On December 20, 2018, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted bill number 5309, voted for by 240 MPs. MPs from the Opposition Bloc voted against it. Speaker of the Parliament Andriy Parubiy emphasizes that the bill was passed at the personal request of Patriarch Emeritus Filaret. The bill sponsored by MP Alexander Bryhintsev and a number of other MPs suggests amending the standard law entitled On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations so that a religious organization whose ...

Radio Free Europe, 19. Dezember 2018: Alyaksandr Kukhta is an Orthodox priest for a small parish in Belarus, but he has twice as many followers online as in real life. He's earned loyal viewers with his videos on subjects from sex to Lenin. Videobericht auf Radio Free Europe

English and Greek-language versions of the official website of the Russian Orthodox Church have officially opened. Materials in English and Greek are available at http://www.patriarchia.ru/en/ and http://www.patriarchia.ru/gr/. The opening of these new versions is intended to expand the audience of the Moscow Patriarchate’s official site and to facilitate access to certain important materials from the site for Orthodox believers abroad, media representatives, and those interested in receiving...

The All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations strongly opposes the use of law enforcement agencies by Ukrainian officials to propagate any ideologies (in particular, the gender ideology), for the purposes of censorship and restrictions of freedom of conscience, opinion, and expression. This is stated in the appeal of the AUCCRO addressed to the Prime Minister of Ukraine on December 11, the Institute of Religious Freedom reports. The reason for this appeal was the aggressi...

Am 30. November und 1. Dezember 2018 feierte die Zaoksky Adventist University (ZAU) ihr 30-jähriges Bestehen, wie die Kommunikationsabteilung der teilkontinentalen Kirchenleitung (Euro-Asia Division, EAD) mitteilte, die mehrheitlich für die Siebenten-Tags-Adventisten in der Gemeinschaft Unabhängiger Staaten (GUS) zuständig ist. Das Motto der Universität lautet "Lernen, Dienen, Inspirieren". Die Universität liegt in Zaoksky, im Verwaltungsbezirk (Oblast) Tula, rund 200 Kilometer südlich von ...

“We wonder when the leaders of our world will realize how late we have left our response to the climate crisis”, wrote His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew in a letter to the participants of the United Nations climate conference underway in Katowice, Poland. “A few years ago, we wrote of reaching a point of no return. This was neither euphemism nor exaggeration. Scientists have long warned that we have reached several tipping points; governments seem reluctant to respond, preferr...

On December 12, 2018, the Synod of Bishops of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church appealed to clergy, monastics and lay people with the message “God's Word and Catechism.” The message says that the whole Church is responsible for Christian upbringing of their faithful, but the faithful can also fulfill this mission by sharing faith in the resurrected Christ. Therefore, as the message says, the family is a home church, and the parents are the first educators of the faith. “Dear parents! You a...

Das Vereinigungskonzil zur Gründung einer autokephalen Ukrainischen Orthodoxen Kirche soll am 15. Dezember stattfinden. Das verkündete zumindest der ukrainische Präsident Petro Poroschenko, nachdem die Hl. Synode des Ökumenischen Patriarchats an ihrer letzten Sitzung kein Datum genannt hatte. In der Einladung zum Konzil, die Patriarch Bartholomaios an die ukrainischen Hierarchen gesandt hat, wird mitgeteilt, dass Metropolit Emmanuel (Adamakis) von Frankreich den Vorsitz der Versammlung haben ...

In Rivne in der Westukraine sind mehrere Priester der Ukrainischen Orthodoxen Kirche–Moskauer Patriarchat (UOK–MP) vom Sicherheitsdienst der Ukraine (SBU) verhört worden. Ihnen werden Staatsverrat und die Verletzung der Rechte von Bürgern aufgrund ihrer Rasse, Nationalität oder Religion vorgeworfen. Anscheinend geht es um die Verbreitung von russischer Propagandaliteratur durch Geistliche des Moskauer Patriarchats. Der SBU machte mit Verweis auf die laufende Untersuchung keine näheren Angaben...