The stunning Panagia Kakaviotissa Church (dedicated to the Virgin Mary) on the picturesque northeastern Aegean island of Limnos is considered as among the very rare – if not the only – chapel in the world purposely built without a roof. Erected by Eastern Orthodox monks on the island, the church gained its epithet ” Kakaviotissa”…

In an interview published in the Athens Sunday weekly “To Vima”, the Metropolitan of France, His Eminence Emmanuel, detailed how the autocephaly of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was achieved, while also responding to charges by the Russian Orthodox Church against Ecumenical Patriarchate Bartholomew I. “The Ecumenical Patriarchate acted solely on the basis of the interests…

The Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill officiated at a Holy Service over the weekend at the Cathedral of the Dormition at the Kremlin, where, during a subsequent sermon, His Holiness stressed that a believer cannot exist without a true union with God, and that proof of this union is Holy Mass and Communion….

On this and the following two Sundays, the theme is repentance. Repentance is the door through which we enter Lent, the starting-point of our journey to Pascha. And to repent signifies far more than self-pity or futile regret over things done in the past. The Greek term metanoia means ‘change of mind’: to repent is…

Following the Divine Liturgy celebrated Sunday at the Metropolitan Cathedral in Timisoara, His Eminence Metropolitan Ioan of Banat invited a poor mother of four children to eat lunch at his residence. The Metropolitan was impressed by the woman’s story and offered to help her. ‘When I entered the church,’ Metr. Ioan said, ‘I met this…

On 10th February 2019, His Beatitude Theodoros II, Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa, officiated during Orthros and the Divine Liturgy at the Holy Patriarchal Monastery of St Savvas in Alexandria, on the commemoration of the Hieromartyr Saint Haralambos. Speaking to the large congregation as well as to the dignitaries who were present,…

Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate department for external church relations, has sent a congratulatory message to the Primate of the Orthodox Church in America on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of his episcopal consecration. Your Beatitude, On the joyful day marking the granting of the grace of episcopal office to…

On 13 February 2019, an annual session of the Joint Working Group for Cultural Cooperation between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church took place at the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate. Representing the Russian Orthodox Church were Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, DECR chairman; Metropolitan Tikhon of Pskov and…

On February 11, 2019, monks and clergy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church diocese of Ternopol met at the Pochaev Laura of the Dormition with representatives of the OSCE special monitoring mission to Ukraine to consider problems concerning the religious life in the diocese and the situation which has developed around the Pochaev Laura, the monastery…