Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral in Kazan, one of the most recognized architectural and spiritual landmarks in the capital of Tatarstan, is marking its 300th anniversary this year. His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia visited the cathedral on July 20 as part of a primatial visit to the Tatarstan Metropolis.
Past restrictions have raised serious international religious-freedom concerns, Burns notes. He says his statement isn’t directed against the Albanian people or the Muslim community, but is a call for fairness and religious freedom for everyone.
A newly translated version of the Gospel of St. John in an indigenous language was presented to His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon of Washington and All America and Canada recently.
The service marked the first time the Brotherhood solemnly celebrated the feast of its Heavenly patron since choosing St. John (Maximovitch) in 2025.
An Orthodox hierarch in Tanzania recently walked through the gates of a prison in one of the country’s poorest regions and came away with an unexpected mission: freeing inmates who qualify for release but simply can’t afford to pay their way out.
More than 44,000 pilgrims took part in the main services of the Royal Days festival in Ekaterinburg on July 16-17, marking the 108th anniversary of the martyrdom of the holy Royal Family and their faithful servants, including a nighttime Divine Liturgy at the Church on the Blood and a cross procession to Ganina Yama.
The newly baptized, representatives of the Yao and Mang’anja peoples, underwent four months of preparation before being baptized.
St. Paul the Apostle Monastery in Boscobel, Wisconsin, hosted its first hierarchical services in 20 years on July 11-12, when His Eminence Archbishop Daniel of Chicago and the Diocese of the Midwest (OCA) made an archpastoral visit for the monastery’s patronal feast.
The document covers several areas: the history of the decoding of the human genome, the current state of hereditary diseases and prospects for gene therapy, the moral aspects of gene therapy, and ethical problems in genetic diagnostics and testing.
Met. Tikhon has served the Church as a hierarch since 2004, and as primate since 2012.
Pat. Theophilos called on the ambassador to back the establishment of a medical corridor allowing cancer patients from Gaza, including children, to receive treatment at Augusta Victoria Hospital in Jerusalem.
Pilgrims from Naxos and from across Greece gathered for the liturgical events in an atmosphere described as one of deep reverence.
The last service held in the cathedral before the Soviet closure took place on Pascha 1923. Church valuables were confiscated the previous year, and in 1927 the building was partially demolished by explosion, losing its domes, drums, vaults, arches, and pillars. The ruins stood for decades.
The Lavra, which was restored from ruins over the course of three decades by the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, has been at the center of an ongoing effort by the Ukrainian state and the OCU to remove the Church from the premises.
Dyer, who converted to Orthodoxy roughly a decade ago after passing through Calvinism and Traditional Roman Catholicism, described his journey as driven by intensive study of the Church Fathers.
The Orthodox Church continues to experience significant growth around the world, with mass Baptisms throughout the diaspora and mission fields now a regular occurrence.
Abp. Damianos argues that under property law, possession without ownership offers no real security, and that any future Egyptian government of a more extreme orientation could overturn such an arrangement overnight.
The community now serves as one of the principal spiritual centers of Rivne Province and receives pilgrims from across Ukraine.
Bulgaria’s opposition had been publicly confirmed last month by Prime Minister Rumen Radev, who cited religious and cultural reasons for the veto. “What message are we sending when we extend sanctions and war into the sphere of religion? Do we realize where this leads?” Radev said.
Some 7,000 akathists of St. Dimitrie the New were distributed to inmates and staff at prisons within the Bucharest Archdiocese on July 13–14, as part of an initiative organized in collaboration with the National Prison Administration.
