Assembly of Bishops News

Seventy-four Members of Congress, led by Representatives Brad Sherman (D-CA), Gus M. Bilirakis (R-FL), Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), John Sarbanes (D-MD), Trent Franks (R-AZ), and Mike Pompeo (R-KS), urged the State Department to prioritize the release of two kidnapped Archbishops in a letter to Secretary Kerry today. Read More ...

We greet you in the surpassing joy of the Risen Christ. By the grace of God, we are blessed to observe the Sixth Sunday of Pascha, which this year falls on June 9, as Prison Ministry Awareness Sunday. We embrace the diakonia of prison ministry in keeping with the example of our Risen Lord Jesus Christ, the Great Physician of our souls, who did not Read More ...

We express to you our archpastoral joy in the proclamation of the Lord’s bright Resurrection. On behalf of the hierarchs of our Assembly of Bishops, we greet the numerous flocks of the Church in North America, whose lips announce this joy in countless tongues all across this land. Christ is risen! Read More ...

We, the Members of the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of North and Central America, kindly bring to your attention the urgent and very serious plight of the Greek Orthodox and Syriac Orthodox Archbishops of Aleppo, Paul Yazigi and Yohanna Ibrahim, who were abducted this past week by 'a terrorist group' in the village of Kfar Dael as they w Read More ...

On Monday, April 22, the Antiochian Archdiocese announced the following troubling news of the kidnapping of two Syrian bishops. Read More ...

The Bylaws of the Assembly of Bishops are now posted on the website. These Bylaws were drafted over the course of 2012 with the help of a number of Orthodox attorneys who are a part of the Assembly’s Legal Affairs Committee, to whom the Assembly is deeply appreciative. They were finalized and approved by consensus at the last Assembly meeting in Read More ...

On the Third Lord’s Day of the Great Fast, the mid-point of our Paschal pilgrimage known as the Sunday of the Adoration of the Precious Cross, we bless and greet the Christ-loving and Reverend Clergy, Venerable Monastics, and Devout Faithful of the Holy Orthodox Churches in North and Central America, praying that we all may “be enabled to figh Read More ...

New relationships and unity among Orthodox Christian youth workers are the result of diligent efforts by the Committee for Youth, one of the very active committees of the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of North and Central America. Read More ...

Scholarships for the 2013-2014 academic year are now available for graduating high school students and for college students pursuing a non-theological graduate degree. These scholarships are administered by the Chancellor’s Office of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America and are open to students from any Orthodox church affiliated with the A Read More ...

The Assembly of Bishops convened a meeting to share ideas and discuss collaboration between the Assembly’s communications team and the internet staff of member jurisdictions. The meeting was held on the campus of St Vladimir’s Seminary in Crestwood, NY on March 6 and brought together representatives from the Assembly’s Secretariat, the Greek Read More ...

His Eminence, Metropolitan Neofit of Ruse, was elected Patriarch of the Orthodox Church of Bulgaria at a meeting of the Holy Synod on Sunday, February 24, 2013. He succeeds His Holiness, the late Patriarch Maxim of Bulgaria, who fell asleep in the Lord in November 2012. The enthronement was held at St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Sofia. Read More ...

The Assembly of Bishops Research Coordinator, Alexei Krindatch, has prepared a range of reports on Orthodox Christianity in America. Along with the following research summaries, the full reports are available in PDF format. Read More ...

The Secretariat welcomes Chrysanthe Loizos, the newly-appointed Communications Officer for the Assembly, to its ranks. Also joining the Secretariat is the Archimandrite Irenei (Steenberg), a monk and priest of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROCOR). Read More ...

The Assembly of Bishops has released minutes from its most recent meeting (Assembly III), held in Chicago from September 10-12, 2012. Though the final minutes will not be approved until the next meeting of the Assembly, scheduled for the Fall of 2013, the Assembly presents these as summary minutes. Read More ...

On Tuesday and Wednesday, January 22 and 23, the Secretariat of the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of North and Central America convened for its annual face-to-face meeting. This year's meeting was hosted by His Eminence Archbishop Kyrill of San Francisco and Western America (ROCOR) at his Holy Virgin Cathedral - Joy of All Who Sorrow in S Read More ...