Members of the Church of Greece’s permanent Holy Synod will convene on Tuesday, some 10 days after the Church essentially froze negotiations with the current government over the latter’s proposals to change Church-state relations. As previously reported by the Orthodoxia news agency, the Tsipras government is now examining three options.  –         Firstly, to try and find…

Reports of almost daily kidnappings of members of Somalia’s tiny Christian community continue. Most of the victims are young and teenage girls, with gruesome details citing female genital mutilation and then forced marriages to Muslim men. Resistance to forced conversation is often punished by beheading. Strife-plagued Somalia, in the Horn of Africa, is, according to data,…

An ethnic Greek man who spent 30 years in the prisons of Albanian communist dictator Enver Hoxha, on charges of spying for Greece during the Cold War, passed away recently in the northwest city of Igoumenitsa. Loukas Christidis, a member of the ethnic Greek minority in the neighboring country, had detailed how he was tortured…

Members of the Church of Greece’s permanent Holy Synod will convene on Tuesday, some 10 days after the Church essentially froze negotiations with the current government over the latter’s proposals to change Church-state relations. As previously reported by the Orthodoxia news agency, the Tsipras government is now examining three options.  –         Firstly, to try and find common…

On the Ukrainian Ecclesiastical Question. Second Reply Archbishop Anastasios of Tirana After the information (of March 26, 2019) that the Italian translation of the Patriarchal Letter of March 9, 2019 was inserted within the “category of texts of Dogmatic and Symbolic Theology” it was decided to make the related answer of the Orthodox Autocephalous Church…

  On March 18/31, 2019, The Patriarchate celebrated the Sunday of the Adoration of the Precious and Life-giving Cross, for the encouragement of the faithful, so that they may continue the difficult period of the fast towards the Holy Pascha. Vespers Great Vespers of Parresia was held at the Catholicon of the Church of the…

His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia congratulated Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk on the 10th anniversary of his service as chairman of the DECR. Below is the unabridged text of his message. The Most Rev. HILARION Metropolitan of Volokolamsk Chairman Department for External Church Relations Your Eminence, Ten years have passed since by…

His Holiness Irinej, Serbian Patriarch received His Excellency Mr. Irakli Kobakhidze, at the Serbian Patriarchate on 29 March 2019. The audience was attended by His Excellency Ioseb Nanobashvili, Ambassador of Georgia to Athens and Belgrade, members of the Parliament of Georgia Mr. Goga Gulordava, Zakaria Kurtsnashvili, Mr. Giorgi Totladze, Mr. David Bakradze, Mrs. Tamara Kolbaia,…

The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople and New Rome, His All Holiness Bartholomew I, participated on Saturday evening in annual “Earth Hour” event, which encourages individuals, communities, and businesses to turn off non-essential lights for one hour. His All Holiness Bartholomew, often called the “Green Patriarch” in the international media for his ecological advocacy, is particularly…