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…

His Holiness Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, has congratulated His Beatitude Tikhon, Metropolitan of All America and Canada, on the 15th anniversary of his episcopal consecration. His Beatitude Tikhon Archbishop of Washington Metropolitan of All America and Canada Your Beatitude, Beloved in the Lord Brother and Concelebrant at God’s altar: I cordially congratulate…

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the Heybeliada Theological School (Halki Seminary) in Istanbul would be reopened if Athens were to add minaret towers to the Fethiye mosque, a 17th-century Ottoman mosque in the centre of Athens. “Look you want something from us, you want the Halki seminary. And I tell you (Greece), come,…

The restoration of a recently collapsed church, located within Nicosia’s buffer zone, is a matter for the two leaders to decide, Takis Hadjidemetriou, the Greek Cypriot Head of the Technical Committee on Cultural Heritage has told CNA. Part of St. James church, which was in need for immediate restoration works, collapsed after recent heavy rainfall….

Your Eminence, Very Most Reverend Master Metropolitan! Your Eminences, Your Grace, divinely wise archpastors! “Fear and trembling are come upon me, and darkness hath covered me.” – Psalm 54:6 “I am straitened on every side.” – Daniel 13:22 With fear and trembling in my heart, with great turmoil I come to your summons, for if…

On Wednesday, February 13, 2019, the Holy and Sacred Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, chaired by His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, appointed Archimandrite Agathangelos Siskos as the new Patriarchal Archivist. (Source: theorthodoxworld.com)

Bulgarian Orthodox Church Lovech Metropolitan Gavriil, now at the centre of a controversy over a stance that falsely claimed to represent the church regarding the government’s draft Strategy for the Child, has issued a statement in an apparent attempt to explain his actions. Posted on the website of the church’s Patriarchate on February 8 and…

Established more than 600 years ago, the Sretensky monastery in the centre of Moscow was a place of imprisonment and execution of those persecuted for their political or religious beliefs during repressive Soviet times. Right beside the monastery reborn in mid-1990s, modern Orthodox Theological seminary has been founded, and impressive monastery church dedicated to New…