Pope Leo XIV offered a prayer on Sunday for the success of peacemaking efforts. The pope did not reference any conflict in particular, but the peace effort drawing the most attention over the weekend was President Donald Trump’s effort to negotiate an end to the Russia-Ukraine war.
Russian and Italian media reported this week that Pope Leo XIV will meet with Metropolitan Anthony of Volokolamsk, envoy of the Russian Orthodox Church, on Saturday, July 26.
At least 21 people have been killed in a large coordinated terror attack on two synagogues, two churches, and a police outpost.
A group of more than eight hundred Russian Orthodox priests and church members wrote a letter demanding the release of Alexei Navalny’s body.
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.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has stripped Ukrainian citizenship from 13 Orthodox priests and several opposition politicians alleged to have ties to Russia.
Russian leader Vladimir Putin, following a request from the Russian Orthodox Church’s Patriarch Kirill, announced Thursday that he will order his troops to observe a ceasefire in Ukraine from noon on Friday through the end of Saturday.
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.
Russian officials have denounced the Ukrainian government as “enemies of Christ and the Orthodox faith” over security service raids on churches accused of links to Moscow.
The tomb of St. Nicholas, who inspired the Christmas legend of Santa Claus, was recently discovered underneath a church in Turkey.
A representative of the Russian Orthodox Church ridiculed the World Council of Churches’ (WCC) condemnation of the war on Ukraine, asserting that the pronouncement was equivalent to similar statements by McDonald’s or Starbucks.
Pope Francis met Friday morning with the number two man of the Orthodox Patriarchate of Moscow, the Vatican has reported.
Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, reassured his compatriots Sunday that Russia is proceeding on the right path in its aggression against Ukraine and deserves “very strong cohesion and consolidation.”
Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia said this weekend that Russia is self-sufficient and has no wish to “invade or occupy anyone.”
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
Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill has defended Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a necessary response to Western intervention in the region.
Russian Metropolitan Archbishop Hilarion Alfeyev warned this weekend that the United States is unnecessarily stoking fears of a war between Russia and Ukraine.
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.
Russian Orthodox Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev said this week that Christians must resist the liberal mindset according to which “the life of an unborn baby is worthless.”
The Russian Investigative Committee on Tuesday organized large scale raids against Jehovah’s Witnesses nationwide, resulting in many arrests, Reuters reports.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has mocked the decision by U.S. officials to fly a rainbow pride flag over the embassy in Moscow, saying it “tells you something about the people who work there.”
The Kremlin claimed Russia had no serious problem with the Wuhan coronavirus just a few weeks ago, but on Saturday it admitted a “huge influx” of patients is flooding into Moscow hospitals and the situation in Russia’s big cities is “quite tense because the number of sick people is growing.”
A 26-year-old man entered a Moscow church during services on Sunday and stabbed two people before being restrained by members of the congregation, Russian media reported.
The primate of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine said on Tuesday that Russian forces occupying the Crimean peninsula are planning to demolish an Orthodox Church temple in the town of Yevpatoria.
The leader of the Russian Orthodox Church said that the Antichrist will run the “world wide web” and that powerful data-gathering devices are a harbinger of his arrival.
Ukrainian lawmakers broke into a massive brawl Thursday during a parliamentary session, continuing a long-held tradition of trading punches over the issues of the day.
The naval conflict this weekend between Russia and Ukraine was not a sudden development. Pressure has been building between the two nations for a long time, arguably even before Ukraine broke away from the disintegrating Soviet Union in 1991.
Contents: Russian Orthodox Church in historic split with Constantinople over Ukraine issue; Consequences of an independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church
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.
MOSCOW (AP) – Four gunmen attacked a Russian Orthodox church in the mostly Muslim Russian province of Chechnya on Saturday but were killed by security forces in a clash that also left two policemen and a churchgoer dead. The attack underscored security challenges in Russia as it prepares to host the World Cup next month.
In a curious role reversal, a leading prelate of the Russian Orthodox Church has accused the United States of “direct interference” in Russia’s elections by circulating the so-called “Kremlin list” prepared by the U.S. Treasury Department.
Russian president Vladimir Putin joined millions of Orthodox Christians in celebrating the Feast of Epiphany by diving topless into an ice-cold lake.
The new film Matilda from director Aleksey Uchitel would appear at first glance to be a typical glamorous period drama, covering an affair between the eponymous ballerina and Tsar Nicholas II, who was ultimately executed after the Bolshevik Revolution.
The number of Russians who identify as atheists has fallen by 50 percent in just three years, according to a recent poll by the Levada research center.
Relics of the fourth-century saint Nicholas, who inspired the beloved figure of Santa Claus, have left Italy for the first time in nearly 1,000 years, arriving in Moscow for veneration by the Russian Orthodox Church.
Christian persecution extends beyond Muslim-majority countries into predominantly Christian Russia, where non-Orthodox Church adherents face “strong discrimination,” reveals a report titled “In Response to Persecution.”
