The Archdiocese of Australia this week announced a temporary suspension in public worship at its parishes in the greater Melbourne area and throughout the state of Victoria, following a recent and worrying spike in the number of confirmed coronavirus infections in the area. His Eminence, Archbishop of Australia Makarios, issued a relevant encyclical to the…

Continued threats by the Erdogan administration in Turkey to reconvert the iconic Hagia Sophia into a mosque, the remaining and now exclusively pro-government media in the country stepped up attacks and provocations against Orthodoxy and its pre-eminent Church primates. According to the Turkish mass daily Sabah, the status of the Hagia Sophia as mosque is…

An eighth joint ministerial decision applying temporary measures for all places of worship in Greece, ones aimed to protect the public from exposure to the coronavirus, is set for expiration. According to reports collected by the Orthodoxia News Agency, a new ministerial decision will not include significant changes. Nevertheless, the matter will be discussed by…

While the Irish island of Little Skellig was long thought to have been inhabited by nothing but a variety of seabirds, a new archaeological discovery demonstrates that monastics once labored in asceticism on the inaccessible crag. The archaeologist Michael Gibbons and a group of climbers recently located the remains of an early Christian church located…

On Wednesday, June 25/July 8, 2020, H.H.B. Patriarch of Jerusalem Theophilos stated the following regarding the keeping of the Status of the Church of Hagia Sophia: It is with utmost seriousness that We express Our concern over recent calls from members of the Turkish government to alter the current status of the Hagia Sophia from…

The number of requests for food aid continues to grow in the dioceses of the Russian Orthodox Church both in Russia and abroad, the Patriarchate’s Synodal Department for Charity told Blagovest-Info. Thanks to the collection underway on the Department’s Mercy website, 21 dioceses have already received more than $71,700 (5.1 million rubles), and another 6…

The Montenegrin Metropolis of the Serbian Orthodox Church honored Miroslav Koprivica, the backhoe driver who quit his job rather than participate in the destruction of a holy monastery, following the Divine Liturgy at St. Basil of Ostrog Church in Nikšić on Sunday. His Eminence Metropolitan Amfilohije Montenegro presented Koprivica with the Golden Order of St….

The Network of the Ecumenical Patriarchate for Pastoral Health Care has offered the Prayer During the Pandemic Crisis in 12 Languages Click to Read   atlmetropolis.org

  Reactions and international pressure continued on Tuesday against the Erdogan administration’s threats to reconvert the iconic Hagia Sophia back into a so-called “imperial mosque”. Orthodoxy, in its entirety, has been joined by national leaders and institutions, who called on the increasingly authoritarian Turkish president to respect the history and symbolism of the UNESCO World…