The Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, at its regular session on August 24/September 6, 2006, considered: The report of the Secretary of the Commission on discussions with the Moscow Patriarchate, Protopriest Alexander...
The appeal section of the Minsk Highest Economic Court upheld the decision of the judge Mr. Koramyshev to force "New Life" church to sell its building. Such a decision was made today at the court hearing where the...
"A stab in the back," laments Mikhail Piotrovsky, director of the Hermitage museum, as over $5 million worth of artwork is stolen in what appears to be a brazen inside job unprecedented in Russian history (...)
In order to preserve the unity of Universal Orthodoxy and witness peacefully to the Gospel of Christ it is absolutely necessary for the Local Orthodox Churches that relations between them should be guided by the immovable standards set...
We, participants in the World Summit of Religious Leaders – heads and delegates of Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, and Shinto religious communities in 49 countries, met in Moscow on the eve of the Group of Eight Summit....
Pentecostals, Catholics and Baptists are among religious communities to complain recently of police failure to protect them from attacks or other unwarranted intrusions during services or of police raids to prevent them conducting religious activity – such as...
Dear Metropolitan Laurus, Archbishops and Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia,Christ is Risen! We ask for your blessings and that you hear the concerns of many women of the church. The commencement of the All-Diaspora...
A bitter power struggle is taking place within the UK branch of the Russian Orthodox Church, over a plan to break from Moscow. Parish councillors say they have been expelled for opposing the plan, and that the locks...
The resolution of the ROCOC Sobor published in San Francisco on May 11, 2006 is a masterpiece of ambiguity, and a tissue of deception and lies.It begins: "We, the participants of the IV All-Diaspora Council, having gathered in...
Dear Brothers and Sisters!Christus resurrexit! - Christ is risen!During last night’s great Vigil we relived the decisive and ever-present event of the Resurrection, the central mystery of the Christian faith. Innumerable Paschal candles were lit in churches, to...
After being arrested in Minsk and deported from Belarus as international terrorists Fr. Basil Kobakhidze and I suddenly noticed that both of us were singing Soviet and communist songs. Both of us were shocked that we were not...
When the faithful gathered at the St. Herman Monastery on the twenty-second anniversary of Fr. Seraphim's repose, among them was an American Orthodox convert, Celia Yentzen, who had recently experienced a miraculous healing through Fr. Seraphim's intercessions. Celia...
...Today, there is no shortage of information as to who supports which political party, who espouses what ideology, and so on and so forth. As far as religion is concerned, however, there is complete silence. The statistics that...
Four nuns were tonsured on March 10 by Hegumen Gregory in the church of St.Elizabeth in St.-Petersburg.Alevtina Nikinina was tonsured with the name Elizabeth after the Patron of the church. She was born in 1970; she graduated the...
In early February, the Milli-Shura (National Council) of the National Organization of Russian Muslims (NORM) took a decisive step to come out of the closet. It reached an association agreement with the Moscow community of converted Muslims, Pryamoi...
President Putin’s flirting with the North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il is kept in strict confidence so that theAmericans would not find out about it, although the Moscow Patriarchate is aware of this flirting and actively participates in...
TWO EVENTS last week starkly illustrate the dilemmas of countries grappling with a terrible past. In Austria, Holocaust denier David Irving received a three-year jail sentence for his public assertions that the Nazis did not carry out a...
An official map of the Losiny Ostrov national park in Moscow shows a pagan temple - one of about one and a half dozen such temples active in the capital. In all, 17 (religious) pagan organizations are registered...
"I bring you good news of a great joy … for to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord" (Lk 2:10-11).Last night we heard once more the Angel’s...
While most Russians will mark Orthodox Christmas on 7 January according to the old Julian calendar, Western Christmas is about to be celebrated on 25 December by Russia's 600,000-strong Roman Catholic community. As a result of continued efforts...
No government official was prepared to explain to Forum 18 News Service why Macedonia's religious minorities are in practice unable to build new places of worship or extend existing ones. "The only permission we can get is to...
The Executive Summary consists of three parts. Part I identifies many of the countries where religious freedom is restricted and classifies their actions and policies into five categories. Part II provides examples of nations whose governments have taken...
I am thinking back to the distant 1970’s, to those stagnant years during the time of Brezhnev. I was a lay person in the Moscow Patriarchate then. Some absolutely amazing documents started to make their way to us....
By Dan Murphy | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor CAIRO – Three almost simultaneous attacks Wednesday on hotels managed by American companies in Jordan's capital carried the classic markings of terrorist hits by Al Qaeda, or...
Belarus has yet to meet a 12 November deadline, set by a UN committee, for confirming the correction of a religious freedom violation against Hare Krishna devotees, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. In a decision with implications...
The book of Fr. George Edelstein, the rector of the Resurrection church in the village of Karabanovo, Kostroma diocese in the ROC MP, is a collection of articles from 1988 to 2000 devoted to the inner life and...
The Ninth congress of clergy and laity of the Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church (ROAC) was held September 3 and 4 in Suzdal, as reported by the Suzdal Diocese Vedomosty.
An extraordinary meeting of the Synod of Bishops of a "branch" of ROCOR(V), which had been headed by Archbishop Lazar (Zhurbenko), took place in the town of Veliky Dal’nik, Odessa province (Ukraine). On July 7th, on the feast...
Portal-Credo.Ru: Could you comment about the four documents which recently appeared simultaneously on the official sites of the ROCOR(L) and the ROC MP and were worked out conjointly by their commissions on dialogue for unification and approved by...
THE ANGEL OF THE PHILADELPHIAN CHURCH Then shall the righteous man stand in great boldness before the face of such as have afflicted him, and made no account of his labours. When they see it, they shall be...
Metropolitan Kirykos of Mesogea and Lavriotiki was forbidden at the Synod meeting of the "Matthewite" Synod of the TOC on June 17/30 after he refused to present at the discussin of his views. (...)
Prior to the publication in June of the documents adopted by the conciliatory commissions, the medium outside of Russia was dominated by several propaganda myths which have now become torn down at a blow. The myths are as...
