Source: The New York Times Patriarch Kirill I has provided spiritual cover for the invasion of Ukraine, reaping vast resources for his church in return. Now, in an extraordinary step, the E.U. is threatening him with sanctions. By Jason Horowitz As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine unfolded, Patriarch Kirill I, the leader of the Moscow-based Russian Orthodox Church, had an awkward Zoom meeting with Pope Francis. The two religious leaders had previously worked together to bridge a 1,000-year-old schism between the Christian churches of the East and West. But the meeting, in March, found them on opposing sides of a chasm. Kirill…
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Sveti Stefan island in Budva in a beautiful summer day, Montenegro / Image by falco from Pixabay
Source: Strategic Culture Foundation by James George Jatras “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” So Karl Marx wrote in 1843. For three generations over the course of the 20th century his atheist disciples violently sought to break their subjects of this “opium” addiction. They failed. In many though not all parts of the former communist bloc Christianity not only survived but provided the impetus for national and social revival. In some countries, like Poland, Hungary, and Lithuania, this meant Roman Catholicism.…
Source: Romania-Insider.com by Irina Popescu Prosecutors from the National Anticorruption Department (DNA) want Archbishop Teodosie Petrescu, a senior official of the Romanian Orthodox Church, to be placed under house arrest. Archbishop Teodosie, who is the head of the Orthodox Church in Constanta county, is currently under judicial control and will stand trial for using or presenting false documents to obtain EU funds. However, DNA says that he broke the terms of the judicial control as he initiated projects to access EU funds although the judicial control conditions forbade him to do such things. Moreover, he also entered into contact another defendant in…
Source: inSerbia A group of female MPs of the European Parliament asked Greece recently to abolish a regulation, according to which women are strictly forbidden to visit the Holy Mountain, its twenty monasteries and 2,500 monks. The request says that the law “violates gender equality and introduces discrimination against women, which is not consistent with democracy”. At the same time, ads appeared in Serbian media, offering to take women on the “pilgrimage to the Holy Mountain” at the price of EUR 100 – 200. In this way, a question of women going to the Holy Mountain and the monastery of…