Christianity, and especially Orthodoxy, observed a day of anguish today, as the insulting and sacrilegious conversion of the Hagia Sophia – the greatest of all Orthodox basilicas – into a mosque, was formally sealed with a Muslim prayer. The conversion and the widely broadcast prayer service were orchestrated, promoted and exploited by autocratic Turkish President…

Bishop Silvester has issued the following message regarding the conversion of Hagia Sophia into a mosque. The message reads: Together with all Orthodox Christians world wide and all Christendom generally, WE EXPRESS our GREAT GRIEF & PAIN OVER the TURNING of our CATHEDRAL OF HOLY WISDOM (HAGIA SOFIA) INTO A MOSQUE by the Turkish Moslem…

N. DENDIAS: Today, we held a meeting with the Minister for Culture, Lina Mendoni, on the issue of Hagia Sophia, with our Representative to UNESCO in attendance. We have repeatedly stressed that the conversion of Hagia Sophia into a mosque is not a Greek-Turkish issue. Nevertheless, this monument is of special importance to Greeks. For…

His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros of America held a meeting with U.S. political leaders in Washington on Thursday to discuss concerns over the seizure and re-conversion of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul into a mosque. He said that Hagia Sophia action shows “right of conqueror” mentality by Turkey’s leadership; this is dangerous for Christian, Jewish, and…

To His All-Holiness BARTHOLOMEW, Archbishop of Constantinople – New Rome, Ecumenical Patriarch Your All–Holiness! I wish with this letter to attest to you, my beloved brother and concelebrant in the Lord, of my personal support and that of the fullness of our autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine during these days of difficult challenges for the…

US President Donald Trump expressed his strong dissatisfaction with the decision of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to turn Hagia Sophia into a mosque, in the presence of the Archbishop Elpidophoros of America, with whom he met. After the scheduled 30-minute meeting on Thursday that Archbishop Elpidophoros, the head of the Orthodox Archdiocese of America,…

An illustrated edition dedicated to the Christian family was unveiled this week by the Romanian Patriarchate’s publishing house, Basilica, as 2020 has been declared by the Romanian Church as the Year of Pastoral Care for Parents and Children. The edition’s prologue is written by the Patriarch of All Romania, His Beatitude Daniel.    

The Metropolitanate of Montenegro and the Littoral, again bemoaned what it called efforts by the government in the small Adriatic country to sabotage dialogue over a controversial law on religious institutions, which was passed by the latter. The latest provocation by the Montenegro government was a claim that the Church pays no taxes, and that…

The Committee of the Representatives of the Orthodox Churches to the European Institutions (CROCEU) expressed its deep regret concerning Turkey’s unprecedented violation of the UNESCO rules by changing the status of Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia from a museum into a mosque. CROCEU has issued a statement in which it says the action violates historical memory and…