Head of the Odessa Diocese of Ukrane’s new church Pavel Yuristy chaired a liturgy in the Monastery of Pantocrator on Mount Athos. On the eve monks and the delegation of the newly-established Ukrainian church conducted vespers there, Yuristy wrote in his Facebook. These divine services have become the first ones conducted by Athonite monks together…

The vicar of the Metropolitanate of Kiev and head of the Monastery of the Tithes, Bishop Gideon, has sent U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the U.S. Congress a Ukrainian Orthodox Church request to look into violations of believers’ rights and freedoms. On Tuesday, February 5, 2019, the bishop spoke to Congress about Ukrainian…

The Pastoral School of the Diocese of Chicago and Mid-America of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR) entered into a partnership with the Russian Orthodox University of St. John the Theologian in Moscow this week, reports the diocesan website. A partnership agreement was signed by the rector of the Pastoral School, His Eminence…

The first meeting of the “Holy Synod” of the Ukrainian schismatic-nationalist church on Tuesday did not pass without serious conflicts and discrepancies, thanks, in part, to the personality of Philaret Denisenko. According to the Ukrainian site Glavcom, several bishops of the so-called “Orthodox Church of Ukraine,” including some who took part in the session, were…

Metropolitan Emmanuel of Gaul of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of France of the Patriarchate of Constantinople sent a letter yesterday to the priests of the Archdiocese of Russian Orthodox Churches in Western Europe, recently stripped of its exarchate status, offering to allow for its continued existence in a vicariate within his metropolis. A translation of…

The United States’ Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback has expressed Washington’s support for the reopening of the Halki Theological School, the Athens-Macedonian News Agency said on Friday. Responding to a question from the ANA-MPA, Brownback reportedly said that the US has “always supported” the shcool’s reopening and while he cannot say…

On 7 February 2019, His Beatitude Hieronymos II, Archbishop of Athens and All Greece celebrates 11 Years since his election as head of the Greek Orthodox Church. His Beatitude Hieronymos II born Ioannis Liapis in Oinofyta, Boeotia, in 1938, is a graduate of the Faculty of Philosophy and of the Faculty of Theology of the…

A Bible thought to be 1,200 years old was found in a police operation in southeastern Turkey, the governor’s office said on Tuesday. An anti-smuggling team on Monday seized the Bible, said to be only 34 pages long, with gold lettering on leather, in the city of Kayapinar, said the southeastern Diyarbakir governorship in a…

Representative of the Ukrainian president in the Verkhovna Rada Iryna Lutsenko says over 200 parishes of the former Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) have become part of the newly created Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) since the unification council and the creation of the local OCU independent of Russia’s influence. “As of…