Orthodox Christianity

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. 

A video of two intoxicated migrants near-totally destroying a church in Italy over Orthodox Easter has gone viral across social media.

The Border Guard Service of Ukraine announced a ban on Friday on male Russian nationals between the ages of 16 and 60 entering the country for the duration of martial law, currently scheduled to last 30 days.

MOSCOW (AP) – Vladimir Putin says the adoption of Christianity more than 1,000 years ago in territory that later became Russia marked the starting point for forming the Russian nation itself.

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) – Millions of Orthodox Christians around the world have celebrated Easter in overnight services and “holy fire” from Jerusalem.

Can President-elect Donald Trump run a charm offensive against Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and deliver a real reset that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton once promised with her bungled “reset button” stunt?

JAFFA, Israel – Christians in Egypt have protested their government’s foot-dragging on passing a new law regulating church building in the country.

Contents: Orthodox ‘Great and Holy Council’ marred by defections and controversies; History of Catholic and Orthodox Christian ‘Ecumenical’ Councils

JERUSALEM — A team of experts began a historic renovation on Monday at the spot where Christians believe Jesus was buried, overcoming longstanding religious rivalries to carry out the first repairs at the site in more than 200 years.

Before the smoke from the terror attack in San Bernardino had cleared, the liberal narrative was turned to an effort to make the murders into a means to attack Christians and those Republican candidates who had offered prayers for the victims and their families.

Contents: Putin calls Turkey’s downing of Russian plane a ‘stab in the back’; Turkmen in Syria versus Russians in occupied Crimea; Russia – Turkey crisis evokes memories of centuries of Crimean wars

Contents: Sunni jihadist suicide bomber targets Shia mosque in Saudi Arabia; Russia’s military intervention in Syria inflames jihadists in Saudi Arabia