News

Roundtable “Challenges of e-democracy development”

In the media centre of Tanjug on March 19, 2009 a presentation of so called WEB-DEP project was held for journalists, ministries and members of the Council of Europe, in which are take part all national media information agencies from the Balkans, then Athens Technology Center, International Teledemocracy Centre - of the Napier University from Edinburgh, as well as National Technical University of Athens from Greece. On this occasion at the roundtable spoke: Nebojsa Vasiljevic, Deputy Minister of Telecommunications and Information Society, Zivko Subotic, executive in chief of Macedonian information agency and deacon M.sci. Oliver Subotic, a manager of the Centre for study and use of modern technologies of the Archbishopric Belgrade and Karlovac.

Summer Conference to focus on past and future of the Orthodoxy in America (Jun 18-20)

St. Vladimir's Seminary (SVS) will host a summer conference from June 18-20, 2009 for clergy and laity, which has as its theme "The Council and the Tomos: Twentieth-century Landmarks towards a Twenty-first-century Church." Conference speakers will focus on two watersheds that have shaped the Orthodox Church in America (OCA): the All-Russian Council (Sobor) of 1917-18 and the Tomos of Autocephaly granted in 1970 by the Russian Orthodox Church to its daughter church, the OCA, then known as the "North American Diocese." As well, conference participants will address the significance of the OCA's presence in North America, and future paths and possibilities open to it, including its interface with the multi-jurisdictional Orthodox Christian communities in the United States and Canada.

Church Destroyed at Ground Zero Is Still at Square One

The tiny St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church is once again at the forefront of the myriad disputes that plague the rebuilding effort at ground zero.

The fate of the church, a narrow whitewashed building that was crushed in the attack on the World Trade Center, was supposed to have been settled eight months ago, with a tentative agreement in which the church would swap its land for a grander church building on a larger parcel nearby, with a $20 million subsidy from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. This would have allowed work to begin at the south end of the site.

Return of St. Daniel bells could open new page in U.S.-Russia relations - Patriarch Kirill

Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia hopes that return of the historical bells to the St. Daniel's Monastery from Harvard University will facilitate the development of the relations between Russia and the United States. "Hopefully, the return of the bells will become a new page in the relations between Russia and the U.S.," the Patriarch told journalists at a ceremony of the first ringing of the St. Daniel's bells in the cloister on Tuesday.

The main purpose of marriage is spiritual unity, rather than child bearing, the priest believes

The essence of marriage is to attain unity of two individuals, and child bearing is the natural result of such unity, the priest and psychologist said. "The purpose of marriage is to create a spiritual union of two individuals. Child bearing is only a natural result of marriage, rather than its precondition and goal," the Priest Andrey Lorgus said in his lecture at the Moscow Spiritual Library cultural center.

Protect Sunday as a special day, church group tells EU

A grouping of Europe's Protestant, Anglican and Orthodox churches has urged the European Union to protect Sunday as a day of rest, as the 27-nation grouping considers new regulations on working time. "Scientific research shows that Sunday is more closely connected with the health of workers than any other day of the week," the Church and Society Commission of the Conference of European Churches said in a statement issued on March 16 following a meeting at Nyborg in Denmark.