Orthodox Christianity

Russia launched a barrage of drones concentrated in Ukraine’s east where the situation on the front line is worsening.

Parliament is to vote to legalize same-sex civil marriage in a first for an Orthodox Christian country and despite opposition.

Ukraine’s parliament voted to advance legislation seen as effectively banning the Ukrainian Orthodox Church over its ties to Moscow.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a law moving the official Christmas Day holiday to Dec. 25 to “abandon Russian heritage”.

More than 100 Ukrainian prisoners of war have been released as part of a major Easter exchange with Russia, a top official said Sunday.

Authorities in Kyiv have reportedly expelled a large number of Christian monks from a historic monastery in the country amid claims they are “pro-Russian”.

The Kremlin cites the termination of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s lease as further proof that Russia’s actions over the past year in Ukraine are justified — claiming that Russia is defending a beleaguered Orthodox population.

Russian and Ukrainian forces battled at close range in forest near the Donbas town of Kremina over Orthodox Christmas, according to British intelligence.

BOBRYTSIA, Ukraine (AP) – Ukrainians usually celebrate Christmas on Jan. 7, as do the Russians. But not this year, or at least not all of them.

Pope Francis met with a delegation of Orthodox Christians from the Patriarchate of Constantinople Thursday in which he condemned Russia’s “war of aggression” against Ukraine.

A Christian factory worker in the UK has won £22,000 in compensation after being fired for wearing a cross necklace at work.

Greece’s Defence Minister has announced that the country, often menaced by Turkey, will no longer be shipping weapons to Ukraine, as it requires arms for its own defence needs.

French authorities in Nice have launched an investigation after the rector of a local Russian Orthodox Cathedral received death threats in connection to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Archpriest Andrey Eliseev, the rector of the Russian Cathedral of St. Nicholas

(AP) — Regardless of who made an error on the visa or the vaccination waiver or whatever, the reality Friday for tennis No. 1 Novak Djokovic was spending one of his important religious holidays in an Australian detention hotel working on his challenge against deportation.

MOSCOW (AP) – A homemade bomb detonated in a school attached to an Orthodox convent has wounded 12 people, including a 15-year-old, Russian authorities were reported as saying said Monday.

Two Greek Orthodox Metropolitan Bishops have demanded that priests under them be vaccinated against coronavirus or they will be put on leave.

(AP) — Bosnian authorities on Saturday demolished a Serbian Orthodox church that was illegally built on land owned by a Bosniak woman, a move that comes after a 20-year legal battle that saw the case reach the European Court of Human Rights.

An Episcopal bishop who was punished by church leadership for refusing to allow same-sex marriages in his diocese said he is leaving the mainline Protestant church on Good Friday and seeking to be received into the Anglican Church in North America.

Greek churches in Thessaloniki have been accused of making secret lists of worshipers to help them get around Wuhan coronavirus restrictions and kiss church icons.

Greek Archbishop Ieronymos II of Athens has stated that he views Islam not as a religion but as a “political party”, and its followers as a “people of war”.

ATHENS, Greece (AP) – Greece has tightened its lockdown for the next week, closing retail shops, hairdressers and bookshops.

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) – The leader of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Irinej, who often criticized Western policies toward Serbia and urged close relations with Slavic ally Russia, has died after testing positive for the coronavirus, the church said Friday. He was 90.

LYON, France (AP) – French police on Sunday released an initial suspect in the shooting of a Greek Orthodox priest and widened their search for the gunman who critically wounded the priest as he closed the door to his official residence at a church in the city of Lyon.

LYON, France (AP) – French police interrogated one suspect and searched for others Sunday after a Greek Orthodox priest was shot and critically wounded while closing the door to his church in the French city of Lyon.

Nigel Farage has reacted to the shooting of a Greek Orthodox priest at a church in Lyon, France, by saying that “Every terror attack in France is another reason to vote Trump.”

A gunman is on the run after a Greek Orthodox priest was shot at a church in Lyon, France, according to reports.

Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou denounced Turkey’s conversion of the historic Church of Chora into a mosque as an act of “symbolic violence” this weekend.

A majority of Greeks have expressed dissatisfaction with the international response to the Turkish regime announcing it would be converting the Hagia Sophia into a mosque.

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) – The interim secretary-general of the World Council of Churches has written to Turkey’s president expressing his “grief and dismay” over Turkey’s decision to change the status of Istanbul’s landmark Hagia Sophia from a museum to a mosque.

Greek government spokesman Stelios Petsas has come out against the proposal from Turkey to convert Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia back into a mosque, saying such a move would strain relations between Christians and Turkey.

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Churches throughout Greece have opened their doors to the faithful after two months.

CAIRO (AP) — Pope Tawadros II, the spiritual leader of Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Christians, has held Easter services in an empty monastery in the desert amid coronavirus restrictions which kept the faithful from gathering at churches and monasteries across the country.

JERUSALEM (AP) – A small group of Christian clerics celebrated the Holy Fire ceremony at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem on Saturday as the coronavirus pandemic prevented worshippers from taking part in the ancient and mysterious ritual.

JERUSALEM — Israel is working with foreign governments and Orthodox Christian leaders in the Holy Land to make sure that one of their most ancient and mysterious rituals — the Holy Fire ceremony — is not extinguished by the coronavirus outbreak, officials said Friday.

ATHENS, Greece (AP) – The Metropolitan Amvrosios of Kalavryta, a fiery conservative Greek Orthodox bishop known for criticizing, often in intemperate terms, those who he believed acted in a “non-Christian” or “non-Greek” way, including gays, migrants, and politicians, has resigned.

Turkey’s Greek, Armenian, and Assyrian Christian communities, who predominated in the region before its colonisation by Turkic Muslims, were subjected to a “staggered campaign of genocide” from 1894 to 1924, which reduced them from 20 per cent of the population to less than 2 per cent, according to Israeli researchers.