Weaverville Monastery Brotherhood Moves to Ukraine

A somewhat controversial monastery received into the American Orthodox Church (OCA) from the Ruthenian Catholic Church (more on that here) has been received into the autonomous Ukrainian Orthodox Church with the blessing of Metropolitan Jonah (Paffhausen) of the OCA to be reestablished in Ruthenia (the Transcarpathian oblast of the Ukraine).

St. Alexis of Minneapolis

Christ is risen! Joyous feast! St. Alexis Toth of Minneapolis and Wilkes-Barre is one of the better known Orthodox Christian missionaries of the United States, having led a large number of Ruthenians (Carpatho-Rusyns, Carpatho-Russians, et cetera) out of the Ruthenian Catholic Church and into the Russian Orthodox Church in North America. Many of his spiritual descendants today form the cores of the independent American Orthodox Church and the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. More on St. Alexis' life can be found here. May his blessing and prayers be with us all!

"Liturgical Renewal"

The first part of David Petras' survey of liturgical changes and reforms within Ukrainian and Ruthenian Catholicism can be found here. Petras is a Ruthenian Catholic archpriest serving in the Metropolia of Pittsburgh.

Pictured is St. Mary's Ruthenian Catholic Church in Sheppton, Pennsylvania. Its iconostas is a good example of the latinizations formerly (and currently?) common in Byzantine Catholicism, although it is more substantial than was often the case in pre-Vatican II Ruthenian Catholicism.