected.  

A dark doorway took me into the library, a vaulted space with brick arches and ceiling-high shelves on either side. From there I saw a series of corridors lined with more wooden shelves and glass cabinets. Monk Theologos Iverites, the librarian, guided me through the collection. 

The wrapping of the manuscripts struck me first. Most volumes were covered with white cloth cases to protect the books from insects. Each had a small, inked symbol alongside a number followed by geometric marks, below which a beetle or other bug had been drawn. This was to indicate which type of insect had infested that manuscript. 

It saddened me to see so many of the shelved manuscripts with disintegrating bindings and covers, due to infestation. Entire collections are disappearing slowly, eaten away. I closed one book as carefully as if it were an eggshell that could crack, yet a small cloud of dust rose from the eroding pages. The earthy smell of the old paper made me feel I was on an archeological dig. It moved me to holding a book from the 9th century. 

Monk Theologos Iverites has spent years scanning manuscripts before they are all lost. As I assisted him in this preservation work, he helped me identify and translate the marginalia we came across in the many layers that exist in a single manuscript. The notes on the Ottoman invasion to Greece, historical remarks, signatures, drawings, and senseless doodles captivated me. On the inside cover of one manuscript, multiple writers had left their marks across centuries, with crosses, names, and dates all crowded together, each person annotating the previous message. In another manuscript, I spotted a blank end leaf with just two series of a strange, code-like text. In some volumes, I saw signatures rewritten, layers of the same names. The impulse that Johnson had documented was not specific to one culture nor one road but omnipresent in a world of readers. It thrilled me to find that each manuscript had at least three stories or layers: the literal meaning of its text, the journey it has taken over centuries, and the notes and marks in its margins. I had become part of a chain of people discovering them and then helping to restore these unique books before passing them on. The manuscripts have survived Ottoman invasions, insect damage, centuries of handling and I want them to live on.  

My dyslexic mind leads me to read around edges before focusing on centers. To me, the margins are the most honest part of the page. The text of a book conveys what is required and expected while the margins express the irrepressible. This understanding took me from New York City and then Athens to one of the most sacred libraries of Orthodox Christianity in Northern Greece. What looked like peripheral noise near the main event became a valuable archive. The margin is not an accidental holding bin but an oasis for scribes in need of more space. 

Ari Antelman is a senior at Moraitis School in Athens. He grew up in New York City and is currently conducting independent research on language and memory in Greek American communities.  

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On the eve of the Feast of Indiction, the Service of Great Vespers for the Day of Prayer for the Protection of the Natural Environment was celebrated at St. Eleftherios Greek Orthodox Church in New York City by Fr. Nicolas Kazarian, St. Eleftherios parish priest and the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America’s Director of the Department of Inter-Orthodox, Ecumenical, and Interfaith Relations. The hymns for the Service of Great Vespers were chanted by Master Chanter of St. Nicholas National Shrine, Dimitrios Katsiklis. 

Attended by faithful from the NYC area, the service was followed by dinner and an ecumenical panel discussion on the importance of environmental stewardship in the Christian life. 

The Great Vespers for the Preservation of Creation was composed on Mount Athos by Monk Gerasimos of the Skete of Saint Anne—who was a hymnographer of the Great Church of Christ. The service, especially composed to celebrate the Day of Prayer for the Protection of the Natural Environment proclaimed in 1989, heavily integrates themes of repentance for humanity’s destruction of nature, cosmic renewal through Christ, and Old Testament readings (like Leviticus and Isaiah) that link human righteousness with the fertility of the earth.

> Previously: Cosmic worship, cosmic witness: Orthodox Vespers for the Preservation of Creation

“Put an end, O Savior, to the evil designs which are being devised against us by senseless intent, and turn aside from the earth every destructive action of the works of human hands which contrive corruption leading to perdition.”

> Read the full service here.

This celebration of the Day of Prayer for Creation marked the start of the Archdiocese’s new Green Church Initiative. The initiative, managed by Lily Talmers within the Department of Inter-Orthodox, Ecumenical, and Interfaith Relations, will develop resources and programs to support efforts by parishes to embrace the environmental theology of the Orthodox Church and undertake steps to integrate environmental sustainability practices into parish life.  

Following Great Vespers, a panel discussion was held in the community hall and featured three notable speakers—Dr. Chris Durante from St. Peter’s University; Lily Kerhualas, a Ph.D. candidate from Fordham University; and Christina Leano, the Associate Director of the Laudito Si Movement in New York. As Project Manager of the Green Church Initiative, Lily Talmers moderated the discussion.   

The panelists examined the relationship between Christian faith and environmental stewardship, emphasizing the role of humanity as stewards called to care for God’s creation. They discussed the importance of appreciating and being connected to creation within the spiritual life and the responsibility of Christians to approach the natural world with gratitude and reverence. 

“Our encounter with Christ has to lead us deeper into our relationship with creation,” Christina Leano said. “So to care for creation is not an extra thing, an add-on, but actually a constitutive dimension of what it means to follow Christ.”

The discussion also considered how the natural world alludes to God’s presence in the world and has long been the site of revelation. 

“That takes us actually going outside and turning our attention towards the environment, to the natural world,” said Lily Kerhulas. “Thinking from a Christian standpoint opens up the possibility of revelation.” 

The panelists also addressed the challenges in bridging the gap between public awareness and collective action around climate change and environmental degradation, particularly amid frequent reports of environmental disasters and growing feelings of hopelessness in mitigation pollution and environmental destruction.  

Leano spoke of the importance of acknowledging the suffering associated with environmental degradation rather than becoming indifferent to it. 

“We need to hold the suffering in our hearts,” Leano said. “We can’t ignore it. And that’s part of our work is to allow our hearts to be broken.” 

Dr. Chris Durante approached environmental stewardship through the question of human flourishing, asking what conditions allow individuals, families, and communities to live well. He contrasted that understanding with a culture increasingly shaped by the pursuit of material accumulation and consumption. 

“We want a life lived well, we want well-being, happiness, and prosperity for our kin and our children going into the future. Look towards the book of nature, towards what that flourishing actually is,” Durante said. “The good life in the terms of a holistic understanding that isn’t just buying into some corporation’s version of it they’re advertising to you.” 

Kerhulas further connected the Christian pursuit of theosis with environmental stewardship, describing creation as a means through which humanity can enter into deeper communion with God. Leano encouraged an approach to environmental work rooted in gratitude, hope, and community, describing creation as a “joyful mystery to be contemplated.” 

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In his sacred responsibility as described in the Charter of our Sacred Archdiocese, and in his pastoral oversight and fatherly care, His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros of America has approved the following ordinations:

• Mr. Douglas Kasten to the Holy Diaconate, whom he assigned to serve at Saint Catherine Church in Greenwood Village, Colorado, in the Holy Metropolis of Denver.

• Mr. Savvas Eleftheriou Savvidis to the Holy Diaconate, whom he assigned to serve in the Holy Metropolis of Atlanta.

• Mr. Nicholas Schwarz to the Holy Diaconate, whom he assigned to serve in the Holy Metropolis of New Jersey.

• The Rev. Deacon Andreas Constantinou to the Holy Priesthood, whom he assigned to serve at Saint Vasilios Church in Peabody, Massachusetts, in the Holy Metropolis of Boston.

• The Rev. Deacon George Miller to the Holy Priesthood, whom he assigned to serve at the Assumption of the Theotokos Church in Scottsdale, Arizona, in the Holy Metropolis of San Francisco.

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