An Orthodox church building and the local priest’s house were torn from their foundations and carried downstream during the catastrophic flooding that struck Western Alaska over the weekend, leaving one person dead and at least 20 missing.
Delegates from the OCU, including hierarchs and clergy, have visited Mt. Athos before, but this was the first visit of “Metropolitan” Epiphany, after previous plans had to be abandoned several times.
Washington state officials have agreed to a permanent court order preventing enforcement of a law that would have criminalized priests for maintaining the confidentiality of Confession, four months after Orthodox Churches filed a federal lawsuit challenging the legislation.
The Holy Synod of the Patriarchate of Alexandria, under the presidency of Patriarch Theodoros, issued a statement calling for peace following extensive discussions on military conflicts in Africa and the Middle East.
A newly ordained priest and a small Orthodox community in Timóteo, Minas Gerais, are working to establish what would be the only Orthodox church in the interior of Brazil’s second-most populous state.