OC

"I extend to your Excellency and to all our beloved Muslims the deepest heartfelt congratulations on the occasion of the blessed Eid El-Adha," Pope Tawadros said in a message to El-Sisi.

ROME – In a new interview with a German newspaper, the Vatican’s point man on ecumenical affairs says Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill’s defense of the war in Ukraine amounts to “heresy,” and has fractured the unity of the Orthodox community.

The Delegation of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, consisting of Archbishop Job of Telmessos, Co-President of the Joint International Commission for the Theological Dialogue between the two Sister Churches, Bishop Adrianos of Halicarnassus, and the Patriarchal Deacon Barnabas Grigoriadis, arrived in Rome on 28 June 2022 to participate in the Thronal Feast of the Church of Rome.

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  (Peter Anderson) On Sunday, June 26, Metropolitan Hilarion celebrated his first Divine Liturgy in Budapest as the Russian Orthodox Metropolitan of Budapest and Hungary. A video of the entire Liturgy can be seen here.  Sunday was the Feast Day of the Saints of the Russian Land.  As described in the following article, one of the saints described by Metropolitan Hilarion in his address at the end of the Liturgy was St. Philip, Metropolitan of Moscow.  St. Philip was martyred because he “was not afraid to stand up to the terrible tyrant who shed innocent blood.”  The following is an English-language article describing the address by Metropolitan Hilarion:   (spzh.news) The exploits of the holy confessors of the Church of Russia should serve as an example for Orthodox Christians, for in the history of Russian holiness there have been many great names and exploits, said Metropolitan Hilarion of Budapest and Hungary. Metropolitan Hilarion noted that when thinking about saints in Russia, people immediately raise their eyes to the times of Kievan Rus, the Baptism of Rus in the waters of the Dnieper by St Prince Vladimir, to the feats of St. Fathers of Kiev Caves. The Metropolitan also mentioned the deed of Metropolitan Philip, who condemned Ivan the Terrible, who shed innocent blood. (...)

The members of the delegation of the Ecumenical Throne will have a meeting later with representatives of the Holy See’s ministry, which promotes Christian unity, and will be received by Pope Francis tomorrow. The Liturgy at St. Peter’s Church was also attended by our country’s ambassador to the Holy See, Katia Georgiou. The Vatican, at the same time, as every year, is going to send a delegation to the Phanar this year as well for the feast of St. Andrew on the 30th of November.

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Moscow, June 27, Interfax - Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia has said he expects internal dissentions within Russian society to recede into the background and give way to the people's consolidation amid external challenges.

"God willing, our spiritual strength shouldn't wane, so that we shouldn't have any fears and any feeling of uncertainty about our historical development. Everything that's happening now is happening the right way, although our way is not easy. I mean not only what's happening inside but  ...  read more

Four months have passed since the Russian invasion of Ukraine; it was supposed to be a blitzkrieg, now it promises to last for years, according to the protagonists themselves. Russia has no intention of stopping until its goal is achieved; on the other side NATO is determined to do everything to defeat Putin. And more and more countries find themselves involved in some way. The prospect is increasingly worrying, and recalls Our Lady's prophecy in Civitavecchia about the risk of a nuclear world war between West and East. It can be avoided under these conditions...

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Kurdistan Region remains the “first choice” destination of Iraq’s dwindling Christian population, Archbishop Bashar Matti Warda of the Chaldean Archdiocese of Erbil told Kurdistan 24 on Thursday. 

Warsaw, Poland — Senior Catholics see the beatification of 10 Polish nuns murdered by Russian soldiers at the end of World War II as highlighting the need for radical Christian witness while offering a prophetic reminder of current sufferings in Ukraine.

ETHIOPIAN Cardinal Berhaneyesus Demerew Souraphiel landed in Australia just in time to watch Election Day 2022 unfold.

He graduated from the Theological Institute of Saint Sergius in Paris in 1978. He was ordained a deacon on 27 September 1974 and a presbyter on 18 January 1981.

The Church of Ukraine under Metropolitan Epifaniy responds sceptically to the announcements of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church led by Metropolitan Onufriy regarding its autonomy and independence from the Patriarchate of Moscow.

