‘A Better Time for Unity Than Today?’ – Personal Reflections on Hagia Sophia and Orthodox Unity

Menetasnot Desta – (Chief Administrator – OCP Amharic Service) – OCP Articles – OCP News Service – 25/7/2020

The recent decades have been absolutely bad for Christianity, especially for Orthodox Christians. The lives of a large number of Orthodox Christian’s are at stake across the world especially in places like Syria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Eritrea, etc. In many other countries, they are attacked and forcefully converted by radical Islamists.

Hagia Sofia – A Lesson for the ‘Urgent Need’ for Orthodox Christian ‘Unity’

In many places, Churches are destroyed by extremists. The Orthodox faithful are alienated as a result of the political, economic and social turmoil. However, most of the orthodox Churches cooperate in Pan-Christian organization like WCC in the name of ecumenicalism! It imparts a feeling in me that the real unity and power of Orthodoxy is declining.

Our pain is uncountable from the action of the extremists, secularists and other movements. Are we frightened to seek answers to our problems?

In fact, for Orthodox Christians, martyrdom remains not a novel thing before us. Simultaneously, it is worthy enough to discover solutions to our ongoing problems.
Pan-Orthodox Dialogue and Cooperation

As we carefully observe it is reasonably understandable that the current world dominant powers are the result of political unity and organized cooperation. Extremist Muslims of Arabian countries, Western secularist forces, global new evangelical movements and the Roman Catholic led by the Vatican remain some examples.

However, the Orthodox world is dominated by ethnic politics, schism, and conflicts. Orthodox Churches stand divided and it has adequately provided ample opportunities for our enemies to fiercely affect the Church. We have many notable examples from China, Arabian countries, and Western Europe and the USA.

Latterly the controversial decisions of turkey’s government on Hagia Sophia typically exhibited the sad disunity of Orthodoxy. We desperately need to promptly return to our master’s command (John 13: 34 – 35) Psalms (133:1).

It is high time that we to kindle the true fire of Pan-Orthodox Conciliar unity to prevent the Church from eternal darkness.

To get a free copy of the book ‘The Orthodox Dilemma, please email – ocpsociety.org@gmail.com. This book discusses the problems, issues, and hopes with regard to the Global Pan-Orthodox Christian unity.

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