A three-day period that begins on Monday, known as Clean Monday in the Eastern Orthodox Church, which opens the period before Great Lent until Easter, holds a particular significance for the semi-autonomous Mt. Athos monastic community in northern Greece. Monks of Mt. Athos’ Orthodox monasteries retreat to their cells after the afternoon liturgy on Sunday,…

The opening of Great Lent this year witnesses a period of major challenges in relations between the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Greece and the Greek state, as well as for Orthodoxy in general. The next two weeks are judged as crucial. A second vote in Greece’s Parliament to ratify a revision in Article 3 of…

The Holy Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre, also known as the “Hagiotaphite Brotherhood”, was founded in the 4th Century AD as the “Order of the Spoudaeoi” – which can be translated into English as the “studious”, “zealous”, “industrious” or “serious”. Members comprise a 1,700-year fraternity of Orthodox clerics and monks of the Greek Orthodox Church of…

The issue of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s autocephaly generated an exchange of letters over the past week between the Ecumenical Patriarch, His All Holiness Bartholomew I, and the Archbishop of Tirana, Durres and All Albania, His Beatitude Anastasios. On Saturday, the Ecumenical Patriarch’s response to a previous correspondence by the Primate of the Autocephalous Orthodox…

“The Orthodox ascetical ethos does not know division and dualism; it does not reject life, but rather transforms it,” Archbishop of Constantinople-New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch, His All Holiness Bartholomew I, stressed in a catechetical homily on opening of Holy and Great Lent. The address is to be read out in Orthodox Churches on Sunday,…

Finally, a training program by the liturgical studies, pastoral and social theology workshop at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki will take place over the coming period. The theme of the program is entitled “Introduction to the liturgical tradition of the Orthodox Church”. It aims to educate participants on the history, faith and liturgy of the…

A formal thanksgiving liturgy was held on the eastern Aegean island of Symi on March 7 to commemorate the 71st anniversary of the Dodecanese islands’ union with the modern Greek state. The celebratory Church service was held at the True Cross Cathedral of Symi, officiated by the Metropolitan, His Eminence Chrysostomos. A memorial service was…

  Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu hosted a reception this week where participants included in the Metropolitan of Smyrna, His Eminence Bartholomew, and the president of the Christian Orthodox community in the coastal Anatolia city, Georgios Theodoridis. During the reception, the Turkish foreign minister requested a briefing on the issues affecting the religious minority in…

   A tiny political grouping in extreme northwest Greece known as “Ouranio Toxo”, or “Rainbow” in English, this week sent a letter to the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople requesting, among others, that the “modern Macedonian language” be used in the liturgy, prayers and psalmodies addressed to a Slavic-speaking minority in the area, which it claims to…