Orthodox Christians

Bulgarians lined the streets of Sofia on Saturday to bid farewell to the late Orthodox Patriarch Neophyte.

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.

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.

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.

(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.

ATHENS, Greece (AP) – Pope Francis was heckled by an elderly Greek Orthodox priest on Saturday as he arrived for a meeting with the head of the country’s Orthodox Church, evidence of the lingering distrust between some Orthodox and Catholics centuries after Christianity was cleaved in half.

(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.

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”.

Greek far-left Antifa anarchists are said to have been behind the placement of a banner outside the  Metropolis of Piraeus this week, calling on the church to obey the government’s Wuhan virus lockdown.

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.

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.

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. 

JERUSALEM — Hundreds of Christians are marking Easter by flocking to Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built on the site where they believe Jesus was crucified, buried and resurrected.