News and Information

Our most holy Orthodox Church today commemorates its own feast day, and – from this historical and martyric See of the Ecumenical Patriarchate – the Mother Church of Constantinople directs its blessing, love and concern to all of its faithful and dedicated spiritual children throughout the world, inviting them to concelebrate in prayer. Blessed be the name of the Lord! Those who endeavored over the ages to suppress the Church through various visible and invisible persecutions; Read more...

Tomorrow, we enter the period of Holy and Great Lent. In the Lenten vespers of Forgiveness chanted this evening, we shall hear the sacred hymnographer urging us to "begin the time of fasting with joy, submitting ourselves to spiritual struggle" in preparing to welcome the great Passion and joyful Resurrection of our divine-human Lord. Read more...

The distance and separation between God and humanity resulting from sin has been abolished with the assumption of the entire human nature by the Only-Begotten Son and Pre-eternal Word of God. It was God’s good will – that is to say, His initiative and will – that the incarnation of His Son should abolish all such distance uniting heaven and earth, as well as creation with its Creator. Read more...

His All Holiness Bartholomew will be featured on the CBS News program 60 Minutes reported by Bob Simon, scheduled to air on Sunday, December 20, 2009 at 7 p.m. EST. The segment will focus on the Orthodox Church, the most ancient Christian church, and its development from its earliest years to modern times in what is now the Republic of Turkey. Read more...

It is with profound regret that we learned today of the repose in the Lord of our brother Patriarch Pavle of Serbia. After holding a memorial service at the conclusion of this evening’s Vespers on the occasion of the feast of St. Matthew the Apostle and Evangelist, we entreated the Lord with all our heart and soul to grant rest to his blessed soul in the land of the living. Read more...

The Vice President of the United States Joseph Biden and his wife hosted a formal dinner yesterday Nov. 4, at the Vice Presidential Residence to honor His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew who during this third leg of his trip to the United States is visiting Washington, DC. Read more...

His All Holiness, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew was received today at the White House in the Oval Office by President Barack Obama. This reciprocal visit to the one paid by President Obama earlier this year (April 7, when he made his first overseas visit to a Muslim country, Turkey) followed up on their conversations at that time on the subjects of the recently concluded environmental symposium on the Mississippi River and the re-opening of the Theological School of Halki. Read more...

Archbishop Demetrios of America welcomed His All Holiness to a unique session of the Archdiocesan Council yesterday morning, attended by more than 100 members, all the Metropolitans of the Holy Eparchial Synod, the Auxiliary Bishops and Metropolitans Athanasios Geron of Chalchedon and Emmanuel of France accompanying His All Holiness. Read more...

“It was a prayer for peace,” said His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew yesterday, following the conclusion of a concert entitled “Tribute to Peace Makers” at the renowned Alice Tully Hall in Manhattan’s Lincoln Center. Read more...

On behalf of my dear friend and co-worker in the Lord Dr. Dennis C. Dickerson, chairman of our Board of Trustees, Dr. Ena Heller, the executive director of the Museum of Biblical Art, and on behalf of trustees, staff and supporters of the American Bible Society and MOBIA, I welcome Your All Holiness this evening. Read more...