St Paraskevi Greek Orthodox Church
Churches in Blacktown

Built upon the kerygma, or proclamation, of the apostolic faith and the participatory aspect of its liturgical life, the Orthodox Church is definitively the catholic () manifestation of the ingenious Church established by Christ, a truthful witness to the Spirit's deifying presence. By catholicity we nasty the fullness of the tangible ecclesial reality as manifested in the Holy Spirit through each local Church below a bishop and in the communion of the local Churches, whose canonical expression is the synod of bishops under their primate and ultimately under Christ. This gives account as to how the one Orthodox Church, defined by one faith and life, subsists actually as a communion, or commonwealth, of local and regional Churches, unmistakable from the point of view of their cultural features. Along with the normal faith and life shared by all Orthodox Churches, the canonical and symbolic expression of Orthodoxy's unity remains throughout history including in our increasingly globalized world the primacy of the Ecumenical Throne, i.e. To the realization of this model has contributed a long process of theological and canonical refinements. During their first centuries of historical existence, the emerging Churches throughout the Greek Roman world and beyond its boundaries have preserved their communion in spite of the geographical distances separating them and the oppression exerted by both the pagan imperial authorities and dense masses. Final but not least, the Christian unity has been also realized at the smooth of the complex episcopal ministry. The spirit of this paradigm has been faithfully preserved by the coming generations, even if from the organizational point of view the Church has experienced a process of continuous reformation, given the various historical circumstances. Also, they represented sincere expressions of the internal life of the Church as communion and the nobility of the Christian way of living. In fact, these statements constituted one of the maximum efficient ways of communicating the Gospel of Christ to the world, not by relying on the apodictic tools of human logic but by the power of conviction springing from the personal example. The apostolic spirit of Orthodoxy constituted the primary and underlying factor determining the State, for example, to scrutinize the principles of philanthropy and to urge the struggle of the Church to construct the first coherent and efficient system of social protection in history. And indeed, the Christological principle of theandricity the correct cornerstone of Orthodoxy and the ultimate criterion in all doctrinal debates has constituted the main standpoint of the imperial doctrine of symphony. This was already obvious during the rule of Justinian the Huge author of the famous hymn ('Onlybegotten'), celebrating the mystery of theandricity the first emperor to fussy on symphony. It took long time till the complete Christianisation of the Empire and the Greek Roman world yet this effort resulted in the conversion of a total society and culture. The most impressive outcome of the enculturation of the Orthodox Church within the Byzantine context, however, should be undoubtedly considered its theological spirituality and art, which calm shapes Orthodoxy around the world. Unfortunately, the repeated attempts of both the Byzantine Church and Empire to bridge the gap between Orthodoxy and the heterodox Churches proved to be unfruitful, on the one hand because of the succeeding fall of the Orientals lower pagan rule (Persian, Arab and Turk) and on the other because of the increasing arrogance of the Westerners. To all these was added the unbreakable expansion of the Ottoman power over the traditional regions of the Orthodox Church. Consequently, new martyrs shone upon the ecclesial firmament, manifesting the inside spiritual strength of Orthodoxy. Modernity has arrived with new challenges for the Orthodox Church. This represents, obviously, another modern defy addressed to the Orthodox Church. However, if the legitimate attempt to fit within the scenery of unused world actually arrived to unexpectedly negative outcomes, misguiding many Orthodox Churches to embrace phyletism (transforming the Orthodox oikoumene into a Protestant like federation of independent Churches), Orthodoxy as an ensemble managed to address maturely the essence of the new world. Archbishop Stylianos ('The Store of Tradition in the Christian Faith') aptly observes that radiation is not so much a treasury of structures and forms but rather a living stylish of life, a way of existing, thinking and feeling Tradition is not impartial a way of handling matters of major or minor importance, but rather the spirit which leaves its ingenious traces through all feasible expressions. Today, in a pluralistic and increasingly globalized world, the Orthodox Church is called not honest to present a honest and united testimony to the apostolic faith and life, but also, and for this purpose, to recup