Patriarch Kirill said Sunday that the Russian Orthodox Church "understands" a decision by its branch in Ukraine to cut ties amid Moscow's offensive in the pro-Western country.

Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili on Sunday extended his gratitude to Patriarch Theophilos III of Jerusalem and Cristophorus, the Archbishop of the Jordanian Orthodox Church, for the handover of a plot of land to Georgia for creation of a culture centre near the Jordan River.

Moscow, May 30, Interfax - Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia commented for the first time on the outcomes of the recent Council of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) after the liturgy at the Christ the Savior Cathedral on Sunday.

"We fully understand how the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is suffering today. We are sympathetic that His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufry and the episcopate should act as wisely as possible today in order not to complicate the lives of its faithful people," the patriarch said after the liturgy at the Christ the Savior Cathedral on Sunday.

Last Friday, the UOC Council of Bishops disagreed with Patriarch Kirill's stance on the Russian military special operation in Ukraine and endorsed amendments to the charter, which, as announced, make the UOC independent. Later it became known that not all dioceses, in particular the Donetsk and Crimean dioceses, backed the amendments to the UOC charter and, respectively, the independent status will not affect the entire Ukrainian Church.

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His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine commemorated all the primates of the Local Churches with whom the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is in communion during the Liturgy at the Kiev Caves Lavra today.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has had economic repercussions around the world, and it’s creating a food shortage. Russia and Ukraine are both key agricultural suppliers, and the ongoing conflict has only served to highlight the fragility of the global food-supply chain when two major players are essentially taken off the market.

First was his meeting with Archbishop Chrysostomos of Cyprus that took place in Cyprus, in the framework of the Orthodox Assembly of the World Council of Churches, despite the fact that the Church of Russia has interrupted the Eucharistic communion with the Archbishop of Cyprus, after the latter’s recognition of the Autocephalous Church of Ukraine.

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The war in Ukraine, the attitude of the Russian Orthodox Church, the role of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, Hagia Sophia, and his forthcoming visit to Mount Athos were at the center of the interview given by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew “At the Center” of ERT1 and the journalist George Kouvaras.  In front of the Patriarchal Church and the courtyard of the Patriarchate, the Ecumenical Patriarch spoke about the war in Ukraine, following a question about the attitude of the Russian Church and Patriarch Kirill of Moscow towards the war and underlined:

The head of Serbia's Orthodox Church recognized the independence of the Orthodox Church in North Macedonia, signaling an end to a religious dispute dating back more than 50 years.

WARSAW, Poland — The president of the Polish bishops' conference criticized the Vatican's "naive and utopian" attitude to the war in Ukraine and urged Rome to show "greater maturity" in attitudes toward Russia.

ROME – Ukraine’s top Greek Catholic prelate has condemned the idea that the current war ravaging the country can be justified on grounds that Christian morality is being protected, saying the logic is similar to the fundamentalism espoused by Islamic terrorists.

YEREVAN, MAY 24, ARMENPRESS. Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan and Secretary for Relations with States within the Holy See's Secretariat of State, Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher exchanged messages today on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Armenia and the Holy See, the Armenian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The defendant was found guilty of voluntary homicide A court-ordered psychological assessment found him "responsible for his actions" CAIRO: An Egyptian court on Wednesday sentenced to death a man accused of the murder last month of a Coptic priest in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, judicial sources said.
The Alexandria court’s ruling is subject to approval by the mufti of the republic.

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We ask for a thorough and urgent investigation of all the circumstances of her killing and for bringing those responsible to justice.

The Assyrian Christian Mayor of Dadersh village in the Sarsank region of the Duhok governorate in Kurdistan, Iraq, and one other Assyrian Christian man named James Zaya, were arrested on 11 May after a group of Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) loyalists tried to confiscate land belonging to local residents.

Messaggio
To His Holiness Tawadros II
Pope of Alexandria

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew departed today, Tuesday, May 10, 2022, for Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, in response to the kind invitation of the organizers of the “Meeting for the Promotion of Common Values between Religions” to address the opening of the international conference.   ...read more

By Marine Henriot & Linda Bordoni
Many countries in sub-Saharan Africa rely on Russia and Ukraine for a significant percentage of their wheat, fertilizers and vegetable oils imports, but the war has disrupted global commodity markets and trade flows to Africa, and increased high food prices.