The Primate assured the newly elected President of the support of the Church in matters that promote the establishment of spiritual and moral values of society. On April 22, 2019, His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufriy of Kiev and All Ukraine congratulated the candidate for President of Ukraine, Vladimir Zelensky, on his victory in the elections. The…

In the Middle East, Monday’s marks the six-year anniversary of the abduction of Greek Orthodox Archbishop Paul Yazigi, the Metropolitan of the Archdiocese of Aleppo, and Syriac Orthodox Archbishop Yohanna Ibrahim, outside the then besieged northern Syrian city. Archbishop Paul is the brother of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch and All the East, His…

Elsewhere in the world, the death toll in Sri Lanka from Sunday’s dastardly terrorist attacks against churches and hotels – coinciding with Catholic Easter – has now reached 290, with more than 500 people injured. Orthodox hierarchs continued to issue stern condemnations, as well as expressing their condolences and prayers to the victims, the families…

In his Holy Week message, the Archbishop of Athens and All Greece, His Beatitude Ieronymos, describes the congregants’ worship as a melody. “Our worship truly becomes a melody of theology, according to an ancient ecclesiastical author. The week’s poetry is exceptional, an outpouring of faith as song and celebration; faith in the Cross and the…

Monday of the Holy Week is observed by Orthodox Churches around the world today, April 22, with a solemn Divine Liturgy commemorating the blessed and noble Joseph of the Old Testament and the fig tree, which was cursed and withered by the Lord. The withering of the fig tree was a miracle of special symbolism,…

The emblematic first edition of Skarlatos Byzantios’ “Konstantinoupolis” (Constantinople) in English has been released in English by the publishing house Istos, based in the Bosporus metropolis. The edition was first published in Constantinople in 1851. The translation is by Prof. Charis Theodorellis-Rigas, a scholar of ancient Greek and Latin at the Koç University.

Palm Sunday for Orthodox believers around the world is observed on Sunday, April 21, with various local traditions and rites, one dating centuries, revived around Greece. On the Ionian island of Corfu, musicians of the island’s venerable philharmonic again paraded through the UNESCO-protected old town quarter of the isle capital. A video of the parade…

The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, His All Holiness Bartholomew I, on Sunday expressed his abhorrence and sadness over the coordinated terrorist attacks against Churches and hotels in Colombo, Sri Lanka, where Roman Catholics on the island nation celebrated Easter Sunday. Dozens of people were killed and hundreds injured in yet another attack against Christians around…

The Byzantine rite Divine Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts was performed this week at the village of Fikas, in central Albania’s Elbasan county, with the participation of students from the university Logos, accompanied by the Metropolitan Bishop of Apollonia and Fier, His Eminence Nikolla. His Eminence Nikolla officiated at the Divine Liturgy, later explaining the…