New Publication from the Sretensky Monastery: Words of Eternal Life by Metr. Philaret (Vosnesensky) of New York

Из книги митрополита Филарета (Вознесенского) "Глаголы жизни вечной", изданной в серии "Духовное наследие русского зарубежья", выпущенной Сретенским монастырем в 2007 г.

Детерминизм, его разбор. — Ложное и истинное понятие об индетерминизме. — Влияние на нас мотивов и свобода выбора. — Сознание нами своей свободы и факт раскаяния
Мы уже знаем то, что человек несет ответственность за свои поступки только тогда, когда он бывает свободен при их совершении. Но имеет ли и он ту духовную свободу, свободу воли, которая предполагается здесь? В последнее время в человечестве сильно распространилось учение, которое называется детерминизмом. Последователи этого учения — детерминисты — не признают в человеке свободы воли. Они утверждают, что в каждом отдельном поступке человек действует только по внешним причинам. По их учению, человек всегда действует только под влиянием мотивов и побуждений, не зависящих от него, и подчиняется обычно сильнейшему из этих мотивов. Эти ученые говорят: «Нам только кажется, что мы поступаем свободно, это — самообман». Знаменитый философ XVI века Спиноза защищал это мнение. Он в виде примера говорил о брошенном камне, что если бы этот камень мог думать и говорить, то он также сказал бы, что он летит и падает на то место, куда ему самому хочется. А в действительности летит он только потому, что его кто-то бросил, а падает под действием силы тяжести.

See: http://www.pravoslavie.ru/put/070530130459

New Book! Tracking a Diaspora: Émigrés from Russia and Eastern Europe in the Repositories

Tracking a Diaspora: Emigrés from Russia and Eastern Europe in the Repositories

Edited by Anatol Shmelev, PhD, Project Archivist, RFE/RL Collection, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University in California

Discover collections unused by other scholars!Russian immigrants are one of the least studied of all the Slavic peoples because of meager collections development. Tracking a Diaspora: Émigrés from Russia and Eastern Europe in the Repositories offers librarians and archivists an abundance of fresh information describing previously unrealized and little-used archival collections on Russian émigrés. Some of these resources have been only recently acquired or opened to the public, providing rich new avenues of research for scholars and historians. This unique source provides access to greater breadth and depth of knowledge of Russian and Eastern European immigrants, their backgrounds, and their experiences coming to the United States.Tracking a Diaspora is not only a helpful new resource to specialists but also serves as an introduction to archival research for amateur genealogists and scholars. Chapters comprehensively describe a single repository, thorough descriptions of a single collection, or offer thematic overviews, such as the theme of German emigration from Russia.

The text includes detailed notes, references, figures and tables, and photographs. Tracking a Diaspora describes largely unknown collections, including:

It reviews a major group of archival collections that reveals more on these immigrants and their assimilation problems. It includes the holdings of the museum, libraries, and archives of Holy Trinity Orthodox Seminary in upstate New York; the archives of the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia; the archives and Lembich library at The Tolstoy Foundation, Inc., New York; the Archives of the Orthodox Church in America; the manuscript collections at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania (HSP); materials on the immigrants who settled in the Midwest six archival collections acquired by the State Archive of the Russian Federation;
the André Savine collection at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
and more! Tracking a Diaspora is of great interest to librarians, archivists, specialists in Russian history, and specialists in ethnic and immigration history.

Alaska's Digital Archives

Alaska's Digital Archives presents a wealth of historical photographs, albums, oral histories, moving images, maps, documents, physical objects, and other materials from libraries, museums and archives throughout the state of Alaska.

It also contains a wealth of primary materials on the EASTERN ORTHODOX CHURCH in Alaska and North America!

Visit Alaska's Digital Archives at: http://vilda.alaska.edu/index.php

(Photo of Bishop Alexander Nemolovksy, Russian Orthodox Church, Diocese of Alaska)

First Orthodox Inter Seminary Theological Symposium

OISM (Orthodox Inter Seminary Movement) 2007 Fall Event
Hosted by Holy Cross Theological Seminary
November 9 th and 10 th
1st OISM Theological Symposium
In honor of the sixteen hundredth anniversary of the repose of St. John Chrysostom

Call For Papers

Papers will be accepted for consideration from any Orthodox seminarian attending any of the OISM member schools. The top paper from each OISM member school will be selected to be present by the author at the symposium to be held at Holy Cross Theological Seminary, November 9 th and 10 th , 2007.
Papers are to address the topic:
The Significance of The Life and Works of
St. John Chyrsostom For Today, in 3000 words or less.
Papers should be submitted by October 1 st 2007 to your OISM representatives in an electronic format. For more information or to submit your paper contact your OISM representatives:
Or
Kevin Meyers, OISM President at mailto:meyersks@msn.com

Act of Canonical Communion Signed in Moscow

2007-05-17 10:33:00
Act of Canonical Communion signed in Moscow (updated)

