A delegation representing the Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarchate will arrive in Athens this week to meet with Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and Greek Archbishop Ieronymos to discuss the government’s proposed changes to church-state relations. The proposal to remove clerics from the state payroll – and to pay them instead via an annual state subsidy to be…

Bishop Prodromos of Toliara and South Madagascar was ordained to the episcopate Sunday in a service presided over by Patriarch Theodoros of Alexandria and All Africa and attended by the Greek deputy foreign minister responsible for religious affairs, Markos Bolaris. In his address to Bishop Prodromos, Patriarch Theodoros emphasized the importance of prayer and having…

The Patriarchate of Constantinople has published the text of the Tomos on autocephaly of the newly-formed “independent” Ukrainian Church. The document, which enshrines autocephalous status, was published on January 14 on the official website of the Patriarchate of Constantinople in three languages – Greek, English and Ukrainian. The document says that the “independence” of the…

„Unfading Light. Creativity and Prayer in 20th Century Russian Orthodoxy” is the title of a conference organized by Oxford University on March 7-8, 2019. The conference aims to explore the divergent progressions of thought form late 19th century Russian ‘traditionalism’ towards a (re)discovery of the universal dimension of the Christianity of the Fathers in the…

‘Repentance is an effort for inner change, not a simple regret,’ His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel said in his Sunday homily at St Gregory the Enlightener Chapel of his Patriarchal Residence. His Beatitude noted that repentance does not simply imply saying ‘I’m sorry’ and moving on, ‘it is an effort to change the way of thinking,…

The Tomos is displayed at the Savior-Transfiguration Cathedral of Vinnitsa. Petro Poroshenko from the pulpit described how autocephaly had been granted. On January 13, Petro Poroshenko and OCU head Epiphany arrived with the original copy of the Tomos at the Savior-Transfiguration Cathedral, where they were met by Metropolitan Simeon (Shostatsky). According to “Ukrinform”, apart from…

A separately-standing two-storey building in the territory of the Kyiv Pecherska Lavra [monastery] caught fire in the afternoon of January 14, with 200 square meters of its area affected by fire, a statement published on the website of the State Emergencies Service of Ukraine has said. According to the statement, the building on fire is…

The Church of the Intercession of the Holy Virgin at the Main Military Hospital in Kyiv has become part of the newly created Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU). The hospital church has been subordinate to the then Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) for over 20 years, Ukrainian TV Channel 5 reports. The…

According to the Patriarchate of Georgia, closure of the Jvari Monastery in Mtskheta is related to outdoor trade. According to the head of the press service of the Patriarchate, Andrea Jagmaidze, the reason for the closure of the Jvari Monastery in Mtskheta is the inappropriate situation created by the traders. “The outdoor trade creates an…