Eastern Orthodox Church

Inspired by an independent Internet site that helped topple Archbishop Spyridon as America's Greek Orthodox leader, members of various Eastern Orthodox churches have launched a similar news and commentary site. The site, http://www.orthodoxnews.com, is edited by D.J. King, a layman of the Orthodox Church in America who operates a computer programming business in Martinez. The publisher is Stephen Angelides, an administrative law judge in California.

The morning she sat outside a Greek Orthodox monastery chapel at 3:30 a.m. because only Orthodox Christians were allowed inside for the service, Melinda Munoz got an inkling that she was on the road to a religious conversion. A Baptist minister with cultural roots far from the eastern Mediterranean homeland of Orthodoxy, she was fascinated by the chanting, the incense and pale candlelight flowing from beneath the chapel door. Something told her this was what she had been looking for.

With flickering candles and ancient chants, millions of Orthodox Christians in Southern California and the world today celebrate Christmas. "Peace from God! Christ is born!" is the exclamation heard in Serbian Orthodox churches. In Armenian parishes, water was blessed Wednesday and drunk by the faithful as a sign of the cleansing of their hearts and minds as they observed both the birth and baptism of Jesus.

Biola University, a conservative Christian college that teaches biblical literalism, has ended a nine-month investigation into the religious beliefs of four Eastern Orthodox staff members and will recommend that their jobs be spared.

The icons of the Eastern Orthodox Church have fascinated--and puzzled--Westerners for a long time.

In an Orthodox church watched over by saints and martyrs, Russian-born painter Victor Kazanin perfects his creations. Driven by a vision that not even he fully understands, the artist adds curls of shadow and hints of blush to a canopy of images now covering the walls and ceiling of a little-known sanctuary near Oxnard. It is not so much a job for Kazanin as it is a testament of faith.

Eastern Orthodox Christians throughout Southern California celebrate Easter tonight in nearly 2,000-year-old rites of sacred pageantry and tradition. For Antiochian, Coptic, Greek, Romanian, Russian and Serbian Orthodox Christian, the Resurrection of Christ comes a month after Roman Catholics and Protestants commemorated Easter.

During Lent, Christianity's season of fasting and penitence, a quarrel has grabbed hold of the Orthodox Church that is so acrimonious that priests and experts say it could ultimately lead to the greatest split in Christendom in more than 900 years. At immediate issue are souls, churches, monasteries and 8,750 acres in the small Baltic nation of Estonia.

Sharing the altar with the leader of the Eastern Orthodox Church, Pope John Paul II made a passionate appeal this week for unity among the faiths after nearly a millennium apart. "We cannot remain separate," the pontiff said during a Mass in St. Peter's Basilica on Thursday to celebrate the feast day of the apostles St. Peter and St. Paul. Patriarch Bartholomew I joined the Pope on the flower-ringed altar above the tomb of St. Peter.