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 Union…

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 fasch…

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 a…

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 Lupa…

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 Ma…

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew was conferred on the title of Honorary Doctor of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. President of the Academy Andriy Meleshevych made a public announcement. “By decision of the Academic Council of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy of December 20, 2018, His Holy Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew was conferred on the title of Honorary Doctor of NaUKMA. Thereby, the Mohyla Academy community “marked his merits as a scholar and popularizer of research,” he wr…

On 24 January 2019, a multimedia round table ‘Violation of Believers’ Rights in Ukraine’ organized by the Russian Association for the Defense of Religious Freedom took place at the International multimedia press centre MIA ‘Russia Today.” Among those attending were Archpriest Nikolai Balashov, deputy chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations, and Mr. Vakhtang Kipshidze, deputy chairman of the Synodal Department for Church’s Relations with Society and Mass Me…

Das Oberhaupt der Ukrainischen Griechisch-Katholischen Kirche (UGKK), Großerzbischof Svjatoslav (Schevtschuk), hält die Einheit zwischen Katholiken und Orthodoxen nicht für utopisch. So sieht er langfristig die Einheit zwischen der UGKK und der vor kurzem gegründeten Orthodoxen Kirche der Ukraine (OKU) im Bereich des Möglichen, wie er in einem Fernsehinterview erklärte. Das sei eine „freudige Aussicht“, denn die ganze christliche Welt suche nach Wegen zur Einheit.

Der ukrainische Präsident Petro Poroschenko hat Filaret (Denisenko) den Titel „Held der Ukraine“ verliehen. Filaret, der am 23. Januar 90 Jahre alt wurde, stand der Ukrainischen Orthodoxen Kirche–Kiewer Patriarchat vor, bis diese am 15. Dezember 2018 in der neu gegründeten Orthodoxen Kirche der Ukraine (OKU) aufgegangen ist. Filaret ist „Ehrenpatriarch“ der OKU und soll bei ihrer Entwicklung helfen.