The holy Orthodox Church gained many souls this week, with the celebration of a mass Baptism in Tanzania. On January 19, the feast of St. Mark of Ephesus, one of the Pillars of Orthodoxy, 12 priests celebrated the Divine Liturgy in the Church of St. Mark in Kimouli, in the northwestern Tanzanian province of Cerua,…

Lebanese authorities on Tuesday returned two stolen 18th-century icons – of Christ the Almighty and the Virgin Mary, as the Panaghia the Hodegetria or Directress – to the Greek ambassador in the country. The two rare icons were seized prior to going on auction. The icons were stolen from an exhibition in Athens in 2016,…

The Holy and Great Monastery of Vatopedi, on Mount Athos, has unveiled its illustrated and deluxe ecclesiastical calendar for 2021. The impressive 2021 calendar is dedicated to the bicentennial of the beginning of the Greek War of Independence in 1821. In the edition’s foreword, the abbot of the monastery, the Elder Archimandrite Ephraim, expresses his…

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The Holy Synod of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Greece this week issued an encyclical towards the Holy Archdiocese of Athens and all Metropolises under its ecclesiastical jurisdiction, requesting a detailed account of their expenditures for charitable works over the previous year.

A spokesman for the Moscow Patriarchate this week reiterated that the Russian Church sees no need for special inspections by authorities of churches and chapels, ostensibly to confirm that public health protocols imposed for the Covid-19 pandemic are being followed. The statement was made by Vladimir Legoida, the chairman of the synodal department for church…

An exodios funeral service was held on Tuesday for reposed Elder Athanasios, the abbot of the Stavrovouni Monastery on the eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus. The reposed elder led a monastic life for some 80 years, and was the monastery’s abbot since 1982. The Metropolitan of Kitiou, His Eminence Nektarios, gave the eulogy.   …

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis this week announced that his government and relevant public health authorities will develop and issue a digital certificate proving a citizen has received a Covid-19 vaccination.

The Church today venerates the Righteous Euthymius the Great. This saint was from Melitene in Armenia and was born in the latter part of the 4th century. He became a divine oracle of the Church, or rather, the “…vessel of divine utterance,” as later ecclesiastical historians wrote. He was the instructor and elder of St….