Moscow, May 17, Interfax - The Act of Canonical Communion between the Russian Orthodox Church in Russia and abroad was signed at Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral on Thursday morning.The historic document was signed by Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia and by First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia Metropolitan Laurus.The ceremony is being attended by President Vladimir Putin, several thousands Orthodox believers, including believers who have arrived from abroad, and about 500 journalists.The Christ the Savior Cathedral is decorated with white flowers - a traditional adornment used on the Ascension holiday to symbolize renewal.The signing of the Act of Canonical Communion symbolizes the return of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia into the fold of the Moscow Patriarchate and of the whole of the Orthodox world, which until recently did not recognize the Russian Church abroad. From now onwards, being part of the Mother Church, parishioners of the Russian Orthodox Church abroad will have the right to take communion at all of the world's Orthodox churches, while its clergy gains the right to serve jointly with the hierarchs and clergy of all 15 local Orthodox Churches.The name of the Russian patriarch will now be mentioned in all services of the Russian Orthodox Church abroad before the name of the first hierarch.According to the Act of Canonical Communion, the Moscow Patriarchate recognizes the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia as "an indissoluble part of the local Russian Orthodox Church, but independent in pastoral, educational, administrative, managerial, property and civil matters," and remaining "in canonical unity with the Fullness of the Russian Orthodox Church."The Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia will as previously be run by its own Council of Bishops - "its supreme ecclesiastical, legislative, administrative, judiciary and controlling authority" convened by her First Hierarch in accordance with the Regulations. "This election is confirmed in accordance with the norms of the canonical law by the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia and by the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church."Decisions on the establishment or liquidation of dioceses of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia will be made in agreement with the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia and the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church.The bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, elected by her Council of Bishops, will be confirmed in accordance with canonical norms by the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia and the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Exhibition of Russian Church Documents to be Held in Moscow

Moscow, May 15, Interfax:

An exhibition of documents from the archives of the Moscow-based Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia will open in Moscow on Thursday. The two parts of Russian Church are due to sign a unification agreement the same day. "The task of the exhibition is to extensively inform the Russian public about the life, work and heroic feats of the Russian Orthodox Church in the 20th century at home and in emigration. It tells of church figures who preserved the treasure of faith in the years of atheistic persecution," a source in the Publishing Board of the Moscow-based Church told Interfax. Some of the documents relate to reunification talks. The exhibition, entitled The Russian Orthodox Church in the 20th and 21st Centuries, will be held at the museum of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.

Vatican Library to Close --But there is good news!

Ancient Vatican library to close
By David Willey BBC News, Rome
One of the world's oldest libraries, at the Vatican, is to close for three years for rebuilding, in an unexpected blow to scholars around the world. The decision to shut the library was made without warning. After the library closes for its summer break in mid-July, it will not reopen until September 2010, the Vatican says…
Have You Heard?

And Now For the Good News…

If your research plans include using the Vatican Library during the next three years, there is an alternative. The Vatican Film Library at Saint Louis University holds microfilm copies of 37,000 Vatican Library manuscripts, constituting major portions of the Greek, Latin, and Western European vernacular collections, in addition to materials in Arabic, Ethiopic, and Hebrew. The VFL also has a complete collection of the Vatican Library manuscript catalogues and handwritten inventories as well as an extensive reference collection for all aspects of manuscript study.

For more information on Vatican Film Library holdings, events, publications and fellowship opportunities visit us online at:

http://www.slu.edu/libraries/vfl/


K N I G H T S O F C O L U M B U S
V A T I C A N F I L M L I B R A R Y
S A I N T L O U I S U N I V E R S I T Y

Reunion of the Two Parts of the Russian Church Near!

Nearly 80 archpriests and priests to come to Moscow for Church unification

Moscow, May 7, Interfax - More than half the bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR) and about one-third of its priests will attend a planned historic worship service in Moscow on May 17 that will celebrate ROCOR's unification with the Moscow-based Russian Orthodox Church.

Seven ROCOR bishops, including the head of the Church Abroad, Metropolitan Laurus, and more than 70 ROCOR priests will arrive in Moscow by May 17, when the two churches are to sign the Act of Canonical Communion, Archpriest Nikolay Balashov, secretary of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations, told reporters.

He said about 600 members of the ROCOR community were going to attend the service, to be held at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. The altar doors will stay open throughout the service, which is usually done only during Holy Week.

"The laity wanted to see with their own eyes this happen for the first time - to see Metropolitan Laurus and foreign priests take communion together with ours from the same chalice for the first time," Fr. Balashov said.

There will be other important events as well.

On May 19, Laurus and the head of the Moscow-based Church, Patriarch Alexy II will co-preside in a service to consecrate the Church of the New Russian Martyrs in Butovo, an area in Moscow where the Stalin regime put to death a tremendous number of people, including clergy.

Laurus and Alexy laid the cornerstone for this church in 2004 during the ROCOR head's first official visit to Moscow.

On May 20, Alexy and Laurus will serve together again, this time at Russia's main church, the Assumption Cathedral in the Kremlin.

As the cathedral is relatively small, it has been decided to minimize the number of Moscow clergy who will take part in that service, Fr. Balashov said. "This will be done specially to enable as many of our foreign brothers as possible to co-serve with the patriarch," he said.

Vatican Library to Close for Three Years

By David Willey BBC News, Rome
One of the world's oldest libraries, at the Vatican, is to close for three years for rebuilding, in an unexpected blow to scholars around the world. The decision to shut the library was made without warning. After the library closes for its summer break in mid-July, it will not reopen until September 2010, the Vatican says. The reason is that some buildings constructed only a quarter of a century ago are now considered unsuitable for the safe storage of ancient books.
Air conditioning and dust protection will be installed and fire exits will be improved.
During the closure, scholars will still be able to obtain digital copies of ancient manuscripts in the Vatican library that they can study at home. But the reading room, which is used by about 100 scholars a day, will be occupied during rebuilding by the Vatican's book restorers, who have to look after more than one million printed volumes and 75,000 priceless manuscripts. Many of the books are stored in underground bunkers. The Vatican library was founded by Pope Nicholas V nearly 600 years ago and has been open to scholars ever since. There is another archive kept in the Vatican called the secret archive, which is not normally available to scholars. This contains among other historic documents the love letters of England's King Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn, stolen by a Vatican spy to provide evidence for the pope when the king unsuccessfully sought an annulment of his marriage in Rome.
Story from BBC NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/6617735.stm

Published: 2007/05/03 00:40:57 GMT