The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, His All Holiness Bartholomew I, and members of the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s Holy Synod expressed their abhorrence with the terrorist attack against two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. On his part, the Greek Orthodox Metropolitan of New Zealand, His Eminence Myron, expressed his shock over the deadly attacks. The Greek community…

The next Greek Parliament plenum to arise from general elections will approve or reject the current government’s proposal for a revision of Article 3, which deals with Church-state relations. Specifically, the Tsipras government wants to enshrine the state’s religious neutrality. In the two-step constitutional revision process, the proposal to change the specific article received more…

Reactions in Greece continue over the government’s proposals for changes in the country’s penal code. According to a draft text now up for debate, among others, the government wants to delete a blasphemy offense related to insults of other people’s religious sentiments, as well as a law on the insult of a deceased person’s memory….

  The Concern Regarding the Ukrainian Ecclesiastical Issue by the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Albania The Holy Synod of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Albania convened on the 4th of January, 2019, and studied in depth the letter of His All Holiness the Ecumenical Patriarch, Bartholomew, dated 24th of December, 2018, regarding the Ukrainian Ecclesiastical…

Clean Monday (Kathara Deftera), a public holiday in Greece, is the first day of Great Lent in the Greek Orthodox Church. This first day of Great Lent is called “Clean Monday” because Christians should begin the holy season with „clean hearts and good intentions.” Clean Monday is a day where families and friends celebrate with…

The Jordanitissa Wonderworking Icon of the Mother of God was brought on Thursday from the Romanian Settlement in Jerusalem to Icoanei Church, a church in Bucharest named after the an old icon of Our Lady sitting on throne offered by Ruler Prince Saint Constantine Brancoveanu, marking the beginning of this year’s festivities dedicated to the…

The situation of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has considerably worsened with the granting of ‘autocephaly’ to ‘the Orthodox Church in Ukraine’, states the report on Civic Space and Fundamental Freedoms Ahead of the Presidential, Parliamentary and Local Elections in Ukraine in 2019-2020, published by UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. The reports…

Though cremation was legalized in Greece nearly 13 years ago, the traditionally-Orthodox nation has yet to see its first crematorium, as the movement has faced considerable opposition from the influential Orthodox Church which forbids cremation. However, another significant step in the process towards cremation was taken recently as Greece’s Environment and Energy Minister Giorgios Stathakis…

His Holiness Patriarch Kirill In the evening of February 25, 2015, Wednesday of the first week of Great Lent, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia served Great Compline with the Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete in the Church of the Resurrection of St. Andrew’s Monastery in Moscow. He offered the…