Church of Cyprus Archbishop Georgios formally assumed his new duties as head of the church on Sunday following an enthronement ceremony evoking the splendor of centuries of Byzantine tradition before an audience of clergy from around the world, with the notable exception of the Russian church.
Russian Patriarch Kirill sent no representatives to the St Barnabas Cathedral ceremony following the Church of Cyprus’ decision to support the Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s independence, in line with the position of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul.
The Ukrainian Church’s Metropolitan Symeon and Archbishop Efstratios were in attendance, as Archbishop Georgios, bedecked in crimson and gold-trimmed liturgical vestments, trailed a procession of senior clerics into the cathedral.
Photo: Reuters
Although some pro-Russia bishops dissented against the 2020 decision by the 16-member Holy Synod, the Church of Cyprus’ highest decisionmaking body, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine consolidated that support.
The Russian Orthodox Church cut ties with Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I after he granted independence to Ukraine’s Orthodox church in 2019.
In an interview with the Greek weekly newspaper To Vima, Archbishop Georgios said the Cypriot church’s backing for Bartholomew’s decision flowed out of orthodox laws that put the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s primacy over all other Orthodox churches.
However, Georgios offered an olive branch to the Russian church, saying he would reach out to Moscow to dispel any notions of enmity and help restore Orthodox unity.
Christian unity was the central message of greetings by Pope Francis conveyed by the papal nuncio to Cyprus Adolfo Tito Yllana.
“I know that your Beatitude will continue in this commitment to fostering the unity of all Christ’s disciples,” Georgios said. “In these difficult times marked by injustice, violence and war, it is all the more important that Christians give an authentic witness of unity so that the world they believe in the Lord’s message of love, reconciliation and peace.”
Georgios’ enthronement became official after he signed the church’s constitution with red ink — a privilege granted to the head of the Church of Cyprus by the fifth-century Byzantine emperor Zeno after he was gifted a gospel found in the tomb of the Cyprus Church’s founder and apostle of Christ, Barnabas.
In his own address, the archbishop said his prime goal is to reinvigorate the Christian message in modern spiritual discourse, carry on with the church’s outreach to the poor and to convey that scientific thought is not in conflict with the precepts of Christianity.
He also said the church would continue to have a voice in matters of education, and would oppose any political negotiations aimed at resolving Cyprus’ ethnic cleave that would embolden Turkey’s “expansionism” and facilitate Ankara’s full control of the country.
Cyprus was split along ethnic lines in 1974 when Turkey invaded following a coup aimed at union with Greece.
Georgios was elected archbishop last month following the death of his predecessor, archibshop Chrysostomos II, after a long battle with cancer. The new archbishop studied chemistry and theology in Greece and later in the UK before rising through the ranks within the church to be elected Paphos bishop in 2006.
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
UNDER INVESTIGATION: Members of the local Muslim community had raised concerns with the police about the boy, who officials said might have been radicalized online A 16-year-old boy armed with a knife was shot dead by police after he stabbed a man in the Australian west coast city of Perth, officials said yesterday. The incident occurred in the parking lot of a hardware store in suburban Willetton on Saturday night. The teen attacked the man and then rushed at police officers before he was shot, Western Australian Premier Roger Cook told reporters. “There are indications he had been radicalized online,” Cook told a news conference, adding that it appeared he acted alone. A man in his 30s was found at the scene with a stab wound to his back.