3,000 icons of Russian origin confiscated by German customs authorities will be returned from Germany to Russia, the head of the, Police Major General Alexander Prokophuck reported to TASS on Friday. The icons were found and confiscated by German authorities during an attempt to illegally import them into the country. State authorities decided to return…

  US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived in the northern Greece city of Thessaloniki on Monday morning, where he later concluded talks with his Greek counterpart Nikos Dendias, a closely watched meeting that comes only days before an EU summit reviews relations with an increasingly bellicose Turkey. According to reports, bilateral, regional and international…

  The now infamous head of Turkey’s Directorate of Religious Affairs, Ali Erbas, called the iconic Hagia Sophia, the greatest of all basilicas of eastern Christendom, a symbol of “…Turkish heritage”. Erbas, one of the closest associates to Islamist Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, made the outrageous statement at a press conference ahead of an…

  The Archbishop of Crete, His Eminence Irineos, continues to be hospitalized at an ICU unit in the city of Irakleio this week, with attending physicians referring to serious respiratory problems for the Cretan hierarch. His Eminence’s condition was described as critical, although not irreversible.

  The Archbishop of Athens and All Greece, His Beatitude Ieronymos, on Monday received the Greek government’s tourism minister, Haris Theoharis, with reports pointing to a request by the minister for talks regarding religious tourism and pilgrimages to Greece.   FOTOS CHRISTOS BONIS

  Seismic activity continued for a third straight day in the sea region surrounding the autonomous monastic community of Mount Athos. On Monday morning a quake measuring 4.7 on the Richter scale was recorded in a sea region 23 kilometers south, southwest of the Athos peninsula.

  The first part of the second online assembly from Mount Athos with the Elder Archimandrite Ephraim, the Abbot of the Holy and Great Monastery of Vatopedi, with chanters, was posted today on the pages of the Orthodoxia news agency. The assembly, or e-synaxis, was held on Sept. 11. 

  The Church today commemorates the recovery of the relics of St. Neophytos of Cyprus. Today is also the feast day of Chariton the Confessor.

  A spokesman for the Moscow Patriarchate on Monday underlined that the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, His Holiness Kirill, prays for a quick and peaceful resolution of the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, which again escalated into an outright military clash over the weekend. According to Vladimir Legoyda, the head of the Synodal Department for…