OC

Saturday night, a chlorine mortar attack hit the city’s western neighbourhood. Shelling is taking place every evening, the prelate notes. This time, “we saw yellow smoke rise, different from the black and dense columns”. Residents now fear an escalation. Damascus and Moscow call on the UN to condemn the attack. The West is silent.
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TEL SKUF, Iraq — After being destroyed in the ISIS conflict, Saint Jacob’s Church once again can be seen as part of the cityscape in Tel Skuf.  --  Most of its residents fled when the area was a frontline between Peshmerga and ISIS until mid-2017 when the militants were pushed out. The town 30 kilometers north of Mosul city is the security responsibility of Baghdad.   read more

It is an honor and privilege for me to welcome you, on behalf of Iraqi Christians. I see Baghdad, the capital city of our beloved country, delight and bright for embracing you, who seek peace and love. Such an overwhelming joy that

On Sunday, November 25, 2018, Patriarch Bartholomew concelebrated the Divine Liturgy with Patriarch Daniel, members of the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church, and many more concelebrants, for the inauguration of the new National Cathedral in Bucharest.

Researchers, police, coroners and an imam in Sicily work hard to identify dead refugees and give them a proper burial.   ---  by Stefania D'Ignoti
Catania, Sicily - On All Soul's Day, around three kilometres from

On 26 November 2018, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations, met with Mr. Kim Yong-dae, vice-president of the Supreme People’s Assembly of the Democratic People’s

Turkey has been committing two major international crimes against Cyprus. It has invaded and divided a small, weak but modern and independent European state... Turkey has also changed the demographic character of

The war in eastern Ukraine against Russian-backed separatists has dragged on for almost five years, taking the lives of more than 10,000 people and resulting in a million internally displaced refugees.

Moscow, November 22, Interfax - The project to create a unified local church in Ukraine is doomed, the Moscow Patriarchate said.   ---   "Right now it is already becoming absolutely obvious that [Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko] will not

There have been many schisms in the Eastern Orthodox world, some more peaceful, some more agonized. Moscow and Kiev should choose one of the more peaceful splits as a good historical example.
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Wearing a white cassock and hood, and surrounded by a number of monks in black, Yacoub El-Maqary faces the camera. Smiling, the defrocked monk delivers his message: he declares himself patriarch and head of the Coptic Orthodox Church. read more

The sale of the family home of the Muslim holder of the key to the Holy Sepulcher confirms a growing trend. For a Palestinian, to give up property to a Jew is considered a disgrace and a betrayal. For Jewish intermediaries, it is a ,,,  read more

Mons. Warduni, obispo auxiliar de Bagdad: es un hecho ‘grave y real’. Con la intervención del gobierno lograron paralizar 50 transacciones, pero los inmuebles sustraídos suman cuando menos 350. La Iglesia trata de intervenir para lograr su restitución, pero debe luchar contra los “señores y poderosos locales”.  lehe todo  - read more

Shalaan Al Shalaan presents a new version that blames intelligence officers who risk the death sentence. A team was supposed to negotiate with Khashoggi to get him to return home. An order was eventually issued to kill him and cut him up. The Saudi statement leaves Turkey’s Foreign Minister unsatisfied.  read more

ATHENS — An effort by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras of Greece to start severing cozy ties between the state and the Greek Orthodox Church, including taking priests off civil service payrolls, has opened up divisions within the church, which has played a dominant role in the country’s life for centuries.  read more

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Catholic and international aid organizations are pressing for an end to Yemen's worsening war, where the United Nations says one child dies every 10 minutes.   read  more

(Peter Anderson) The Ukrainian news agency UNN has reported this afternoon that Metropolitan Emmanuel of France (Ecumenical Patriarchate) arrived in Kyiv today (Nov. 15).  The article quotes an “informed source” as follows: ... read more

Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate department for external church relations, gives interview to Romfea, a Greek church news agency.  --  –  Your Eminence, how would you comment on

As many as 80% of Syria’s Christians have left their country since the start of the civil war in 2011, while 50% of Iraq’s Christians have been uprooted since 2006, according to a report produced by Christian charities Open Doors International,

On 24-26 October 2018 Bishops of the European Union gathered in Brussels for the Autumn Assembly focusing on the 2019 European elections. Participants reflected on future EU challenges in dialogue with high-level officials of the Union, in particular with

Statement by H.E. Archbishop Bernardito Auza
Apostolic Nuncio, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations

On Oct. 11, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople — the spiritual leader of 300 million Orthodox Christians worldwide  — started a process to grant independence to a Ukrainian Orthodox Church seated in Kiev, freeing it from

On October 28, 2018, His Holiness Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, presided over the Divine Liturgy at the church of Our Lady the Joy to All the Afflicted (the Transfiguration of the Lord) in Bolshaya Ordynka, Moscow.

Moscow, October 29, Interfax - Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations, has said that during his recent trip to Vatican, he did not discuss with Pope Francis his possible visit to Russia despite what has been written in a few media reports.   read more

Moscow, October 29, Interfax - Pope Francis has a balanced position on the events involving the Orthodox Church in Ukraine, Metropolitan Hilarion, the head of the Synodal Department for External Church Relations, said.
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(Peter Anderson) The Holy Synod of the Romanian Patriarchate met on Thursday and Friday.  The Romanian-language website of the Patriarchate’s news service, www.basilica.ro, has posted several articles about the meeting such as the canonization of Bishop Dionisie Erhan (“a fighter for the good of the Romanians in Bessarabia” in the early 1900s) and ...  read more

KIEV (AFP) -  Ukraine's Patriarch Filaret was one of the top leaders in the Soviet era Russian Orthodox Church.  But after the Soviet Union crumbled in 1991 and he began a campaign to give his native Ukraine an independent church he was defrocked and excommunicated by Moscow.
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t appears that European Christians, notably the Churches, have not yet fully seized the opportunity to proclaim the Gospel in the face of Europe’s moral chagrin, in ways that meet the concrete needs and are close to the life of our communities. The Gospel must be understood not as a departure from reality but as the sign of a deeper spiritual realm that overcomes all forms of controversy and demystifies bombastic declarations.  leggi tutto

The Annual Plenary of the International Commission for Anglican–Orthodox Theological Dialogue took place on Cyprus on 13–20 October 2018. On this occasion, it issued the following official Communiqué:
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