Lebanese Orthodox Chronicle

This article is a testimony by Raymond Rizk, an active member of the Orthodox Youth Movement (O.Y.M.) of the Patriarchate of Antioch, recounting his observations during a stay in Lebanon in the summer of 1984. In the form of a daily chronicle, the author describes Lebanese Orthodox ecclesial life in the context of the civil war, through liturgies, ordinations, community gatherings, and an assassination. The central idea is that suffering and prayer constitute an irreducible witness to the Christian faith in the East. On the theological level, the article raises crucial questions for the Church of Antioch: the necessity of liturgical reform, the tensions between clericalism and pastoral renewal, the role of the episcopate in the eucharistic community, and the challenges of intercommunion in a complex ecumenical and political context.