Mehrere Bischöfe der katholischen Kirche in Tschechien haben die Entscheidung des Abgeordnetenhauses zur Besteuerung der Restitutionszahlungen an die Religionsgemeinschaften scharf kritisiert. Der Generalsekretär der Tschechischen Bischofskonferenz, Stanislav Přibyl, sprach von einem „Sieg des Populismus über den gesunden Menschenverstand und den Rechtsstaat“. Sorgen mache ihm nicht das Geld, sondern das Rechtsklima, weil die Sicherheit des Rechtsstaates untergraben werde.

In der Slowakei ist eine Diskussion über ein automatisches Begutachtungsrecht der Kirche für Gesetzesentwürfe entbrannt: Medienberichten zufolge ist die katholische Kirche vorgeprescht und hat Justizminister Gábor Gál von der gemischt slowakisch-ungarischen Partei Most-Hid (Brücke) bei einem Treffen im Dezember dazu gebracht, den lang angestrebten Verfahrensmodus in sein Reformwerk aufzunehmen. Gál arbeitet an einer grundsätzlichen Neuordnung der Verfahrensregeln für das Zustandekommen v...

On Monday, January 28, 2019, His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel of the Romanian Orthodox Church welcomed at his patriarchal residence the delegations of the Committee of Representatives of the Orthodox Churches to the European Union (CROCEU), the Commission of the Roman-Catholic Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community (COMECE), and the Conference of European Churches (CEC), who were visiting Bucharest following Romania’s taking over the EU presidency on January 1. His Beatitude presented t...

The All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations appealed to a number of institutions to facilitate the release of captive Ukrainians, political prisoners and other hostages held in Russia and in the occupied territories of Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts. Letters signed by the Chairman of the AUCCRO Rabbi Yakov Dov Bleich were sent both to the leadership of the Russian Federation and to the World Council of Churches, the Interreligious Council of Russia and other interde...

On January 22, the Ministry of Justice registered the civic association All-Ukrainian Council. Evangelical Churches, known religious and public figures initiated the foundation of this association, the Institute of Religious Freedom reports. The Spiritual Council of the All-Ukrainian Council includes the chairman of the Council of Evangelical Protestant Churches of Ukraine, Senior Bishop of the Ukrainian Church of the Evangelical Christians Mykhailo Panochko, Chairman of the All-Ukrainian Uni...

Der internationale Tag des Gedenkens an die Opfer des Holocaust am 27. Januar wurde in der slowakischen Stadt Banská Bystrica mit einer Lesung von Appellen an Jozef Tiso, den Präsidenten des Slowakischen Staats der Kriegsjahre 1939 bis 1945, begangen. Der Priester-Politiker hatte die Deportation und Vernichtung von rund 70'000 slowakischen Staatsbürgern jüdischer Abstammung zugelassen. Mutige Christen und andere Humanisten hatten versucht, Tiso Einhalt zu gebieten und dadurch den Zorn des fas...

Visoki Dečani, a 14th century Serbian Orthodox Monastery in Kosovo (known as Kosovo and Metohija in the Serbian tradition), has unveiled a new website in English and several other languages. The long-awaited site contains regularly updated news about the life of the monastery in Serbia’s turbulent breakaway region of Kosovo, along with many scans of materials from the monastery’s library, audio recordings from Divine services, professional photographs of items from the monastery treasury, and...

On February 4, 1925, the Holy Synod gathered in Bucharest and resolved the establishment of the Romanian Orthodox Patriarchate, following Romania’s Great Union achieved in 1918. The first person who advocated for the elevation of the Romanian Orthodox Church to the patriarchal rank was Fr. Gheorghe Ciuhandu who supported this idea during the Assembly of the clergy of Transylvania in 1919. After him, several other important figures of Romanian culture, historians like Nicolae Iorga and Ioan Lu...

Archbishop Chrysostomos said in January that the Cyprus Church would spare no expense or effort to make sure stolen icons from Cypriot churches would be returned to where they belong, after receiving from Transport Minister, Vassiliki Anastasiadou, four fragments of religious frescoes removed from churches in the north following the 1974 invasion. The frescoes were recently handed over to Cyprus in the Netherlands after they were recovered by international NGO Walk of Truth, Cyprus ...